St. Hilary of Poitiers. John of Damascus

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VOLUME 9

St. Hilary of Poitiers

John of Damascus

New York Christian Literature Company 1890-1900
riajjUj^ Digital Hublifortigns

PREFACE

This volume of the series of Nicene Fathers has been unfortunately
delayed. When I consented in the first instance to edit the volume, it was
with the distinct understanding that I could not myself undertake the
translation, but that I would do my best to find translators and see the
work through the press. It has been several times placed in the hands of
very competent scholars; but the fact that work of this kind can only b
done in the intervals of regular duties, and the almost inevitable drawback
that the best men are also the busiest, has repeatedly stood in the way and
caused the work to be returned to me. That it sees the light now is due
mainly to the zeal, ability, and scholarship of the Rev. E. W. Watson. It
was late in the day when Mr. Watson first undertook a share in the work
which has since then been constantly increased. He has co-operated with
me in the most loyal and efficient manner; and while I am glad to think that
the whole of the Introduction and a full half of the translation are from his
hand, there is hardly a page (except in the translation of the De Synodis,
which was complete before he joined the work) which does not owe to him
many and marked improvements. My own personal debt to Mr. Watson is
very great indeed, and that of the subscribers to the series is, I believe,
hardly less.

For the translator of Hilary has before him a very difficult task. It has not
been with this as with other volumes of the series, where an excellent
translation already existed and careful revision was all that was needed. A
small beginning had been made for the De Trinitate by the late Dr. Short,
Bishop of Adelaide, whose manuscript was kindly lent to one of the
contributors to this volume, but with this exception no English translation
of Hilary's works has been hitherto attempted. That which is now offered
is the first in the field. And it must be confessed that Hilary is a formidable
writer. I do not think that I know any Latin writer so formidable, unless it
is Victorinus Afer, or Tertullian. And the terse, vigorous, incisive
sentences of Tertullian, when once the obscurities of meaning have been
mastered, run more easily into English than the involved and overloaded

periods of Hilary. It is true that in a period of decline Hilary preserves
more than most of his contemporaries of the tradition of Roman culture;
but it is the culture of the rhetorical schools at almost the extreme point of
their artificiality and mannerism. Hilary was too sincere a man and too
thoroughly in earnest to be essentially mannered or artificial; but his
training had taken too strong a hold upon him to allow him to express his
thought with ease and simplicity. And his very merits all tended in the
same direction. He has the copia verborum; he has the weight and force of
character which naturally goes with a certain amplitude of style; he has the
seriousness and depth of conviction which keeps him at a high level of
dignity and gravity but is unrelieved by lighter touches.

We must take our author as we find him. But it seems to me, if I am not
mistaken, that Mr. Watson has performed a real feat of translation in not
only reproducing the meaning of the original but giving to it an English
rendering which is so readable, flowing, and even elegant. I think it will be
allowed that only a natural feeling for the rhythm and cadence of English
speech, as well as for its varied harmonies of diction, could have produced
the result which is now laid before the reader. And I cherish the hope, that
although different degrees of success have doubtless been attained by the
different contributors at least no jarring discrepancy of style will be felt
throughout the volume. It will be seen that the style generally leans to the
side of freedom; but I believe that it will be found to be the freedom of the
scholar who is really true to his text while transfusing it into another
tongue, and not the clumsy approximation which only means failure.

Few writers deserve their place in the library of Nicene and Post-Nicene
Fathers more thoroughly than Hilary. He might be said to be the one Latin
theologian before the age of St. Augustine and St. Leo. Tertullian had a still
greater influence upon the writers who followed him. He came at a still
more formative and critical time, and the vis vivida of his original and
wayward genius has rarely been equaled. But the particular influence
which Tertullian exerted in coining the terms and marking out the main
lines of Latin theology came to him almost by accident. He was primarily a
lawyer, and his special gift did not lie in the region of speculation. It is a
strange fortune which gave to the language on which he set his stamp so
great a control of the future. The influence of Hilary on the other hand is
his by right. His intercourse with the East had a marked effect upon him. It

quickened a natural bent for speculation unusual in the West. The reader
will find in Mr. Watson's Introduction a description and estimate of
Hilary's theology which is in my opinion at once accurate, candid and
judicious. No attempt is made to gloss over the defects, especially in what
we might call the more superficial exegesis of Hilary's argument; but
behind and beneath this we feel that we are in contact with a very
powerful mind. We feel that we are in contact with a mind that has seized
and holds fast the central truth of the Christian system, which at that
particular crisis of the Church's history was gravely imperiled. The nerve
of all Hilary's thinking lies in his belief, a belief to which he clung more
tenaciously than to life itself, that Christ was the Son of God not in name
and metaphor only, but in fullest and deepest reality. The great Athanasius
himself has not given to this belief a more impressive or more weighty
expression. And when like assaults come round, as they are constantly
doing, in what is in many respects the inferior arena of our own day, it is
both morally bracing and intellectually helpful to go back to these
protagonists of the elder time.

And yet, although Hilary is thus one of the chief builders up of a
metaphysical theology in the West — although, in other words, he stands
upon the direct line of the origin of the Quicumque vult, it is well to
remember that no one could be more conscious than he was of the
inadequacy of human thought and human language to deal with these high
matters. The accusation of intruding with a light heart into mysteries is
very far from touching him. "The heretics compel us to speak where we
would far rather be silent. If anything is said, this is what must be said," is
his constant burden. In this respect too Hilary affords a noble pattern not
only to the Christian theologian but to the student of theology, however
humble.

It has been an unfortunate necessity that use has had to be made almost
throughout of an untrustworthy text. The critical edition which is being
produced for the Corpus Scriptorum Eccleseasticorum Latinorum of the
Vienna Academy does not as yet extend beyond the Commentary of the
Psalms (S. Hilarri Ep. Pictaviensis Tract, super Psalmos, recens. A.
Zingerle, Vindonbonae, MDCCCXCI). This is the more to be regretted as
the MSS. of Hilary are rather exceptionally early and good. Most of these
were used in the Benedictine edition, but not so systematically or

thoroughly as a modern standard requires. It is impossible to speak
decidedly about the text of Hilary until the Vienna edition is completed.

The treatise De Synodis was translated by the Rev. L. Pullan, and has been
in print for some time. The Introduction and the translation of De Trinitate
I — VII, are the work of Mr. Watson. Books VIII. and XII. were
undertaken Mr. E. N. Bennett, Fellow of Hertford, and Books IX. — XL
by the Rev. S. C. Gayford, late Scholar of Exeter. The specimens of the
Commentary on the Psalms were translated by the Rev. H. F. Stewart,
Vice- Principal of the Theological College, Salisbury, who has also made
himself responsible for the double Index.

A word of special thanks is due to the printers, Messrs.. Parker, who have
carried out their part of the work with conspicuous intelligence and with
the most conscientious care.

W. SAND AY
CHRIST CHURCH
OXFORD

July 12, 1898.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION:

CHAPTER 1. The Life and Writings of St. Hilary of Poitiers.
CHAPTER 2. The Theology of St. Hilary of Poitiers.

INTRODUCTION TO THE DE SYNODIS

ON THE COUNCILS, OR THE FAITH OF THE EASTERNS.

INTRODUCTION TO THE DE TRINITATE.

ON THE TRINITY.
BOOK 1.
BOOK 2.
BOOK 3.
BOOK 4.
BOOK 5.
BOOK 6.
BOOK 8.
BOOK 8.
BOOK 9.
BOOK 10.
BOOK 11
BOOK. 12.

INTRODUCTION TO THE HOMILIES ON PSALMS 1, 53, 130.

HOMILIES ON THE PSALMS.
Psalms 1
Psalms 53 (54.).
Psalms 130 (131).

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER I

THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ST. HILARY OF POITIERS.

St. Hilary of Poitiers is one of the greatest, yet least studied of the
Fathers of the Western Church. He has suffered thus, partly from a certain
obscurity in his style of writing, partly from the difficulty of the thoughts
which he attempted to convey. But there are other reasons for the
comparative neglect into which he has fallen. He learnt his theology, as we
shall see, from Eastern authorities, and was not content to carry on and
develop the traditional teaching of the West; and the disciple of Origen,
who found his natural allies in the Cappadocian school of Basil and the
Gregories, his juniors though they were, was speaking to somewhat
unsympathetic ears. Again, his Latin tongue debarred him from influence in
the East, and he suffered, like al Westerns, from that deep suspicion of
Sabellianism which was rooted in the Eastern Churches. Not are these the
only reasons for the neglect of Hilary. Of his two chief works, the
Homilies on the Psalms, important as they were in popularizing the
allegorical method of interpretation, were soon outdone in favor by other
commentaries; while his great controversial work on the Trinity suffered
from its very perfection for the purpose with which it was composed. It
seems, at first sight, to be not a refutation of Arianism, or of any
particularly phrase of Arianism, but of one particular document, the
Epistle of Arius to Alexander, in which Arian doctrines are expressed; and
that a document which, in the constantly shifting phases of the
controversy, soon fell into an oblivion which the work of Hilary has nearly
shared. It is only incidentally constructive; its plan follows, in the central
portion, that of the production of Arius which he was controverting, and
this negative method must have lessened its popularity for purposes of
practical instruction, and in competition with such a masterpiece as the De
Triniate of St. Augustine. And furthermore, Hilary never does himself
justice. He was a great original thinker in the field of Christology, but he

has never stated his views systematically and completely. They have to be
laboriously reconstructed by the collection of passages scattered
throughout his works; and though he is a thinker so consistent that little or
no conjecture is needed for the piecing together of his system, yet we
cannot be surprised that full justice has never been done to him. He has
been regarded chiefly as one of the sufferers from the violence of
Constantius, as the composer of a useful conspectus of arguments against
Arianism, as an unsuccessful negotiator for an understanding between the
Eastern and Western Churches; but his sufferings were as nothing
compared to those of Athanasius, while his influence in controversy seems
to have been as small as the results of his diplomacy. It is not his practical
share, in word or deed, in the conflicts of his day that is his chief title to
fame, but his independence and depth as a Christian thinker. He has,
indeed, exerted an important influence upon the growth of doctrine, but it
has been through the adoption of his views by Augustine and Ambrose;
and many who have profited by his thoughts have never known who was
their author.

Hilary of Poitiers, the most impersonal of writers, is so silent about
himself, he is so rarely mentioned by contemporary writers — in all the
voluminous works of Athanasius he is never once named, — and the ancient
historians of the Church knew so little concerning him beyond what we, as
well as they, can learn from his writings, that nothing more than a vary
scanty narrative can be constructed from these, as seen in the light of the
general history of the time and combined with the few notices of him
found elsewhere. But the account, though short, cannot be seriously
defective. Apart from one or two episodes, it is eminently the history of a
mind, and of a singularly consistent mind, whose antecedents we can, in
the main, recognize, and whose changes of thought are few, and can be
followed.

He was born, probably about the year 300 A.D., and almost certainly,
since he was afterwards its bishop, in the town, or in the district
dependent upon the town, by the name of which he is usually styled.
Other names, besides Hilarius, he must have had, but we do not know
them. The fact that he has had to be distinguished by the name of his see,
to avoid confusion with his namesake of Aries, the contemporary of St.
Augustine, shows how soon and how thoroughly personal details

10

concerning him were forgotten. The rank of his parents must have been
respectable at least, and perhaps high; so much we may safely assume
from the education they gave him. Birth in the Gallic provinces during the
fourth century brought with it no sense of provincial inferiority. Society
was thoroughly Roman, and education and literature more vigorous, so far
as we can judge, than in any other part of the West. The citizen of Gaul
and of Northern Italy was, in fact, more in the center of the world's life
than the inhabitant of Rome. Gaul was in the West what Romas Asia was
in the East, the province of decisive importance, both for position and for
wealth. And in this prosperous and highly civilized community the
opportunities for the highest education were ample. We know, from
Ausonius and otherwise, how complete was the provision of teaching at
Bordeaux and elsewhere in Gaul. Greek was taught habitually as well as
Latin. In fact, never since the days of Hadrian had educated society
throughout the Empire had been so nearly bilingual. It was not that the
Latin-speaking West had still to turn for its culture and its philosophy to
the literature of Greece. Since the days of Diocletian the court, or at least
the most important court, had resided as a rule in Asia, and Greek and
tended to become, equally with Latin, the language of the courtier and the
administrator. The two were of almost equal importance; if an Oriental like
Ammianus Marcellinus could write, and write well, in Latin, we may be
certain that, in return, Greek was familiar to educated Westerns. To Hilary
it was certainly familiar from his youth; his earlier thoughts were molded
by Neoplatonism, and his later decisively influenced by the writings of
Oigen. His literary and technical knowledge of Latin was also complete. It
would require wide special study and knowledge to fix his relation in
matters of composition and rhetoric to other writers. But one assertion,
that of Jerome, that Hilary was a deliberate imitator of the style of
Quintilian, cannot be taken seriously. Jerome is the most reckless of
writers; and it is at least possible to be somewhat familiar with the
writings of both and yet see no resemblance, except in a certain sustained
gravity, between them. Another description by Jerome of Hilary as
'mounted on Gallic buskin and adorned with flowers of Greece; is suitable
enough, as to its first part, to Hilary's dignified rhetoric; the flowers of
Greece, if they mean embellishments inserted for their own sake, are not
perceptible. In this same passage Jerome goes onto criticize Hilary's
entanglement in long periods, which renders him unsuitable for unlearned

11

readers. But those laborious, yet perfectly constructed, sentences are an
essential part of his method. Without them he could not attain the effect he
desires; they are as deliberate and, in their way, as successful as the
eccentricities of Tactius. But when Jerome elsewhere calls Hilary 'the
Rhone of Latin eloquence,' he is speaking at random. It is only rarely that
he breaks through his habitual sobriety of utterance; and his rare outbursts
of devotion or denunciation are perhaps the more effective because the
reader is unprepared to expect them. Such language as this of Jerome
shows that Hilary's literary accomplishments were recognized, even
though it fails to describe them well. But though he had at his command,
and avowedly employed, the resources of rhetoric in order that his words
might be as worthy as he could make them of the greatness of his theme,
yet some portions of the De Trinitate, and most of the Homilies on the
Psalms are written in a singularly equable and almost conversational style,
the unobtrusive excellence of which manifests the hand of a clear thinker
and a practiced writer. He is no pedant, no laborious imitator of antiquity,
distant or near; he abstains, perhaps more completely than any other
Christian writer of classical education, from the allusions to the poets
which were the usual ornament of prose. He is an eminently businesslike
writer; his pages, where they are unadorned, express his meaning with
perfect clearness; where they are decked out with antithesis or apostrophe
and other devices of rhetoric, they would no doubt, if our training could
put us in sympathy with him, produce the effect upon us which he
designed, and we must, in justice to him, remember as we read that, in their
own kind, they are excellent, and that, whether they aid us or no in
entering into his argument, they never obscure his thought. Save in the few
passages when corruption exists in the text, it is never safe to assert that
Hilary is unintelligible. The reader or translator who cannot follow or
render the argument must rather lay the blame upon his own imperfect
knowledge of the language and thought of the fourth century. Where he is
stating or proving truth, whether well-established or newly ascertained, he
is admirably precise; and even in his more dubious speculations he never
cloaks a weak argument in ambiguous language. A loftier genius might have
given us in language adequate, through no fault of his own, to the attempt
some imitations of remoter truths. We must be thankful to the sober
Hilary that he, with his strong sense of the limitations of our intellect, has
provided a clear and accurate statement of the case against Arianism, and

12

has widened the bounds of theological knowledge by reasonable deductions
from the text of Scripture, usually convincing and always suggestive.

His training as a writer and thinker had certainly been accomplished before
his conversion. His literary work done, like that of St. Cyprian, within a
few years of middle life, displays, with a somewhat increasing maturity of
thought, a steady uniformity of language and idiom, which can only have
been acquired in his earlier days. And this assured possession of literary
from was naturally accompanied by a philosophical training. Of one
branch of a philosophical education, that of logic, there is almost too much
evidence in his pages. He is free from the repulsive angularity which
sometimes disfigures the pages of Novatian, a writer who had no great
influence over him; but in the De Trinitate he too often refuses to trust his
reader' s intelligence, and insists upon being logical not only in thought but
in expression. But, sound premisses being given, he may always be
expected to draw the right conclusion. He is singularly free from confusion
of thought, and never advances to results beyond what his premisses
warrant. It is only when a false, though accepted, exegesis misleads him, in
certain collateral arguments which may be surrendered without loss to his
main theses, that he can be refuted; or again when, in his ventures into new
fields of thought, he is unfortunate in the selection or combination of texts.
But in these cases, as always, the logical processes are not in fault; his
deduction is clear and honest.

Philosophy in those days was regarded as incomplete unless it included
some knowledge of natural phenomena, to be used for purposes of
analogy,. Origen and Athanasius display a considerable interest in, and
acquaintance with, physical and physiological matters, and Hilary shares
the taste. The conditions of human or animal birth and life and death are
often discussed; he believes in universal remedies for disease, and knows of
the employment of anaesthetics in surgery. Sometimes he wanders further
afield, as for instance, in his account of the natural history of the fig-tree
and the worm, and in the curious little piece of information concerning
Troglodytes and topazes, borrowed, he says, from secular writers, and still
to be read in the elder Pliny. Even where he seems to be borrowing, on rare
occasions, from the commonplaces of Roman poetry, it is rather with the
interest of the naturalist than of the rhetorician, as when he speaks in all
seriousness of 'Marsian enhancements and hissing vipers lulled to sleep,'

13

or recalls Lucan's asps and basilisks of the African desert as a description
of his heretical opponents. Perhaps his lost work, twice mentioned by
Jerome, against the physician Dioscorus was a refutation of physical
arguments against Christianity.

Hilary's speculative thought, like that of every serious adherent of the
pagan creed, had certainly been inspired by Neoplatonism. We cannot take
the account of his spiritual progress up to the full Catholic faith, which he
gives in the beginning of the De Trinitate, and of which we find a less
finished sketch in the Homily on Psalm 61. § 2, as literal history. It is too
symmetrical in its advance through steadily increasing light to the perfect
knowledge, too well prepared as a piece of literary workmanship — it is
indeed an admirable example of majestic prose, a worthy preface to the
that great treatise — for us to accept it, as it stands, as the record of actual
experience. But we may safely see in it the evidence that Hilary had been
an earnest student of the best thought of his day, and had found in
Neoplatonism not only a speculative training but also the desire, which
was to find its satisfaction in the Faith, for knowledge of God, and for
union with Him. It was a debt which Origen, his master, shared with him;
and it must have been because, as a Neoplatonist feeling after the truth, he
found so much of common ground in Origen, that he was able to accept so
fully the teaching of Alexandria. But it would be impossible to separate
between the lessons which Hilary had learnt from the pagan form of this
philosophy, and those which may have been new to him when he studied
it in its Christian presentment. Of the influence of Christian Platonism
upon him something will be said shortly. At this point we need only
mention as a noteworthy indication of the fact that Hilary was not
unmindful of the debt, that the only philosophy which he specifically
attacks is the godless system of Epicurus, which denies creation, declares
that the gods do not concern themselves with men, and deifies water or
earth of atoms.

It was, then, as a man of mature age, of literary skill and philosophical
training, that Hilary approached Christianity. He had been drawn towards
the Faith by desire for a truth which he had not found in philosophy; and
his conviction that this truth was Christianity was established by
independent study of Scripture, not by intercourse with Christian
teachers; so much we may safely conclude from the early pages of the De

14

Trinitate. It must remain doubtful whether the works of Origen, who
influenced his thought so profoundly, had fallen into his hands before his
conversion, or whether it was as a Christian, seeking for further light upon
the Faith, that he first studied them. For it is certainly improbable that he
would find among the Christians of his own district many who could help
him in intellectual difficulties. The educated classes were still largely
pagan, and the Christian body, which was, we may say, unanimously and
undoubtingly Catholic, held, without much mental activity, a traditional
and inherited faith. Into this body Hilary entered by Baptism, at some
unknown date. His age at the time, his employment, whether or no he was
married, whether or no he entered the ministry of the Church of Poitiers,
can never be known. It is only certain that he was strengthening his faith
by thought and study.

He had come to the Faith, St. Augustine says, laden, like Cyprian,
Lactantius and others, with the gold and silver and raiment of Egypt; and
he would naturally wish to find a Christian employment for the
philosophy which he brought with him. If his horizon had been limited to
his neighbors in Gaul, he would have found little encouragement and less
assistance. The oral teaching which prevailed in the West furnished, no
doubt, safe guidance in doctrine, but could not supply reasons for the
Faith. And reasons were the one great interest of Hilary. The whole
practical side of Christianity as a system of life is ignored, or rather taken
for granted and therefore not discussed, in his writings, which are ample
enough to be a mirror of his thought. For instance, we cannot doubt that
his belief concerning the Eucharist was that of the whole Church. Yet in
the great treatise on the Trinity, of which no small part is given to the
proof that Christ is God and Man, and that through this union must come
the union of man with God, the Eucharist as a means to such union is only
once introduced, and that in a short passage, and for the purpose of
argument. And altogether it would be as impossible to reconstruct the
Christian life and thought of the day from his writings as from those of the
half-pagan Arnobius. To such a mind as this the teaching which ordinary
Christians needed and welcomed could bring no satisfaction, and no aid
towards the interpretation of Scripture. The Western Church was, indeed,
in an almost illogical position. Conviction was in advance of argument. The
loyal practice of the Faith had led men on, as it were by intuition, to

15

apprehend and firmly hold truths which the more thoughtful East was
doubtedly and painfully approaching. Here, again, Hilary would be out of
sympathy with his neighbors, and we cannot wonder that in such a
doctrine as that of the Holy Spirit he held the conservative Eastern view.
Nor were the Latin- speaking Churches well equipped with theological
literature. The two great theologians who had as yet written in their
tongue, Tertullian and Novatian, with the former of whom Hilary was
familiar, were discredited by their personal history. St. Cyprian, the one
doctor whom the West already boasted, could reach disciplined enthusiasm
and Christian morality, but his scattered statements concerning points of
doctrine convey nothing more than a general impression of piety and
soundness; and even his arrangement, in the Testimonia, of Scriptural
evidences was a poor weapon against the logical attack of Arianism. But
there is little reason to suppose that there was any general sense of the
need of a more systematic theology. Africa was paralyzed, and the
attention of the Western provinces probably engrossed, by the Donatist
strife, into which questions of doctrine did not enter. The adjustment of
the relations between Church and State, the instruction and government of
the countless proselytes who flocked to the Faith while toleration grew
into imperial favor, must have needed all the attention that the Church's
rulers could give. And these busy years had followed upon a generation of
merciless persecution, during which change of practice or growth of
thought had been impossible; and the confessors, naturally a conservative
force, were one of dominant powers in the Church. We cannot be surprised
that the scattered notices in Hilary's writings of points of discipline, and
his hortatory teaching, are in no respect different from what we find a
century earlier in St. Cyprian. And men who were content to leave the
superstructure as they found it were not likely to probe the foundations,
their belief grew in definiteness as the years went on, and faithful lives
were rewarded, almost unconsciously, with a deeper insight into truth. But
meanwhile they took the Faith as they had received it; one might say, as a
matter of course. There was little heresy within the Western Church.
Arianism was never enough to excite fear, even though repugnance were
felt. The Churches were satisfied with faith and life as they saw it within
and around them. Their religion was traditional, in no degenerate sense.

16

But such a religion could not satisfy ardent and logical minds, like those of
St. Hilary and his two great successors, St. Ambrose and St. Augustine. To
such men it was a necessity of their faith that they should know, and
know in its right proportions, the truth so far as it had been revealed, and
trace the appointed limits which human knowledge might not overpass.
For their own assurance and for effective warfare against heresy a reasoned
system of theology was necessary. Hilary, the earliest, had the greatest
difficulty. To aid him in the interpretation of Scripture he had only one
writer in his own tongue, Tertullian, whose teaching, in the matters which
interested Hilary, though orthodox, was behind the times. His strong
insistence upon the subordination of the Son to the Father, due to the same
danger which still, in the fourth century, seemed in the East the most
formidable, was not in harmony with the prevalent thought of the West.
Thus Hilary, in his search for reasons for the Faith, was practically
isolated; there was little at home which could help him to construct his
system. To an intellect so self-reliant as his this may have been no great
trial. Scrupulous though he was in confining his speculations within the
bounds of inherited and acknowledged truth, yet in matters still undecided
he exercised a singularly free judgment, now advancing beyond, now
lingering behind, the usual belief of his contemporaries. In following out his
thoughts, loyally yet independently, he was conscious that he was
breaking what was new ground to his older fellow-Christians, almost as
much as to himself, the convert from Paganism. And that he was aware of
the novelty is evident from the sparing use which he makes of that stock
argument of the old controversialists, the newness of heresy. He uses it,
e.g., in Trin. II. 4, and uses it with effect; but it is far less prominent in him
than in others.

For such independence of thought he could find precedent in Alexandrian
theology, of which he was obviously a careful student and, in his free use
of his own judgment upon it, a true disciple. When he was drawn into the
Arian controversy and studied its literature, his thoughts to some extent
were modified; but he never ceases to leave upon his reader the impression
of an Oriental isolated in the West. From the Christian Platonists of
Alexandria come his most characteristic thoughts. They have passed on,
for instance, from Philo to him that sense of the importance of the
revelation contained in the divine name He That Is . His peculiar doctrine

17

of the impassibility of the incarnate Christ is derived, more probably
directly than indirectly, from Clement of Alexandria. But it is to Origen
that Hilary stands in the closest and most constant relations, now as a
pupil, now as a critic. In fact, as we shall see, no small portion of the
Homilies on the Psalms, towards the end of the work, is devoted to the
controverting of opinions expressed by Origen; and by an omission which
is itself a criticism he completely ignores one of that writer's most
important contributions to Christian thought, the mystical interpretation
of the Song of Songs. It is true that Jerome knew of a commentary on that
Book which was doubtfully attributed to Hilary; but if Hilary had once
accepted such an exegesis he could not possibly have failed to use it on
some of the numerous occasions when it must have suggested itself in the
course of his writing, for it is not his habit to allow a thought to drop out
of his mind; his characteristic ideas recur again and again. In some cases we
can actually watch the growth of Hilary's mind as it emancipates itself
from Origen' s influence; as, for instance, in his psychology. He begins
(Comm, in Matthew 5:8) by holding, with Origen and Tertullian, that the
soul is corporeal; in later life he states expressly that this is not the case.
Yet what Hilary accepted from Origen is far more important than what he
rejected. His strong sense of the dignity of man, of the freedom of the will,
his philosophical belief in the inseparable connection of name and thing,
the thought of the Incarnation as primarily an obscuring of the Divine
glory, are some of the lessons which Origen has taught him. But, above all,
it is to him that he owes his rudimentary doctrine concerning the Holy
Spirit. Hilary says nothing inconsistent with the truth as it was soon to be
universally recognized; but his caution in declining to accept, or at least to
state, the general belief of Western Christendom that the Holy Spirit, since
Christians are baptized in His Name as well as in that of the Father and
Son, is God in the same sense as They, is evidence both of his
independence of the opinion around him and of his dependence on Origen.
Of similar dependence on any other writer or school there is no trace. He
knew Tertullian well, and there is some evidence that he knew Hippolytus
and Novatian, but his thought was not molded by theirs; and when, in the
maturity of his powers, he became a fellow-combatant with Athanasius
and the precursors of the great Cappadocians, his borrowing is not that of
a disciple but of an equal.

There is one of St. Hilary's writings, evidently the earliest of those extant
and probably the earliest of all, which may be noticed here, as it gives no
sign of being written by a Bishop. It is the Commentary on St. Matthew. It
is, in the strictest sense, a commentary, and not, like the work upon the
Psalms, a series of exegetical discourses. It deals with the text of the
Gospel, as it stood in Hilary's Latin version, without comment or criticism
upon its peculiarities, and draws out the meaning, chiefly allegorical, not of
the whole Gospel, but apparently of lections that were read in public
worship. A few pages at the beginning and end are unfortunately lost, but
they cannot have contained anything of such importance as to alter the
impression which we form of the book. In diction and grammar it is exactly
similar to Hilary's later writings; the fact that it is, perhaps, somewhat
more stiff in style may be due to self-consciousness of a writer venturing
for the first time upon so important a subject. The exegesis is often the
same as that of Origen, but a comparison of the several passages in which
Jerome mentions this commentary makes it certain that it is not dependent
upon him in the same way as are the Homilies on the Psalms and Hilary's
lost work upon Job. Yet if he is not in this work the translator, or editor,
of Origen, he is manifestly his disciple. We cannot account for the
resemblance otherwise. Hilary is independently working out Origen' s
thought on Origen' s lines. Origen is not named, nor any other author,
except that he excuses himself from expounding the Lord's Prayer on the
ground that Tertullian and Cyprian had written excellent treatises upon it.
This is a rare exception to his habit of not naming other writers. But,
whoever the writers were from whom Hilary drew his exegesis, his
theology is his own. There is no immaturity in the thought; every one of
his characteristic ideas, as will be seen in the next chapter, is already to be
found here. But there is one interesting landmark in the growth of the Latin
theological vocabulary, very archaic in itself and an evidence that Hilary
had not yet decided upon the terms that he would use. He twice speaks of
Christ's Divinity as 'the theotes which we call deltas' In his later writings
he consistently uses divinitas, except in the few instances where he is
almost forced, to avoid intolerable monotony, to vary it with deltas; and in
this commentary he would not have used either of these words, still less
would he have used both, unless he were feeling his way to a fixed
technical term. Another witness to the early date of the work is the
absence of any clear sign that Hilary know of the existence of Arianism.

19

He knows, indeed, that there are heresies which impugn the Godhead of
Christ, and in consequence states that doctrine with great precision, and
frequently as well as forcibly. But it has been pointed out that he
discusses many texts which served, in the Arian strife, for attack or
defense, without alluding to that burning question: and this would have
been impossible and, indeed, a dereliction of duty, in Hilary's later life.
And there is one passage in which he speaks of God the Father as 'He
with (or 'in') Whom the Word was before He was born.' The Incarnation
is spoken of in words which would usually denote the eternal Generation:
and if a candid reader could not be misled, yet an opportunity is given to
the malevolent which Hilary or, indeed, any careful writer engaged in the
Arian controversy would have avoided. The Commentary, then, is an early
work, yet in no respect unworthy of its author. But though he had
developed his characteristic thoughts before he began to write it, they are
certainly less prominent here than in the treatises which followed. It is
chiefly remarkable for its display of allegorical ingenuity. Its pages are full
of fantastic interpretations of the kind which he had so great a share in
introducing into Western Europe. He started by it a movement which he
would have been powerless to stop; that he was not altogether satisfied
with the principle of allegory is shown by the more modest use that he
made of it when he composed, with fuller experience, the Homilies on the
Psalms. It is, perhaps, only natural that there is little allegorism in the De
Trinitate. Such a hot-house growth could not thrive in the keen air of
controversy. As for the Commentary on St. Matthew, its chief influence
has been indirect, in that St. Ambrose made large use of it in his own work
upon the same Gospel The consideration of Hilary's use of Scripture and
of the place which it held in his system of theology is reserved for the next
chapter, where illustrations from this Commentary are given.

About the year 350 Hilary was consecrated Bishop of Poitiers. So we may
infer from his own words that he had been a good while regenerate, and for
some little time a bishop, on the eve of his exile in 356 A.D. Whether, like
Ambrose, he was raised directly from lay life to the Episcopate cannot be
known. It is at least possible that this was the case. His position as a
bishop was one of great importance, and, as it must have seemed, free from
special difficulties. There was a wide difference between the Church
organization of the Latin- speaking provinces of the Empire (with the

20

exception of Central and Southern Italy and of Africa, in each which a
multitude of insignificant sees were dependent upon the autocracy of
Rome and Carthage respectively) and that of the Greek- speaking provinces
of the East. In the former there was a mere handful of dioceses, of huge
geographical extent; in the latter every town, at least in the more civilized
parts, had its bishop. The Western bishops were inevitably isolated from
one another, and could exercise none of that constant surveillance over each
other's orthodoxy which was, for evil as well as for good, so marked a
feature of the Church life of the East. And the very greatness of their
position gave them stability. The equipoise of power was too perfect, the
hands in which it was vested too few, the men themselves, probably, too
statesmanlike, for the Western Church to be infected with that nervous
agitation which possessed the shifting multitudes of Eastern prelates, and
made them suspicious and loquacious and disastrously eager for
compromise. It was, in fact, the custom of the West to take the orthodoxy
of its bishops for granted, and an external impulse was necessary before
they could be overthrown. The two great sees with which Hilary was in
immediate relation were those of Aries and Milan, and both were in Arian
hands. But is needed the direct incitation of a hostile Emperor to set
Saturninus against Hilary; and it was in vain that Hilary, in the floodtide of
orthodox revival in the West, attacked Auxentius. The orthodox Emperor
upheld the Arian, who survived Hilary by eight years and died in
possession of his see. But this great and secure position of the Western
bishop had its drawbacks. Hilary was conscious of its greatness, and
strove to be worthy of it; but it was a greatness of responsibility to which
neither he, nor any other man, could be equal. For in his eyes the bishop
was still, as he had been in the little Churches of the past, and still might
be in quiet places of the East or South, the sole priest, sacerdos, of his
flock. In his exile he reminds the Emperor that he is still distributing the
communion through his presbyters to the Church. This survival can have
had none but evil results. It put both bishop and clergy in a false position.
The latter were degraded by the denial to them of a definite status and
rights of their own. Authority without influence and information in lieu of
knowledge was all for which the former could hope. And this lack of any
organized means of influencing a wide-spread flock — such as diocese as
that of Poitiers must have been several times as large as a rural diocese of
England — prevented its bishop from creating any strong public opinion

21

within it, unless he were an evangelist with the gifts of a Martin of Tours.
It was impossible for him to excite in so unwieldy a district any popular
enthusiasm of devotion to himself. Unlike an Athanasius, he could be
deported into exile at the Emperor' s will with as little commotion as the
bishop of some petty half-Greek town in Asia Minor.

During the first years of Hilary's episcopate there was civil turmoil in
Gaul, but the Church was at peace. While the Eastern ruler Constantius
favored the Arians, partly misled by unprincipled advisers and partly
guided by an unwise, though honest, desire for compromise in the interests
of peace, his brother Constans, who reigned in the West, upheld the
Catholic cause, to which the immense majority of his clergy and people
were attached. He was slain in January 350, by the usurper Magentius,
who, with whatever motives, took the same side. It was certainly that
which would best conciliate his own subjects; but he went further, and
attempted to strengthen his precarious throne against the impending attack
of Constantius by negotiations with the discontented Nicene Christians of
the East. He tried to win over Athanasius, who was, however, too wise to
listen; and, in any case, he gained nothing by tampering with the subjects
of Constantius. Constantius defeated Magnentius, pursued him, and
finally slew him on the 1 1th August, 353, and was then undisputed master
not only of the East but of the West, which he proceeded to bring into
ecclesiastical conformity, as far as he could, with his former dominions.

The general history of Arianism and the tendencies of Christian thought at
this time have been so fully and admirable delineated in the introduction to
the translation of St. Athanasius in this series, that it would be superfluous
and presumptuous to go over the same ground. It must suffice to say that
Constantius was animated with a strong personal hatred against
Athanasius, and that the prelates at his court seem to have found their
chief employment in intrigues for the expulsion of bishops, whose seats
might be filled by friends of their own. Athanasius was a formidable
antagonist, from his strong position in Alexandria, even to an Emperor; and
Constantius was attempting to weaken him by creating an impression that
he was unworthy of the high esteem in which he was held. Even in the
East, as yet, the Nicene doctrine was not avowedly rejected; still less could
the doctrinal issue be raised in Gaul, where the truths stated in the Nicene
Creed were regarded as so obvious that the Creed itself had excited little

22

interest or attention. Hilary at this time had never heard it, though nearly
thirty years had passed since the Council decreed it. But there was
personal charges against Athanasius, of which he has himself given us a full
and interesting account, which had done him, and were to do him, serious
injury. They had been disproved publicly and completely more than once,
and with great solemnity and apparent finality ten years before this, at
Sardica in 343 A.D. But in a distant province, aided by the application of
sufficient pressure, they might serve their turn, and if the Emperor could
obtain his enemy's condemnation, and that in a region whose theological
sympathies were notoriously on his side, a great step would be gained
towards his expulsion from Egypt. No time was lost. In October, 353, a
Council was called at Aries to consider the charges, it suited Constantius'
purpose well that Saturninus of Aries, bishop of the most important see in
Gaul, and the natural president, was both a courtier and an Arian. He did
his work well. The assembled bishops believed, or were induced to profess
that they believed, that the charges against Athanasius were not made in
the interests of his theological opponents, and that the Emperor's account
of them was true. The decision, condemning the accused, was almost
unanimous. Even the representative of Liberius of Rome consented, to be
disavowed on his return; and only one bishop, Paulinus of Treves, suffered
exile for resistance. He may have been the only advocate for Athanasius, or
Constantius may have thought that one example would suffice to terrify
the episcopate of Gaul into submission. It is impossible to say whether
Hilary was present at the Council or no. It is not probable that he was
absent: and his ignorance, even later, on important points in the dispute
shows that he may well have given an honest verdict against Athanasius.
The new ruler's world had been given that he was guilty; nothing can yet
have been known against Constantius and much must have been hoped
from him. It was only natural that he should obtain the desired decision.
Two years followed, during which the Emperor was too busy with warfare
on the frontiers of Gaul to proceed further in the matter of Athanasius.
But in Autumn of 355 he summoned a Council at Milan, a city whose
influence over Gaul was so great that it might almost be called the
ecclesiastical capital of that country. Here again strong pressure was used,
and the verdict given as Constantius desired. Hilary was not present at this
Council; he was by this time aware of the motives of Constantius and the
courtier bishops, and would certainly have shared in the opposition

23

offered, and probably in the exile inflicted upon three of the leaders in it.
These were Dionysius of Milan, who disappears from history, his place
being taken by Hilary's future enemy, Auxentius, and Eusebius of Vercel
and Lucifer of Cagliari, both of whom were to make their mark in the
future.

By this time Hilary had definitely taken his side, and it will be well to
consider his relation to the parties in the controversy. And first as to
Arianism. As we have seen, Arian prelates were not in possession of the
two great sees of Aries and Milan in his own neighborhood; and Arianisers
of different shades, or at least men tolerant of Arianism, held a clear
majority of the Eastern bishoprics, except in the wholly Catholic Egypt.
But it is certain that, in the West at any rate, the fundamental difference of
the Arian from the Catholic position was not generally recognized. Arian
practice and Arian practical teaching was indistinguishable from Catholic;
and unless ultimate principles were questioned, Catholic clergy might
work, and the multitudes of Catholic laity might live and die, without
knowing that their bishop's creed was different from their own. The Abbe
Duchesne has made the very probable suggestion that the stately
Ambrosian ritual of Milan was really introduced from the East by
Auxentius, the Arian intruder from Cappadocia, of whom we have spoken.
Arian Baptism and the Arian Eucharist were exactly the same as the
Catholic. They were not skeptical; they accepted all current beliefs or
superstitions, and had their own confessors and workers of miracles. The
Bible was common ground to both parties: each professed its confidence
that it had the support of Scripture. "No false system ever struck more
directly at the life of Christianity than Arianism. Yet after all it held aloft
the Lord's example as the Son of Man, and never wavered in its worship
of Him as the Son of God." And the leaders of this school were in
possession of many of the great places of the Church, and asserted that
they had the right to hold them; that if they had not the sole right, at least
they had as good a right as the Catholics, to be bishops, and yet to teach
the doctrine that Christ was a creature, not the Son. And what made things
worse was that they seemed to be at one with the Catholics, and that it
was possible, and indeed almost inevitable, that the multitudes who did
not look below the surface should be satisfied to take them for what they
seemed. Many of the Arians no doubt honestly thought that their position

24

was a tenable one, and held their offices with a good conscience; but we
cannot wonder that men like Athanasius and Hilary, aware of the
sophistical nature of many of the arguments used, and knowing that some,
at least, of the leaders were scrupulous adventurers, should have regarded
all Arianism and all Arians as deliberately dishonest. It seemed incredible
that they could be sincerely at home in the Church, and intolerable that
they should have the power of deceiving the people and persecuting true
believers. It is against Arianism in the Church that Hilary's efforts are
directed, not against Arianism as an external heresy. He ignores heresies
outside the Church as completely as does Cyprian; they are outside, and
therefore he has nothing to do with them. But Arianism, as represented by
an Auxentius ora Saturninus, it an internum malum; and to the extirpation
of this 'inward evil' the remaining years of his life were to be devoted.

His own devotion, from the time of his conversion to the Catholic Faith,
which almost all around him held, was not the less sincere because it did
not find its natural expression in the Nicene Creed. That document, which
primarily concerned only bishops, and them only when their orthodoxy
was in question, was hardly known in the West, where the bishops had as
yet had little occasion for doubting one another's faith. Hilary had never
heard it, — he can hardly have avoided hearing of it, — till just before his
exile. In his earlier conflicts he rarely mentions it, and when he does it is in
connection with the local circumstances of the East. In later life he, with
Western Christendom at large, recognized its value as a rallying point for
the faithful; but even then there is no attachment to the Creed for its own
sake. It might almost seem that the Creed, by his defense of which
Athanasius has earned such glory, owed its original celebrity to him rather
than he to it. His unjust persecution and heroic endurance excited interest
in the symbol of which he was the champion. If it were otherwise, there
has been a strange conspiracy of silence among Western theologians. In
their great works on the Trinity, Hilary most rarely, and Augustine never,
allude to it; the Council of Aquileia, held in the same interests and almost
at the same time as that of Constantinople in 381, absolutely ignores it.
The Creed, in the year 355, was little known in the West and unpopular in
the East. Even Athanasius kept it somewhat in the background, from
reasons of prudence, and Hilary's sympathies, as we shall see, were with

25

the Eastern School which could accept the truth, though they disliked this
expression of it.

The time had now come for Hilary, holding these views of Arianism and of
the Faith, to take an active part in the conflict. We have seen that he was
not at Milan; he was therefore not personally compromised, but the honor
of the Church compelled him to move. He exerted himself to induce the
bishops of Gaul to withdraw from communion with Saturninus, and with
Ursacius and Valens, disciples of Arius during his exile on the banks of the
Danube thirty years before, and now high in favor with Constantius, and
his ministers, we might almost say, for the ecclesiastical affairs of the
Western provinces. We do not know how many bishops were enlisted by
Hilary against Saturninus. It is probable that not many would follow him
in so bold a venture; even men of like mind with himself might well think it
unwise. It was almost a revolutionary act, an importation of the methods
of Eastern controversy into the peaceful West, for this was not the
constitutional action of a synod but the private venture of Hilary and his
allies. However righteous and necessary, in the interests of morality and
religion, their conduct may have seemed to them, to Constantius and his
advisers it must have appeared an act of defiance to the law, both of
Church and State. And Hilary would certainly not win favor with the
Emperor by his letter of protest, the First Epistle to Constantius, written
about the end of the year 355. He adopts the usual tone of the time, that of
exaggerated laudation and even servility towards the Emperor. Such
language was, of course, in great measure conventional; we know from
Cicero's letters how little superlatives, whether of flattery or abuse, need
mean, and language had certainly not grown more sincere under the Empire.
The letter was, in fact, a singularly bold manifesto, and one which Hilary
himself must have foreseen was likely to bring upon him the punishment
which had befallen the recusants at Aries and Milan. He begins (§ 1) in
studiously general terms, making no mention of the provinces in which the
offenses were being committed, with a complaint of the tyrannical
interference of civil officers in religious matters. If there is to be peace (§
2), there must be liberty; Catholics must not be forced to become Arians.
The voice of resistance was being raised; men were beginning to say that it
was better to die than to see the faith defiled at the bidding of an
individual. Equity required that God-fearing men should not suffer by

26

compulsory intercourse with the teachers of execrable blasphemy, but be
allowed bishops whom they could obey with a good conscience. Truth and
falsehood, light and darkness could not combine. He entreated the Emperor
to allow the people to choose for themselves to what teachers they would
listen, with whom they would join in the Eucharist and in prayer for him.
Next (§ 3) he denies that there is any purpose of treason, or any
discontent. The only disturbance is that caused by Arian propagators of
heresy, who are busily engaged in misleading the ignorant. He now (§ 4)
prays that the excellent bishops who have been sent into exile may be
restored; liberty and joy would be the result. Then (§ 5) he attacks the
modern and deadly Arian pestilence. Borrowing, somewhat incautiously,
the words of the Council of Sardica, now twelve years old, he gives a list
of Arian chiefs which ends with "those two ignorant and unprincipled
youths, Ursacius and Valens." Communion with such men as these, even
communion in ignorance, is a participation in their guilt, a fatal sin. He
proceeds, in § 6, to combine denunciation of the atrocities committed in
Egypt with a splendid plea for liberty of conscience; it is equally vain and
wicked to attempt to drive men into Arianism, and an enforced faith is, in
any case, worthless. The Arians (§ 7) were themselves legally convicted
long ago and Athanasius acquitted; it is a perversion of justice that the
condemned should now be intriguing against one so upright and so faithful
to the truth. And lastly (§ 8) he comes to the wrong done at Milan, and
tells the well-known story of the violence practiced upon Eusebius of
Vercelli and others in the Synagogue of malignants,' as he calls it. here also
he takes occasion to speak of Paulinus of Treves, exiled for his resistance
at Aries two years before, where he "had withstood the monstrous crimes
of those men." The conclusion of the letter is unfortunately lost, and there
are one or more gaps in the body of it; these, we may judge, would only
have made it more unacceptable to Constantius.

It was, indeed, from the Emperor's point of view, a most provocatory
Epistle. He and his advisers were convinced that compromise was the way
of peace. They had no quarrel with the orthodoxy of the West, if only that
orthodoxy would concede that Arianisers were entitled to office in the
Church, or would at least be silent; and they were animated by a persistent
hatred of Athanasius. Moreover, the whole tendency of thought, since
Constantine began to favor the Church, had run towards glorification of the

27

Emperor as the vice-gerent of God; and the orthodox had had their full
share in encouraging the idea. That a bishop, with no status to justify his
interference, should renounce communion with his own superior, the
Emperor's friend, at Aries; should forbid the officers of state to meddle in
the Church's affairs, and demand an entirely new thing, recognition by the
state as lawful members of the Church while yet they rejected the prelates
whom the state recognized; should declare that peace was impossible
because the conflicting doctrines were as different as light and darkness,
and that the Emperor's friends were execrable heretics; should assert, while
denying that he or his friends had any treasonable purpose, that men were
ready to die rather than submit; should denounce two Councils, lawfully
held, and demand reinstatement of those who had opposed the decision of
those Councils; should, above all, take the part of Athanasius, now
obviously doomed to another exile; — all this must have savored of
rebellion. And rebellion was no imaginary danger. We have seen that
Magnentius had tried to enlist Athanasius on his side against the Arian
Emperor. Constantius was but a new ruler over Gaul, and had no claim,
through services rendered, to its loyalty. He might reasonably construe
Hilary's words into a threat that the orthodox of Gaul would, if their
wishes were disregarded, support and orthodox pretender. And there was a
special reason for suspicion. At this very time Constantius had just
conferred the government of the West upon his cousin Julian, who was
installed as Caesar on the 6th November, 355. From the first, probably,
Constantius distrusted Julian, and Julian certainly distrusted Constantius.
Thus it might well seem that the materials were ready for an explosion;
that a disloyal Caesar would find ready allies in discontented Catholics.

We cannot wonder that Hilary's letter had no effect upon the policy of
Constantius. It is somewhat surprising that several months elapsed before
he was punished. In the spring of the year 356 Saturninus presided at a
Council held at Beziers, at which Hilary was, he tells us, compelled to
attend. In what the compulsion consisted we do not know. It may simply
have been that he was summoned to attend; a summons which he could not
with dignity refuse, knowing, as he must have done, that charges would be
brought against himself. Of the proceedings of the Synod we know little.
The complaints against Hilary concerned his conduct, not his faith. This
latter was, of course, above suspicion, and it was not the policy of the

28

court party to attack orthodoxy in Gaul. He seems to have been charged
with exciting popular discontent; and this, as we have seen, was an
accusation which his own letter had rendered plausible. He tried to raise
the question of the Faith, challenging the doctrine of his opponents. But
though a large majority of a council of Gallic bishops would certainly be in
sympathy with him, he had no success. Their position was not threatened;
Hilary, like Paulinus, was accused of no doctrinal error, and these victims
of Constantius, if they had raised no questions concerning their neighbor's
faith and made no objections to the Emperor's tyranny, might also have
passed their days in peace. The tone of the episcopate in Gaul was, in fact,
by no means heroic. If we may trust Sulpicius Severus, in all these
Councils the opposition was prepared to accept the Emperor's word
about Athanasius, and excommunicate him, if the general question of the
Faith might be discussed. But the condition was evaded, and the issue
never frankly raised; and, it is was cowardly, it was not unnatural that
Hilary should have been condemned by the Synod, and condemned almost
unanimously. Only Rodanius of Toulouse was punished with him; the
sufferers would certainly have been more numerous had there been any
strenuous remonstrance against the injustice. The Synod sent their decision
to the Caesar Julian, their immediate ruler Julian took no action; he may
have felt that the matter was too serious for him to decide without
reference to the Emperor, but it is more likely that he had no wish to
outrage the dominant Church feeling of Gaul and alienate sympathies
which he might need in the future. In any case by refused to pass a
sentence which he must have known would be in accordance with the
Emperor's desire; and the vote of the Synod, condemning Hilary, was sent
to Constantius himself. He acted upon it at once, and in the summer of the
same year, 356, Hilary was exiled to the diocese, or civil district
comprising several provinces, of Asia.

We now come to the most important period of Hilary's life. He was
already, as we have seen a Greek scholar and a followers of Greek
theology. He was not to come into immediate contact with the great
problems of the day in the field on which they were being constantly
debated. And he was well prepared to take his part. He had formed his
own convictions before he was acquainted with homoousion, homoiousion
or the Nicene Creed. He was therefore in full sympathy with Athanasius

29

on the main point. And his manner of treating the controversy shows that
the policy of Athanasius was also, in a great measure, his. Like
Athanasius, he spares Marcellus as much as possible. We know that
Athanasius till the end refuses to condemn him, though one of the most
formidable weapons in the armory of the Anti-Nicene party was the
conjunction in which they could plausibly put their two names, as those of
the most strenuous opponents of Arianism. Similarly Hilary never names
Marcellus, as he never names Apollinaris, though he had the keenest sense
of danger involved in either heresy, and argues forcibly and often against
both. Like Athanasius again, he has no mercy upon Photinus the disciple,
while he spares Marcellus the master; and it is a small, though clear, sign of
dependence that he occasionally applies Athanasius' nickname of
Ariomanitoe, or 'Arian lunatics,' to his opponents. It is certain that Hilary
was familiar with the writings of Athanasius, and borrowed freely from
them. But so little has yet been done towards ascertaining the progress of
Christian thought and the extent of each writer's contribution to it, that it
is impossible to say which arguments were already current and may have
been independently adopted by Hilary and by Athanasius, and for which
the former is indebted to the latter. Yet it is universally recognized that the
debt exists; and Hilary's greatness as a theologian, his mastery of the
subject, would embolden him to borrow and adapt more freely that he was
dealing as with an equal and a fellow-combatant in the same cause.

Athanasius and Hilary can never have met face to face. But the eyes and
the agents of Athanasius were everywhere, and he must have known
something of the exile and of the services of Hilary, who was, of course,
well acquainted with the history of Athanasius, though, with the rest of
Gaul, he may not have been whole-hearted in his defense. And now he was
the more likely to be drawn towards him because this was the time of his
approximation to the younger generation of the Conservative School. For it
is with them that Hilary's affinities are closest and most obvious. The
great Cappadocians were devoted Origenists — we know the service they
rendered to their master by the publication of the Philocalia, — and there
could be no stronger bond of union between Hilary and themselves. They
were the outgrowth of that great Asiatic school to which the name of
Semiarians, somewhat unkindly given by Epiphanius, has clung, and which
was steadily increasing in influence over the thought of Asia, the dominant

30

province, at this time, of the whole Empire. Gregory of Nazianzus, the
eldest of the three great writers, was probably not more than twenty-five
years of age when Hilary was sent into exile, and none of them can have
seriously affected even his latest works. But they represented, in a more
perfect form, the teaching of the best men of the Conservative School; and
when we find that Hilary, who was old enough to be the father of Basil
and the two Gregories, has thoughts in common with them which are not
to be found in Athanasius, we may safely assign this peculiar teaching to
the influence upon Hilary, predisposed by his loyalty to Origen to listen
to the representatives of the Origenist tradition, of this school of theology.
We see one side of this influence in Hilary's understatement of the
doctrine of the Holy Ghost. The Semiarians were coming to be of one mind
with the Nicenes as to the consubstantial Deity of the Son; none of them,
in all probability, at this time would have admitted the consubstantial
Deity of the Spirit, and the unity of their School was to be wrecked in
future years upon this point. The fact that Hilary could use language so
reserved upon this subject must have led them to welcome his alliance the
more heartily. Neither he nor they could foresee the future of the doctrine,
and both sides must have sincerely thought that they were at one. And,
indeed, on Hilary's part there was a great willingness to believe in this
unity, which led him, as we shall see, into an unfortunate attempt at
ecclesiastical diplomacy. Another evidence of contact with this Eastern
School, but at its most advanced point, is the remarkable expression,
'Only-begotten God,' which Hilary 'employs with startling freedom,
evidently as the natural expression of his own inmost thought.' Dr. Hort,
whose words these are, states that the term is used by Athanasius only
twice, once in youth and once in old age; but that, on the other hand, it is
familiar to two of the Cappadocians, Basil and Gregory of Nyssa. They
must have learned it from some Asiatic writer known to Hilary as a
contemporary, to them as successors. And when we find Hilary rejecting
the baptism of heretics, and so putting himself in opposition to what had
been the Roman view for a century and that of Gaul since the Council of
Aries in 314, and then find this opinion echoed by Gregory of Nazianzus,
we are reminded not only of Hilary's general independence of thought, but
of the circumstance that St. Cyprian found his stoutest ally in contesting
this same point in the Cappadocian Firmilian. A comparison of the two
sets of writings would probably lead to the discovery of more coincidences

31

than have yet been noticed; of the fact itself, of 'the Semiarian influence so
visible in the.De Synodis of Hilary, and even in his own later work,' there
can be no doubt.

With these affinities, with an adequate knowledge of the Greek language
and a strong sympathy, as well as a great familiarity, with Greek modes of
thought, Hilary found himself in the summer of the year 356 an exile in
Asia Minor. It was exile in the most favorable circumstances. He was still
bishop of Poitiers, recognized as such by the government, which only
forbade him, for reasons of state ostensibly not connected with theology,
to reside within his diocese. He had free communication with his
fellow-bishops in Gaul, and was allowed to administer his own diocese, so
far as administration by letter was possible, without interruption. And his
diocese did not forget him. We learn from Sulpicius Severus that he and the
others of the little band of exiles, who had suffered at Aries, and Milan,
and Beziers, were the heroes of the day in their own country. That
orthodox bishops should suffer for the Faith was a new thing in the West;
we cannot wonder that subsidies were raised for their support and
delegations sent to assure them of the sympathy of their flocks. To a man
like Hilary, of energy and ability, of recognized episcopal rank and
unimpeached orthodoxy, the position offered not less but more
opportunities of service than hitherto he had enjoyed. For no restriction
was put upon his movements, so long as he kept within the wide bounds
allotted him. he had perfect leisure for travel or for study, the money
needed for the expense of his journeys, and something of the glory, still
very real, with which the confessor was invested. And his movements
were confined to the very region where he could learn most concerning the
question of the hour, and do most for its solution. In fact, in sending
Hilary into such an exile as this, Constantius had done too much, or too
little; he had injured, and not advanced, his own favorite cause of unity by
way of compromise. In this instance, as in those of Arius and Athanasius
and many others, exile became a efficacious means for the spreading and
strengthening of convictions. If Hilary had no great success, as we shall
see, in the Council which he attended, yet his presence, during these
critical years, in a region where men were gradually advancing to the fuller
truth cannot have been without influence upon their spiritual growth; and

32

his residence in Asia no doubt confirmed and enriched his own
apprehension of the Faith.

It is certain that Hilary was busily engaged in writing his great work upon
the Trinity, and that some parts of it were actually published, during his
exile. But as this work in its final form would appear to belong to the next
stage of Hialry's life, it will be well to postpone its consideration for the
present, and proceed at once to his share in the conciliar action of the time.
We have no information concerning his conduct before the year 358, but it
is necessary to say something about the important events which preceded
his publication of the De Synodis and his participation in the Council of
Seleucia.

It was a time when new combinations of parties were being formed.
Arianism was showing itself openly, as it had not dared to do since Nicaea.
In 357 Hilary's adversaries, Ursacius and Valens, in a Synod at Sirmium,
published a creed which was Arian without concealment; it was, indeed, as
serious a blow to the Emperor' s policy of compromise as anything that
Athanasius or Hilary had ventured. But it was the work of friends of the
Emperor, and showed that, for the moment at any rate, the Court had been
won over to the extreme party. But the forces of Conservatism were still
the stongest. Within a few months, early in 358, the great Asiatic prelates,
soon to be divided over the question of the Godhead of the Holy Spirit but
still at one, Basil of Ancyra, Macedonius and others, met at Ancyra and
repudiated Arianism while ignoring, after their manner, the Nicene
definition. Then their delegates proceeded to the Court, now at Sirmium,
and won Constantius back to his old position. Ursacius and Valens, who
had no scruples, signed a Conservtive creed, as did the weak Liberius of
Rome, anxious to escape from an exile to which he had been consigned
soon after the banishment of Hilary. It was a great triumph to have
induced so prominent a bishop to minimize — we cannot say that he
denied — his own belief and that of the Western churches. And the Asiatic
leaders were determined to have the spoils of victory. Liberius, of course,
was allowed to return home, for he had proved compliant, and the
Conservatives had no quarrel with those who held the homoousion. But
the most prominent of the Arian leaders, those who had the courage of
their conviction, to the number, it is said, of seventy, were exiled. It is true
that Constantius was quickly persuaded by other influences to restore

33

them; but the theological difference was embittered by the sense of
personal injury, and further conflicts rendered inevitable between
Conservatives and Arians.

It was with this Conservative party, victorious for the moment, that
Hilary had to deal. Its leaders, and especially Basil of Ancyra, had the ear
of the Emperor, and seemed to hold the future of the Church in their
hands. Hilary was on friendly terms with Basil, with whom, as we have
seen, he had much in common, and corresponded on his behalf with the
Western Bishops. He was, indeed, by the peculiar combination in him of
the Eastern and Western, perhaps the only man who could have played the
part he undertook. He was thoroughly and outspokenly orthodox, yet had
no prejudice in favor of the Nicene definition. He would have been content,
like the earlier generation of Eastern bishops, with a simple formulary; the
Apostle's Creed, the traditional standard of the West, satisfied the
exigencies even of his own precise thought. And if a personal jealousy of
Athanasius and his school on the part of the Asiatic Conservatives was
one of the chief obstacles to peace, communication between him and
Athanansius; he could ignore, and may even have been ignorant of, the
antipathy of Asia to Alexandria. And he was no absolute follower of
Athanasius' teaching. We saw that in some important respects he was an
independent thinker, and that in others he is on common ground with the
Cappadocians, the heirs of the best thought of such men as Basil of
Ancyra. Nor could he labor under any suspicion of being involved in the
heresy of Marcellus. It was an honorable tradition of Eastern Christendom
to guard against the recrudescence of such heresy as his, which revived the
fallacies of Paul of Samosata and of Sabellius, and seemed in Asia the most
formidable of all possible errors. Marcellus had forged it as a weapon in
defense of the Nicene faith; and if his doctrine were among the most
formidable antagonists of Arianism, it may well have seemed that there
was not much to choose between the two. And while Athanasius had
never condemned Marcellus, and the West had more than once pronounced
him innocent, the general feeling of the East was decisively against him,
and deeply suspicious of any appearance of sympathy with him. And
further, by one of those complications of personal with theological
opposition which were so sadly frequent, Basil was in possession of that
very see of Ancyra from which the heretic Marcellus had been expelled.

34

Hilary, who was unconcerned in all this, saw a new hope for the Church in
his Asiatic friends, and his own tendencies of thought must have been a
welcome surprise to them, accustomed as they were to suspect
Sabellianism in the West. The prospect, indeed, was at first sight a fair
one. The faith, it seemed, might be upheld by imperial support, now that it
had advocated who were not prejudiced in the Emperor's eyes as was
Athanasius; and Athanasius himself, accredited by the testimony of Asia,
might recover his position. Yet Hilary was building on an unsound
foundation. The Semiarian party was not united. Hilary may not have
suspected, or may, in his zeal for the cause, have concealed from himself
the fact, that in the doctrine of the Holy Ghost there lay the seeds of a
strife which was soon to divide his allies as widely as Arius was separated
from Athanasius. And these allies, as a body, were not worthy supporters
of the truth. There were many sincere men among them, but these were
mixed with adventurers, who used the conflict as a means of attaining
office, with as few scruples as any of the other prelates who hung around
the court. But the fatal obstacle to success was that the whole plan
depended on the favor of Constantius. For the moment Basil and his
friends possessed this, but their adversaries were men of greater dexterity
and fewer scruples than they. Valens and Ursacius and their like were
doing their utmost to retrieve defeat and enjoy revenge. It is significant that
Athanasius, as it seems, had no share in Hilary's hopes and schemes for
drawing East and West together. He had an unrivaled knowledge of the
circumstances, and an open mind, willing to see good in the Semiarians; had
the plan contained the elements of success if would have received his warm
support.

Hilary threw himself heartily into it. He traveled, we know, extensively; so
much so, that his letters from Gaul failed to reach him in the year 358.
This was a serious matter. We have seen that the exiles from the West had
derived great support from their flocks. Hilary's own weight as a
negotiator must have depended upon the general knowledge that he did not
stand alone, but represented the public opinion of a great province. For
this reason, as well as for his own peace of mind, it must have been a
welcome relief to him to learn, when letters came at last, that his friends
had not forgotten or deserted him; and he seized the opportunity of reply
to send to the bishops of all the Gallic provinces and of Britain the circular

35

letters which we call the De Synodis, translated in this volume. The
Introduction to it, here given, makes is unnecessary to describe its
contents. It may suffice to say that it is an able and well- written attempt
to explain the Eastern position to Western theologians. He shows that the
Eastern creeds, which had been composed since the Nicene, were
susceptible of an orthodox meaning, and felicitously brings out their merits
by contrast with the unmitigated heresy of the second creed of Sirmium,
which he cites at full length. It must be admitted that there is a certain
amount of special pleading; that his eyes are resolutely shut to any other
aspect of the documents than that which he is commending to the attention
of his readers in Gaul. And he is as boldly original in his rendering of
history as of doctrine. He actually describes the Council of the Dedication,
which confirmed the deposition of Athanasius and propounded a
compromising creed, definitely intended to displace the Nicene, as an
'assembly of the saints.' The West, we know, cared little for Eastern
disputes and formularies. There can have been no great risk that Hilary's
praise should revolt the minds of his friends, and as little hope that it
would excite any enthusiasm among them. This description, and a good
deal else in the De Synodis, was obviously meant to be read in the land
where it was written. When all possible allowance is made for his
sympathy with the best men among the Asiatics, and for the hopefulness
with which he might naturally regard his allies, it is still impossible to
think that he was quite sincere in asserting that their object in compiling
ambiguous creeds was the suppression of Sabellianism and not the
rejection of the homoousion. Yet it was natural enough that he should
write as he did, for the prospect must have seemed most attractive. If this
open letter could convince the Eastern bishops that they were regarded in
the West not with suspicion, as teachers of the inferiority of Christ, but
with admiration, as steadfast upholders of His reality, a great step was
made towards union. And if Hilary could persuade his brethren in Gaul
that the imperfect terms in which the East was accustomed to express its
faith in Christ were compatible with sound belief, an approach could be
made from that side also. And injustice to Hilary we must bear in mind
that he does not fall into the error of Liberius. It was a serious fault for a
Western bishop to abandon words which were, for him and for his Church,
the recognized expression of the truth; it was a very different matter to
argue that inadequate terms, in the mouth of those who were unhappily

36

pledged to the use of them, might contain the saving Faith. This latter is
the argument which Hilary uses. He urges the East to advance to the
definiteness of the Nicene confession; he urges the West to welcome the
first signs of such an advance, and meantime to recognize the truth that
was half-concealed in their ambiguous documents. The attempt was a bold
one, and met, as was inevitable, with severe criticism from the side of
uncompromising orthodoxy, which we may for the moment leave
unnoticed. What Athanasius thought of the treatise we do not know; it
would be unsafe to conjecture that his own work, which bears the same
title and was written in the following year, when the futility of the hope
which had buoyed Hilary up had been demonstrated, was a silent criticism
upon the De Synodis of the other. It is, at least, a success in itself, and was
a step towards the ultimate victory of truth; we cannot say as much of
Hilary's effort, admirable though its intention was, and though it must
have contributed something to the softening of asperities. But Alexandria
and Gaul were distant, and while the one excited repugnance in the
Emperor's mind, the other had little influence with him. The decision
seemed to lie in the hands of Basil of Ancyra and his colleagues. The men
who had the ear of Constantius, and had lately induced him to banish the
Arians, must in consistency use their influence for the restoration of exiles
who were suffering for their opposition to Arianism; and this influence, if
only the West would heartily join with them, would be strong enough to
secure even the restoration of Athanasius. Such thoughts were certainly
present in the mind of Hilary when he painted so bright a picture of
Eastern Councils, and represented Constantius as an innocent believer,
once misguided but now returned to the Faith. From the Semiarian leaders,
controlling the policy of Constantius, he expected peace for the Church,
restoration of the exiles, the suppression of Arianism. And if to some
extent he deceived himself, and was willing to believe and to persuade
others that men's faith and purpose differed from what in fact it was, we
must remember that it was a time of passionate earnestness, when cool
judgment concerning friend or foe was almost impossible for one who was
involved in that great conflict concerning the Divinity of Christ.

But the times were not ripe for an understanding between East and West,
and the Asiatics in whom Hilary had put his trust were not, and did not
deserve to be, the restorers of the Church. Their victory had been

37

complete, but the Emperor was inconstant and their adversaries were men
of talent, who had once guided his counsels and knew how to recover their
position. The policy of Constantius was, as we know, one of compromise,
and it might seem to him that the prevailing confusion would cease if only
a sufficiently comprehensive formula could be devised and accepted.
'Specious charity and colorless indefiniteness was the policy of the new
party, formed by Valens and Arians of every shade, which won the favor
of Constantius within a year of the Semiarian victory. They had been
mortified, had been forced to sign a confession which they disbelieved,
many of them had suffered a momentary exile. Now they were to have
their revenge; not only were the terms of communion to be so lax that
extreme Arianism should be at home within the Church, but, as in a
modern change of ministry, the Semiarians were to yield their sees to their
opponents. To attain these ends a Council was necessary. The general
history of the Homoean intrigues, of their division of the forces opposed
to them by the assembling of a Western Council at Rimini, of an Eastern at
Seleucia in September, 359. The Emperor, who hoped for a final
settlement, desired that the Council should be as large as possible, and the
governors of provinces exerted themselves to collect bishops, and to
forward them to Seleucia, as was usual, at the public expense. Among the
rest, Hilary, who was, we must remember, a bishop with a diocese of his
own, and of unimpugned orthodoxy, exiled ostensibly for a political
offense, received orders to attend at the cost of the State. In the Council,
which numbered some 160 bishops, his Semiarian friends were in a
majority of three to one; the uncompromising Nicenes of Egypt and the
uncompromising Arians, taken together, did not number more than a
quarter of the whole. Hilary was welcomed heartily and, as it would seem,
unanimously; but he had to disclaim, on behalf of the Church in Gaul, the
Sabellianism of which it was suspected, and with some reason after the
Western welcome of Marcellus. He stated his faith to the satisfaction of
the Council in accordance with the Nicene confession. We cannot doubt
that he made use of its very words, for Hilary was not the man to retreat
from the position he held, and the terms of his alliance with the school of
Basil of Ancyra required no such renunciation. The proceedings of the
Council, in which Hilary took no public part, may be omitted. The
Semiarians, strong in numbers and, as they still thought, in the Emperor's
favor, swept everything before them. They adopted the ambiguous creed

38

of the Council of the Dedication, — that Council which Hilary had lately
called an 'assembly of the Saints' — for the Nicenes were a powerless
minority; and they their sentence of excommunication upon the Arians,
who were still fewer in number. They even ventured to consecrate a
successor to Eudoxius, one of the most extreme, for the great Church of
Antioch. Then the Council elected a commission of ten of the leaders of
the majority to present to the Emperor a report of its proceedings, and
dispersed. In spite of some ominous signs of obstinacy on the part of the
Arians, and of favor towards them shown by the government officials,
they seemed to have succeeded in establishing still more firmly the results
attained at Ancyra two years before, and to have struck another and, as
they might hope, a more effectual blow at the heretics.

But when the deputation, with whom Hilary traveled, reached
Constantinople, they found that the position was entirely different from
their expectation. The intriguing party, whose aim was to punish and
displace the Semiarians, had contrived a double treason. They
misrepresented the Western Council to the Emperor as in agreement with
themselves; and they sacrificed their more honest colleagues in Arianism.
They hated those who, like Basil of Ancyra, maintained the homoiousion,
the doctrine that the Son is of like nature with the Father; the Emperor
sincerely rejected the logical Arianism which said that He is of unlike
nature. They abandon their friends in order to induce Constantius to
sacrifice his old Semiarian advisers; and proposed with success their new
Homoean formula, that the Son is 'like the Father in all things, as Scripture
says.' His nature is not mentioned; the last words were a concession to the
scruples of the Emperor. We shall see presently that this rupture with the
consistent Arians is a matter of some importance for the dating of Hilary's
De Trinitate; for the present we must follow the fortunes of himself and
his allies. He had journeyed with them to Constantinople. This was,
apparently, a breach of the order given to confine himself to the diocese of
Asia; but he had already been commanded to go to Seleucia, which lay
beyond those limits, and his journey to Constantinople may have been
regarded as a legitimate sequel to this former journey. In any case he was
not molested, and was allowed to appear, with the deputation from
Seleucia, at the Court of Constantius. For the last two months of the year
359 the disputes concerning the Faith still continued. But the Emperor was

39

firm in his determination to bring about a compromise which should
embrace every one who was not an extreme and conscientious Arian, and
the Homoean leaders supported him ably and unscrupulously. They
falsified the sense of the Council of Rimini and denied their own Arianism,
and Constantius backed them up by threats against the Seleucian
deputation. Hilary, of course, had no official position, and could speak
only for himself. The Western Church seemed to have decided against its
own faith, and the decision of the East, represented by the ten delegates,
was not yet declared, though it must have been probable that they would
succumb to the pressure exercised upon them, and desert their own
convictions and those of the Council whose commission they held. In
these circumstances Hilary had the courage, which we cannot easily
overestimate, to make a personal appeal to Constantius. It is evident that
as yet he is hopeful, or at least that he thinks it worth while to make an
attempt. He writes with the same customary humility which we found in
his former address to the Emperor. Constantius is 'most pious,' 'good and
religious,' 'most gracious,' and so forth. The sincerity of the appeal is
manifest; Hilary still believes, or is trying to believe, that the Emperor,
who had so lately been on the side of Basil of Ancyra and his friends, and
had at their instigation humiliated and exiled their opponents, has not
transferred his favor once more to the party of Valens. The address is
written with great dignity of style and of matter. Hilary begins by
declaring that the importance of his theme is such that it enforces
attention, however insignificant the speaker may be; yet (§ 2) his position
entitles him to speak. He is a bishop, in communion with all the churches
and bishops of Gaul, and to that very day distributing the Eucharist by the
hands of his presbyters to his own Church. He is in exile, it is true, but he
is guiltless; falsely accused by designing men who had gained the
Emperor's ear. He appeals to Julian's knowledge of his innocence;
discredit upon the administration of Julian, under which he had been
conformed. The Emperor's rescript sentencing Hilary to exile was public;
it was notorious that the charges upon which the sentence was based were
false. Saturninus, the active promoter, if not the instigator, of the attack,
was now in Constantinople. Hilary confidently promises to demonstrate
that the proceedings were a deception of Constantius, and an insult to
Julian; if he fails, he will no longer petition to be allowed to return to the
exercise of his office, but will retire to pass the rest of his days as a layman

40

in repentance. To this end he asks to be confronted with Saturninus (§ 3),
or rather takes for granted that Constantius will do as he wishes. He leaves
the Emperor to determine all the conditions of the debate, in which, as he
repeats, he will wring from Saturninus the confession of his falsehood.
Meanwhile he promises to be silent upon the subject till the appointed
time. Next, he turns to the great subject of the day. The world's danger,
the guilt of silence, the judgment of God, fill him with fear; he is
constrained to speak when his own salvation and that of the Emperor and
of mankind is at stake, and encouraged by the consciousness of multitudes
who sympathize with him. He bids the Emperor (§ 4) call back to his mind
the Faith which (so he says) Constantius is longing in vain to hear from his
bishops. Those whose duty is to proclaim the Faith of God are employed,
instead, in composing faiths of their own, and so they revolve in an endless
circle of error and strife. The sense of human infirmity ought to have made
them content to hold the Faith in the same form of words in which they
received it. At their baptism they had professed and sworn their faith, In
the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; doubt or
change are equally unlawful. Yet men were using the sacred words while
they dishonestly assigned to them another meaning, or even were daring to
depart from them. Thus to some the three sacred Names were empty
terms. Hence innovations in the statement of Faith; the search for novelties
took the place of loyalty to ancient truth, and the creed of the year
displaced the creed of the Gospels. Every one framed his confession
according to his own desire of his own character; while creeds were
multiplying, the one Faith was perishing. Since the Council of Nicaea (§ 5)
there had been no end of this writing of creeds. So busily were men
wrangling over words, seeking novelties, debating knotty points, forming
factions and pursuing ambitions, refusing to agree and hurling anathemas
at one another, that almost all had drifted away from Christ. The confusion
was such that none could either teach or learn in safety. Within the last
year no less than four contradictory creeds had been promulgated. There
was no single point of the Faith which they or their fathers had held upon
which violent hands had not been laid. And the pitiful creed which for the
moment held the field was that the son is 'like the Father' ; whether this
likeness were perfect or imperfect was left in obscurity. The result of
constant change and ceaseless dispute was self-contradiction and mutual
destruction. This search for a faith (§ 6) involved the assumption that the

41

true Faith was not ready to the believer's hand. They would have it in
writing, as though the heart were not its place. Baptism implied the Faith
and was useless without its acceptance; to teach a new Christ after
Baptism, or to alter the Faith then declared, was sin against the Holy
Ghost. The chief cause of the continuance of the present blasphemy was
the love of applause; men invented grandiloquent paraphrases in place of
the Apostle's Creed, to delude the vulgar, to conceal their aberrations, to
effect a compromise with other forms of error. They would do anything
rather than confess that they had been wrong. When the storm rises (§ 7)
the mariner returns to the harbor he had left; the spendthrift youth, with
ruin in prospect, to the sober habits of his father's home. So Christians,
with shipwreck of the Faith in sight and the heavenly patrimony almost
lost, must return to the safety which lies in the primitive, Apostolic
Baptismal Creed. They must not condemn as presumptuous or profane
the Nicene confession, but eschew it as giving occasion to attacks upon the
Faith, and to denials of the truth on the ground of novelty. There is danger
lest innovation creep in. excused as improvement of this creed; and
emendation is an endless process, which leads the emenders to
condemnation of each other. Hilary now (§ 8) professes his sincere
admiration of Constantius' devout purpose and earnestness in seeking the
truth, which he who denies is antichrist, and he who feigns is anathema. He
entreats the Emperor to allow him to expound the Faith, in his own
presence, before the Council which was now debating the subject at
Constantinople. His exposition shall be Scriptural; he will use the words of
Christ, Whose exile and Whose bishop he is. The Emperor seeks the Faith;
let him hear it not from modern volumes, but from the books of God. Even
in the West it may be taught, whence shall come some that shall sit at meat
in the kingdom of God. This is a matter not of philosophy, but of the
teaching of the Gospel. He asks audience rather for the Emperor's sake and
for God's Churches than for himself. He is sure of the faith that is in him;
it is God's, and he will never change it. But (§ 9) the Emperor must bear in
mind that every heretic professes that his own is the Scriptural doctrine.
So say Marcellus, Photinus, and the rest. He prays (§ 10) for the
Emperor's best attention; his pleas will be for faith and unity and eternal
life. He will speak in all reverence to Constantius' royal position, and for
his faith, and what he says shall tend to peace between East and West.
Finally (§ 1 1) he gives, as an outline of the address he proposes to deliver,

42

the series of texts on which he will base his argument. This is what the
Holy Spirit has taught him to believe. To this faith he will ever adhere,
loyal to the Faith of his fathers, and the creed of his Baptism, and the
Gospel as he has learnt it.

In this address, to which we cannot wonder that Constantius made no
response, there is much that is remarkable. There is not doubt that
Hilary's exile had been a political measure, and that the Emperor, in this as
in the numerous other cases of the same kind, had acted deliberately and
with full knowledge of the circumstances in the way that seemed to him
most conducive to the interests of permanent peace. Hilary's assumption
that Constantius had been deceived is a legitimate allusion, which no one
could misunderstand, to a fact which could not be respectfully stated. That
he should have spoken as he did, and indeed that he should have raised the
subject at all, is a clear sign of the uncertainty of the times. A timorous
appeal for mercy would have been useless; a bold statement of innocence,
although, as things turned out, if failed, was a effort worth making to check
the Homoean advance. Saturninus, as we saw, was one of the Court party
among the bishops; and he was an enemy of Julian, who was soon to
permit his deposition. Julian's knowledge of Hilary can have been but
small; his exile began within a month or two of the Caesar's arrival in Gaul,
and Julian was not responsible for it. For good or for evil, he had little to
say in the case. But the suspicions were already aroused which were soon
to lead to Julian's revolt, and Constantius had begun to give the orders
which would lessen Julian's military force, and were, as he supposed,
intended to prepare his downfall. To appeal to Julian and to attack
Saturnius was to remind Constantius very broadly that great interests were
at stake, and that a protector might be found for the creed which he
persecuted. And his double mention of the West (§§ 8, 10) as able to teach
the truth, and as needing to be reconciled with the East, has a political ring.
It suggests that the Western provinces are a united force, with which the
Emperor must reckon. The fact that Constantius, though he did not grant
the meeting in his own presence with Saturninus, which Hilary had asked
for, yet he did grant the substance of his prayer, allowing him to return
without obstacle to his diocese, seems to show that the Emperor felt the
need for caution and concession in the West.

43

The theological part of the letter is even more remarkable. Its doctrine is,
of course, exactly that of the De Trinitate. The summary of Scripture
proofs for the doctrine in § 11, the allusion to unlearned fishermen who
have been teachers of the Faith, and several other passages, are either
anticipations or reminiscences of that work. But the interest of the letter
lies in its bold proposal to go behind all the modern creeds, of the
confusion of which a vivid picture is drawn, and revert to the baptismal
formula. Here is a leading combatant on the Catholic side actually
proposing to withdraw the Nicene confession: — 'Amid these shipwrecks
of faith, when our inheritance of the heavenly patrimony is almost
squandered, our safety lies in clinging to that first and only Gospel Faith
which we confessed and apprehended at our Baptism, and in making no
change in that one form which, when we welcome it and listen to it, brings
the right faith I do not mean that we should condemn as a godless and
blasphemous writing the work of the Synod of our fathers; yet rash men
make use of it as a means of gainsaying' (§ 7). The Nicene Creed, Hilary
goes on to say, had been the starting-point of an endless chain of
innovations and amendments, and thus had done harm instead of good. We
have seen that Hilary was not only acting with the Semiarians, but was
nearer to them in many ways than he was to Athanasius. The future of his
friends was now in doubt; not only was their doctrine in danger, but, after
the example they had themselves set, they must have been certain that
defeat meant deposition. This was a concession which only a sense of
extreme urgency could have induced Hilary to make. Yet even now he
avoid the mistake of Liberius. He offers to sign no compromising creed; he
only proposes that all modern creeds be consigned to the same oblivion. It
was, in effect, the offer of another compromise in lieu of the Homoean;
though Hilary makes it perfectly clear what is, in his eyes, the only sense
in which this simple and primitive confession can honestly be made, yet
assuredly those whose doctrine most widely diverged would have felt able
to make it. That the proposal was sincerely meant, and that his words,
uncompromising as they are in assertion of the truth, were not intended for
a simple defiance of the enemy, is shown by a list of heretics whom he
advances, in § 9, in proof of his contention that all error claims to be based
on Scripture. Three of them, Montanus, Manichaeus and Marcion, were
heretics in the eyes of an Arian as much as of a Catholic; the other three,
Marcellus, Photinus and Sabellius, were those with whom the Arians were

44

constantly taunting their adversaries. Hilary avoids, deliberately as we
may be sure, the use of any name which could wound his opponents. But
bold and eloquent and true as the appeal of Hilary was, it was still less
likely that his petition for a hearing in Council should be granted than that
he should be allowed to disprove the accusations which had led to his exile.
The homoean leaders had the victory in their hands, and they knew it, if
Hilary and his friends were still in the dark. They did not want
conciliation, but revenge, and this appeal was foredoomed to failure. The
end of the crisis soon came. The Semiarian leaders were deposed, not on
the charge of heresy, for that would have been inconsistent with the
Homoean position and also with their acquiescence in the Homoean
formula, but on some of those complaints concerning conduct which were
always forthcoming when they were needed. Among the victims was not
only Basil of Ancyra, Hilary's friend, but also Macedonius of
Constantinople, who was in after days to be the chief of the party which
denied the true Godhead of the Holy Ghost, he and his friends were
probably unconscious at this time of the gulf which divided them from
such men as Hilary, who for their part were content, in the interests of
unity, with language which understated their belief, or else had not yet a
clear sense of their faith upon this point. In any case it was well that the
victory of the true Faith was not won at this time, and with the aid of such
allies; we may even regard it as a sign of some short-sightedness on
Hilary's part that he had thrown himself so heartily into their cause. But
he, at any rate, was not to suffer. The two Eastern parties, Homoean and
Semiarian, which alternately ejected one another from their sees, were very
evenly balanced, and though Constantius was now on the side of the
former, his friendship was not to be trusted. The solid orthodoxy of the
West was an influence which, as Hilary had hinted, could not be ignored;
and even in the East the Nicenes were a power worth conciliating. Hence
the Homoeans gave a share of the Semiarian spoils to them; and it was part
of the same policy, and not, as has been quaintly suggested, because they
were afraid of his arguments, that they permitted Hilary to return to Gaul.
Reasons of state as well as of ecclesiastical interest favored his restoration.

In the late revolution, though the Faith had suffered, individual Catholics
had gained. But the party to which Hilary had attached himself, and from
which he had hoped so much was crushed; and his personal advantage did

45

not compensate, in his eyes of the injury to truth. He has left us a
memorial of his feelings in the Invective against Constantius, one of the
bitterest documents of a controversy in which all who engaged were too
earnest to spare their opponents. It is an admirable piece of rhetoric
suffused with passion, not the less spontaneous because its form,
according to the canons of taste of that time, is perfect. For we must
remember that the education of the day was literary, its aim being to
provide the recipient with a prompt and felicitous expression of his
thought, whatever they might be. The Invective was certainly written in
the first place as a relief to Hilary's own feelings; he could not anticipate
that Constantius had changed his views for the last time; that he would
soon cease to be the master of Gaul, and would be dead within some
eighteen months. But the existence of other attacks upon Constantius,
composed about this time, makes it probable that there was some secret
circulation of such documents; and we can as little accuse the writers of
cowardice, when we consider the Emperor' s far-reaching power, as we can
attribute to them injustice towards him.

The book begins with an animated summons to resistance: — 'The time for
speech is come, the time of silence past. Let us look for Christ's coming,
for Antichrist is already in power. Let the shepherds cry aloud, for the
hirelings are fled. Let us lay down our lives for the sheep, for the thieves
have entered in and the ravening lion prowls around. With such words on
our lips let us go forth to martyrdom, for the angel of Satan has
transfigured himself into an angel of light.' After more Scriptural language
of the same kind, Hilary goes on to say ( 2) that, though he had been fully
conscious of the extent of the danger to the Faith, he had been strictly
moderate in his conduct. After the exiling of orthodox bishops at Aries and
Milan, he and the bishops of Gaul had contented themselves with
abstaining from communion with Saturninus, Ursacius and Valens. Other
heretical bishops had been allowed a time for repentance. And even after
he had been forced to attend the Synod of Beziers, refused a hearing for the
charges of heresy which he wished to bring, and finally exiled, he had
never, in word or writing, uttered any denunciation against his opponents,
the Synagogue of Satan, who falsely claimed to be the Church of Christ.
He had not faltered in his own belief, but had welcomed every suggestion
that held out a hope of unity; and in that hope he have even refrained from

46

blaming those who associated or worshipped with the excommunicate.
Setting all personal considerations on one side, he had labored for a
restoration of the Church through a general repentance. This reserve and
consistency (§ 3) is evidence that what he is about to say is not due to
personal irritation. He speaks in the name of Christ, and his prolonged
silence makes it his duty to speak plainly. It had been happy for him had
he lived in the days of Nero or Decius (§4). The Holy Spirit would have
fired him to endure as did the martyrs of Scripture; torments and death
would have been welcome. It would have been a fair fight with an open
enemy. But now (§ 5) Constantius was Antichrist, and waged his warfare
by deceit and flattery. It was scourging then, pampering now; no longer
freedom in prison, but slavery at court, and gold as deadly as the sword
had been; martyrs no longer burnt at the stake, but a secret lighting of the
fires of hell. All that seems good in Constantius, his confession of Christ,
his efforts for unity, his severity to heretics, his reverence for bishops, his
building of churches, is perverted to evil ends. He professes loyalty to
Christ, but his constant aim is to prevent Christ from being honored
equally with the Father. Hence (§ 6) it is a clear duty to speak out, as the
Baptist to Herod and the Maccabees to Antioch. Constantius is addressed
(§ 7) in the words in which Hilary would have addressed Nero or Decius,
or Maximian, had he been arraigned before them, as the enemy of God and
His Church, a persecutor and a tyrant. But he has a peculiar infamy, worse
than theirs, for it is as a pretended Christian that he opposed Christ,
imprisons bishops, overawes the Church by military force, threatens and
starves one council (at Rimini) into submission, and frustrates the purpose
of another (Seleucia) by sowing dissension. To the pagan Emperors the
Church owed a great debt (§ 8); the Martyrs with whom they had enriched
her were still working daily wonders, healing the sick, casting out evil
spirits, suspending the law of gravitation. But Constantius;' guilt has no
mitigation. A nominal Christian, he has brought unmixed evil upon the
Church. The victims of his perversion cannot even plead bodily suffering
as an excuse for their lapse. The devil is his father, from whom he has
learnt his skill of misleading. He says to Christ, Lord, Lord, but shall not
enter the kingdom of heaven (§ 9), for he denies the Son, and therefore the
fatherhood of God. The old persecutors were enemies of Christ only;
Constantius insults the Father also, by making Him lie. He is a wolf in
sheep's clothing (§ 10). He loads the Church with the gold of the state and

47

the spoil of pagan temples; it is the kiss with which Judas betrayed his
Master. The clergy receive immunities and remissions of taxation: it is to
tempt them to deny Christ, he will only relate such acts of Constantius'
tyranny as affect the Church (§ 1 1). He will not press, for he does not
know the offense alleged, his conduct in branding bishops on the forehead,
as convicts, and setting them to labor in the mines. But he recounts his
long course of oppression and faction at Alexandria; a warfare longer than
that which he had waged against Persia. Elsewhere, in the East, he had
spread terror and strife, always to prevent Christ being preached. Then he
had turned to the West. The excellent Paulinus had been driven from
Treves, and cruelly treated, banished from all Christian society, and forced
to consort with Montanist heretics. Again, at Milan, the soldiers had
brutally forced their way through the orthodox crowds and torn bishops
from the alter; a crime like that of the Jews who slew Zacharias in the
Temple. He had robbed Rome also of her bishop, whose restoration was as
disgraceful to the Emperor as his banishment. At Toulouse the clergy had
been shamefully maltreated, and gross irreverence committed in the
Church. These are the deeds of Antichrist. Hitherto, Hilary has spoken of
matters of public notoriety, though not of his own observation. Now (§
12) he comes to the Synod of Seleucia, at which he had been present. He
found there as many blasphemers as Constantius chose. Only the
Egyptians, with the exception of George, the intruder into the See of
Athanasius, were avowedly Homoousian. Yet of the one hundred and five
bishops who professed the Homoeousian Creed, he found 'some piety in
the words of some.' But the Anomoeans were rank blasphemers; he give,
in § 13, words from a sermon by their leader, Eudoxius of Antioch, which
were quoted by the opposition, and received with the abhorrence they
deserved. This party found (§14) that no toleration was to be expected for
such doctrines, and so forged the Homoean creed, which condemned
equally the homoousion, the homoiousion and the anomoion. Their
insincerity in thus rejecting their own belief was manifest to the Council,
and one of them, who canvassed Hilary's support, avowed blank Arianism
in the conversation. The large Homoeousian majority (§ 15) deposed the
authors of the Homoean confession, who flew for aid the Constantius,
who received them with honor and allowed them to air their heresy. The
tables were turned; the minority, aided by the Emperor's threats of exile,
drove the majority, in the persons of their ten delegates, to conform to the

48

new creed. The people were coerced by the prefect, the bishops threatened
within the palace walls; the chief cities of the East were provided with
heretical bishops. It was nothing less than making a present to the devil of
the whole world for which Christ died. Constantius professed (§ 16) that
his aim was to abolish unscriptural words. But what right had he to give
orders to bishops or dictate the language of their sermons? A new disease
needed new remedies; warfare was inevitable when fresh enemies arose.
And, after all, the Homoean formula, 'like the Father,' was itself
unscriptural. Scripture is adduced (§ 17) by Hilary to prove that the Son is
not merely like, but equal to, the Father; and (§ 18) one in nature with
Him, having (§ 19) the form and the glory of God. This 'likeness' is a trap
(§ 20); chaff strewn on water, straw covering a pit, a hood hidden in the
bait. The Catholic sense is the only true sense in which the word can be
used, as is shown more fully, by arguments to be found in the De Trinitate,
in §§ 21, 22. And now he asks Constantius (§ 23) the plain question, what
his creed is. He has made a hasty progress, by a steep descent, to the
nethermost pit of blasphemy. He began with the Faith, which deserved the
name, of Nicaea; he changed it at Antioch. But he was a clumsy builder;
the structure he raised was always falling, and had to be constantly
renewed; creed after creed had been framed, the safeguards and anathemas
of which would have been needless had he remained steadfast to the
Nicene. Hilary does not lament the creeds which Constantius had
abandoned (§ 24); they might be harmless in themselves, but they
represented no real belief. Yet why should he reject his own creeds? There
was no such reason for his discontent with them as there had been, in his
heresy, for his rejection of the Nicene. This ceaseless variety arose from
want of faith; 'one Faith, one Baptism,' is the mark of truth. The result
had been to stultify the bishops. They had been driven to condemn in
succession the accurate homoousion and the harmless homoiousion, and
even the word ousia, or substance. These were the pranks of a mere
buffoon, amusing himself at the expense of the Church, and compelling the
bishops, like dogs returning to their vomit, to accept what they had
rejected. So many had been the contradictory creeds that every one was
now, or had been in the past, a heretic confessed. And this result had only
been attained (§ 26) by violence, as for instance in the cases of the Eastern
and African bishops. The latter had committed to writing their sentence
upon Ursacius and Valens; the Emperor had seized the document. It might

49

go to the flames, as would Constantius himself, but the sentence was
registered with God. Other men (§ 27) had waged war with the living, but
Constantius extended his hostility to the dead; he contradicted the teaching
of the saints, and his bishops rejected their predecessors, to whom they
owed their orders, by denying their doctrine. The three hundred and
eighteen at Nicaea were anathema to him, and his own father who had
presided there. Yet though he might scorn the past, he could not control
the future. The truth defined at Nicaea had been solemnly committed to
writing and remained, however Constantius might contemn it. 'Give ear,'
Hilary concludes, 'to the holy meaning of the words, to the unalterable
determination of the Church, to the faith which thy father avowed, to the
sure hope in which man must put his trust, the universal conviction of the
doom of heresy; and learn therefrom that thou are the foe of God's
religion, the enemy of the tombs of the saints, the rebellious inheritor of
thy father's piety.'

Here, again, there is much of interest. Hilary's painful feeling of isolation is
manifest, he had withdrawn from communion with Satuninus and the few
Arians of Gaul, but has to confess that his own friends were not equally
uncompromising. The Gallic bishops, with their enormous diocese, had
probably few occasions for meeting, and prudent men could easily avoid a
conflict which the Arians, a feeble minority, would certainly not provoke.
The bishops had been courteous, or more than courteous; and Hilary dared
not protest. His whole importance as a negotiator in the East depended on
the belief that he was the representative of a harmonious body of opinion.
To advertise this departure from his policy of warfare would have been
fatal to his influence. And if weakness, as he must have judged it, was
leading his brethren at home into a recognition of Arians, Constantius and
his Homoean counselors had ingeniously contrived a still more serious
break in the orthodox line of battle. There was reason in his bitter
complaint of the Emperor's generosity. He was lavish with his money,
and it was well worth a bishop's while to be his friend. And of this
expenditure Nicenes were enjoying their share, and that without having to
surrender their personal belief, for all that was required was that they
should not be inquisitive as to their neighbor's heresies. But Nicene
bishops, of an accommodating character, were not only holding their own;
they were enjoying a share of the spoils of the routed Semiarians. It was

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almost a stroke of genius thus to shatter Hilary's alliance; for it was
certainly not by chance that among the sees to which Nicenes, in full and
formal communion with him, were preferred, was Ancyra itself, from
which his chosen friend Basil had been ejected. Disgusted though Hilary
must have been with such subservience, and saddened by the downfall of
his friends, it is clear that the Emperor's policy had some success, even
with him. His former hopes being dashed to the ground, he now turns,
with an interest he had never before shown, to the Nicene Creed as a
bulwark of the Faith. And we can see the same feeling at work in his very
cold recognition that there was 'some piety in the words of some' among
his friends at Seleucia. It would be unjust to think of Hilary as a
timeserver, but we must admit that there is something almost too
businesslike in this dismission from his mind of former hopes and
friendships. He looked always to a practical result in the establishment of
truth, and a judgment so sound as his could not fail to see that the Asiatic
negotiations were a closed chapter in his life. And his mind must have been
full of the thought that he was returning to the West, which had its own
interests and its own prejudices, and was impartially suspicious of all
Eastern theologians; whose 'selfish coldness' towards the East was,
indeed, ten years later still a barrier against unity. If Hilary was to be, as he
purposed, a power in the West, he must promptly resume the Western
tone; and he will have succumbed to a very natural infirmity if, in his
disappointment, he was disposed to couple together his allies who had
failed with the Emperor who had caused their failure.

The historical statements of the Invective, as has been said, cannot always
be verified. The account of the Synod of Seleucia is, however, unjust to
Constantius. It was the free expression of the belief of Asia, and if heretics
were present by command of the Emperor, an overwhelming majority,
more or less orthodox, were present by the same command. But the
character and policy of Constantius are delineated fairly enough. The
results, disastrous both to conscience and to peace, are not too darkly
drawn, and no sarcasm could be too severe for the absurd as well as
degrading position to which he had reduced the Church. But the Invective
is interesting not only for its content but as an illustration of its writer' s
character. Strong language meant less in Latin than in English, but the
passionate earnestness of these pages cannot be doubted. They are not

51

more violent than the attack of Athanasius upon Constantius, nor less
violent than those of Lucifer; if the last author is usually regarded as
pre-eminent in abuse, he deserves his reputation not because of the vigor
of his denunciation, but because his pages contain nothing but railing. The
change is sudden, no doubt, from respect for Constantius and hopefulness
as to his conduct, but the provocation, we must remember, had been
extreme. If the faith of the Fathers was intense and, in the best sense,
childlike, there is something childlike also in their gusts of passion, their
uncontrolled emotion in victory or defeat, the personal element which is
constantly present in their controversies. Though, henceforth,
ecclesiastical policy was to be but a secondary interest with Hilary, and
diplomacy was to give place to a more successful attempt to influence
thought, yet we can see in another sphere the same spirit of conflict; for it
is evident that his labors against heresy, beside the more serious
satisfaction of knowing that he was on the side of truth, are lightened by
the logicians' s pleasure in exposing fallacy.

The deposition of the Semiarian leaders took place very early in the year
360, and Hilary's dismissal homewards, one of the same series of
measures, must soon have followed. If he had formed the plan of his
Invective before he had left Constantinople, it is not probable that he
wrote it there. It was more probably the employment of his long
homeward journey. His natural route would be by the great Egnatian Way,
which led through Thessalonica to Durazzo, thence by sea to Brindisi, and
so to Rome and the North. It is true that the historians, or rather Rufinus,
from whom the rest appear to have borrowed all their knowledge, say that
Illyricum was one sphere of his labors for the restoration of the Faith. But
a journey by land through Illyricum, the country of Valens and Ursacius
and thoroughly indoctrinated with Arianism, would not only have been
dangerous but useless. For Hilary's purpose was to confirm the faithful
among the bishops and to win back to orthodoxy those who had been
terrorized or deceived into error, and thus to cement a new confederacy
against the Homoeans; not to make a vain assault upon what was, for the
present, an impregnable position. And though the Western portion of the
Via Enatia did not pass through the existing political division called
Illyricum, it did lie within the region called in history and literature by that
name. Again, the evidence that Hilary passed through Rome is not

52

convincing; but since it was his best road, and he would find there the most
important person among those who had wavered in their allegiance to
truth, we may sagely accept it. he made it his business, we are told, to
exhort the Churches through which he passed to abjure heresy and return
to the true faith. But we know nothing of the places through which he
passed before reaching Rome, the see of Liberius, with whom it was most
desirable for him to be on friendly terms. Liberius was not so black as he
has sometimes been painted, but he was not a heroic figure. His position
was exactly that of many other bishops in the Western lands. They had
not denied their own faith, but at one time or another, in most cases at
Rimini, they had admitted that there was room in the same communion for
Arian bishops and for themselves. In the case of Liberius the
circumstances are involved in some obscurity, but it is clear that he had, in
order to obtain remission of his exile, taken a position which was
practically that of the old Council of the Dedication. Hilary, we remember,
had called that Council a 'Synod of the Saints,' when speaking of it from
the Eastern point of view. But he had never stooped to such a minimizing
of the Faith as its words, construed at the best, involved. Easterns, in their
peculiar difficulties, he was hopeful enough to believe, had framed its
terms in a legitimate sense; he could accept it from them, but could not use
it as the expression of his own belief. So to do would have been a
retrograde step; and this step Liberius had taken, to the scandal of the
Church. Yet he, and all whose position in any way resembled his — all,
indeed, except some few incorrigible ringleaders — were in the Church; their
deflection was, in Hilary's words, an 'inward evil.' And Hilary was no
Lucifer; his desire was to unite all who could be united in defense of the
truth. This was the plan dictated by policy as well as by charity, and in
the case of Liberius, if, as is probable, they met, it was certainly rewarded
with success. Indeed, according to Rufinus, Hilary was successful at every
stage of his journey. Somewhere on his course he fell in with Eusebius of
Vercelli, who had been exiled at the Council of Milan, had passed his time
in the region to the East of that in which Hilary had been interned, and was
now profiting by the same Homoean amnesty to return to his diocese. He
also had been using the opportunities of travel for the promotion of the
Faith. He had come from Antioch, and therefore had probably landed at or
near Naples. He was now travelling northwards, exhorting as he went. His
encounter with Hilary stimulated him to still greater efforts; but Rufinus

53

tell us that he was the less successful of the two, for Hilary, 'a man by
nature mild and winning, and also learned and singularly apt at persuasion,
applied himself to the task with a greater diligence and skill.' They do not
appear to have traveled in company; the cities to be visited were too
numerous and their own time, eager as they must have been to reach their
homes, too short. But their journey seems to have been a triumphal
progress; the bishops were induced to renounce their compromise with
error, and the people inflamed against heresy, so that, in the words of
Rufinus, 'these two men, glorious luminaries as it were of the universe,
flooded Illyricum and Italy and the Gallic provinces with their splendor, so
that even from hidden nooks and corners all darkness of heresy was
banished.'

In the passage just quoted Rufinus directly connects the publication of
Hilary's masterpiece, usually called the.De Trinitate, with this work of
reconciliation. After speaking of his success in it, he proceeds, 'Moreover
he published his books Concerning the Faith, composed in a lofty style,
wherein he displayed the guile of the heretics and the deceptions practiced
upon our friends, together with the credulous and misplaced sincerity of
the latter, with such skill that his ample instructions amended the errors
not only of those whom he encountered, but also of those whom distance
hindered him from meeting face to face.' Some of the twelve books of
which the work is composed had certainly been published during his exile,
and it is possible that certain portions may date from his later residence in
Gaul. But a study of the work itself leads to the conclusion that Rufinus
was right in the main in placing it at this stage of Hilary's life; this was
certainly the earliest date at which it can have been widely influential.

The title which Hilary gave to his work as a whole was certainly De Fide,
Concerning the Faith, the name by which, as we saw, Rufinus describes it.
It is probable that its controversial purpose was indicated by the addition
of contra Arianos; but it is certain that its present title, De Trinitate, was
not given to it by Hilary. The word Trinitas is of extraordinary rare
occurrence in his writings; the only instances seem to be in Trin. I. 22, 36,
where he is giving a very condensed summary of the contents of his work.
In the actual course of his argument the word is scrupulously avoided, as it
is in all his other writings. In this respect he resembles Athanasius, who
will usually name the Three Persons rather than employ this convenient

54

and even then familiar term. There may have been some undesirable
connotation in it which he desired to avoid, though this is hardly probable;
it is more likely that both Athanasius and Hilary, conscious that the use of
technical terms of theology was in their times a playing with edged tools,
deliberately avoided a word which was unnecessary, though it might be
useful. And in Hilary's case there is the additional reason that to his mind
the antithesis of truth and falsehood was One God or Two Gods; that to
him, more than to any other Western theologian, the developed and clearly
expressed thought of Three coequal Persons was strange. Since, then, the
word and the thought were rarely present in his mind, we cannot accept as
the title of his work what is, after all, only a mediaeval description.

The composite character of the treatise, which must still for convenience
be called the De Trinitate, is manifest. The beginnings of several of its
books, which contain far more preliminary, and often rhetorical, matter
than is necessary to link them on the their predecessors, point to a
separate publication of each; a course which was, indeed, necessary under
the literary conditions of the time. This piecemeal publication is further
proved by the elaborate summaries of the contents of previous books
which are given as, e.g., at the beginning of Trin. X.; and by the frequent
repetition of earlier arguments at a later stage, which shows that the writer
could not trust to the reader's possession of the whole. Though no such
attention had been devoted to the growth of this work as Noeldechen has
paid to that of the treatises of Tertullian, yet some account of the process
can be given. For although Hilary himself, in arranging the complete
treatise, has done much to make it run smoothly and consecutively, and
though the scribes who have copied it have probably made it appear still
more homogeneous, yet some clues to its construction are left. The first is
his description of the fifth book as the second (V. 3). This implies that the
fourth is the first; and when we examine the fourth we find that, it we
leave out of consideration a little preliminary matter, it is the beginning of a
refutation of Arianism. It states the Arian case, explains the necessity of
the term homoousios, gives a list of the texts on which the Arians relied,
and set out at length one of their statements of doctrine, the Epistle of
Arius to Alexander, which it proceeds to demolish, in the remainder of the
fourth book and in the fifth, by arguments from particular passages and
from the general sense of the Old Testament. In the sixth book, for the

55

reason already given, the Arian Creed is repeated, after a vivid account of
the evils of the time, and the refutation continued by arguments from the
New Testament. In § 2 of this book there is further evidence of the
composite character of the treatise. Hilary says that though is in the first
book he has already set out the Arian manifesto, yet he thinks good, as he
is still dealing with it, to repeat it in this sixth. Hilary seems to have
overlooked the discrepancy, which some officious scribe has half
corrected. The seventh book, he says at the beginning, is the climax of the
whole work. If we take the De Trinitate as a whole, this is a meaningless
flourish; but if we look on the eighth book, and find an elaborate
introduction followed by a line of argument different from that of the four
preceding books, we must be inclined to think that the seventh is the
climax and termination of what has been an independent work, consisting
of four books. And if we turn to the end of the seventh, and note that it
alone of all the twelve has nothing that can be called a peroration, but ends
in an absolutely bald and businesslike manner, we are almost forced to
conclude that this is because the peroration which it once had, as the
climax of the work, was unsuitable for its new position and has been
wholly removed. Had Hilary written this book as one of the series of
twelve, he would certainly, according to all rules of literary propriety, have
given it a formal termination. In these four books then, the fourth to the
seventh, we may see the nucleus of the De Trinitate, not necessarily the
part first written, for he says (IV. 1) that some parts , at any rate, of the
three first books are of earlier date, but that around which the whole has
been arranged. It has a complete unity of its own, following step by step
the Arian Creed, of which we shall presently speak. It is purely
controversial, and quite possibly the title Contra Arianos, for which there
is some evidence, really belongs to this smaller work, though it clung, not
unnaturally, to the whole for which Hilary devised the more appropriate
name.De Fide. Concerning the date of these four books, we can only say
that they must have been composed during his exile. For though he does
not mention his exile, yet he is already a bishop (VI. 2), and knows about
the homoousion (IV. 4). We have seen already that his acquaintance with
the Nicene Creed began only just before his exile; he must, therefore, have
written them during his enforced leisure in Asia.

56

In the beginning of the fourth book Hilary refers back to the proof
furnished in the previous books, written some time ago, of the Scriptural
character of his faith and of the unscriptural nature of all the heresies.
Setting aside the first book, which does not correspond to this description,
we find what he describes in the second and third. These form a short
connected treatise, complete in itself. It is much more academic than that
of which we have already spoken; it deals briefly with all the current
heresies (II. 4 ff.), but shows no sign that one of them, more than the
others, was an urgent danger. There is none of the passion of conflict;
Hilary is in the mood for rhetoric, and makes the most of his
opportunities. He expatiates, for instance, on the greatness of his theme
(II. 5), harps almost to excess upon the Fisherman to whom mysteries so
great were revealed (II. 13 ff.), dilates, after the manner of a sermon, upon
the condescension and the glory manifest in the Incarnation, describes
miracles with much liveliness of detail (III. 5, 20), and ends the treatise
(III. 24 — 26) with a nobly eloquent statement of the paradox of wisdom
which is folly and folly which is wisdom, and of faith as the only means of
knowing God. The little work, though it deals professedly with certain
heresies, is in the main constructive. It contains far more of positive
assertion of the truth, without reference to opponents, than it dies of
criticism of their views. In sustained calmness of tone — it recognizes the
existence of honest doubt (III. 1), — and in literary workmanship, it excels
any other part of the De Trinitate, and in the latter respect is certainly
superior to the more conversational Homilies on the Psalms. But it suffers,
in comparison with the books which follow, by a certain want of intensity;
the reader feels that it was written, in one sense, for the sake of writing it,
and written, in another sense, for purposes of general utility. It is not, as
later portions of the work were forged as a weapon for use in a conflict of
life and death. Yet, standing as it does, at the beginning of the whole great
treatise, it serves admirably as an introduction. It is clear, convincing and
interesting, and its eloquent peroration carries the reader on the central
portion of the work,, which begins with the fourth book. Except that the
second book has lost its exordium, for the same reason that the seventh has
lost its conclusion, to two books are complete as well as homogeneous. Of
the date nothing definite can be said. There is no sign of any special
interest in Arianism; and Hilary's leisure for a paper conflict with a dead
foe like Ebionism suggests that he was writing before the strife had reached

57

Gaul. The general tone of the two books is quite consistent with this; and
we may regard it as more probable than not that they were composed
before the exile; whether they were published at the time as a separate
treatise, or laid on one side for a while, cannot be known; the former
supposition is the more reasonable.

The remaining books, from the eighth to the twelfth, appear to have been
written continuously, with a view to their forming part of the present
connected whole. They were, no doubt, published separately, and they,
with books IV. to VII., may well be the letters (stripped, of course, in the
permanent shape of their epistolary accessories) which, Hilary feared,
were obtaining no recognition from his friends in Gaul. The last five have
certain references back to arguments in previous books, while these do not
refer forward, nor do the groups II. III. and IV. — VIII. refer to one another.
But books VIII. — XII. have also internal references, and promise that a
subject shall be fully treated in due course. We may therefore assume that,
when he began to write book VIII. , Hilary had already determined to make
use of his previous minor works, and that he now proceeded to complete
his task with constant reference to these. Evidences of exact date are here
again lacking; he writes as a bishop and as an exile, and under a most
pressing necessity. The preface to book VIII., with its description of the
dangers of the time and of Hilary's sense of the duty of a bishop, seems to
represent the state of mind in which he resolved to construct the present
De Trinitate. It is too emphatic for a mere transition from one step in a
continuous discussion to another. Regarding these last five books, then, as
written continuously, with one purpose and with one theological outlook,
we may fix an approximate date for them by two considerations. They
show, in books IX. and X., that he was thoroughly conscious of the
increasing peril of Apollinarianism. They show also, by their silence, that
he had determined to ignore what was one of the most obvious and
certainly the most offensive of the current modes of thought. There is no
refutation, except implicitly, and no mention of Anomoeanism, that
extreme Arianism which pronounced the Son unlike the Father. This can be
explained only in one way. We have seen that Hilary thinks Arianism
worth attack because it is an 'inward evil;' that he does not, except in early
and leisurely work such as book II., pay any attention to heresies which
were obviously outside the Church and had an organization of their own.

58

We have seen also that the Homoeans cast out their more honest
Anomoean brethren in 359. The latter made no attempt to retrieve their
position within the Church; they proceeded to establish a Church of their
own, which was, so they protested, the true one. It was under Jovian
(A.D. 362 — 363) that they consecrated their own bishop for
Constantinople; but the separation must have been visible for some time
before that decisive step was taken. Thus, when the De Trinitate took its
present form, Apollinarianism was risen above the Church's horizon and
Anomoeanism was sunk below it. We cannot, therefore, put the
completion of the work earlier than the remission of Hilary's exile; we
cannot, indeed, suppose that he had leisure to make it perfect except in his
home. Yet the work must have been for the most part finished before its
writer reached Italy on his return; and the issue or reissue of its several
portions was a natural, and certainly a powerful, measure towards the end
which he had at heart.

There remains the first book, which was obviously, as Erasmus saw, the
last to be composed. It is a survey of the accomplished task, beginning
with that account of Hilary's spiritual birth and growth which has already
been mentioned. This is a piece of writing examples of Roman eloquence.
Hooker, among English authors, is the one whom it most suggests. Then
there follows a brief summary of the argument of the successive books,
and a prayer for the success of the work. This reads, and perhaps it was
meant to read, as though it were a prayer that he might worthily execute a
plan which as yet existed only in his brain; but it may also be interpreted,
in the more natural sense, as a petition that his hope might not be
frustrated, and that his book might appear to others what he trusted, in his
own mind, that it was, true to Scripture, sound in logic, and written with
that lofty gravity which befitted the greatness of his theme.

After speaking of the construction of the work, as Hilary framed it,
something must be said of certain interpolations which it has suffered. The
most important are those at the end of book IX. and in X. 8, which flatly
contradict his teaching. They are obvious intrusions, imperfectly attested
by manuscript authority, and condemned by their own character. Hilary
was not the writer to stultify himself and confuse his readers by so clumsy
a device as that of appending a bald denial of its truth to a long and careful
exposition of his characteristic doctrine. Another passage, where the

59

scholarship seems to indicate the work of an inferior hand, is Trin. X. 40,
in which there is a singular misunderstanding of the Greek Testament. The
writer must have known Greek, for no manuscript of the Latin Bible
would have suggested his mistake, and therefore he must have written in
early days. It is even possible that Hilary himself was, for once, at fault in
his scholarship. Yet, at the most, the interpolations are few and, where
they seriously affect the sense, are easily detected. Not many authors of
antiquity have escaped so lightly in this respect as Hilary.

Hilary certainly intended his work to be regarded as a whole; as a treastise
Concerning the Faith, for it had grown into something more than a
refutation of Arianism. He has carefully avoided, so far as the
circumstances of the time and the composite character of the treatise
would allow him, any allusion to names and events of temporary interest;
there is, in fact, nothing more definite than a repetition of the wish
expressed in the Second Epistle to Constantius, that it were possible to
recur to the Baptismal formula as the authoritative statement of the Faith.
It is not, like the De Synodis, written with a diplomatic purpose; it is,
though cast inevitably in a controversial form, a statement of permanent
truths. This has involved the sacrifice of much that would have been of
immediate service, and deprived the book of a great part of its value as a
weapon in the conflicts of the day. But we can see, by the selection he
made of a document to controvert, that Hilary's choice was deliberate. It
was no recent creed, no confession to which any existing body of partisans
was pledged. He chose for refutation the Epistle of Arius to Alexander,
written almost forty years ago and destitute, it must have seemed, of any
but an historical interest. And it was no extreme statement of the Arian
position. This Epistle was 'far more temperate and cautious; than its
alternative, Arius' letter to Eusebius. The same wide outlook as is manifest
in this indifference to the interest of the moment is seen also in Hilary's
silence in regard to the names of friends and foes. Marcellus, Apollinaris,
Eudoxius, Acacius are a few of those whom it must have seemed that he
would do well to renounce as imagined friends who brought his cause
discredit, or bitter enemies to truth and its advocates. But here also he
refrains; no names are mentioned except those of men whose heresies were
already the commonplaces of controversy. And there is also an absolute
silence concerning the feuds and alliances of the day. No notice is taken of

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the loyalty of living confessors or the approximation to truth of
well-meaning waverers. The book contains no sign that it has any but a
general object; it is, as far as possible, an impersonal refutation of error and
statement of truth.

This was the deliberate purpose of Hilary, and he had certainly counted its
cost in immediate popularity and success. For though, as we have seen, the
work did produce, as it deserved, a considerable effect at the time of its
publication, it had remained ever since, in spite of all its merits, in a certain
obscurity. There can be no doubt that this is largely due to the Mezentian
union with such a document as Arius' Epistle to Alexander of the
decisively important section of the De Trinitate. The books in which that
Epistle in controverted were those of vital interest for the age; and the
method which Hilary's plan constrained him to adopt was such as to
invite younger theologians to compete with him. Future generations could
not be satisfied with his presentation of the case. And again, his plan of
refuting the Arian document point by point, contrasting as it does with the
free course of his thought in the earlier and later books, tends to repel the
reader. The fourth book proves from certain texts that the Son is God; the
fifth from the same texts that He is true God. Hence this part of the
treatise is pervaded by a certain monotony; a cumulative impression is
produced by out being led forward again and again along successive lines of
argument to the same point, beyond which we make no progress till the
last proof is stated. The work is admirably and convincingly done, but we
are glad to hear the last of the Epistle of Arius to Alexander, and
accompany Hilary in a less embarrassed enquiry.

Yet the whole work has defects of its own. It is burdened with much
repetition; subjects, especially, which have been treated in books II. and
III. are discussed again at great length in later books. The frequent stress
laid upon the infinity of God, the limitation of human speech and
knowledge, the consequent incompleteness of the argument from analogy,
the humility necessary when dealing with infinities apparently opposed,
though it adds to the solemnity of the writer's tone and was doubtless
necessary when the work was published in parts, becomes somewhat
tedious in the course of a continuous reading. And something must here be
said of the peculiarities of style. We saw that in places, as for instance in
the beginning of the De Trinitate, Hilary can rise to a singularly lofty

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eloquence. This eloquence is not merely the unstudied utterance of an
earnest faith, but the expression given to it by one whom natural talent and
careful training had made a master of literary form. Yet, since his training
was that of an age whose standard of taste was far from classical purity,
much that must have seemed to him and to his contemporaries to be
admirably effective can excite no admiration now. He prays, at the end of
the first book, that his diction may be worthy of his theme, and doubtless
his effort was a sincere as his prayer. Had there been less effort, there
would certainly, in the judgment of a modern reader, have been more
success. But he could not foresee the future, and ingenious affectations
such as occur at the end of book VIII. § I, impietati insolenti, et insolentiae
vaniloquoe, et vaniloquio seducenti, with the jingle of rhymes which
follows, are too frequent for our taste in his pages. Sometimes we find
purple patches which remind us of the rhetoric of Apuleius; sometimes an
excessive display of symmetry and antithesis, which suggests to us St.
Cyprian at his worst. Yet Cyprian had the excuse that all his writings are
short occasional papers written for immediate effect; neither he, nor any
Latin Christian before Hilary, had ventured to construct a great treastise of
theology, intended to influence future ages as well as the present. Another
excessive development of rhetoric is the abuse of apostrophe, which
Hilary sometimes rides almost to death, as in his addresses to the
Fisherman, St. John, in the second book. These blemishes, however, do not
seriously affect his intelligibility. He has earned, in this as in greater
matters, an unhappy reputation for obscurity, which he has, to a certain
extent, deserved. His other writings, even the Commentary on St.
Matthew, are free from the involved language which sometimes makes the
De Trinitate hard to understand, and often hard to read with pleasure.
When Hilary was appealing to the Emperor, or addressing his own flock,
as in the Homilies on the Psalms, he has command of a style which is
always clear, stately on occasion, never weak or bald; in these cases he
resisted, or did not feel, the temptation to use the resources of his rhetoric.
These, unfortunately, had for then result the production of sentences
which are often marvels of grammatical contortion and elliptical ingenuity.
Yet such sentence, though numerous, are of few and uniform types. In
Hilary's case, as in that of Tertullian, familiarity makes the reader so
accustomed to them that he instinctively expects their recurrence; and, at
their worst, they are never actual breaches of the laws of the language. A

62

translator can hardly be an impartial judge in this matter, for constantly, in
passages where the sense is perfectly clear, the ingenuity with which
words and constructions are arranged makes it almost impossible to render
their meaning in idiomatic terms. One can translate him out of Latin, but
not into English. In this he resembles one of the many styles of St.
Augustine. There are passages in the.De Trinitate, for instance VIII. 27, 28,
which it would seem that Augustine had deliberately imitated; a course
natural enough in the case of one who was deeply indebted to his
predecessor's thought, and must have looked with reverence upon the
great pioneer of systematic theology in the Latin tongue. But this
involution of style, irritating as it sometimes is, has the compensating
advantage that it keeps the reader constantly on the alert. He cannot skim
these pages in the comfortable delusion that he is following the course of
thought without much effort.

The same attention which Hilary demands from his readers has obviously
been bestowed upon the work by himself. It is the selected and
compressed result not only of his general study of theology, but of his
familiarity with the literature and the many phases of the great Arian
controversy. And he makes it clear that he is engaged in no mere conflict of
wit; his passionate loyalty to the person of Christ is the obvious motive of
his writing. He has taken his side with full conviction, and he is equally
convinced that his opponents have irrevocably taken theirs. There is little
or no reference to the existence or even the possibility of doubt, no
charitable construction for ambiguous creeds, hardly a word of pleading
with those in error. There is no excuse for heresy; it is mere insanity, when
it is not willful self-destruction or deliberate blasphemy. The battle is one
without quarter; and sometimes, we must suspect, Hilary has been misled
in argument by the uncompromising character of the conflict. Every reason
advanced for a pernicious belief, he seems to think, must itself be bad, and
be met with a direct negative. And again, in the heat of warfare he is led to
press his arguments too far. Not only is the best and fullest use of
Scripture made — for Hilary, like Athanasius, is marvelously imbued with
its spirit as well as familiar with its letter — but texts are pressed into his
service, and interpreted sometimes with brilliant ingenuity, which cannot
bear the meaning assigned them. Yet much of this exegesis must be laid to
the charge of his time, not of himself; and in the De Trinitate, as contrasted

63

with the Homilies on the Psalms; he is wisely sparing in the use of
allegorical interpretations. He remembers that he is refuting enemies, not
conversing with friends. And his belief in their conscious insincerity leads
to a certain hardness of tone. They will escape his conclusions if they
possibly can; he must pin them down. Hence texts are sometimes treated,
and deductions drawn from them, as though they were postulates of
geometry; and, however we may admire the machine-like precision and
completeness of the proof, we feel that we are reading Euclid rather than
literature. But his also is due to that system of exegesis, fatal to any
recognition of the eloquence and poetry of Scripture, of which something
will be said in the next chapter.

These, after all, are but pretty flaws in so great a work. Not only as a
thinker, but as a pioneer of thought, whose treasures have enriched, often
unrecognized, the pages of Ambrose and Augustine and all later
theologians, he deserves our reverence. Not without reason was he ranked,
within a generation of his death, with Cyprian and Ambrose, as one of the
three chief glories of Western Christendom. Jerome and Augustine mention
him frequently and with honor. This is not the place to summarize or
discuss the contents of his works; but the reader cannot fail to recognize
their great and varied value, the completeness of this refutation of current
heresies, the convincing character of his presentation of the truth, and the
originality, restrained always by scrupulous reverence as well as by
intellectual caution, of his additions to the speculative development of the
Faith. We recognize also the tenacity with which, encumbered as he was
with the double task of simultaneously refuting Arianism and working out
his own thoughts, he has adhered to the main issues. He never wanders
into detail, but keeps steadfastly to his course. He refrains, for instance,
from all consideration of the results which Arianism might produce upon
the superstructure of the Faith and upon the conduct of Christians; they
are undermining the foundations, and he never forgets that it is these which
he has undertaken to strengthen and defend. Our confidence in him as a
guide is increased by the eminently businesslike use which he makes of his
higher qualities. This is obvious in the smallest of details, as, for instance,
in his judicious abstinence, which will be considered in the next chapter,
from the use of technical terms of theology, when their employment would
have made his task easier, and might even to superficial minds, have

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enhanced his reputation. We see it also in the talent which he shows in the
choice of watchwords, which serve both to enliven his pages and to guide
the reader through their argument. Such is the frequent antithesis of the
orthodox unitas with the heretical unio, the latter a harmless word in itself
and used by Tertullian indifferently with the former, but seized by the
quick intelligence of Hilary to serve this special end; such also, the
frequent 'Not two Gods but One,' and the more obvious contrast between
the Catholic unum and the Arian unus. Thus, in excellence of literary
workmanship, in sustained cogency and steady progress of argument, in
the full use made of rare gifts of intellect and heart, we must recognize that
Hilary has brought his great undertaking to a successful issue; that the
voyage beset with many perils, to use his favorite illustration, has safely
ended in the haven of Truth and Faith.

Whether the De Trinitate were complete or not at the time of his return to
Poitiers, after the triumphal passage through Italy, its publication in its
final form must very shortly have followed. But literature was, for the
present, to claim only the smaller share of his attention. Heartily as he
must have rejoiced to be again in his home, he had many anxieties to face.
The bishops of Gaul, as we saw from the Invective against Constantius,
had been less militant against their Arian neighbors than he had wished.
There had been peace in the Church; such peace as could be produced by a
mutual ignoring of differences. And it may well be that the Gallican
bishops, in their prejudice against the East, thought that Hilary himself had
gone too far in the path of conciliation, and that his alliance with the
Semarians was a much longer step towards compromise with heresy than
their own prudent neutrality. Each side must have felt that there was
something to be explained. Hilary, for his part, by the publication of the
De Trinitate had made it perfectly clear that his faith was above suspicion;
and his abstinence in that work from all mention of existing parties or
phrases of the controversy showed that he had withdrawn from his earlier
position. He was now once more a Western bishop, concerned only with
absolute truth and the interests of the Church in his own province. But he
had to reckon with the sterner champions of the Nicene faith, who had not
forgotten the De Synodis, however much they might approve the De
Trinitate. Some curious fragments survive of the Apology which he was
driven to write by the attacks of Lucifer of Cagliari. Lucifer, one of the

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exiles of Milan, was an uncompromising partisan, who could recognize no
distinctions among those who did not accept the Nicene Creed. All were
equally bad in his eyes; no explaining away of differences or attempt at
conciliation was lawful. In days to come he was to be a thorn in the side of
Athanasius, and was to end his life in a schism which he formed because
the Catholic Church was not sufficiently exclusive. We, who know his
after history and turn with repugnance from the monotonous railing with
which his writings, happily brief, are filled, may be disposed to
underestimate the man. But at the time he was a formidable antagonist. He
had the great advantage of being one of the little company of confessors of
the Faith, whom all the West admired. He represented truly enough the
feeling of the Latin Churches, now that the oppression of their leaders had
awakened their hostility to Arianism. And vigorous abuse, such as the
facile pen of Lucifer could pour fourth, is always interesting when
addressed to prominent living men, stale though it becomes when the
passions of the moment are no longer felt. Lucifer's protest is lost, but we
may gather from the fragments of Hilary's reply that it was milder in tone
than was usual with him. Indeed, confessor writing to confessor would
naturally use the language of courtesy. But it was an arraignment of the
policy which Hilary had adopted, and in which he had failed, though
Athanasius was soon to resume it with better success. And courteously as
it may have been worded, it cannot have been pleasant for Hilary to be
publicly reminded of his failure, and to have doubts cast upon his
consistency; least of all when he was returning to Gaul with new hopes,
but also with new difficulties. His reply, so far as we can judge of it from
the fragments which remain, was of a tone which would be counted
moderate in the controversies of today. He addresses his opponent as
'Brother Lucifer,' and patiently explains that he had been misunderstood.
There is no confession that he had been in the wrong, though he fully
admits that the term homoiousion, innocently used by his Eastern friends,
was employed by others in a heretical sense. And he point out that Lucifer
himself had spoken of the 'likeness' of Son and Father, probably alluding
to a passage in his existing writings. The use of this tu quoque argument,
and a certain apologetic strain which is apparent in the reply, seem to
show that Hilary felt himself at a disadvantage. He must have wished the
Asiatic episode to be forgotten; he had now to make his weight felt in the

66

West, where he had good hope that a direct and uncompromising attack
upon Arianism would be successful.

For a great change was taking place in public affairs. When Hilary left
Constantinople, early in the spring of the year 360, it was probably a
profound secret in the capital that a rupture between Constantius and
Julian was becoming inevitable. In affairs, civil and ecclesiastical, the
Emperor, and his favorite, the bishop Saturninus, must have seemed secure
of their dominance in Gaul. But events moved rapidly. Constantius needed
troops to strengthen the Eastern armies, never adequate to an emergency,
for an impending war with Persia; he may also have desired to weaken the
forces of Julian. He demanded me; those whom Julian detached for Eastern
service refused to march, and proclaim Julian Emperor at Paris. This was
in May, some months, at the least, before Hilary, delayed by his Italian
labors in the cause of orthodoxy, can have reached home. Julian
temporized, he kept up negotiations with Constantius, and employed his
army in frontier warfare. But there could be no doubt of the issue. Conflict
was inevitable, and the West could have little fear as to the result. The
Western armies were the strongest in the Empire; it was with them, in the
last great trial of strength, Constantine the Great had won the day, and the
victory of his nephew, successful and popular both as a commander and an
administrator, must have been anticipated. Julian's march against
Constantius did not commence till the summer of the year 361; but long
before this the rule of Constantius and the theological system for which he
stood had been rejected by Gaul. The bishops had not shunned Saturninus,
as Hilary had desired; most of them had been induced to give their sanction
to Arianism at the Council of Rimini. While overshadowed by Constantius
and his representative Saturninus, they had not dared to assert themselves.
But now the moment was come, and with it the leader. Hilary's arrival in
Gaul must have taken place when the conflict was visibly impending, and
he can have had no hesitation as to the side he should take. Julian's rule in
Gaul began but a few months before his exile, and they had probably never
met face to face. But Julian had a well earned reputation as a righteous
governor and Hilary had introduced his name into his second appeal to
Constantius, as a witness to his character and as suffering in fame by the
injustice of Constantius. We must remember that Julian had kept his
paganism carefully concealed, and that all the world, except a few intimate

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friends, took it for granted that the was, as the high standard of his life
seemed to indicate, a sincere Christian. And now he had displaced
Constantius in the supreme rule over Gaul, and Saturninus, who had by
this time returned, was powerless. We cannot wonder that Hilary
continued his efforts; that he went through the land, everywhere inducing
the bishops to abjure their own confession made at Rimini. This the
bishops, for their part, were certainly willing to do; they were no Arians at
heart, and their treatment at Rimini, followed as it was by a fraudulent
misrepresentation of the meaning of their words, must have aroused their
just resentment. Under the rule of Julian there was no risk of , there was
even an advantage, in showing their colors; it set them right both with the
new Emperor and with public opinion. But it was not enough for Hilary's
purpose that the 'inward evil' of a wavering faith should be amended; it
was also necessary that avowed heresy should be expelled. For this the
cooperation of Julian was necessary; and before it was granted Julian might
naturally look for some definite pronouncement on Hilary's part. To this
conjuncture, in the latter half of the year 360 or the earlier part of 361, we
may best assign the publication of the Invective, already described, against
Constantius. It was a renunciation of allegiance to his old master, not the
less clear because the new is not mentioned. And with the name of
Constantius was coupled that of Saturninus, as he abettor in tyranny and
misbelief. Julian recognized the value of the Catholic alliance by giving
effect to the decision of a Council held at Paris, which deposed Saturninus.
Hilary had no ecclesiastical authority to gather such a Council, but his
character and the eminence of his services no doubt rendered his colleagues
willing to follow him; yet neither he nor they would have acted as they did
without the assurance of Julian's support. Their action committed them
irrevocably to Julian's cause; and it must have seemed that his expulsion of
Saturninus committed him irrevocably to the orthodox side. Yet Julian,
impartially disbelieving both creeds, had made the ostensible cause of
Saturninus' exile, not his errors of faith, but some of those charges of
misconduct which were always forthcoming when a convenient excuse was
wanted for the banishment of a bishop. Saturninus was a man of the world,
and very possibly his Arianism was only assumed in aid of his ambition; it
is likely enough that his conduct furnished sufficient grounds for his
punishment. The fall of its chief, Sulpicius Severus says, destroyed the
party. The other Arian prelates, who must have been few in number,

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submitted to the orthodox tests, with one exception. Paternus of Perigord,
a man of no fame, had the courage of his convictions. He stubbornly
asserted his belief, and shared the fate of Saturnius. Thus Hilary obtained,
what he had failed to get in the case of the more prominent offender, a clear
precedent for the deposition of bishops guilty of Arianism. The synodical
letter, addressed to the Eastern bishops in reply to letters which some of
them had sent to Hilary since his return, was incorporated by him in his
History, to be mentioned hereafter. The bishops of Gaul assert their
orthodoxy, hold Auxentius, Balens, Ursacius and their like excommunicate,
and have just excommunicated Saturninus. By his action at paris, so
Sulpicius says, Hilary earned the glory that it was by his single exertions
that the provinces of Gaul were cleansed from the defilements of heresy.

These events happened before Julian left the country, in the middle of the
summer of 361, on his march against Constantius; or at least, if the actual
proceedings were subsequent to his departure, they must have quickly
followed it, for his sanction was necessary, and when that was obtained
there was no motive for delay. And now, for some years, Hilary
disappears from sight. He tells us nothing in his writings of the ordinary
course of his life and work; even his informal and discursive Homilies cast
no light upon his methods of administration, his successes or failures, and
very little on the character of his flock. There was no further conflict
within the Church of Gaul during Hilary's lifetime. The death of
Constantius, which happened before Julian could meet him in battle,
removed all political anxiety. Julian himself was too busy with the revival
of paganism in the East to concern himself seriously with its promotion in
the Latin- speaking provinces, from which he was absent, and for which he
cared less. The orthodox cause in Gaul did not suffer by his apostasy. His
short reign was followed by the still briefer rule of the Catholic Jovian.
Next came Valentinian, personally orthodox, but steadily refusing to allow
depositions on account of doctrine. Under him Arianism dwindled away;
Catholic successors were elected to to Arian prelates, and the process
would have been hastened but by a few years had Hilary been permitted to
expel Auxentius from Milan, as we shall presently see him attempting to
do.

This was his last interference in the politics of the Church, and does not
concern us as yet. His chief interest henceforth was to be in literary work;

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in popularizing and, as he thought, improving upon the teaching of Origen.
He commented upon the book of Job, as we know from Jerome and
Augustine. The former says that this, and his work on the Psalms, were
translations from Origen. But that is far from an accurate account of the
latter work, and may be equally inaccurate concerning the former. The two
fragments which St. Augustine has preserved from the Commentary on
Job are so short that we cannot draw from them any conclusion as to the
character of the book. If we may trust Jerome, its length was somewhat
more than a quarter of that of the Homilies on the Psalms, in their present
form. It is unfortunate, but not surprising, that the work should have fallen
into oblivion. It was, no doubt, allegorical in its method, and nothing of
that kind could survive in competition with Gregory the Great' s inimitable
Moralia on Job.

Hilary's other adaptation from Origen, the Homilies on the Psalms,
happily remains to us. It is at least a great work as the De Trinitate, and
one from which we can learn even more what manner of man its writer
was. For the De Trinitate is an appeal to all thoughtful Christians of the
time, and written for future generations as well as for them; characteristic,
as it is, in many ways of the author, the compass of the work and the
stateliness of its rhetoric tend to conceal his personality. But the Homilies
on the Psalms, which would seem to have reached us in the notes of a
shorthand writer, so artless and conversational is the style, show us Hilary
in another aspect. He is imparting instruction to his own familiar
congregation; and he knows his people so well that he pours out whatever
is passing through his mind. In fact, he seems often to be thinking aloud on
subjects which interest him rather than addressing himself to the needs of
his audience. Practical exhortation has, indeed, a much smaller space than
mystical exegesis and speculative Christology. Yet abstruse questions are
never made more obscure by involution of style. The language is free and
flowing, always that of an educated man who has learned facility by
practice. And here, strange as it seems to a reader of the De Trinitate, he
betrays a preference for poetic words, which shows that his renunciation
of such ornament elsewhere is deliberate. Yet, even here, he indulges in no
definite reminiscences of the poets.

There remains only one trace, though it is sufficient, of the original
circumstances of delivery. The Homily on Psalm 14. begins with the

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words, 'The Psalm which has been read.' The Psalms were sung as an act
of worship, not read as a lesson, in the normal course of divine service; and
therefore we must assume that the Psalm to be expounded was recited, by
the lector or another, as an introduction to the Homily. We need not by
surprised that such notices, which must have seemed to possess no
permanent interest, have been edited away. Many of the Homilies are too
long to have been delivered on one or even two occasions, yet the
ascription of praise with which Hilary, like Origen, always concludes has
been omitted in every case except at the end of the whole discourse. This
shows that Hilary himself, or more probably some editor, has put the
work into its final shape. But this editing of the Homilies has not extended
to the excision of the numerous repetitions, which were natural enough
when Hilary was delivering each as a commentary complete in itself, and
do not offend us when we read the discourse on a single Psalm, though
they certainly disfigure the work when regarded as a treatise on the whole
Psalter.

It is probably due to the accidents of time that our present copies of the
Homilies are imperfect. We are, indeed, better off than was Jerome. His
manuscript contained Homilies on Psalms 1, 2, 51 — 62, 118 — 150,
according to the Latin notation. We have, in addition to these, Homilies
which are certainly genuine on Psalms 13, 14, 63 — 69; and others on the
titles of Psalms 9 and 91, which are probably spurious. Some more
Homilies of uncertain origin which have been fathered upon Hilary, and
may be found in the editions, may be left out of account. In the Homily on
Psalm 59, § 2, he mentions one, unknown to Jerome as to ourselves, on
Psalm 44; and this allusion, isolated though it is, suggests that the Homilies
contained, or were meant to contain, a commentary on the whole Book of
Psalms, composed in the order in which they stand. There is, of course,
nothing strange in the circulation in Cyprian which did not contain an
epistle which has come down to us. This series of Homilies was probably
continuous as well as c complete. The incidental allusions to the events of
the Psalter and went on to the end. We might, indeed, construe the
language of that on Psalm 52, § 13, concerning prosperous clergy, who
heap up wealth for themselves and live in luxury, as an allusion to men like
Saturninus, but the passage is vague, and a vivid recollection, not a present
evil, may have suggested it. More definite, and indeed, a clear not of time,

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is the Homily of Psalm 63, where heathenism is aggressive and is become a
real danger, of which Hilary speaks in the same terms as he does of heresy.
This contrasts strongly with such language as that of the Homily on Psalm
67, § 20, where the heathens are daily flocking into the Church, or of that
on Psalm 137, § 10, where paganism has collapsed, its temples are ruined
and its oracles silent; such words as the former could only have been
written in the short reign of Julian. Other indications, such as the frequent
warnings against heresy and denunciations of heretics, are too general to
help in fixing the date. On the whole, it would seem a reasonable
hypothesis that Hilary began his connected series of Homilies on the
Psalms soon after his return to Gaul, that he had made good progress with
them when Julian publicly apostatized, and that they were not completed
till the better times of Valentinian

He was conversing in pastoral intimacy with this people, and hence we
cannot be surprised that he draws, perhaps unconsciously, on the results
of his own previous labors. For instance, on Psalm 61, § 2, he gives what is
evidently a reminiscence, yet with features of its own and not as a
professed autobiography, of his mental history as described in the opening
of the De Trinitate. And while the direct controversy against Arianism is
not avoided, there is a manifest preference for the development of Hilary's
characteristic Christology, which had already occupied him in the later
books of the De Trinitate. We must, indeed, reconstruct his doctrine in this
respect even more from the Homilies than from the De Trinitate; and in the
alter work he not only expands what he had previously suggested, but
throws out still further suggestions which he had not the length of life to
present in a more perfect form. But the Homilies contain much that is of
far less permanent interest. Wherever he can, he brings in the mystical
interpretation of numbers, that strange vagary of the Eastern mind which
had, at least from the time of Irenaeus and the Epistle of Barnabas, found a
congenial home in Christian thought. This and other distortions of the
sense of Scripture, which are the result in Hilary, as in Origen, of a prosaic
rather than a poetical turn of mind, will find a more appropriate place for
discussion at the beginning of the next chapter. Allusions to the mode of
worship of his time are very rare, as are detail of contemporary life. Of
general encouragement to virtue and denunciation of vice there is
abundance, and it repeats with striking fidelity the teaching of Cyprian.

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Hilary displays the same Puritanism in regard to jewelry as does Cyprian,
and the same abhorrence of public games and spectacles. Of these three
elements, the Christology, the mysticism, the moral teaching, the Homilies
are mainly compact. They carry on no sustained argument and contain, as
has been said, a good deal of repetition. In fact, a continuous reader will
probably form a worse impression of their quality than he who is satisfied
with a few pages at a time. They are eminently adapted for selection, and
the three Homilies, those on Psalms 1, 53, and 130, which have been
translated for this volume, may be inadequate, yet are fairly representative,
as specimens of the instruction which Hilary conveys in this work.

It has been said that the practical teaching of Hilary is that of Cyprian. But
this is not a literary debt; the writer to whom almost all the exegesis is due,
by borrowing of substance or of method, is Origen, except where the spirit
of the fourth century has been at work. Yet others authors have been
consulted, and this is not for general information, as in the case, already
cited, of the elder Pliny, but for interpretation of the Psalms. For instance,
a strange legend concerning Mount Hersom is cited on Psalm 132, § 6,
from a writer whose name Hilary does not know; and on Psalm 133, § 4,
he has consulted several writers and rejects the opinion of them all. But
these authorities, whoever they may have been, were of little importance
for his purpose in comparison with Origen. Still we can only accept
Jerome's assertion that the Homilies are translated from Origen in a
qualified sense. Hilary was writing for the edification of his own flock, and
was obliged to modify much that Origen had said if he would serve their
needs, for religious thought had changed rapidly in the century which lay
between the two, and a mere translation would have been as coldly
received as would a reprint of some commentary of the age of George II.
today. And Hilary's was a mind too active and independent to be the slave
of a traditional interpretation We must, therefore, expect to find a
considerable divergence; and we cannot be surprised that Hilary, as he
settle down to his task, grew more and more free in his treatment of
Origen' s exegesis.

Unhappily the remains of Origen' s work upon the Psalms, though
considerable, are fragmentary, and of the fragments scattered through
Catenoe no complete or critical edition has yet been made. Still,
insufficient as the material would be for a detailed study and comparison,

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enough survives to enable us to form a general idea of the relation between
the two writers. Origen composed Homilies upon the Psalter, a
Commentary upon it, and a summary treatise, called the Enchiridion. The
first of these works was Hilary's model; Origen' s Homilies were diffused
extemporary expositions, ending like Hilary's, with an ascription of praise.
It is unfortunate that, of the few which survive, all treat of Psalms on
which Hilary's Homilies are lost. But it is doubtful whether Hilary knew
the other writings of Origen upon the Psalter. We have ourselves a very
small knowledge of them, for the Cateane are not in the habit of giving
more than the name of the author whom they cite. Yet it may well be that
some of the apparent discrepancies between the explanations given by
Hilary and by Origen are due to the loss of the passage from Origen' s
Homily which would have agreed with Hilary, and to the survival of the
different rendering given in the Commentary or the Enchiridion; some, no
doubt, are also due to the carelessness and even dishonesty of the
compilers of Catenoe in stating the authorship of their selections. But
though it is possible that Hilary had access to all Origen' s writings on the
Psalms, there is not reason to suppose that he possessed a copy of his
Hexepla. The only translation of the Old Testament which he names
beside the Septuagint is that of Aquila; he is aware that there are others,
but none save the Septunagint has authority or deserves respect, and his
rare allusions to them are only such as we find in Origen' s Homilies, and
imply no such exhaustive knowledge of the variants as a possessor of the
Hexapla would have.

A comparison of the two writers shows the closeness of their relation, and
if we had Origen' s complete Homilies, and not mere excerpts, the debt of
Hilary would certainly be still more manifest. For the compilers of
Catenoe have naturally selected what was best in Origen, and most suited
for short extracts; his eccentricities have been in great measure omitted.
Hence we may err in attributing to Hilary much that is perverse in his
comments; there is an abundance of wild mysticism in the fragments of
Origen, but its proportion to the whole is undoubtedly less in their present
state than in their original condition. Hilary's method was that of
paraphrasing, not of servile translation. There is apparently only one
literal rendering of an extant passage of Origen, and that a short one; but
paraphrases, which often become very diffuse expansions, are constant.

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But a just comparison between the two must embrace their differences as
well as their resemblances. Hilary has exercised a silent criticism in
omitting many of Origen's textual disquisitions. He gives, it is true, many
various readings, but his confidence in the Septuagint often renders him
indifferent in regard to divergences which Origen had taken seriously. The
space which the latter devotes to the Greek versions Hilary employs in
correcting the errors and variations of the Latin, or in explaining the
meaning of Greek words. But these are matters which rather belong to the
next chapter, concerning, as they do, Hilary's attitude towards Scripture.
It is more significant of his tone of mind that he has omitted Origen's
speculations on the resurrection of the body, preserved by Epiphanius,
and on the origin of evil. Again, Origen delights to give his readers a choice
of interpretations; Hilary chooses one of those which Origen has given,
and makes no mention to the other. This is his constant habit in the earlier
part of the Homilies; towards the end, however, he often gives a rendering
of his own, and also mentions, either as possible or as wrong, that which
Origen had offered. Or else, though he only makes his own suggestion, yet
it us obvious to those who have Origen at hand that he has in his mind, and
is refuting for his own satisfaction, an alternative which he does not think
good to lay before his audience. A similar liberty with his original occurs in
the Homily on Psalm 135, § 12: — 'The purposes of the present discourse
and of this place forbid us to search more deeply.' This must have seemed
a commonplace to his hearers; but it happens that Origen's speculations
upon the passage have survived, and we can see that Hilary was rather
making excuses to himself for his disregard of them than directly
addressing his congregation. Apart from the numerous instances where
Hilary derives a different result from the same data, there are certain cases
where he accepts the current Latin text, though it differed from Origen's
Greek, and draws, without any reference to Origen, his own conclusions as
to the meaning. These, again, seem to be confined to the latter part of the
work, and may be the result of occasional neglect to consult the
authorities, rather than a deliberate departure from Origen's teaching.

But the chief interest of the comparison between the writings of these two
Fathers upon the Psalms lies in the insight which it affords into their
respective modes of thought. Fragmentary as they are, Origen's words are
a manifestly genuine and not inadequate expression of his mind; and

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Hilary, a recognized authority and conscious of his powers, has so molded
and transformed his original, now adapting and now rejecting, that he has
made it, even on the ground which is common to both, a true and sufficient
representation of his own mental attitude. The Romans contrasts broadly
with the Greek. He constantly illustrates his discourse with historical
incidents of Scripture, taken in their literal sense; there are few such in
Origen. Origen is full, as usual, of praises of the contemplative state; in
speculation upon Divine things consists for him the happiness everywhere
promised to the saints. Hilary ignores abstract speculation, whether as a
method of interpretation or as a hope for the future, and actually describes
the contemplation of God's dealings with men as merely one among other
modes of preparation for eternal blessings. In the same discourse he
paraphrases the words of Origen, 'He who has done all things that conduce
to the knowledge of God,' by 'They who have the abiding sense of a
cleansed heart.' Though he is the willing slave of the allegorical method,
yet he revolts from time to time against its excesses in Origen; their
treatment of Psalm 126, in the one case practical, in the other mystical, is a
typical example. Hilary's attention is fixed on concrete things; the enemies
denounced in the Psalms mean for him the heretics of the day, while
Origen had recognized in them the invisible agency of evil spirits. The
words 'Who teacheth my hand to fight' suggest to Origen intellectual
weapons and victories; they remind Hilary of the T have overcome the
world' of Christ. In fact, the thought of Hilary was so charged with
definite convictions concerning Christ, and so impressed with their
importance that his very earnestness and concentration betrays him into
error of interpretation. It would be an insufficient, yet not a false, contrast
between him and Origen to say that the latter distorts, with an almost
playful ingenuity, the single words or phrases of Scripture, while Hilary,
with masterful indifference to the principles of exegesis, will force a whole
chapter to render the sense which he desires. And his obvious sincerity,
his concentration of thought upon one great and always interesting
doctrine, his constant appeal to what seems to be, and sometimes is, the
exact sense of Scripture, and the vigor of his style, far better adapted to its
purpose than that of Origen; all these render him an even more convincing
exponent than the other of the bad system of interpretation which both
have adopted. Sound theological deductions and wise moral reflections on
every page make the reader willing to pardon a vicious method, for

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Hilary's doctrine is never based upon his exegesis of the Psalms. No
primary truth depends for him upon allegory or mysticism, and it may be
that he used the method with the less caution because he looked for
nothing more than that it should illustrate and confirm what was already
established. Since, then, the permanent interest of the work is that it
shows us what seemed to Hilary, as a representative of his age, to be the
truth, and we have in it a powerful and original presentation of that truth,
we can welcome, as a quaint and not ungraceful enlivening of his argument,
this ingenuity of misinterpretation. And we may learn also a lesson for
ourselves of the importance of the doctrine which he inculcates with such
perseverance. Confronting him as it did, in various aspects, at every turn
and in the most unlikely places during his journey through the Psalter, his
faith concerning Christ was manifestly in Hilary's eyes the vital element of
religion.

The Homilies on the Psalms have never been a popular work. Readable as
they are, and free from most of the difficulties which beset the De
Trinitate, posterity allowed them to be mutilated, and, as we saw, only a
portion has come down to us. Their chief influence, like that of the other
treatise, has been that which Hilary has exercised through them upon
writers of greater fame. Ambrose has borrowed from them liberally and
quite uncritically for his own exposition of certain of the Psalms; and
Ambrose, accredited by his own fame and that of his greater friend
Augustine, has quite overshadowed the fame of Hilary. The Homilies may,
perhaps, have also suffered from an undeserved suspicion that anything
written by the author of the De Trinitate would be hard to read. They
have, in any case, been little read; and yet, as the first important example
in Latin literature of the allegorical method, and as furnishing the staple of
a widely studied work of St. Ambrose, they have profoundly affected the
course of Christian thought. Their historical interest as well as their
intrinsic value commands our respect.

In his Homily on Psalm 138, § 4, Hilary briefly mentions to Patriarches as
examples of faith, and adds, 'but these are matters of which we must
discourse more suitable and fully in their proper place.' This is a promise
to which till of late no known work of our writer corresponded. Jerome
had, indeed, informed us that Hilary had composed a treatise entitled De
Mysteriis, but no one had connected it with his words in the Homily. It

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had been supposed that the lost treatise dealt with the sacraments, in spite
of the facts that it is Hilary's custom to speak of types as mysteries,' and
that the sacraments are a theme upon which he never dwells. But in 1887 a
great portion of Hilary's actual treatise on the Mysteries was recovered in
the same manuscript which contained the more famous Pilgrimage to the
Holy Places of Silvia of Aquitaine. It is a short treatise of two books,
unhappily mutilated at the beginning, in the middle and near the end,
though the peroration has survived. The title is lost, but there is no reason
to doubt that Jerome was nearly right in calling it a tractaius, though he
would have done better had he used the plural. It is written in the same
easy style as the Homilies on the Psalms, and if it was not originally
delivered as two homilies, as is probable, it must be a condensation of
several discourses into a more compact form. The first book deals with the
Patriarchs, the second with the Prophets, regarded as types of Christ. The
whole is written from the point of view with which Hilary's other
writings have made us familiar. Every deed recorded in Scripture proclaims
or typifies or proves the advent of the incarnate Christ, and it is Hilary's
purpose to display the whole of his work as reflected in the Old
Testament, like image in a mirror. He begins with Adam and goes on the
Moses, deriving lessons from the lives of all the chief characters, often
with an exercise of great ingenuity. For instance, in the history of the Fall
Eve is the Church, which is sinful but shall be saved through bearing
children in Baptism; the burning bush is a type of the endurance of the
Church, of which St. Paul speaks in 2 Corinthians 4:8; the manna was
found in the morning, the time of Christ's Resurrection and therefore of
the reception of heavenly food in the Eucharist. They who collect too
much are heretics with their excess of argument. In the second book we
have a fragmentary and desultory treatment of incidents in the lives of the
Prophets, which Hilary ends by saying that in all the events which he has
recorded we recognize 'God the Father and God the son, and God the Son
from God the Father, Jesus Christ, God and Man.' The peroration, in fact,
reads like a summary of the argument of the De Trinitate. Of the
genuineness of the little work there can be no doubt. Its language, its plan
its arguments are unmistakably those of Hilary. The homilies were
probably delivered soon after he had finished his course on the Psalms, of
which they contain some reminiscences, such as we say are found in the
later Homilies on the Psalms of earlier passages in the same. In all

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probability the subject matter of the De Mysteriis is mainly drawn from
Origen. It is too short, and too much akin to Hilary's more important
writings, to cast much light upon his modes of thought. He has, indeed, no
occasion to speak here upon the points on which his teaching is most
original and characteristic.

In this same manuscript, discovered by Gamurrini at Arezzo, are the
remains of what professes to be Hilary's collection of hymns. He has
always had the fame of being the earliest Latin hymn writer. This was,
indeed, a task which the circumstances of his life must have suggested to
him. The conflict with Arianism forced him to become the pioneer of
systematic theology in the Latin tongue; it also drove him into exile in the
East, where he must have acquainted himself with the controversial use
made of hymnody by the Arians. Thus it was natural that he should have
introduced hymns also into the West. But if the De Trinitate had little
success, the hymns were still more unfortunate. Jerome tells us that Hilary
complained of finding the Gauls unteachable in sacred song; and there is no
reason to suppose that he had any wide of permanent success in
introducing hymns into public worship. If Hilary must have the credit of
originality in this respect, the honor of turning his suggestion to account
belongs to Ambrose, whose fame in more respects than one is built upon
foundations laid by the other. And if but a scanty remnant of the verse of
Ambrose, popular as it was, survives, we cannot be surprised that not a
line remains which can safely be attributed to Hilary, though authorities
who deserve have pronounced in favor of more than one of the five hymns
we must consider.

Hilary's own opinion concerning the use of hymns can best be learned
from his Homilies of Psalms 64 and 65. In the former (§ 12) the Church's
delightful exercise of singing hymns at morning and evening is one of the
chief tokens which she has of God's mercy towards her. In the latter (§ 1)
we are told that sacred song requires the accompaniment of instrumental
harmonies; that the combination to this end different forms of service and
of art produces a result acceptable to God. The lifting of the voice to God
in exultation, as an act of spiritual warfare against the devil and his hosts,
is given as an example of the uses of hymnody (§ 4). It is a means of
putting the enemy to flight; 'Whoever he be that takes his post outside the
Church, let him hear the voice of the people at their prayers, let him mark

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the multitudinous sound of our hymns, and in the performance of the
divine Sacraments let him recognize the responses which out loyal
confession makes. Every adversary must needs be affrighted, the devil
routed, death conquered in the faith of the Resurrection, by such jubilant
utterance of our exultant voice. The enemy will know that this gives
pleasure to God and assurance to our hope, even this public and
triumphant raising of our voice in song.' Original composition, both of
words and music, is evidently in Hilary's mind; and we can see that he is
rather recommending a useful novelty than describing an established
practice, it is a remarkable coincidence that the five hymns which are called
his are, in fact, a song of triumph over the devil, and a hymn in praise of
the Resurrection, which are, so their editor thinks, actually alluded to in
the Homily cited above; a confession of faith; and a morning hymn and one
which has been taken for an evening hymn. These are exactly the subjects
which correspond to Hilary's description.

But, when we come to the examination of these hymns in detail, the
gravest doubts arise. The first three were discovered in the same
manuscript to which we owe the De Mysteriis. They formed part of a
small collection, which cannot have numbered more than seven or eight
hymns, of which these three only have escaped, not without some
mutilation. That which stands first is the confession of faith, the matter of
which contains nothing that is inconsistent with Hilary's time. But beyond
this, and the fact that the manuscript ascribes it to Hilary, there is nothing
to suggest his authorship. It is a dreary production in a limping imitation
of an Horatian metre; an involved argumentative statement of Catholic
doctrine, in which is would be difficult to say whether verse or subject
suffers the more from their unwonted union. The sequence of thought is
helped out by the mechanical device of an alphabetical arrangement of the
stanzas, but even this assistance could not make it intelligible to an
ordinary congregation. And the want of literary skill in the author makes it
impossible to suppose that Hilary is he; classical knowledge was still on
too high a level for an educated man to perpetrate such solecisms.

In the same manuscript there follow, after an unfortunate gap, the two
hymns to which it has been suggested that Hilary alludes in his Homily of
Psalm 65, those which celebrate the praises of the Resurrection and the
triumph over Satan. The former is by a woman's hand, and the feminine

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forms of the language must have made it, one would think, unsuitable for
congregational singing. There is no reason why the poem should not date
from the fourth century; indeed, since it is written by a neophyte, that
date is more probable than a later time, when adult converts to Christianity
were more sacred. It has considerable merits; it is fervid intone and free in
movement, and has every appearance of being the expressions of genuine
feeling. It is, in fact, likely enough that, if it were written in Hilary's day,
he should have inserted it in a collection of sacred verse. Concerning its
authorship the suggestion has been made that it was written by Florentia, a
heathen maiden converted by Hilary near Seleucia, who followed him to
Gaul, lived, died, and was buried by him in his diocese. The story of
Florentia rests on no better authority than the worthless biography of
Hilary, written by Fortunatus, who, moreover, says nothing about hymns
composed by her. Neither proof nor disproof is possible: unless we regard
the defective Latinity as evidence in favor of a Greek origin for the
authoress. The third hymn, which celebrates the triumph of Christ over
Satan, may or may not be the work of the same hand as the second. It
bears much more resemblance to it than to the laborious and prosaic
effusion which stands first. The manuscript which contains these three
hymns distinctly assigns the first, and one or more which have perished, to
Hilary: — 'Incipiunt hymni eiusdem.' Whether a fresh title stood before the
later hymns, which clearly belong to another, we cannot say; the collection
is too short for this to be probable. It is obvious that, if we have in this
manuscript the remains of a hymn-book for actual use, it was, like ours, a
compilation; brief as it was, it may have been as large as the cumbrous
shape of ancient volumes would allow to be cheaply multiplied and
conveniently used. Many popular treatises, as for instance some by
Tertullian and Cyprian, were quite as short. Who the compiler may have
been must remain unknown. We must attach some importance to the
evidence of the manuscript which has restored to us the De Mysteriis and
the Pilgrimage of Silvia; and we may reasonably suppose that this
collection was made in the time, and even with the sanction, of Hilary,
though we cannot accept him as the author of any of the three hymns
which remain.

The spurious letter to his imaginary daughter Abra was apparently written
with the ingenious purpose of fathering upon Hilary the morning hymn,

Luis Largitor spledide. This is a hymn of considerable beauty, in the same
metre as the genuine Ambrosian hymns. But there is this essential
difference, that while in the latter the rules of classical versification as
regards the length of syllables are scrupulously followed, in the former
these rules are ignored, and rhythm takes the place of quantity. This is a
sufficient proof that the hymn is of a later date than Ambrose, and, a
fortiori, than Hilary. There remains the so-called evening hymn, which has
been supposed to be the companion to the last. This, again, is alphabetical,
and contains in twenty-three stanzas a confession of sin, an appeal to
Christ and an assertion of orthodoxy. The rules of metre are neglected in
favor of an uncouth attempt at rhythm. Latin appears to have been a dead
language to the writer, who adorns his lines with little pieces of pagan
mythology, and whose taste is indicated by the work of some bombastic
monk, perhaps of the time of Charles the Great; unlike the other four, it
cannot possibly date from Hilary's generation.

Omitting certain fragments of treatises of which Hilary may, or may not,
have been the author, we now come to his attack upon Auxentius of
Milan, and to the last of his complete works. Dionysius of Milan had
been, as we saw, a sufferer in the same cause as Hilary. But he had been
still more hardly treated; he had not only been exiled, but his place had
been taken by Auxentius, an Eastern Arian of the school favored by
Constantius. Dionysius died in exile, and Auxentius remained in
undisputed possession of the see. He must have been a man of
considerable ability; perhaps, as we have mentioned, he was the creator of
the so-called Ambrosian ritual, and certainly he was the leader of the Arian
party in Italy and the further West. The very fact that Constantius and his
advisers chose him for so great a post as the bishopric of Milan proves
that they had confidence in him. He justified their trust, holding his own
without apparent difficulty at Milan and working successfully in the cause
of compromise at Ariminum and elsewhere Athanasius mentions him often
and bitterly as a leader of the heretics; and he must be ranked with
Ursacius and Valens as one the most unscrupulous of his party. While
Constantius reigned Auxentius was, of course, safe from attack. But at the
end of the year 364, Hilary thought that the opportunity was come. Since
his last entry into the conflict Julian and his successor Jovian had died, and
Valentinian had for some months been Emperor. He had just divided the

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Roman Empire with his brother Valens, himself choosing the Western half
with Milan for his capital, while he gave Constantinople and the East to
Valens. The latter was a man of small abilities, unworthy to reign, and a
convinced Arian; Valentinian, with many faults, was a strong ruler, and
favored the cause of orthodoxy. But he was, before all else, a soldier and a
statesman; his orthodoxy was, perhaps, a mere acquiescence in the
predominant belief among his subjects, and it had, in any case, much less
influence over his conduct than had Arianism over that of Valens. It must
have seemed to Hilary and to Eusebius of Vercelli that there was danger to
the Church in the possession by Auxentius of so commanding a position
as that of bishop of Milan, with constant access to the Emperor's ear; and
especially now that the Emperor was new to his work and had no
knowledge, perhaps no strong convictions, concerning the points at issue.
As far as they could judge, their success or failure in displacing Auxentius
would influence the fortunes of the Church for a generation at least, it
would, therefore, by unjust to accuse Hilary as a mere busy-body. He
interfered, it is true, outside his own province, but it was at a serious
crisis; and his knowledge of the Western Church must have assured him
that, if he did not act, the necessary protest would probably remain
unmade.

Hilary, then, in company with his ally Eusebius, hastened to Milan in
order to influence the mind of Valentinian against Auxentius, and to waken
the dormant orthodoxy of the Milanese Church. For there seems to have
been little local opposition to the Arian bishop: no organized congregation
of Catholics in the city rejected his communion. On the other hand, there
was no militant Arianism; the worship conducted by Auxentius could
excite no scruples, and in his teaching he would certainly avoid the point of
difference, he and his school had no desire to persecute orthodoxy because
it was orthodox. From their point of view, the Faith had been settled in
such a way that their own position was unassailable, and all they wished
was to live and to let live. And we must remember that the Council of
Rimini, disgraceful as the manner was in which its decision had been
reached, was still the rule of the Faith for the Western Church. Hilary and
Eusebius had induced a multitude of bishops, amid the applause of their
flocks, to recant; but private expressions of opinion, however numerous,
could not erase the definitions of Rimini from the records of the Church. It

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was not till the year 369 that a Council at Rome expunged them. The first
object of the allies was to excite opposition to the Arian, and in this they
had some success. Auxentius, in his petition to the Emperor, which we
possess, asserts that they stirred up certain of the laity, who had been in
communion neither with himself nor with his predecessors, to call him a
heretic. The immediate predecessor of Auxentius was the Catholic
Dionysius, and we cannot suppose that this is a fair description of
Hilary's followers. But it is probable that the malcontents were not
numerous, for none but enthusiasts would venture into apparent schism on
account of a heresy which was certainly not conspicuous. How long
Hilary was allowed to continue his efforts is unknown. Valentinian reached
Milan in the November of 364, and left it in the Autumn of the following
year; and before his departure his decision had frustrated Hilary's
purpose. We only know that, as soon as the matter grew serious,
Auxentius appealed to the Emperor. There was no point more important
in the eyes of the government than unity within the local Churches, and
Auxentius, being formally in the right, must have made his appeal with
much confidence. His success was immediate. The Emperor issued what
Hilary calls 'a grievous edict,' the terms of which Hilary does not mention.
He only says that under the pretext, and with the desire, of unity,
Valentinian threw the faithful Church of Milan into confusion. In other
words, he forbade Hilary to agitate for a separation of the people from
their bishop.

But Hilary, silenced in the city, exerted himself at court. With urgent
importunity, he tells us, he pressed his charges against Auxentius, and
induced the Emperor to appoint a commission to consider them. In due
time this commissar met. It consisted of two lay officials, with 'some ten'
bishops as assessors. Hilary and Eusebius were present, as well as the
accused. Auxentius pleaded his own cause, beginning with the unfortunate
attack upon his adversaries that they had been deposed by Council, and
therefore had no locus standi as accusers of a bishop. This was untrue;
Hilary, we know, had been banished, but his see had never been declared
vacant, nor, in all probability, had that of Eusebius. They were not
intruders, like Auxentius, though even he had gained some legality for his
position from the death of Dionysius in exile. The failure of this plea was
so complete that Hilary, in his account of the matter, declares that it is not

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worth his while to repeat his defense. Next came the serious business of
the commission. This was not the theological enquiry after truth, but the
legal question whether, in fact, the teaching of Auxentius was in
conformity with recognized standards. Hilary had asserted that his creed
differed from that of the Emperor and of all other Christians, and had
asserted it in very unsparing language. He now maintained his allegation,
and, in doing so, gave Auxentius a double advantage. For he diverged into
the general question of theology, while Auxentius stuck to the letter of the
decisions of Rimini; and the words of Hilary had been such that he could
claim to be a sufferer from calumny. Hilary's account of the doctrinal
discussion is that he forced the reluctant Auxentius by his questions to the
very edge of a denial of Faith; that Auxentius escaped from this difficulty
by a complete surrender, to which Hilary pinned him down by making him
sign an orthodox confession, in terms to which he had several times agreed
during the course of the debate; that Hilary remitted this confession
through the Quaestor, the lay president of the commission, to the
Emperor. This document, which Hilary says that he appended to his
explanatory letter, is unfortunately lost. The brief account of the matter
which Auxentius gives is not inconsistent with Hilary's. He tells us that he
began by protesting that he had never known or seen Arius, and did not
even know what his doctrine was; he proceeded to declare that he still
believed and preached the truths which he had been taught in his infancy
and of which he had satisfied himself by study of Scripture; and he gives a
summary of the statement of faith which he made before the commission.
But he says not a word about the passage of arms between Hilary and
himself, of his defeat, and of the enforced signature of a confession which
contradicted his previous assertions.

Hilary's account of the proceedings must certainly be accepted. But,
though his moral and dialectical victory was complete, it is obvious that he
had gained no advantage for his cause. He had taunted Auxentius as an
adherent of Arius. Auxentius had an immediate reply, which put his
opponent in the wrong. We cannot doubt that he spoke the truth, when he
said that he had never known Arius; and it certainly was the case, that in
the early years of the fourth century, inadequate statements of the doctrine
of the Trinity were widely prevalent and passed without dispute. It was
also true that the dominant faction at the court of Constantius, of which

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Auxentius had been a leader, had in the most effectual way disclaimed
complicity with Arianism by ejecting its honest professors from their sees
and by joining with their lips in the universal condemnation of the founder
of that heresy. But if this was their shame, it was also, in such
circumstances as those of that heresy. But if this was their shame, it was
also, in such circumstances as those of Auxentius, their protection. And
Auxentius held one of the greatest positions in the Church, and even in the
state, now that Milan was to be, so it seemed, the capital of the West. The
spirit of the government at that time was one of almost Chinese reverence
for official rank; and it must have seemed an outrage that the irresponsible
bishop of a city, mean in comparison with Milan, should assail Auxentius
in such terms as Hilary had used. Even though he had admitted, instead of
repudiating, that affinity with Arius, there would have been an
impropriety in the use of that familiar weapon, the labeling of a party with
the name of its most discredited and unpopular member. We may be sure
that Auxentius, a man of the world, would derive all possible advantage
from this excessive vehemence of his adversary. In the debate itself, where
Hilary would have the advantage not only of a sound cause, but of greater
earnestness, we cannot be surprised that he won the victory. Auxentius
was probably indifferent at heart; Hilary had devoted his life and all his
talents to the cause. But such a victory could have no results, beyond
lowering Auxentius in public esteem and self-respect. It does not appear
from his words or from those of Hilary, that the actual creed of Rimini was
imported into the dispute. It was on it that Auxentius relied; if he did not
expressly contradict its terms, the debate became a mere discussion
concerning abstract truth. The legal standard of doctrine was no more
affected by his unwilling concession than it had been a few years before by
the numerous repudiations, prompted by Hilary and Eusebius, of the vote
given at Rimini. The confession which Hilary annexed in triumph to his
narrative was the mere incidental expression of a private opinion, which
Auxentius, in his further plea, could afford to leave unnoticed.

The commissioners no doubt made their report privately to the Emperor.
We do not know its tenor, but from the sequel we may be sure that they
gave it as their opinion that Auxentius was the lawful bishop of Milan.
Some time passed before Valentinian spoke. Whether Hilary took any
further steps to influence his decision is unknown; but we possess a

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memorial addressed 'to the most blessed and glorious Emperors
Valentinian and Valens' by Auxentius. The two brothers were, by mutual
arrangement, each sovereign within his own dominion, but they ruled as
colleagues, not as rivals; and Auxentius must have taken courage form the
thought that it would seem unnatural and impolitic for the elder to seize
this first opportunity of proclaiming his dissent from the cherished
convictions of the younger, by degrading one of the very school his brother
delighted to honor. For what had been proposed was not the silent filling
of a vacant place, but the public ejection of a bishop whose station was
not much less prominent than that of Athansius himself, and his ejection
on purely theological grounds. Constantius himself had rarely been so
bold; his acts of oppression, as in Hilary's case, were usually cloaked by
some allegation of misconduct on the victim' s part. But Auxentius had
more than the character of Valens and political considerations on which to
rely. In the forefront of his defense he put the Council of Rimini. This
attack by Hilary and his friends was, according to him, the attempt of a
handful of men to break up the unity attained by the labors of that great
assembly of six hundred bishops. He declared his firm assent to all its
decisions; every heresy that it had condemned he condemned. He sent with
his address a copy of the Acts of the Council, and begged the Emperor to
have them read to him. Its language would convince him that Hilary and
Eusebius, bishops long deposed, were merely plotting universal schism.
This, with his own account of the proceedings before the commission and
a short statement of his belief, forms his appeal to the Emperor. It was
composed with great skill, and was quite unanswerable. His actual
possession of the see, the circumstances of the time, the very doctrine of
the Church — for only a Council could undo what a Council had done —
rendered his position unassailable. And if he was in the right, Hilary and
his colleague were in the wrong. Nothing but success could have saved
them from the humiliation, to which they were now subjected, of being
expelled from Milan and bidden to return to their homes, while the
Emperor publicly recognized Auxentius by receiving the Communion at
his hands. Yet morally they had been in the right throughout. The strong
legal position of Auxentius and the canons of that imposing Council of six
hundred bishops behind which he screened himself had been obtained by
deliberate fraud and oppression. He and his creed could not have, and did
not deserve to have, any stability. Yet Valentinian was probably in the

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right, even in the interests of truth, in refusing to make a martyr of
Auxentius. There would have been reprisals in the East, where the Catholic
cause had far more to lost than had Arianism in the West; and general
considerations of equity and policy must have inclined him to allow the
Arian to pass the remainder of his days in peace. But we cannot wonder
that Hilary failed to appreciate such reasons. He had thrown himself with
all his heart into the attack, and risked in it his public credit as bishop and
confessor and first of Western theologians. Hence his published account of
the transaction is tinged with a pardonable shade of personal resentment. It
was, indeed, necessary that he should issue a statement. The assault and
the repulse were rendered conspicuous by time and place, and by the
eminence of the persons engaged; and it was Hilary's duty to see that the
defeat which he had incurred brought no injury upon his cause. He therefor
addressed a public letter 'to the beloved brethren who abide in the Faith of
the fathers and repudiate the Arian heresy, the bishops and all their
flocks.' He begins by speaking of the blessings of peace, which the
Christians of that day could neither enjoy nor promote, beset as they were
by the forerunners of Antichrist, who boasted of the peace, in other words
of the harmonious concurrence in blasphemy, which they had brought
about. They bear themselves not as bishops of Christ but as priests of
Antichrist. This is not random abuse (§2), but sober recognition of the
fact, stated by St. John, that there are many Antichrists. For these men
assume the cloak of piety, and pretend to preach the Gospel, with one
object of inducing others to deny Christ. It was (§ 3) the misery and folly
of the day that men endeavored to promote the cause of God by human
means and the favor of the world. Hilary asks bishops, who believe in their
office, whether the Apostles had secular support with palace dignities;
scourged and fettered, they sang their hymns. It was in obedience to no
royal edict the Paul gathered a Church for Christ; he was exposed to public
view in the theater. Nero and Vespasian and Decius were no patrons of the
Church; it was through their hatred that the truth had thriven. The
Apostles labored with their hands and worshipped in garrets and secret
places, and in defiance of senate of monarch visited, it might be said, every
village and every tribe. Yet it was these rebels who had the keys of the
Kingdom of Heaven; the more they were forbidden, the more they
preached, and the power of God was made manifest. But now (§ 4) the
Faith finds favor with men. The Church seeks for secular support, and in

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doing so insults Christ by the implication that His support is insufficient.
She in her turn holds out the threat of exile and prison. It was her
endurance of these that draw men to her; now she imposes her faith by
violence. She craves for favors at the hand of her communicants; once it
was her consecration that she braved the threatenings of persecutors.
Bishops in exile spread the Faith; not it is she that exiles bishops. She
boasts that the world loves her; the world's hatred was the evidence that
she was Christ's. The ruin is obvious which has fallen upon the Church.
The reason is plain (§ 5). The time of Antichrist, disguised as an angel of
light, has come. The true Christ is hidden from almost every mind and
heart. Antichrist is now obscuring the truth that he may assert falsehood
hereafter. Hence the conflicting opinions of the time, the doctrine of Arius
and of his heirs, Valens, Ursacius, Auxentius and their fellows, their
preaching of novelties concerning Christ is the work of Antichrist, who is
using them to introduce his own worship. This is proved (§ 6) by a
statement of their minimizing and prevaricating doctrine, which has,
however, made no impression upon the guileless and well-meaning laity.
Then (§§ 7 — 9) comes Hilary's account of his proceedings at Milan,
strongly colored by the intensity of his feelings. The Emperor's first
refusal to interfere with Auxentius is a 'command that the Church of the
Milanese, which confesses that Christ if true God, of one divinity and
substance with the Father, should be thrown into confusion under the
pretext, and with the desire, of unity.' The canons of Rimini are described
as those of the Thracian Nicaea; Auxentius' protest that he had never
known Arius is met by the assertion that he had been ordained to the
presbyterate in an Arian Church under George of Alexandria. Hilary
refuses to discuss the Council of Rimini; it had been universally and
righteously repudiated. His ejection from Milan, in spite of his protests
that Auxentius was a liar and a renegade, is a revelation of the mystery of
ungodliness. For Auxentius (§§ 10, 11) had spoken with two contrary
voices; the one that of the confession which Hilary had driven him to sign,
the other that of Rimini. His skill in words could deceive even the elect,
but he had been clearly exposed. Finally (§ 12) Hilary regrets that he
cannot state the case to each bishop and Church in person. He begs them
to make the best of his letter; he dares not make it fully intelligible by
circulating with it the Arian blasphemies which he had assailed. He bids
them beware of Antichrist, and warns against love and reverence for the

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material structure of their churches, wherein Antichrist will one day have
his seat. Mountains and woods and dens of beasts and prisons and
morasses are the places of safety; in them some of the Prophets had lived,
and some had died, he bids them shun Auxentius as an angel of Satan, an
enemy of Christ, a deceiver and a blasphemer. 'Let him assemble against
me what synods he will, let him proclaim me, as he has often done already,
a heretic by public advertisement, let him direct, at this will, the wrath of
the might against me; yet, being an Arian, he shall be nothing less than a
devil in my eyes. Never will I desire peace except with them who,
following the doctrine of our fathers at Nicaea, shall make the Arians
anathema and proclaim the true divinity of Christ.'

These are the concluding words of Hilary's last public utterance. We see
him again giving an unreserved adhesion, in word as well as in heart, to the
Nicene confession. It was the course dictated by policy as well as by
conviction. His cautious language in earlier days had done good service to
the Church in the East, and had made it easier for those who had
compromised themselves at Rimini to reconcile themselves with him and
with the truth for which he stood. But by this time all whom he could
wish to win had given in their adhesion; Auxentius and the few who held
with him, if such there were, were irreconcilable. They took their stand
upon the Council of Rimini, and their opponents found in the doctrine of
Nicaea the clear and uncompromising challenge which was necessary for
effective warfare. But if Hilary's doctrinal position is definite, his theory
of the relations of Church and State, if indeed his indignation allowed him
the think of them, is obscure. An orthodox Emperor was upholding an
Arian, and Hilary, while giving Valentinian credit for personal good faith, is
a eager as in the worst days of Constantius for a severance. We must,
however, remember that his manifest, though it is the expression of a
settled policy in the matter of doctrine, is in other respects the unguarded
outpouring of an injured feeling. And here again we find the old perplexity
of the 'inward evil.' Auxentius is represented as in the Church and outside
it at the same time. He is an Antichrist, a devil, all that is evil; but Hilary is
threatened and it is the Church that threatens, submission to an Arian is
enforced and it is the Church which enforces it. And if Auxentius had
adhered to the confession which Hilary had induced him to sign, all
objection to he episcopate would apparently have ceased. The time had

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not come, for it ever can come, for the solution of such problems.
Meantime Hilary did his best, so far as words could do it, to brush aside
the sophistries behind which Auxentius was defending himself. The
doctrine of Rimini is named that of Nicaea, in Thrace, where the
discreditable and insignificant assembly met in which its terms were
settled; the Church of Alexandria under the intruder George is frankly
called Arian. It was an appeal to the future as well as an apology for
himself. But certainly it could not move Valentinian, nor can Hilary have
expected that it should. And, after all, Valentinian' s action was harmless,
as least. By Hilary's own confession, Auxentius had no influence for evil
over his flock, and these proceedings must have warned him, if he needed
the warning, that abstinence from aggressive Arianism was necessary if he
would end his days in peace. The Emperor's policy remained unchanged.
At the Roman Council of the year 369 the Western bishops formally
annulled, the proceedings of Rimini, and so deprived Auxentius of his legal
position. At the same time, as the logical consequence, they condemned
him to deposition, but Valentinian refused to give effect to their sentence,
and Auxentius remained bishop of Milan till his death in the year 374. He
had outlived Hilary and Eusebius, and also Athanasius, the promoter of
the last attack upon him; he had also outlived whatever Arianism there had
been in Milan. His successor, St. Ambrose, had the enthusiastic support of
his people in his conflicts with Arian princes. The Church could have
gained little by Hilary's success, and yet we cannot be sure that, in a broad
sense, he failed. So resolute a bearing must have effectually strengthened
the convictions of Valentinian and the fears of Auxentius.

There remains one work of Hilary to be considered. This was a history of
the Arian controversy in such of its aspects as had fallen under his own
observation. We know from Jerome's biography of Hilary that he wrote a
book against Valens and Ursacius, containing an account of the Councils of
Rimini and Seleucia. They had been his adversaries throughout his career,
and had held their own against him. To them, at least as much as to
Constantius, the overthrow of his Asiatic friends was due, and to them he
owed the favor, which must have galled him, of permission to return to his
diocese. Auxentius was one of their allies, and the failure of Hilary's attack
upon him made it clear that these men too, as subjects of Valentinian, were
safe from merited deposition. Their worldly success was manifest; it was a

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natural and righteous task which Hilary undertook when he exposed their
true character. It was clear that while Valens and Valentinian lived — and
they were in early middle life — there would be an armed peace within the
Western Church; that the overthrow of bishop by bishop in theological
strife would be forbidden, the pen was the only weapon left to Hilary, and
he used it to give an account of events from the time of that Council of
Aries, in the year 353, which was the beginning for Gaul of the Arian
conflict. He followed its course, with especial reference to Uracius and
Valens, until the year 367, or at least the end of 366; the latest incident
recorded in the fragments which we possess must have happened within a
few months of his death. The work was less a history than a collection of
documents strung together by an explanatory narrative. It is evident that it
was not undertaken as a literary effort; its aim is not the information of
future generations, but the solemn indictment at the bar of public opinion
of living offenders. It must have been when complete, a singularly
businesslike production, with no graces of style t render it attractive and
no generalizations to illuminate its pages. Had the whole been preserved,
we should have had a complete record of Hilary's life; as it is, we have
thirteen valuable fragments, to which we owe a considerable part of our
general knowledge of the time, though they tell us comparatively little of
his own career. The commencement of the work has happily survived, and
from it we learn the spirit in which he wrote. He begins (Fragment I. §§ 1,
2.) with an exposition of St. Paul's doctrine of faith, hope, and love. He
testifies, with the Apostle, that the last is the greatest. The inseparable
bond, of which he is conscious, of God's love for him and his for God, has
detached him from worldly interests. He, like others (§ 3), might have
enjoyed ease and prosperity and imperial friendship, and have been, as
they were, a bishop only in name and a burden upon the Church. But the
condition imposed was that of tampering with Gospel truths, willful
blindness to oppression and the condonation of tyranny. Public opinion,
ill-informed and unused to theological subtleties, would not have observed
the change. But it would have been a cowardly declension from the love of
Christ to which he could not stoop. He feels (§ 4) the difficulty of the task
he undertakes. The devil and the heretics had done their worst, multitudes
had been terrified into denial of their convictions. The story was
complicated by the ingenuity of evil of the plotters, and evidence was
difficult to obtain. The scene of intrigue could not be clearly delineated,

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crowded as it was with the busy figures of bishops and officers, putting
every engine into motion against men of apostolic mind. The energy with
which they propagated slander was the measure of its falsehood. They had
implanted in the public mind the belief that the exiled bishops had suffered
merely for refusing to condemn Athanasius; that they were inspired by
obstinacy, not by principle. Out of reverence for the Emperor, whose
throne is from God (§ 5), Hilary will not comment upon his usurped
jurisdiction over a bishop, nor on the manner in which it was exercised; nor
yet on the injustice whereby bishops were forced to pass sentence upon
the accused in his absence. In this volume he will give the true causes of
trouble, in comparison of which such tyranny, grievous though it be, is of
small account. Once before — this, no doubt, was at Bezeirs — he had
spoken his mind upon the matter. But that was a hasty and unprepared
utterance, delivered to an audience as eager to silence him as he was to
speak. He will, therefore (§ 6), give a full and consecutive narrative of
events from the Council of Aries onwards, with such an account of the
question there debated as will show the true merits of Paulinus, and make
it clear that nothing less than the Faith was at stake. He ends his
introduction (§ 7) by warning the reader that this is a work which needs to
be seriously studied. The multitude of letters and of synods which he must
adduce will merely confuse and disgust him, if he do not bear in mind the
dates and the persons, and the exact sense in which terms are used. Finally,
he reminds him of the greatness of the subject. This is the knowledge of
God, the hope of eternity; it is the duty of a Christian to acquire such
knowledge as shall enable him to form and maintain his own conclusions.
The excerpts from the work have evidently been made by some one who
was interested in Italy and Illyricum rather than in Gaul, and thought that
the documents were more important than the narrative. Hence Hilary's
character is as little illustrated as the events of his life. Nor can the date of
the work be precisely fixed. It is clear that he had already taken up his final
attitude of uncompromising adherence to the Nicene Symbol; that is to
say, he began to write after all the waverers had been reclaimed from
contact with Arianism. He must, therefore, have written the book in his
latest years; and it is manifest that after he had brought the narrative down
to the time of his return from exile, he continued to add to it from time to
time even till the end of his life. For the last incident recorded in the
Fragments, the secession from the party of Valens and Ursacius of an old

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and important ally, Germinius of Sirmium, must have come to his
knowledge very shortly before his death. He had had little success in his
warfare with error; if he and his friends had held their own, they had not
succeeded either in synod or at court in overthrowing their enemies; and it
is pleasant to think that this gleam of comfort came to brighten the last
days of Hilary. The news must have reached Gaul early in the year 367,
and no subsequent event of importance can have come to his knowledge.

But though we have reached the term of Hilary's life, there remains one
topic on which something must be said, his relation to St. Martin of Tours.
Martin, born in Pannonia, the country of Valens and Ursacius, but
converted from paganism under Catholic influences, was attracted by
Hilary, already a bishop, and spent some years in his society before the
outbreak of the Arian strife in Gaul. Hilary, we are told, wished to ordain
him a priest, but at his urgent wish refrained, and admitted him instead to
the humble rank of an exorcist. At an uncertain date, which cannot have
long preceded Hilary's exile, he felt himself moved to return to his native
province in order to convert his parents, who were still pagans. He
succeeded in the case of his mother and of many of his countrymen. But he
was soon compelled to abandon his labors, for he had, as a true disciple of
Hilary, regarded it as his duty to oppose the Arianism dominant in the
province. Opposition to the bishops on the part of a man holding so low a
station in the Church was a civil as well as an ecclesiastical offense, and
Martin can have expected no other treatment than that which he received,
of scourging and expulsion from the province. Hilary was by this time in
exile, and Martin turned to Milan, where the heresy of the intruder
Auxentius called forth his protests, which were silenced by another
expulsion. He next retired to a small island off the Italian coast, where he
lived in seclusion till he heard of Hilary's return. He hastened to Rome, so
Fortunatus tells us, to meet his friend, but missed him on the way; and
followed him at once to Poitiers. There Hilary gave him a site near the city,
on which he founded the first monastery in that region, over which he
presided for the rest of Hilary's life and for four years after his death. In
the year 37 1 he was consecrated bishop of Tours, and so continued till his
death twenty-five years later. It is clear that Martin was never able to exert
any influence over the mind or action of Hilary, whose interests were in an
intellectual sphere above his reach. But the courage and tenacity with

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which Martin held and preached the Faith was certainly inspired to some
considerable extent by admiration of Hilary and confidence in his teaching.
And the joy which Hilary expresses, as we have seen, in his later Homilies
on the Psalms over the rapid spread of Christianity in Gaul, was no doubt
occasioned by the earlier triumphs of Martin among the peasantry. The
two men were formed each to be the complement of the other. It was the
work of Hilary to prove with cogent clearness to educated Christians, that
reason as well as piety dictated an acceptance of the Catholic Faith; the
mission of Martin was to those who were neither educated nor Christian,
and his success in bringing the Faith home to the lives and consciences of
the pagan masses marks him out as one of the greatest among the preachers
of the Gospel. Both of them actively opposed Arianism, and both suffered
in the conflict. But the confessorship of neither had any perceptible share
in promoting the final victory of truth. Their true glory is that they were
fellow-laborers equally successful in widely separate parts of the same
field; and Hilary in entitled, beyond the honor die to his own
achievements, to a share in that of St. Martin, whose merits he discovered
and fostered.

We have now reached the end of Hilary's life. Sulpicius Severus tells us
that he died in the sixth year from his return. He had probably reached
Poitiers early in the year 361; we have seen that the latest event recorded
in the fragments of his history must have come to his knowledge early in
367. There is no reason to doubt that this was the conclusion of history,
and no consideration suggests that Sulpicius was wrong in his date. We
may therefore assign the death of Hilary, with considerable confidence, to
the year 367, and probably to its middle portion. Of the circumstances of
his death nothing is recorded. This is one of the many signs that his
contemporaries did not value him at his true worth. To them he must have
been the busy and somewhat unsuccessful man of affairs; their successors
in the next generation turned away from him and his works to the more
attractive writings and more commanding characters of Ambrose and
Augustine. Yet certainly no firmer purpose of more convinced faith,
perhaps no keener intellect has devoted itself to the defense and
elucidation of truth than that of Hilary: and it may be that Christian
thinkers in the future will find an inspiration of new and fruitful thoughts
in his writings.

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CHAPTER 2

THE THEOLOGY OF ST. HILARY OF POITIERS.

This Chapter offers no more than tentative and imperfect outline of the
theology of St. Hilary; it is an essay, not a monograph. Little attempt will
be made to estimate the value of his opinions from the point of view of
modern thought; little will be said about his relation to earlier and
contemporary thought, a subject on which he is habitually silent, and
nothing about the after fate of his speculations. Ye the task, thus
narrowed, is not without its difficulties. Much more attention, it is true,
has been paid to Hilary's theology than to the history of his life, and the
student cannot presume to dispense with the assistance of the books
already written. But they cannot release him from the necessity of
collecting evidence for himself from the pages of Hilary, and forming his
own judgment upon it, for none of them can claim completeness and they
differ widely as to the views which Hilary held. There is the further
difficulty that a brief statement of a theologian's opinions must be
systematic. But Hilary has abstained, perhaps deliberately, from
constructing a system; the scattered points of his teaching must be
gathered from writings composed at various times and with various
purposes. The part of his work which was, no doubt, most useful in his
own day, his summary in the De Trinitate of the defense against Arianism,
is clear and well arranged, but it bears less of the stamp of Hilary's genius
than any other writings. His characteristic thoughts are scattered over the
pages of this great controversial treatise, where the exigencies of his
immediate argument often deny him full scope for their development; or
else they must be sought in his Commentary on St. Matthew, where they
find incidental expression in the midst of allegorical exegesis; or again, amid
the mysticism and exhortation of the Homilies on the Psalms. It is in some
of these last that the Christology of Hilary is most completely stated; but
the Homilies were intended for a general audience, and are unsystematic in
construction and almost conversational in tone. Hilary has never worked

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out his thoughts in consistent theological form, and many of the most
original among them have failed to attract the attention which they would
have received had they been presented in such a shape as that of the later
books of the De Trinitate.

This desultory mode of composition had its advantages in life and warmth
of present interest, and gives to Hilary's writings a value as historical
documents which a formal and comprehensive treatise would have lacked.
But it seriously increases the difficulty of the present undertaking. It was
inevitable that Hilary's method, though he is a singularly consistent
thinker, should sometimes lead him into self-contradiction and sometimes
leave his meaning in obscurity. In such cases probabilities must be
balanced, with due regard to the opinion of former theologians who have
studied his writings, and a definite conclusion must be given, though space
cannot be found for the considerations upon which it is based. But though
the writer may be satisfied that he has, on the whole, fairly represented
Hilary's belief, it is impossible that a summary of doctrine can be an
adequate reflection of a great teacher's mind. Proportions are altogether
changed; a doctrine once stated and then dismissed must be set down on
the same scale as another to which the author recurs again and again with
obvious interest. The inevitable result is an apparent coldness an stiffness
and excess of method which does Hilary an injustice both as a thinker and
as a writer. In the interests of orderly sequence not only must he be
represented as sometimes more consistent than he really is, but the play of
thought, the undeveloped suggestions, often brilliant in their originality,
the striking expression given to familiar truths, must all be sacrificed, and
with them great part of the pleasure and profit to be derived from his
writings. For there are two conclusions which the careful student will
certainly reach; the one that every statement and argument will be in
hearty and scrupulous consonance with the Creeds, the other that, within
this limit, he must not be surprised at any ingenuity or audacity of logic or
exegesis in explanation an illustration of recognized truths, and especially
in the speculative connection of one truth with another. But the evidence
that Hilary's heart, as well as his reason, was engaged in the search and
defense of truth must be sought, where it will be abundantly found, in the
translations given in this volume. The present chapter only purposes to
set out, in a very prosaic manner, the conclusions at which his speculative

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genius arrived, working as it did by the methods of strict logic in the spirit
of eager loyalty to the Faith.

In his effort to render a reason for his belief Hilary's constant appeal is to
Scripture; and he avails himself freely of the thoughts of earlier
theologians. But he never makes himself their slave; he is not the avowed
adherence of any school, and never cites the names of those whose
arguments he adopts. These he adjusts to his own system of thought, and
presents for acceptance, not on authority, but on their own merits. For
Scripture, however, he has an unbounded reverence. Everything that he
believes, save the fundamental truth of Theism, of which man has an innate
consciousness, being unable to gaze upon the heavens without the
conviction that God exists and has His home there, is directly derived from
Holy Scripture. Scripture for Hilary means the Septuagint for the Old
Testament, the Latin for the New. He was, as we saw, no Hebrew Scholar,
and had small respect either for the versions which competed with the
Septuagint or for the Latin rendering the Old Testament, but there is little
evidence that he was dissatisfied with the Latin of the New; in fact, in one
instance, whether through habitual contentment with his Latin or through
momentary carelessness in verifying the sense, he bases an argument on a
thoroughly false interpretation. Of his relation to Origen and the literary
aspects of his exegetical work, something has been said in the former
chapter. Here we must speak of his use of Scripture as the source of truth,
and of the methods he employs to draw out its meaning.

In Hilary's eyes the two Testaments from one homogeneous revelation, of
equal value throughout, and any part of the whole may be used in
explanation of any other part. The same title of beatissimus is given to
Daniel and to St. Paul when both are cited in Comm. in Matt. 25:3; indeed,
he and others of his day seem to have felt that the Saints of the Old
Covenant were as near to themselves as those of the New. Not many years
had passed since Christians were accustomed to encourage themselves to
martyrdom, in default of well-known heroes of their own faith, by the
example of Daniel and his companions, or of the Seven Maccabees and
their Mother. But Scripture is not only harmonious throughout, as Origen
had taught; it is also never otiose. It never repeats itself, and a significance
must be sought not only in the smallest differences of language, but also in
the order in which apparent synonyms occur; in fact, every detail, and

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every sense in which every detail may be interpreted, is a matter for
profitable enquiry. Hence, the text of Scripture not only bears, but
demands, the most strict and literal interpretation. Hilary's explanation of
the words, 'My soul is sorrowful even unto death,' in Tract, in Psalms
141:8 and Trin. X. 36, is a remarkable instance of his method; as is the
argument from the words of Isaiah, 'We esteemedHim stricken,' that this,
so far as it signifies an actual sense of pain in Christ, is only an opinion,
and a false one. Similarly the language of St. Paul about the treasures of
knowledge hidden in Christ us made to prove His omniscience on earth.
Whatever is hidden is present it its hiding-place; therefore Christ could no
be ignorant. But this close adherence to the text of Scripture is combined
with great boldness in its interpretation. Hilary does not venture, with
Origen, to assert that some passages of Scripture have no literal sense, but
he teaches that there are cases when its statements have no meaning in
relation to the circumstances in which they were written, and uses this to
enforce the doctrine, which he holds as firmly as Origen, that the spiritual
meaning is the only one of serious importance. All religious truth is
contained in Scripture, and it is out duty to be ignorant of what lies outside
it. But within the limits of Scripture the utmost liberty of inference is to be
admitted concerning the purpose with which the words were written and
the sense to be attached to them. Sometimes, and especially in his later
writings, when Hilary was growing more cautious and weaning himself
from the influence of Origen, we are warned to be careful, not to read too
much of definite dogmatic truth into every passage, to consider the context
and occasion. Elsewhere, but this especially in that somewhat immature
and unguarded production, the Commentary on St. Matthew, we find a
purpose and meaning, beyond the natural sense, educed by such
considerations as that, while all the Gospel is true, its facts are often so
stated as to be a prophecy as well as a history; or that part of an event is
sometimes suppressed in the narrative in order to make the whole more
perfect as a prophecy. But he can derive a lesson not merely from what
Scripture says by also from the discrepancies between the different texts
in which it is conveyed to us. Hilary had learned from Origen to regard the
Septuagint as an independent and inspired authority for the revelation of
the Old Testament. Its translators are 'those seventy elders who had a
knowledge of the Law and of the Prophets which transcends the
limitations and doubtfulness of the letter. His confidence in their work,

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which is not exceeded by that of St. Augustine, encourages him to draw
lessons from the differences between the Hebrew and the Septuagint titles
of the Psalms. For instance, Psalm 142. has been furnished in the
Septuagint with a title which attributes it to David when pursued by
Absalom. The contents of the Psalm are appropriate neither to the
circumstances not to the date. But this does not justify us in ignoring the
title. We must regard the fact that a wrong connection is given to the Psalm
as a warning to ourselves not to attempt to discover its historical position,
but confine ourselves to its spiritual sense. And this is not all. Another
Psalm, the third, is assigned in the Hebrew to the same King in the same
distress. But, though this attribution is certainly correct, here also we must
follow the leading of the Septuagint, which was led to give a wrong title to
one Psalm lest we should attach importance to the correct title of another.
In both cases we must fix our attention not on the afflictions of David, but
on the sorrows of Christ. Thus, negatively if not positively, the Septuagint
must guide our judgment. But Hilary often goes even further, and ventures
upon a purely subjective interpretation, which sometimes gives useful
insight into the modes of thought of Gaul in the fourth century. For
instance, he is thoroughly classical in taking it for granted that the
Psalmist's words, T will lift up mine eyes unto the hills,' cannot refer to
the natural feature; that he can never mean the actual mountains bristling
with woods, the naked rocks and pathless precipices and frozen snows.
And even Gregory the Great could not surpass the prosaic grotesqueness
with which Hilary declares it impious to suppose that God would feed the
young ravens, foul carrion birds; and that the lilies of the Sermon on the
Mount must be explained away, because they wear no clothing, and
because, as a matter of fact, it is quite possible for men to be more brightly
attired than they. Examples of such reasoning, more or less extravagant,
might be multiplied from Hilary's exegetical writings; passages in which no
allowance is made for Oriental imagery, for poetry or for rhetoric.

But though Hilary throughout his whole period of authorship uses the
mystical method of interpretation, never doubting that everywhere in
Scripture there is a spiritual meaning which can be elicited, and that
whatever sense, consistent with truth otherwise ascertained, can be
extracted from it, may be extracted, yet there is a manifest increase
insobriety in his later as compared with his earlier writings. From the

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riotous profusion of mysticisms is the Commentary of St. Matthew,
where, for instance, every character and detail in the incident of St. John
Baptist's death becomes a symbol, it is a great advance to the almost
Athanasian cautiousness in exegesis of the De Trinitate; though even here,
especially in the early books which deal with the Old Testament, there is
some extravagance and a very liberal employment of the method. His
reasons, when he gives them, are those adduced in his other writings; the
inappropriateness of the words to the time when they were written, or the
plea that reverence or reason bids us penetrate begins the letter, his
increasing caution is due to no distrust of the principle of mysticism.

Though Hilary was not its inventor, and was forced by the large part
played by Old Testament exegesis in the Arian controversy to employ it,
whether he would not , yet it is certain that his hearty, though not
indiscriminate, acceptance of the method led to its general adoption in the
West. Tertullian and Cuprian had made no great use of such speculations;
Irenaeus probably had little influence. It was the introduction of Origen's
thought to Latin Christendom by Hilary and his contemporaries which set
the fashion, and none of them can have had such influence as Hilary
Himself. It is a strange irony of fate that so deep and original thinker
should have exerted his most permanent influence not through his own
thoughts, but through this dubious legacy which he handed on from
Alexandria to Europe. Yet, within certain limits, it was a sound and, for
that age, even a scientific method; and Hilary might at least plead that he
never allowed the system to be his master, and that it was a means which
enabled him to derive from Scriptures which otherwise, to him, would be
unprofitable, some measure of true and valuable instruction. It never
moulds his thoughts; at the most, he regards it as a useful auxiliary. No
praise can be too high for his wise and sober marshaling not so much of
texts as of the collective evidence of Scripture concerning the relation of
the Father and the Son in the De Trinitate; and if his Christology be not
equally convincing, it is not the fault of his method, but of its application.

We cannot wonder that Hilary, who owed his clear dogmatic convictions
to a careful and independent study of Scripture, should have wished to
lead others to the same source of knowledge. He couples it with the
Eucharist as a second Table of the Lord, a public means of grace, which
needs, if it is to profit the hearer, the same preparation of a pure heart and

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life. Attention to the lessons read in church is a primary duty, but private
study of Scripture is enforced with equal earnestness. It must be for all, as
Hilary had found it for himself, a privilege as well as a duty.

His sense of the value of Scripture is heightened by his belief in the
sacredness of language. Names belong inseparably to the things which they
signify; words are themselves a revelation. This is a lesson learned from
Origen; and the false antithesis between the nature and the name of God, of
which, according to the Arians, Christ had the latter only, made it of
special use to Hilary. But if this high dignity belongs to every statement of
truth, there is the less need for technical terms of theology, they rarity of
their occurrence in the pages of Hilary has already been mentioned.
'Trinity' is almost absent, and 'Person' hardly more common; he prefers,
by a turn of language which would scarcely be seemly in English, to speak
of the 'embodied' Christ and of His 'Embodiment,' though Latin theology
was already familiar with the 'Incarnation.' In fact, it would seem that he
had resolved to make himself independent of technical terms and of such
lines of thought as would require them. But he is never guilty of confusion
caused by an inadequate vocabulary. He has the literary skill to express in
ordinary words ideas which are very remote from ordinary thought, and
this at no inordinate length. No one, for instance, has developed the idea of
the mutual indwelling of Father and Son more fully and clearly than he; yet
he has not found it necessary to employ or devise the monstrous
'circuminsession' or 'perischoresis' of later theology. And where he does
use terms of current theology, or rather metaphysic, he shows that he is
their master, not their slave. The most important idea of this kind which he
had to express was that of the Divine substance. The word 'essence' is
entirely rejected; 'substance' and 'nature' are freely used as synonyms,
but in such alternation that both of them still obviously belong to the
sphere of literature, and not of science, they are twice used as exact
alternatives, for the avoidance of monotony, in parallel clauses of Trin. VI.
18, 19. So also the nature of fire in VII. 29 is not an abstraction; and in IX.
36 fin. the Divine substance and nature are equivalents. These are only a
few on many instances, here, as always, there is an abstention from
abstract thoughts and terms, which indicates, on the part of a student of
philosophy and of philosophical theology, a deliberate narrowing of his
range of speculation. We may illustrate the purpose of Hilary by

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comparing his method with that of the author of a treatise on Astronomy
without Mathematics. But some part of his caution is probably due to his
sense of the inadequacy of the terms with which Latin theology was as yet
equipped, and of the danger, not only to his readers; faith, but to his own
reputation for orthodoxy, which might result from ingenuity in the
employment or invention of technical language.

Though, as we have seen, the contemplative state is not the ultimate
happiness of man, yet the knowledge of God is essential to salvation; man,
created in God's image, is by nature capable of, and intended for, such
knowledge, and Christ came to impart it, the necessary condition on the
side of the humanity being purity of mind, and the result the elevation of
man to the life of God. Hilary does not shrink from the emphatic language
of the Alexandrian school, which spoke of the 'deification' of man; God,
he says, was born to be man, in order that man might be born to be God. If
this end is to be attained, obviously what is accepted as knowledge must
be true; hence the supreme wickedness of heresy, which destroys the
future of mankind by palming upon them error for truth; the greater their
dexterity the greater, because the more deliberate, their crime. And Hilary
was obviously convinced that his opponents had conceived this nefarious
purpose. It is not in the language of mere conventional polemics, but in all
sincerity, that he repeatedly describes them as liars who cannot possibly
be ignorant of the facts which they misrepresent, inventors of sophistical
arguments and falsifiers of the text of Scripture, conscious that their doom
is sealed, and endeavoring to divert their minds from the thought of future
misery by involving others in their own destruction. He fully recognizes
the ability and philosophical learning displayed by them; it only makes
their case the worse, and, after all, is merely follow. But it increases the
difficulties of the defenders of the Faith. For though man can and must
know God, Who, for His part, has revealed Himself, our knowledge ought
to consist in a simple acceptance of the precise terms of Scripture. The
utmost humility is necessary; error begins when men grow inquisitive. Our
capacity for knowledge, as Hilary is never tired of insisting, is so limited
that we ought to be content to believe without defining the terms of our
belief. For weak as intellect is, language, the instrument which it must
employ, is still less adequate to so great a task. Heresy has insisted upon
definition, and the true belief is compelled to follow suit. Here again, in the

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heretical abuse of technical terms and of logical processes, we find a reason
for the almost ostentatious simplicity of diction which we often find in
Hilary's pages. He evidently believed that it was possible for us to
apprehend revealed truth and to profit fully by it, without paraphrase or
other explanation. In the case of one great doctrine, as we shall see, no
necessities of controversy compelled him to develop his belief; if he had
had his way, the Faith should never have been stated in ampler terms than
'I believe in the Holy Ghost.'

In a great measure he has succeeded in retaining this simplicity in regard to
the doctrine of God. He had the full Greek sense of the divine unity; there
is no suggestion of the possession by the Persons of the Trinity of
contrasted or complementary qualities. The revelation he would defend is
that of God, One, perfect, infinite, immutable. This absolute God has
manifest Himself under the name 'He That Is,' to which Hilary constantly
recurs. It is only through His own revelation of Himself that God can be
known. But here we are faced by a difficulty; our reason is inadequate and
tends to be fallacious. The argument from analogy, which we should
naturally use, cannot be a sufficient guide, since it must proceed from the
finite to the infinite. Hilary has set this forth with great force and
frequency, and with a picturesque variety of illustration. Again, our partial
glimpses of the truth are often in apparent contradiction; when this is the
case, we need to be on our guard against the temptation to reject one an
incompatible with the other. We must devote an equal attention to each,
and believe without hesitation that both are true. The interest of the De
Trinitate is greatly heightened by the skill and courage with which Hilary
will handle some seeming paradox, and make the antithesis of opposed
infinities conduce to reverence for Him of Whom they are aspects. And he
never allows his reader the immensity of his theme; and here again the skill
is manifest with which he casts upon the reader the same awe with which
he is himself impressed.

Of God as Father Hilary had little that is new to say. He is called Father in
Scripture; therefore He is Father and necessarily has a Son. And
conversely the fact that Scripture speaks of God the Son is proof of the
fatherhood. In fact, the name 'Son' contains a revelation so necessary for
the times that it has practically banished that of 'the Word,' which we
should have expected Hilary, as a disciple of Origen, to employ by

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preference. But since faith in the Father alone is insufficient for salvation,
and is, indeed, not only insufficient but actually false, because it denies His
fatherhood in ignoring the consubstantial Son, Hilary's attention is
concentrated upon the relation between these two Persons. This relation is
one of eternal mutual indwelling, or 'perichoresis,' as it has been called,
rendered possible by Their oneness of nature and by the infinity of Both.
The thought is worked out from such passages as Isaiah 45:14, St. John
14:11, with great cogency and completeness, yet always with due stress
laid on the incapacity of man to comprehend its immensity. Hilary
advances from this scriptural position to the profound conception of the
divine self-consciousness as consisting in Their mutual recognition. Each
sees Himself in His perfect image, which must be coeternal with Himself.
In Hilary this is only a hint, one of the many thought which the urgency of
the conflict with Arianism forbade him to expand. But Dorner justly sees
in it 'a kind of speculative construction of the doctrine of the Trinity, out
of the idea of the divine self-consciousness.'

The Arian controversy was chiefly waged over the question of the eternal
generation of the Son. By the time that Hilary began to write, every text of
Scripture which could be made applicable to the point in dispute had been
used to the utmost. There was little or nothing that remained to be done in
the discovery or combination of passages. Of that controversy Athanasius
was the hero; the arguments which he used and those which he refuted are
admirable set forth in the introduction to the translation of his writings in
this series. In writing the De Trinitate, so far as it dealt directly with the
original controversy, it was neither possible nor desirable that Hilary
should leave the beaten path. His object was to provide his readers with a
compendious statement of ascertained truth for their own guidance, and
with a armory of weapons which had been tried and found effective in the
conflicts of the day. It would, therefore, be superfluous to give in this
place a detailed account of his reasonings concerning the generation of the
Son, nor would such an account be of any assistance to those who have his
writings in their hands. Hilary's treatment of the Scriptural evidence is
very complete, as was, indeed, necessary in a work which was intended as
a handbook for practical use. The Father alone is unbegotten; the Son is
truly the Son, neither created nor adopted. The Son is the Creator of the
worlds, the Wisdom of God, Who alone knows the Father, Who

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manifested God to man in the various Theophanies of the Old Testament.
His birth is without parallel, inasmuch as other births imply a previous
non-existence, while that of the Son is from eternity. For the generation on
the part of the Father and the birth on the part of the Son are not
connected as by a temporal sequence of cause and effect, but exactly
coincide in a timeless eternity. Hilary repudiates the possibility of
illustrating this divine birth by sensible analogies; it is beyond our
understanding as it is beyond time. Nor can we wonder at this, seeing that
our own birth is to us an insoluble mystery. The eternal birth of the Son is
the expression of the eternal nature of god. It is the nature of the One that
he should be Father, of the Other that He should be Son; this nature is
co-eternal with Themselves, and therefore the One is co-eternal with the
Other. Hence Athanasius had drawn the conclusion that the Son is 'by
nature and not by will;' not that the will of God in contrary to His nature,
but that (if the words may be used) there was no scope for its exercise in
the generation of the Son, which came to pass as a direct consequence of
the Divine nature. Such language was a natural protest against an Arian
abuse; but it was a departure from earlier precedent and was not accepted
by the Cappadocian school, more true to Alexandrian tradition than
Athanasius himself, with which Hilary was in closest sympathy. In their
eyes the generation of the Son must be an act of God's will, if the freedom
of Omnipotence, for which they were jealous, was to be respected; and
Hilary shared their scruples. Not only in the De Synodis but in the De
Trinitate he assigns the birth of the Son to the omnipotence, the counsel
and will of God acting in co-operation with His nature. This two-fold
cause of birth is peculiar to the Son; all other beings owe their existence
simply to the power and will, not to the nature of God. such being the
relation between Father and Son, it is obvious that They cannot differ in
nature. The word 'birth,' by which the relation is described, indicates the
transmission of nature from parent to offspring; and this word is, like
'Father' and 'Son,' an essential part of the revelation. The same divine
nature or substance exists eternally and in equal perfection in Both,
unbegotten in the Father, begotten in the Son. In fact, the expression,
'Only begotten God,' may be called Hilary's watchword, with such
'peculiar abundance' does it occur in his writings, as in those of his
Cappadocian friends. But, though the Son is the Image of the Father,
Hilary in his maturer thought, when free from the influence of his Asiatic

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allies, is careful to avoid using the inadequate and perilous term 'likeness'
to describe the relation. Such being the birth, and such the unity of nature,
the Son must be very God. This is proved by all the usual passages of the
Old Testament, from the Creation onwards. These are used, as by the
other Fathers, to prove that the Son has not the name only, but the reality,
of Godhead; the reality corresponding to the nature. All things were made
through Him out of nothing; therefore He is Almighty as the Father is
Almighty. If man is made in the image of Both, if one Spirit belongs to
Both, than there can be no difference of nature between the Two. But
They are not Two as possessing one nature, like human father and son,
while living separate lives. God is One, with a Divinity undivided and
indivisible; and Hilary is never weary of denying the Arian charge that his
creed involved the worship of two Gods. No analogies from created things
can explain their unity. Tree and branch, fire and heat, source and stream
can only illustrate Their inseparable co-existence; such comparisons, if
pressed, lead inevitably to error. The true unity of Father and Son is
deeper than this; deeper also than any unity, however perfect, of will with
will. For it is an eternal mutual indwelling, Each perfectly corresponding
with and comprehending and containing the Other, and Himself in the
Other; and this not after the manner of earthly commingling of substances
or exchange of properties. The only true comparison that can be made is
with the union between Christ, in virtue of His humanity, and the believer;
such is the union, in virtue of the Godhead, between Father and Son. And
this unity extends inevitably to will and action. Since the Father is acting in
all that the Son does, the Son is acting in all that the Father does; 'he that
hath seen Me hath seen the Father.' This doctrine reconciles all our Lord's
statements in the Gospel of St. John concerning His own and His Father's
work.

But notwithstanding this unity, there is a true numerical duality of Person.
Sabellius, we must remember, had held for two generations the
pre-eminence among heretics. To the Greek- speaking world outside Egypt
the error which he and Paul of Samosata had taught, that God is one
Person, was still the most dangerous of falsehoods; the supreme victory of
truth had not been won in their eyes when Arius was condemned at
Nicaea, but when Paul was deposed at Antioch. The Nicene leaders had
certainly counted the cost when they adopted as the test of orthodoxy the

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same word which Paul had used for the inculcation of error. But the
homoousion, however great its value as a permanent safeguard of truth,
was the immediate cause of alienation and suspicion. And not only did it
make the East misunderstand the West, but it furnished the Arians with
the most effective of instruments for widening the breach between the two
forces opposed to them. They had an excuse for calling their opponents in
Egypt and the West by the name of Sabellians, the very name most likely
to engender distrust in Asia. Hilary, who could enter with sympathy
feeling was, labors with untiring patience to dissipate the prejudice. There
is no Arian plea against which he argues at greater length. The names
'Father' and 'Son,' being parts of the revelation, are convincing proofs of
distinction of Person as well as of unity of nature. They prove that the
nature is the same, but possessed after a different manner by Each of the
Two; by the One as ingenerate, by the Other as begotten. The word
'Image,' also a part of the revelation, is another proof of the distinction; an
object and its reflection in a mirror are obviously not one thing. Again, the
distinct existence of the Son is proved by the fact that He has free volition
of His own and by a multitude of passages of Scripture, many of them
absolutely convincing, as for instance, those from the Gospel of St. John.
But these two Persons, though one in nature, are not equal in dignity. The
Father is greater than the Son; greater not merely as compared to the
incarnate Christ, but as compared to the Son, begotten from eternity. This
is not simply by the prerogative inherent in all paternity; it is because the
Father is self-existent, Himself the Source of all being. With one of his
happy phrases Hilary describes it as an inferiority generatione, non
genere; the Son is one in kind or nature with the Father, though inferior, as
the Begotten, to the Unbegotten. But this inferiority is not to be so
construed as to lessen our belief in His divine attributes. For instance,
when He addresses the Father in prayer, this is not because He is
subordinate, but because He wishes to honor the Fatherhood; and, as
Hilary argues at great length, the end, when God shall be all in all, is not to
be regarded as a surrender of the Son's power, in the sense of loss, it is a
mysterious final state of permanent, willing submission to the Father's
will, into which he enters b the supreme expression of an obedience which
has never failed. Again, our Lord's language in St. Mark 13:32, must not be
taken as signifying ignorance on the part of the Son of His Father's
purpose. For, according to St. Paul (Colossians 2:3), in Him are hid all the

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treasures of wisdom and knowledge, and therefore He must know the day
and hour of judgment. He is ignorant relatively to us, in the sense that He
will not betray His Father's secret. Whether or no it be possible in calmer
times to maintain that the knowledge and the ignorance are complementary
truths which finite minds cannot reconcile, we cannot wonder that Hilary,
ever on the watch against apparent concessions to Arianism, should in this
instance have abandoned his usual method of balancing against each other
the apparent contraries. His reasoning is, in any case, a striking proof of
his intense conviction of the co-equal Godhead of the Son.

Such is Hilary's argument, very briefly stated. We may read almost all of
it, where Hilary himself had certainly read it, in the Discourses against the
Arians and elsewhere in the writings of Athanasius. How far, however, he
was borrowing from the latter must remain doubtful, as must the question
as to the originality of Athansius. For the controversy was universal, and
both of these great writers had the practical purpose of collecting the best
arguments out of the multitude which were suggested in ephemeral
literature or verbal debate. Their victory, intellectual as well as moral, over
their adversaries was decisive, and the more striking because it was the
Arians who had made the attack on ground chosen by themselves. They
authority of Scripture as the final court of appeal was their premiss as well
as that of their opponents; and they had selected the texts on which the
verdict of Scripture was to be based. Out of their own mouth they were
condemned, and the work done in the fourth century can never need to be
repeated. It was, of course, an unfinished work. As we have seen, Hilary
concerns himself with two Persons, not with three; and since he states the
contrasted truths of plurality and unity without such explanation of the
mystery as the speculative genius of Augustine was to supply, he leaves,
in spite of all his efforts, a certain impression of excessive dualism. But
these defects do not lessen the permanent value of his work. Indeed, we
may even assert that they, together with some strange speculations and
many instances of wild interpretation, which are, however, no part of the
structure of his argument and do not affect its solidity, actually enhance its
human and historical interest. The De Trinitate remains 'the most perfect
literary achievement called forth by the Arian controversy.'

Hitherto we have been considering the relations within the Godhead of
Father and Son, together with certain characters which belong to the Son in

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virtue of His eternal birth. We now come to the more original part of
Hilary's teaching, which must be treated in greater detail. Till now he has
spoken only of the Son; he now comes to speak of Christ, the name which
the Son bears in relation to the world. We have seen that Hilary regards the
Son as the Creator. This was proved for him, as for Athanasius, by the
passage, Proverbs 8:22, which they read according to the Septuagint, 'The
Lord hath created Me for the beginning of His ways for His Works.' These
words, round which the controversy raged, were interpreted by the
orthodox as implying that at the time, and for the purpose, of creation the
Father assigned new functions to the Son as His representative. The gift of
these functions, the exercise of which called into existence orders of being
inferior to God, marked in Hilary' s eyes a change so definite and important
in the activity of the Son that it deserved to be called a second birth, not
ineffable like the eternal birth, but strictly analogous to the Incarnation.
This last was a creation, which brought Him within the sphere of created
humanity; the creation of Wisdom for the beginning of God's ways had
brought Him, though less closely, into the same relation, and the
Incarnation is the completion of what was begun in preparation for the
creation of the world. Creation is the mode by which finite being begins,
and the beginning if each stage in the connection between the infinite Son
and His creatures is called, from the one point of view, a creation, from the
other, a birth. We cannot fail to see here an anticipation of the opinion that
'the true Protevangelium is the revelation of Creation, or in other words
that the Incarnation was independent of the Fall,' for the Incarnation is a
step in the one continuous divine progress from the Creation to the final
consummation of all things, and has not sins for its cause, but is part of the
original council of God. Together with this new office the Son receives a
new name. Henceforth Hilary call Him Christ; He is Christ in relation to
the world, as He is Son in relation to the Father. From the beginning of
time, then, the Son becomes Christ and stands in immediate relation to the
world; it is in and through Christ that God is the Author of all things, and
the title of Creator strictly belongs to the Son. This beginning of time, we
must remember, is hidden in no remote antiquity. The world had no
mysterious past; it came into existence suddenly at a date which could be
fixed with much precision, some 5,600 years before Hilary's day, and had
undergone no change since then. Before that date there had been nothing

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outside the Godhead; from that time forth the Son has stood inconstant
relation to the created world.

Christ, for so we must henceforth call Him, has not only sustained in being
the universe which He created, but has also imparted to men a steadily
increasing knowledge of God. For such knowledge, we remember, man was
made, and his salvation depends upon its possession. All the Theophanies
of the Old Testament are such revelations by Him of Himself; and it was
He that spoke by the mouth of Moses and the Prophets. But however
significant and valuable this Divine teaching and manifestation might be, it
was not complete in itself, but was designed to prepare men's minds to
expect its fulfillment in the Incarnation. Just as the Law was preliminary
to the Gospel, so the appearances of Christ is in human form to Abraham
and to others were a foreshadowing of the true humanity which He was to
assume. They were true revelations, so far as they went; but their purpose
was not simply to impart so much knowledge as they explicitly conveyed,
but also to lead men on to expect more, and to expect it in the very form in
which it ultimately came. For His self-revelation in the Incarnation was but
the treading again of a familiar path. He had often appeared, and had often
spoken, by His own mouth of by that of men who He had inspired; and in
all this contact with the world His one object had been to bestow upon
mankind the knowledge of God. With the same object He became
incarnate; the full revelation was to impart the perfect knowledge. He
became man, Hilary says, in order that we might believe Him; — 'to be a
Witness from among us to the things of God, and by means of weak flesh
to proclaim God the Father to our weak and carnal selves.' Here again we
see the continuity of the Divine purpose, the fulfillment of the counsel
which dates back to the beginning of time. If man had not sinned, he would
still have needed the progressive revelation; sin has certainly modified
Christ's course upon earth, but was not the determining cause of the
Incarnation.

The doctrine of the Incarnation, or Embodiment as Hilary prefers to call it,
it presented very fully in the De Trinitate, and with much originality. The
God head of Christ is secured by His identity with the eternal Son and by
the fact that at the very time of His humiliation upon earth He was
continuing without interruption His divine work of maintaining the
existence of the worlds. Indeed, by a natural protest against the

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degradation which the Arians would put upon Him, it is the glory of
Christ upon which Hilary lays chief stress. And this is not the moral glory
of submission and self-sacrifice, but the visible glory of miracles attesting
the Divine presence. In the third book of the De Trinitate the miracles of
Cana and the feeding of the five thousand, the entrance into the closed
room where the disciples were assembled, the darkness and the earthquake
at the Crucifixion, are the proofs urged for His Godhead; and the
wonderful circumstances surrounding the birth at Bethlehem are similarly
employed in book II. Sound as the reasoning is, it is typical of a certain
unwillingness on Hilary's part to dwell upon the self- surrender of Christ;
he prefers to think of Him rather as the Revealer of God than as the
Redeemer of men. But, apart from this preference, he constantly insists
that the Incarnation has caused neither loss nor change of the Divine nature
in Christ, and proves the point by the same words of our Lord which had
been used to demonstrate the eternal Sonship. And the assumption of flesh
lessens His power as little as it degrades His nature. For though it is, in
one aspect, an act of submission to the will of the Father, it is, in another,
an exertion of His own omnipotence. No inferior power could appropriate
to itself an alien nature; only God could strip Himself of the attributes of
Godhead.

But the incarnate of Christ is as truly man as He is truly God. We have
seen that He is 'created in the body' ; and Hilary constantly insists that
His humanity is neither fictitious nor different in kind from ours. We must
therefore consider what is the constitution of man. He is, so Hilary
teaches, a physically composite being; the elements of which is body is
composed are themselves lifeless, and man himself is never fully alive.
According to this physiology, the father is the author of the child's body,
the maternal function being altogether subsidiary. It would seem that the
mother does nothing more than protect the embryo, so giving it the
opportunity of growth, and finally bring the child to birth. And each
human soul is separately created, like the universe, out of nothing. Only
the body is engendered; the soul, wherein the likeness of man to God
consists, has a nobler origin, being the immediate creation of God. Hilary
does not hold, or at least does not attach importance to, the tripartite
division of man; for the purposes of his philosophy we consist of soul and
body. We may now proceed to consider his theory of the Incarnation. This

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is based upon the Pauline conception of the first and second Adam. Each
of these was created, and the two acts of creation exactly correspond.
Christ, the Creator, made clay into the first Adam, who therefore had an
earthly body. He made Himself into the second Adam, and therefore has a
heavenly Body. To this end He descended from heaven and entered into
the Virgin's womb. For, in accordance with Hilary's principle of
interpretation, the word 'Spirit' must not be regarded as necessarily
signifying the Holy Ghost, but one or other of the Persons of the Trinity
as the context may require; and in this case it means the Son, since the
question is of an act of creation, and He, and none other, is the Creator.
Also, correspondence between the two Adams would be as effectually
broken were the Holy Ghost the Agent in the conception, as it would be
were Christ's body engendered and not created. Thus He is Himself not
only the Author but (if the word may be used) the material of His own
body; the language of St. John, that the Word became flesh, must be taken
literally. It would be insufficient to say that the Word took, or united
Himself to, the flesh. But this creation of the Second Adam to be true man
is not our only evidence of His humanity. We have seen that in Hilary's
judgment the mother has but a secondary share in her offspring. That
share, whatever it be, belongs to the Virgin; she contributed to His growth
and to His coming to birth 'everything which it is the nature of her sex to
impart.' But though Christ is constantly said to have been born of the
Virgin, He is habitually called the 'Son of Man,' not the Son of the Virgin,
nor she the Mother of God. Such language would attribute to her an
activity and an importance inconsistent with Hilary's theory. For no
portion of her substance, he distinctly says, was taken into the substance
of her Son's human body; and elsewhere he argues that St. Paul's words
'made of a woman' are deliberately chosen to describe Christ's birth as a
creation free from any commingling with existing humanity. But the Virgin
has an essential share in the fulfillment of prophecy. For though Christ
without her co-operation could have created Himself as man, yet He would
not have been, as He was fore-ordained to be, the Son of Man. And since
He holds that the Virgin performs every function of a mother, Hilary
avoids that Valentinian heresy according to which Christ passed through
the Virgin 'like water through a pipe,' for He was Himself the Author of a
true act of creation within her, and, when she had fulfilled her office, was
born as true flesh. Again, Hilary's clear sense of the eternal personal

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pre-existence of the Word saves him from any contact with the
Monarchianism combated by Hippolytus and Tertullian, which held that
the Son was the Father under another aspect. Indeed, so secure does he feel
himself that he can venture to employ Monarchian theories, now rendered
harmless, in explanation of the mysteries of the Incarnation. For we cannot
fail to see a connection between his opinions and theirs; and it might seem
that , confident in his wider knowledge, he has borrowed not only from the
arguments used by Tertullian against the Monarchian Praxeas, but also
from those which Tertullian assigns to the latter. Such reasonings, we
know, had been very prevalent in the West; and Hilary's use of certain of
them, in order to turn their edge by showing that they were not
inconsistent with the fundamental doctrines of the Faith, may indicate that
Monarchianism was still a real danger.

Thus the Son becomes flesh, and that by true maternity on the Virgin's
part. But man is more than flesh; he is soul as well, and it is the soul which
makes him a man instead of matter. The soul, as we saw, is created by a
special act of God at the beginning of the separate existence of each human
being; and Christ, to be true man and not merely true flesh, created for
Himself the human soul which was necessary for true humanity. He had
borrowed from the Apollinarians, consciously no doubt, their
interpretation of one of their favorite passages, 'The Word became flesh' ;
here again we find an argument of heretics rendered harmless and adopted
by orthodoxy. For the strange Apollinarian denial to Christ of a human
soul, and therefore of perfect manhood, is not only expressly contradicted,
but repudiated on every page by the contrary assumption on which all
Hilary's arguments are based. Christ, then, is 'perfect man, of a reasonable
soul and human flesh subsisting,' for Whom the Virgin has performed the
normal functions of maternity. But there is one wide and obvious
difference between Hilary' s mode of handling the matter and that with
which we are familiar. His view concerning the mother's office forbids his
laying stress upon our Lord's inheritance from her. Occasionally, and
without emphasis, he mentions our Lord as the Son of David, or otherwise
introduces His human ancestry, but he never dwells upon the subject. He
neither bases upon this ancestry the truth, nor deduces from it the
character, of Christ's humanity. Such is Hilary's account of the facts of
the Incarnation. In his teaching there is no doubt error as well as defect, but

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only in the mode of explanation, not in the doctrine explained. It will help
us to do him justice if we may compare the theories that have been framed
concerning another great doctrine, that of the Atonement, and remember
that they strangely diverse speculations of Gregory the Great and of St.
Anselm profess to account for the same facts, and that, so far as
definitions of the Church are concerned, we are free to accept one or other,
or neither, of the rival explanations.

Christ, then, Who had been perfect God from eternity, became perfect
Man by His self- wrought act of creation. Thus there was an
approximation between God and man; man was raised by God, Who
humbled Himself to meet Him. On the other hand the Virgin was sanctified
in preparation for her sacred motherhood; on the other hand there was a
condescension of the Son to our low estate. The key to this is found by
Hilary in the language of St. Paul. Christ emptied Himself of the form of
God and took the form of a servant; this is a revelation as decisive as the
same Apostle's words concerning the first and second Adam. The form of
God, wherein the Son is to the Father as the exact image reflected in a
mirror, the exact impression taken from a seal, belongs to Christ's very
being. He could not detach it from Himself, if He would, for it is the
property of God to be eternally what He is; and, as Hilary constantly
reminds us, the continuous existence of creation is evidence that there had
been no break in the Son's divine activity in maintaining the universe
which He had made. While He was in the cradle He upheld the worlds.
Yet, in some real sense, Christ emptied Himself of this form of God. It
was necessary that He should do so if manhood, even the sinless manhood
created by Himself for His own Incarnation, was to co-exist with Godhead
in His one Person. This is stated as distinctively as is the correlative fact
that He retained and exercised the powers and the majesty of His nature.
Thus it is clear that, outside the sphere of His work for men, the form and
the nature of God remained unchanged in the Son; while within that sphere
the form, though not the nature, was so affected that it could truly be said
to be laid aside. But when we come to Hilary's explanation of this process,
we can only acquit him of inconsistency in thought by admitting the
ambiguity of his language. In one group of passages he recognizes the
self-emptying, but minimizes its importance; in another he denies that our
Lord could or did empty Himself of the form of God. And again, his

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definitions of the word 'form' are so various as to be actually
contradictory. Yet a consistent sense, and one exceedingly characteristic of
Hilary, can be derived from a comparison of his statements; and in judging
him we must remember that we have no systematic exposition of his
views, but must gather them not only from his deliberate reasonings, but
sometimes from homiletical amplifications of Scripture language,
composed for edification and without the thought of theological balance,
and sometimes from incidental sayings, thrown out in the course of other
lines of argument. To the minimizing statements belongs his description of
the evacuation as a 'change of apparel,' and his definition of the word
'form; as meaning no more than 'face' or 'appearance,' as also his
insistence from time to time upon the permanence of this form in Christ,
not merely in his supramundane relations, but as the Son of Man. On the
other hand Hilary expressly declares that the 'concurrence of the two
forms' is impossible, they being mutually exclusive. This represents the
higher form, that of God, as something more than a dress or appearance
which could be changed or masked; and stronger still is the language used in
the Homily on Psalm 68. There (§ 4) he speaks of Christ being exhausted
of His heavenly nature, this being used as a synonym for the form of God,
and even of His being emptied of His substance. But it is probable that the
Homily has descended to us, without revision by its author, in the very
words which the shorthand writer took down. This mention of 'substance'
is unlike Hilary's usual language, and the antithesis between the substance
which the Son had not, because He had emptied Himself of it, and the
substance which He had, because He had assumed it, is somewhat
infelicitously expressed The term must certainly not be taken as the
deliberate statement of Hilary's final opinion, still less as the decisive
passage to which his other assertions must be accommodated; but it is at
least clear evidence that Hilary, in the maturity of his thought, was not
afraid to state in the strongest possible language the reality and
completeness of the evacuation. The reconciliation of these apparently
contradictory views concerning Christ' s relation tot he form of God can
only be found in Hilary's idea of the Incarnation as a 'dispensation,' or
series of dispensations. The word and the thought are borrowed through
Tertullian from the Greek 'economy'; but in Hilary's mind the notion of
Divine reserve had grown till it has become, we might say, the dominant
element of the conception. This self-emptying is a dispensation, whereby

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the incarnate Son of God appears to be, what He is not, destitute of the
form of God. For this form is the glory of God, concealed by our Lord for
the purposes of His human life, yet held by Hilary, to a greater extent,
perhaps, than by any other theologian, to have been present with Him on
earth. In words which have a wider application, and must be considered
hereafter, Hilary speaks of Christ as 'emptying Himself and hiding
Himself within Himself.' Concealment has a great part to play in Hilary's
theories, and is in this instance the only explanation consistent with his
doctrinal position.

Thus the Son made possible the union of humanity with Himself. He
'shrank from God into man' by an act not only of Divine power, but of
personal Divine will. He Who did this thing could not cease to be what He
had been before; hence His very deed in submitting Himself to the change
is evidence of His unchanged continuity of existence. And furthermore, His
assumption of the servant's form was not accompanied by a single act. His
wearing of that form was one continuous act of voluntary self-repression,
and the events of His life on earth bear frequent witness to His possession
of the powers of God.

Thus in Him God is united with man; these two natures form the
'elements' or 'parts' of one Person. The Godhead is superposed upon the
manhood; or, as Hilary prefers to say, the manhood is assumed by Christ.
And these two natures are not confused, but simultaneously coexist in
Him as the Son of man. There are not two Christs, nor is the one Christ a
composite Being in such a sense that He is intermediate in kind between
God and Man. He can speak as God and can also speak as Man; in the
Homilies on the Psalms Hilary constantly distinguishes between His
utterances in the one and the other nature. Yet He is one Person with two
natures, of which the one dominates, though it does not extinguish, the
other in every relation of His existence as the Son of man. Every act,
bodily or mental, done by Him is done by both natures of the one Christ.
Hence a certain indifference towards the human aspects of His life, and a
tendency rather to explain away that seems humiliation than to draw out
its lessons. And Hilary is so impressed with the unity of Christ that the
humanity, a notion for which he has no name, would have been in his eyes
nothing more than a collective term for certain attributes of One Who is
more than man, just as the body of Christ is not for him a dwelling

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occupied, or an instrument used, by God, but an inseparable property of
Christ, Who personally is God and Man.

Hence the body of Christ has a character peculiar to itself. It is a heavenly
body, because of its origin and because of its Owner, the Son of Man Who
came down from heaven, and though on earth was in heaven still. It
performs the functions and experiences, the limitations of a human body,
and this is evidence that it is in every sense a true, or an alien or fictitious
body. Though it is free from the sins of humanity, it has our weaknesses.
But here the distinction must be made, which will presently be discussed,
between the two kinds of suffering, that which feels and that which only
endures. Christ was not conscious of suffering from these weaknesses,
which could inflict no sense of want or weariness or pain upon His body, a
body not the less real because it was perfect. He took our infirmities as
truly as He bore our sins. But He was not more under the dominion of the
one than of the other. His body was in the likeness of ours, but its reality
did not consist in the likeness, but in the fact that He had created it a true
body, by means of which to fulfill God's purposes, that should have been
a true body, but it would have been difficult for us to believe it. Hence He
assumed one which had for habits what are necessities to us, in order to
demonstrate to us its reality. It was foreordained that He should be
incarnate; the mode of the Incarnation was determined by considerations of
our advantage. The arguments by which this thesis is supported will be
stated presently, in connection with Hilary's account of the Passion. It
would be difficult to decide whether he has constructed his theory
concerning the human activities of our Lord upon the basis of this
preponderance of the Divine nature in His incarnate personality, or
whether he has argued back from what he deems the true account of
Christ' s mode of life on earth, and invented the hypothesis in explanation
of it. In any case he has had the courage exactly to reverse the general belief
of Christendom regarding the powers normally used by Christ. We are
accustomed to think that with rare exceptions, such as the Transfiguration,
He lived a life limited by the ordinary conditions of humanity, to draw
lessons for ourselves from His bearing in circumstances like our own, to
estimate His condescension and suffering, in kind if not degree, by our own
conciseness. Hilary regards the normal state of the incarnate Christ as that
of exaltation, from which he stooped on rare occasions, by a special act of

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will, to self-humiliation. Thus the Incarnation, though itself a declension
from the pristine glory, does not account for the facts of Christ's life; they
must be explained by further isolated and temporary declensions. And
since the Incarnation is the one great event, knowledge and faith concerning
which are essential, the events which accompany or result from it tend, in
Hilary's thought, to shrink in importance. They can and must minimize,
explained away, regarded as 'dispensations,' if they seem to derogate from
the Majesty of Him Who was incarnate.

When we examine the interpretation of Scripture by which Hilary reaches
the desired conclusions we find it, in many instances, strange indeed. The
letter of the Gospels tells us of bodily needs and of suffering; Christ,
though more than man, is proved to be Man by His obvious submission to
the conditions of human life. But according to Hilary all human suffering is
due to the union of an imperfect soul with an imperfect body. The soul of
Christ, though truly human, was perfect; His body was that of a Person
Divine as well as human. Thus both elements were perfect of their kind,
and therefore as free from infirmity as from sin, for affliction is the lot of
man not because he is man, but because he is a sinner. In contrast with the
squalor of sinful humanity, glory surrounded Christ from the annunciation
onward throughout His course on earth. Miracle is the attestation of His
Godhead, and He Who was thus superior to the powers of nature could
not be subject to the sufferings which nature inflicts. But, being
omnipotent, He could subject Himself to humiliations which no power less
than his Own could lay upon Him, and this self- subjection is the supreme
evidence of his might as well of His goodwill towards men. God, and only
God, could occupy at once the cradle and the throne on high. Thus in
emphasizing the humiliation Hilary is extolling the majesty of Christ, and
refuting the errors of Arianism. That school had made the most of Christ's
sufferings, holding them a proof of His inferiority to the Father. In
Hilary's eyes His power to condescend and His final victory are equally
conclusive evidences of His co-equal Divinity. But if He stoops to our
estate, and is at the same time God subject to the limitations of our nature;
that is a fact of revelation. But He was subject by a secession of detached
acts of self-restraint, culminating in the act, voluntary like the others, of
His death. Of His acceptance of the ordinary infirmities of humanity we
have already spoken. Hilary gives the same explanation of the Passion as

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he does of the thirst or weariness of Christ. That He could suffer, and that
to the utmost, is proved by the fact that He did suffer; yet was He, or
could He be, conscious of suffering? For the fulfillment of the Divine
purpose, for our assurance of the reality of His work, the acts had to be
done; but it was sufficient that they should be done by a dispensation, in
other words, that the events should be real and yet the feelings be absent
of which, had the events happened to us,, we should have been conscious.
To understand this we must recur to Hilary's theory of the relation of the
soul to the body. The former is the organ of sense, the latter a lifeless
thing. But the soul may fall below, or rise above, its normal state.
Mortification of the body may set in, or drugs be administered which shall
render the soul incapable of feeling the keenest pain. On the other hand it
is capable of a spiritual elevation which shall make it unconscious of
bodily needs or sufferings, as when Moses and Elijah fasted, or the three
Jewish youths walked amid the flames. On this high level Christ always
dwelt. Others might rise for a moment above themselves; He, not although,
but because He was true and perfect Man, never fell below it. He placed
Himself in circumstances where shame and wounds and death were
inflicted upon Him; He had lived a life of humiliation, not only real, in that
it involved a certain separation from God, but also apparent. But as in this
latter respect we may no more overlook His glory than we may suppose
Him ignorant, as by a dispensation He professed to be, so in regard to the
Passion we must not imagine that He was inferior to His saints in being
conscious, as they were not, of suffering. So far, indeed, is He from the
sense of suffering that Hilary even says that the Passion was a delight to
Him, and this not merely in its prospective results, but in the
consciousness of power which He enjoyed in passing through it. Nor could
this be surprising to one who looked with Hilary's eyes upon the
humanity of Christ. He enforces his view sometimes with rhetoric, as
when he repudiates the notion that the Bread of Life could hunger, and He
who gives the living water, thirst, that the hand which restored the
servant' s ear could itself feel pain, that He Who said, 'Now is the Son of
Man glorified,' when Judas left the chamber, could at that moment be
feeling sorrow, and He before Whom the soldiers fell be capable of fear, or
shrink from the pain of a death which was itself an exertion of His own
free will and power. Or else he dwells upon the general character of
Christ's manhood. He recognizes no change in the mode of being after the

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Resurrection; the passing through closed doors, the sudden disappearance
of Emmaus are typical of the normal properties of His body, which could
heal the sick by a touch, and could walk upon the waves. It is a body upon
the sensibility of which the forces of nature can make no impression
whatever; they can no more pain Him than the stroke of a weapon can
affect air or water; or, as Hilary puts it elsewhere, fear and death, which
have so painful a meaning to us, were no more to Him than a shower falling
upon a surface which it cannot penetrate. It is not the passages of the
Gospel which tell of Christ's glory, but those which speak of weakness or
suffering that need to be explained; and Hilary on occasion is not afraid to
explain them away. For instance, we read that when our Lord had fasted
forty days and forty nights 'He was afterward an hungered.' Hilary denies
that there is a connection of cause and effect. Christ's perfect body was
unaffected by abstinence; but after the fast by an exertion of His will He
experienced hunger. So also the Agony in the Garden is ingeniously
misinterpreted. He took with Him the three Apostles, and then began to be
sorrowful. He was not sorrowful; till He had taken them; they, not He,
were the cause. When He said, 'My would is exceeding sorrowful,, even
unto death,' the last words must not be regarded as meaning that He was a
mortal sorrow, but as giving a note of time. The sorrow of which He spoke
was not for Himself but for His Apostles, whose flight He foresaw, and
He was asserting that this sorrow would last till He died. And when He
prayed that the cup might pass away from Him, this was no entreaty that
He might be spared. It was His purpose to drink it. The prayer was for
His disciples that the cup might pass on from Him to them; that they
might suffer for Him as martyrs full of hope, without pain or fear. One
passage, St. Luke 22:43, 44, which conflicts with his view is rejected by
Hilary on textual grounds, and not without some reason. He had looked for
it, and found it absent, in a large number of manuscripts, both Greek and
Latin. But perhaps the strangest argument which he employees is that
when the Gospel tells us that Christ thirsted and hungered and wept,
eating and drinking, were two sets of dispensations, unconnected by the
relation of cause and effect; the tears were another dispensation, not the
expression of personal grief. If, as a habit, He accepts the needs and
functions of our body, this does not render His own body more real, for
by the act of its creation it was made truly human; His purpose, as has
been said, is to enable us to recognize its reality, which would otherwise be

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difficult. If He wept, He had the same object; this use of one of the
evidences of bodily emotion would help us to believe. And so it is
throughout Christ's life on earth. He suffered by He did not feel. No one
but a heretic, says Hilary, would suppose that He was pained by the nails
which fixed Him to the Cross.

It is obvious that Hilary's theory offers a perfect defense against the two
dangers of the day, Arianism and Apollinarianism. The tables are turned
upon the former by emphatic insistence upon the power manifested in the
humiliation and suffering of Christ. That He, being what He was, should be
able to place Himself in such circumstances was the most impressive
evidence of His Divinity. And if His humanity was endowed with Divine
properties, much more must His Divinity. And if His humanity was
endowed with Divine properties, much more must His Divinity rise above
that inferiority to which the Arians consigned it. Apollinarianism is
controverted by the demonstration of His true humanity. No language can
be too strong to describe its glories; but the true wonder is not that Christ,
as God, has such attributes, but that He Who has them is very Man. The
theory was well adapted for service in the controversies of he day; for us,
however we may admire the courage and ingenuity it displays, it can be no
more than a curiosity of doctrinal history. Yet, whatever its defects as an
explanation of the facts, the skill with which dangers on wither hand are
avoided, the manifest anxiety to be loyal to established doctrine, deserve
recognition and respect. It has been said that Hilary 'constantly withdraws
in the second clause what he has asserted in the first,' and in a sense it is
true. For many of his statements might make him seem the advocate of an
extreme doctrine of Kenosis, which would represent our Lord's
self-emptying as complete, but often expressed and always present in
Hilary's thought, for the coherence of which it is necessary, is the
correlative notion of the dispensation, whereby Christ seemed for our sake
to be less than He truly was. Again, Hilary has been accused of 'sailing
somewhat close to the cliffs of Docetism,' but all admit that he has
escaped shipwreck. Various accounts of his teaching, all of which agree in
acquitting him of this error, have been given; and that which has been
accepted in this paper, of Christ by the vert perfection of His humanity
habitually living in such an ecstasy as that of Polycarp or Perpetua at their
martyrdom, is a noble conception in itself and consistent with the Creeds,

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though it cannot satisfy us. In part, at any rate, it belonged to the lessons
which Hilary had learned from Alexandria. Clement had taught, though his
successor Origen rejected, the impassibility of Christ, Who had eaten and
drunk only by a 'dispensation'; — 'He ate not for the sake of His body,
which was sustained by a holy power, but that that false notion might not
creep into the minds of His companions which in later days some have, in
fact, conceived, that He had been manifested only in appearance. He was
altogether impassible; there entered from without into Him no movement
of the feelings, whether pleasure or pain.' Thus Hilary had what would be
in his eyes high authority for his opinion. But he must have felt some
doubts of its value if he compared the strange exegesis and forced logic by
which it was supported with that frank acceptance of the obvious sense of
Scripture in which he takes so reasonable a pride in his direct controversy
with the Arians. And another criticism may be ventured. In that
controversy he balances with scrupulous reverence mystery against
mystery, never forgetting that he is dealing with infinities. In this case the
one is made to overwhelm the other; the infinite glory excludes the infinite
sorrow from his view. Here, if anywhere, Hilary needs, and may justly
claim, the indulgence he has demanded. It had not been his wish to define
or explain; he was content with the plain words to commit a fault; and
speculation bases on sound principle, however perilous to him who made
the first attempt, had been rendered by the prevalence of heresy a
necessary evil. Again, we must bear in mind that Hilary was essentially a
Greek theologian, to whom the supremely interesting as well as the
supremely important doctrine was that God became Man. He does not
conceal of undervalue to fact of the Atonement and of the Passion as the
means by which it was wrought. But, even though he had not held his
peculiar theory of impassibility, he would still have thought the effort
most worth making not that of realizing the pains of Christ by our
experience of sufferings and sense of the enormity of sin, but that of
apprehending the mystery of the Incarnation. For that act of
condescension was greater, not only in scale but in kind, than any
humiliation to which Christ, already Man, submitted Himself in His
human state.

Christ, Whose properties as incarnate are thus described by Hilary, is one
Person. This, of course, needs no proof, but something must be said of the

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use which he makes of the doctrine. It is by Christ's own work, by an act
of power, even of violence, exercised by Him upon Himself, that the two
natures are inseparably associated in Him; so inseparably that between His
death resurrection His Divinity was simultaneously present with each of
the severed elements of His humanity. Hence, though Hilary frequently
discriminate between Christ's utterances as God and as Man, he never fails
to keep his reader's attention fixed upon the unity of His Person. And this
unity is the more obvious because, as has been said, the Manhood in
Christ is dominated by the Godhead. Though we are not allowed to forget
that He is truly Man, yet as a rule Hilary prefers to speak in such words
as, 'the only-begotten Son of God was crucified,' or to say more briefly,
'God was crucified.' Judas is 'the betrayer of God;' 'the life or mortals is
renewed through the death of immortal God.' Such expressions are far
more frequent than the balanced language, 'the Passion of Jesus Christ, our
God and Lord,' and these again than such an exaltation of the manhood as
'the Man Jesus Christ, the Lord of Majesty.' But once, in an unguarded
moment, an element of His humanity seems to be denied. Hilary never
says that Christ' s body is God, but he speaks of the spectators of the
Crucifixion 'contemplating the power of the soul which by signs and deeds
had proved itself God.'

But though distinctions may be drawn, and though for the sake of
emphasis and brevity Christ may be called by the name of one only of His
two natures, the essential fact is never forgotten that He is God and man,
one Person in two forms, God's and the servant's. And these two natures
do not stand isolated and apart, merely contained within the limits of one
personality. Just as we saw that Hilary recognizes a complete mutual
indwelling and interpretation of Father and son, so he teaches that in the
narrower sphere of the Incarnation there is an equally exact and
comprehensive union of the Godhead and Manhood in Christ. Jesus is
Christ, and Christ is Jesus. Not merely is the one Christ perfect Man and
perfect God, but the whole Son of Man is the whole Son of God. So fat is
His manhood from being merged and lost in His Divinity, that the extent of
the one is the measure of the other. We must not imagine that,
simultaneously with the incarnate, there existed a non-incarnate Christ,
respectively submitting to humiliation ruling the worlds; not yet must we
conceive of one Christ in two unconnected states of being, as though the

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assumption of humanity were merely a function analogous to the guiding
of the stars. On the contrary, the one Person is co-extensive with all
infinity and all action lies within His scope. Whatever He does, whether it
be, or be not, in relation to humanity and in the former case whether it be
the exaltation of manhood or the self-emptying of Godhead, is done within
the sphere of the Incarnation,' the sphere which embraces His whole being
and His whole action. The self-emptying itself was not a
self-determination, instant and complete, made before in Incarnation, but,
as we saw, a process which continued throughout Christ's life on earth and
was active to the end. For as He hung, deliberately self-emptied of his
glory, on the Cross, He manifested His normal powers by the earthquake
shock. His submission to death was the last of a consistent series of
exertions of His will, which began with the Annunciation and culminated in
the Crucifixion.

Hilary estimates the cost of the Incarnation not by any episodes of
Christ's life on earth, but by the fact that it brought about a real, though
partial, separation or breach within the Godhead. Henceforward there was
in Christ the nature of the creature as well as that of the Creator; and this
second nature, though it had been assumed in its most perfect form, was
sundered by an infinite distance from God the Father, though indissolubly
united with the Divinity of his Son. A barrier therefore was raised between
them, to be overcome in due time by the elevation of manhood in and
through the Son. When this elevation was complete within the person of
Christ, then the separation between Him and His Father would be at an
end. he would still have true humanity, but this humanity would be raised
to the level of association with the Father. In Hilary's doctrine the
submission of Christ to this isolation is the central fact of Christianity, the
supreme evidence of His love for men. Not only did it thus isolate Him,
truly though partially, from the Father, but it introduced a strain, a
'division' within His now incarnate Person. The union of natures was real,
but in order that it might become perfect the two needed to be adjusted;
and the humiliation involved in this adjustment is a great part of the
sacrifice made by Christ. There was conflict, in a certain sense, within
himself, repression and concealment of His powers. But finally the barrier
was to be removed, the loss regained, by the exaltation of the manhood
into harmonious association with the Godhead of Father and of Son. Then

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He Who had become in one Person God and Man would become for ever
fully God and fully Man. The humanity would gain, the Divinity regain,
its appropriate dignity, while each retained the reality it had had on earth.

Thus Christ's life in the world was a period of transition. He had
descended; this was the time of preparation for an equal, and even loftier,
ascent. We must not consider in what the preparation consisted; and here,
at first sight, Hilary had involved himself in a grave difficulty. For it is
manifest that his theory of Christ' s life as one lived without effort,
spiritual of physical, or rather as a life whose exertion consisted in a
steady self- accommodation to the infinities of men, varied by occasional an
special acts of condescension to suffering, excludes the possibility of an
advance, a growth in grace as well as in stature, such as Athanasius
scripturally taught. We might say of Hilary, as has been said of another
Father, 'under his treatment the Divine history seems to be dissolved into
a docetic drama.' In such a life it might seem that there was not merely no
possibility of progress, but even an absence of identity, in the sense of
continuity. The phenomena of Christ's life, therefore, are not
manifestations of the disturbance and strain on which Hilary insists, for
they are, when, rightly considered, proofs of His union with God and of
His Divine power, not of weakness or of partial separation. It would,
indeed, be vain for us to seek for sensible evidence of the process of
adjustment, for it went on within the inmost being of the one Person. It did
not affect the Godhead or the Manhood, both visibly revealed as aspects
of the Person, but the hidden relation between the two. Our knowledge
assures us that the process took place, but it is a knowledge attained by
inference from what He was before and after the state of transition, not by
observation of His action in that state. Both natures of the one Person
were affected; 'everything' — glory as well as humiliation — 'was common
to the entire Person at every moment, though to each aspect in its own
distinctive manner.' The entire Person entered into inequality with
Himself; the actuality of each aspect, during the state of humiliation, fell
short of its idea — of the idea of the Son, of the idea of the perfect man, of
the idea of the God-man. It was not merely the human aspect that was at
first inadequate to the Divine; for, through the medium of the voluntary
'evacuatio,' it dragged down the Divine nature also, so far as it permitted
it, to its own inequality.' Such is the only explanation which will reconcile

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Hilary's various, and sometimes obscure, utterances on this great subject.
It is open to the obvious and fatal objection that it cuts, instead of
loosening the knot. For it denies any connection between the dispensation
of Christ's life on earth and the mystery of is assumption and exaltation of
humanity; the one becomes somewhat purposeless, and the other remains
inverified. But it is at least a bold and reverent speculation, not
inconsistent with the Faith as a system of thought, though no place can be
found for it in the Faith, regarded as a revelation of fact.

It was on behalf of mankind that this great sacrifice was made by the Son.
While it separated Him from the Father, it united Him to men. We must
now consider what was the spiritual constitution of the humanity which
He assumed, as we have already considered the physical Man, as we saw
(p. LXIX.) is constituted of body and soul, an outward and an inward
substance, the one earthly, the other heavenly; The exact process of his
creation has been revealed. First, man — that is, his soul — was made in the
image of God; next, long afterwards, his body was fashioned out of dust;
finally by a distinct act, man was made a living soul by the breath of God,
the heavenly and earthly natures being thus coupled together. The world
was already complete when God created the highest, the most beautiful of
His works after His own image. His other works were made by an
instantaneous command; even the firmament was established by his hand;
man alone was made by thehands of God; — 'Thy hands have made me
and fashioned me.' This singular honor of being made by a process, not an
act, and by the hands, not the hand or the voice, of God, was paid to man
not simply as the highest of the creatures, but as the one for whose sake
the rest of the universe was called into being. It is, of course, the soul,
made after the image of God, which has this high honor; an honor which no
length of sinful ancestry can forfeit, for each soul is still separately created.
Hence no human soul is akin to any other human soul; the uniformity of
type is secured by each being made in the same pattern, and the dignity of
humanity by the fact that this pattern is that of the Son, the Image of God.
But the soul pervades the whole body with which it is associated, even as
God pervades the universe. The soul of each man is individual, special to
himself; his brotherhood with mankind belongs to him through his body,
which has therefore something of universality. Hence the relation which
He took that has made Him one with us in the Incarnation and in the

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Eucharist. The reality of His body, as we have seen, is amply secured by
Hilary; its universality is assured by the absence of nay individual human
paternity, which would have isolated Him from others. Thus He took all
humanity into His one body; He is the Church, for He contained the
congregation, so to speak, of the whole race of men.' Hence He spoke of
Himself as the City set on a hill; the inhabitants are mankind. But Christ
not only embraces all humanity in Himself, but the archetype after Whom,
and the final cause for Whom, man was made. Every soul, when it
proceeds from the hands of God, is pure, free and immortal, with a natural
affinity and capacity for good, which can find its satisfaction only in
Christ, the ideal Man. But if Christ is thus everything to man, humanity
has also, in the foreordained purpose of God, something to confer upon
Christ. The temporary humiliation of the Incarnation has for its result a
higher glory than he possessed before, acquired through the harmony of
the two natures.

The course of this elevation is represented by Hilary as a succession of
births, in continuation of the majestic series. First there had been the
eternal generation of the Son; then His creation for the ways and for the
works of God. His appointment, which Hilary regards as equivalent in
importance to another birth, to the office of Creator; next the Incarnation,
the birth in time which makes Him what He was not before, namely Man.
This is followed by the birth of Baptism, of which Hilary speaks thrice.
He read in St. Matthew 3:17, instead of the familiar words of the Voice
from heaven, 'Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten Thee.' This was
in his judgment the institution of the sacrament of Baptism; because Christ
was baptized, we must follow His example. It was a new birth to Him, and
therefore to us. He had been the Son; He became through Baptism the
perfect Son by this fresh birth. It is difficult to see what Hilary's thought
was; perhaps he had not defined it to himself. But, with this reading in his
copy of the Gospel, it was necessary that he should be ready with an
explanation; and though there remained a higher perfection to be reached,
this birth in Baptism might well be regarded as a stage in the return of
Christ to His glory, an elevation of His humanity to a more perfect
congruity with his Godhead. This birth is followed by another, the effect
and importance of which is more obvious, that of the Resurrection, 'the
birthday of His humanity to glory.' By the Incarnation He had lost unity

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with the Father; but the created nature, by the assumption of which He
had disturbed the unity both within Himself and in relation to the Father,
is now raised to the level on which that unity is again possible. In the
Resurrection, therefore, it is restored; and this stage of Christ's
achievement is regarded as a new birth, by which His glory becomes, as it
had been before, the same as that of the Father. But now the glory is
shared by His humanity; the servant's form is promoted to the glory of
God and the discordance comes to an end. Christ, God and Man, stands
where the Word before the Incarnation stood. In this Resurrection, the
only step in this Divine work which is caused by sin, His full humanity
partakes. In order to satisfy all the conditions of actual human life, He died
and visited the lower world; and also, comes that final state, of which
something has already been said, when God shall be all in all. No further
change will be possible within the Person of Christ, for his humanity,
already in harmony with the Godhead, will now be transmitted. The whole
Christ, Man as well as God, will become wholly God. Yet the humanity
will still exist, for it is inseparable from the Divinity, and will consist, as
before, of body and soul. But there will be nothing earthly or fleshly left in
the body; its nature will be purely spiritual. The only form in which
Hilary can express this result is the seeming paradox that Christ will, by
virtue of the final subjection, 'be and continue what He is not.' By this
return of the whole Christ into perfect union with God, humanity attains
the purpose of its creation. He was the archetype after Whose likeness
man was fashioned, and in His Person all the possibilities of mankind are
attained. And this great consummation not only fulfills the destinies of
humanity; it brings also an augmentation of the glory of Him Who is
glorified in Christ.

In the fact that humanity is thus elevated in Christ consists the hope of
individual men. Man in Him has, in a true sense, become God; and though
Hilary as a rule avoids the phrase, familiar to him in the writings of his
Alexandrian teachers and freely used by Athanasius and other of his
contemporaries, that men become gods because God became Man, still the
thought which it conveys is constantly present to his mind. As we have
seen, men are created with such elevation as their final cause; they have the
innate certainty that their soul is of Divine origin and a natural longing for
the knowledge and hope of things eternal. But they can only rise by a

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process, corresponding to that by which the humanity in Christ was raised
to the level of the Divinity. This process begins with the new birth in the
one Baptism, and attains its completion when we fully receive the nature
and the knowledge of God. We are to be members of Christ's body and
partakers in Him, saved into the name and the nature of God. And the
means to this is knowledge of Him, received into a pure mind. Such
knowledge makes the soul of man a dwelling rational, pure and eternal,
wherein the Divine nature, whose properties these are, may eternally
abide. Only that which has reason can be in union with Him Who is
reason. Faith must be accurately informed as well as sincere. Christ became
Man in order that we might believe Him; that He might be a witness to us
from among ourselves touching the things of God.

We have now followed Hilary through his great theory, in which we may
safely say that no other theologian entirely agrees, and which, where it is
more original, diverges most widely from the usual lines of Christian
thought. Yet it nowhere contradicts the accepted standards of belief; and if
it errs it does so in explanation, not in the statement of the truths which it
undertakes to explain. Hilary has the distinction of being the only one of
his contemporaries with the speculative genius to imagine this
development ending in the abolition of incongruity and in the restoration of
the full majesty of the Son and of man with Him. He saw that there must
be such a development, and if he was wrong in tracing its course, there is a
reverence and loyalty, a solidity of reasoning and steady grasp of the
problems under discussion, which save him from falling into mere
ingenuity or ostentation. Sometimes he may seen to be on the verge of
heresy; but in each case it will be found that, whether his system be right
or no, the place in it which he has found for an argument used elsewhere in
the interests of error is one where the argument is powerless for him — it
must seem that his theology is abstract, moving in a region apart from the
facts of human life. It must be admitted that this is the case; that though,
as we shall presently see, Hilary had a clear sense of the realities of
temptation and sin and of the need of redemption, and has expressed
himself in these regards with the fervor and practical wisdom of an earnest
and experienced pastor, still these subjects lie within the sphere of his
feelings rather than of his thought. It was not his fault that he lived in the
days before St. Augustine, and in the heat of an earlier controversy; and it

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is his conspicuous merit that in his zeal for the Divinity of Christ he traced
the Incarnation back beyond the beginning of sin and found its motive in
God's eternal purpose of uniting man to Himself. He does not estimate the
condescension of Christ by the distance which separates the Sinless from
the sinful, to his wider thought sin is not the cause of that great sequence
of Divine acts of grace, but a disturbing factor which has modified its
course. The measure of the love of God in Christ is the infinity He
overpassed in uniting the Creator with the creature.

But before we approach the practical theology of Hilary something must
be said of his teaching concerning the Third Person of the Trinity. The
doctrine of the Holy Spirit is little developed in his writings. The cause
was, in part, his sympathy with Eastern thought. The West., in this as in
some other respects, was in advance of the contemporary Greeks; but
Hilary was too independent to accept conclusions which were as yet
unreasoned. But a stronger reason was that the doctrine was not directly
involved in the Arian controversy. On the main question, as we have seen,
he kept an open mind, and was prepared to modify from time to time the
terms in which he stated the Divinity of our Lord; but in other respects he
was often strangely archaic. Such is the case here; Hilary's is a logical
position, but the logical process has been arrested. There is nothing in his
words concerning the Holy Spirit inconsistent with the later definitions of
faith, and it would be unfair to blame him because, in the course of a
strenuous life devoted tot he elucidation and defense of other doctrines, he
found no time to develop this; unfair also to blame him for not recognizing
its full importance. In his earlier days, and while he was in alliance with the
Seminarians, there was nothing to bring this doctrine prominently before
his mind; in his later life it still lay outside the range of controversy, so far
as he was concerned. Hilary, in fact, preferred like Athanasius to rest in
the indefinite terms of the original Nicene Creed, the confession of which
ended with the simple 'And in the Holy Ghost. 'But there was a further
and practical reason for his reserve. It was a constant taunt of the Arians
that the Catholics worshipped a plurality of Gods. The frequency and
emphasis with which Hilary denies that Christians have either two Gods
or one God in solitude proves that he regarded this plausible assertion as
one of the most dangerous weapons wielded by heresy. It was his object,
as a skillful disputant, to bring his whole forces to bear upon them, and

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this in a precisely limited field of battle. To import the question of the
Holy Spirit, into the controversy might distract his reader' s attention from
the main issue, and afford the enemy an opening for that evasion which he
constantly accuses them of attempting. Hence, in part, the small space
allowed to so important a theme; and hence the avoidance, which we
noticed, of the very word 'Trinity.' The Arians made the most of their
argument about two Gods; Hilary would not allow them the opportunity
of imputing to the faithful a belief in three. This might not have been a
sufficient inducement, had it stood alone, but the encouragement which he
received from Origen's vagueness, representative as it was of the average
theology of the third century, must have predisposed him to give weight to
the practical consideration. Yet Hilary has not avoided a formal statement
in his belief. In Trin. II. §§ 29 — 35, which is, as we saw, part of a summary
statement of the Christian Faith, he set is forth with Scripture proofs. But
he shows clearly, by the short space he allows to it, that it is not in his
eyes of co-ordinate importance with the other truths of which he treats.
And the curious language in which he introduces the subject, in § 29, seems
to imply that he throws it in to satisfy others rather than from his own
sense of its necessary place in such a statement. The doctrine, as he here
defines it, it that the Holy Spirit undoubtedly exists; the Father and the
Son are the Authors of His being, and, since He is joined with Them in our
confession, He cannot, without mutilation of the Faith, be separated from
Them. The fact that He is given to us is a further proof of His existence.
Yet the title 'Spirit' is often used both for Father and for Son; in proof of
this St. John 4:24 and 2 Corinthians 3:17 are cited. Yet the Holy Spirit has
a personal existence and a special office in relation to us. It is through Him
that we know God. Our nature is capable of knowing Him, as the eye is
capable of sight; and the gift of the Spirit is to the soul what the gift of
light is to the eye. Again, in XII. §§ 55, 56, the subject is introduced, as if
by an after thought, and even more briefly than in the second book. As he
has refused to style the Son a creature, so he refuses to give that name to
the Spirit, Who has gone forth from God, and been sent by Christ. The
Son is the Only -begotten, and therefore he will not say that the Spirit was
begotten; yet he cannot call Him a creature, for the Spirit' s knowledge of
the mysteries of God, of which He is the Interpreter to men, is the proof
of His oneness in nature with God. The Spirit speaks unutterable things
and is ineffable in His operation. Hilary cannot define, yet he believes. It

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must suffice to say, with the Apostle, simply that He is the Spirit of God.
The tone of § 56 seems that of silent rebuke to some excess of definition,
as he would deem it, of which he had heard. To these passages must be
added another in Trin. VIII. 19 f.; where the possession by Father and Son
of one Spirit is used in proof of Their own unity. But in this passage there
occur several instances of Hilary's characteristic vagueness. As in II. 30, so
here we are told that 'the Spirit' may mean Father or Son as well as Holy
Ghost, and instances are given where the word has one or other of the two
first significations. Thus we must set a certain number of passages where a
reference in Scripture to the Holy Spirit is explained away against a
number, certainly no greater, in which He is recognized; and in the latter
we notice a strong tendency to understate the truth. For though we are
expressly told that the Spirit is not a creature, that He is from the Father
through the son, is of one substance with Them and bears the same relation
to the One that He bears to the Other, yet Hilary refuses with some
emphasis and in a conspicuous place, at the very end of the treatise, to call
Him God. But both groups of passages, those in which the Holy Ghost is
recognized and those in which reason is given for non-recognition, are more
than counterbalanced by a multitude in which, no doubt for the
controversial reason already mentioned, the Holy Spirit is left unnamed,
though it would have been most natural that allusion should be made to
Him. We find in Hilary 'the premisses from which the Divinity of the
Holy Ghost is the necessary conclusion;' and there is reason to believe
that he would have stated the doctrine of the Procession in the Western,
not in the Eastern, form; but we find a certain willingness to keep the
doctrine in the background, which sufficiently indicates a failure to grasp
its cardinal importance, and is, however natural in his circumstances and
however interesting as evidence of his mode of thought, a blemish to the
De Trinitate, if we seek in it a balanced exposition of the Faith.

We may not turn to the practical teaching of Hilary. Henceforth he will be
no longer the compiler of the best Latin handbook of the Arian
controversy, or the somewhat unsystematic investigator of unexplored
regions of theology. We shall find him often accepting the common stock
of Christian ideas of his age, without criticism or attempt at improvement
upon them; often paraphrasing in even more emphatic language emphatic
and apparently contradictory passages of Scripture, without any effect

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after harmony or balance. Yet sometimes we shall find him anticipating on
one page the thoughts of later theologians, while on another he is content
to repeat the views upon the same subject which had satisfied an earlier
generation. His doctrine, where it is not traditional, in never more than
tentative, and we must not be surprised, we must even expect, to find him
inconsistent with himself.

No subject illustrates this inconsistency better than that of sin, of which
Hilary gives two accounts, the one Eastern and traditional, the other an
anticipation of Augustinianism. These are never compared and weighed the
one against the other. In the passages where each appears, it is adduced
confidently, without any reservation or hint that he is aware of another
explanation of the facts of experience. The more usual account is that
which is required by Hilary's doctrine of the separate creation of every
human soul, which is good, because it is God's immediate work, and has
natural tendency to, and fitness for, perfection. Because God, after Whose
image man is made, is free, therefore man also is free; he has absolute
liberty, and is under no compulsion to good or to evil. The sin which God
foresees, as in the case of Esau, He does not foreordain. Punishment never
follows except upon sin actually committed; the elect are they who show
themselves worthy of election. But the human body has defiled the soul; in
fact, Hilary sometimes speaks as though sin were not an act of will but an
irresistible pressure exerted by the body on the soul. If we had no body, he
says once, we should have no sin; it is a 'body of death' and cannot be
pure. This is the spiritual meaning of the ancient law against touching a
corpse. When the Psalmist laments that his soul cleaveth to the ground, his
sorrow is that it is inseparably attached to a body of earth; when Job and
Jeremiah cursed the day of their birth, their anger was directed against the
necessity of living surrounded by the weaknesses and vices of the flesh,
not against the creation of their souls after the image of God. Such
language, if it stood alone, would convince it author of Manicheanism, but
Hilary elsewhere asserts that the desire of the soul goes half-way to meet
the invitation of sin, and this latter in his normal teaching. Man has a
natural proclivity to evil, an inherited weakness, which has, as a matter of
experience, betrayed all men into actual sin, with the exception of Christ.
Elsewhere, however, Hilary recognizes the possibility, under existing
conditions, of a sinless life. For David could make the prayer, 'Take from

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me the way of iniquity;' of iniquity itself he was guiltless, and only needed
to pray against the tendency inherent in his bodily nature. But such a case
is altogether exceptional; ordinary men must confide in the thought that
God is indulgent, for He knows our infirmity. He is propitiated by the
wish to be righteous, and in His judgment the merits of good men outweigh
their sins. Hence a prevalent tone of hopefulness about the future state of
the baptized; even Sodom and Gomorrah, their punishment in history
having satisfied the righteousness of God, shall ultimately be saved. Yet
God has a perfect, imitable goodness of which human goodness, though
real, falls infinitely short, because He is steadfast and we are driven by
varying impulses. This Divine goodness is the standard and the hope set
before us. It can only be attained by grace, and grace is freely offered. But
just as the soul, being free, advances to meet sin, so it must advance to
meet grace. Man must take the first step; he must wish and pray for grace,
and then perseverance in faith will be granted him, together with such a
measure of the Spirit as he shall desire and deserve. He will, indeed, be able
to do more than he need, as David did when he spared and afterwards
lamented Saul, his worst enemy, and St. Paul, who voluntarily abstained
from the lawful privilege of marriage. Such is Hilary's first account, 'a
naive, undeveloped mode of thought concerning the origin of sin and the
state of man.' Its inconsistencies are as obvious as their cause, the
unguarded homiletical expansion of isolated passages. There is no attempt
to reconcile man' s freedom to be good with the fact of universal sin. The
theory, so far as it is consistent, is derived from Alexandria, from Clemet
and Origen. It may seem not merely inadequate as theology, but
philosophical rather than Christian; and its aim is, indeed, that of
strengthening man's sense of moral responsibility and of heightening his
courage to withstand temptation. But we must remember that Hilary
everywhere assumes the union between the Christian and Christ. While
this union exists there is always the power of bringing conduct into
conformity with His will. Conduct, then, is, comparatively speaking, a
matter of detail. Sins of action and emotion do not necessarily sever the
union; a whole system of casuistry might be built upon Hilary's
foundation. But false thoughts of God violate the very principle of union
between Him and man. However abstract they may seem and remote from
practical life, they are an unsuperable barrier. For intellectual harmony, as
well as moral, is necessary; and error of belief, like a key moving in a lock

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with whose wards it does not correspond, forbids all access to the nature
and the grace of God. A good example of his relative estimate of
intellectual and moral offenses occurs in the Homily on Psalm 1. §§ 6 — 8,
where it is noteworthy that he does not trace back the former to moral
causes.

Against these, the expressions of Hilary's usual opinion, must be set
others in which he anticipates the language of St. Augustine in the Pelagian
controversy. But certain deductions must be made, before we can rightly
judge the weight of his testimony on the side of original sin. Passages
where he is merely amplifying the words of Scripture must be excluded, as
also those which are obviously exhibitions of unguarded rhetoric. For
instance such words as these, 'Ever since the sin and unbelief of our first
parent, we of later generations have had sin for the father of our body and
unbelief for the mother of our soul,' contradicting as they do Hilary's
well-known theory of the origin of the soul, cannot be regarded as giving
his deliberate belief concerning sin. Again, we must be careful not to
interpret strong language concerning the body (e.g. Tr. in Psalms 118,
Caph, 5 fin.), as though it referred to our whole complex manhood But
after all deductions a good deal of strong Augustinianism remains. In the
person of Adam God created all mankind, and all are implicated in his
downfall, which was not only the beginning of evil but is a continuous
power. Not only as a matter of experience, is no man sinless, but no man
can, by any possibility, be free from sin. Because of the sin of one
sentence is passed upon all; the sentence of slavery which is so deep a
degradation that the victim of sin forfeits even the name of man. But
Hilary not only states the doctrine; he approaches very nearly, on rare
occasions, to the term 'original sin.' It follows that nothing less than a
regeneration, the free gift of God, will avail; and the grace by which the
Christian must be maintained is also His spontaneous and unconditional
gift. Faith, knowledge, Christian life, all have their origin and their
maintenance from Him. Such is a brief statement of Hilary's position as a
forerunner of St. Augustine. The passages cited are scattered over his
writings, from the earliest to the latest, and there is no sign that the more
modern view was gaining ground in his mind as his judgment ripened. He
had no occasion to face the question, and was content to say whatever
seemed obviously to arise from the words under discussion, or to be most

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profitable to his audience. His Augustinianism, if it may be called so, is but
one of many instances of originality, a thought thrown out but not
developed. It is a symptom of revolt against the inadequate views of older
theologians; but it had more influence upon the mind of his great successor
than upon his own. Dealing, as he did, with the subject in hortatory
writings, hardly at all, and only incidentally, in his formal treatise on the
Trinity, he preferred to regard it as a matter of morals rather than of
doctrine. And the dignity of man, impressed upon him by the great
Alexandrians, seemed to demand for humanity the fullest liberty.

We may not turn to the Atonement, by which Christ has overcome sin.
Hilary's language concerning it is, as a rule, simply Scriptural. He had no
occasion to discuss the doctrine, and his teaching is that which was
traditional in his day, without any such anticipations of future thought as
we found in his treatment of sin. Since the humanity of Christ is universal,
His death was on behalf of all mankind, 'to buy the salvation of the whole
human race by the offering of this holy and perfect Victim.' His last cry
upon the Cross was the expression of His sorrow that some would not
profit by His sacrifice; that He was not, as He had desired, bearing the sins
of all. He was able to take them upon Him because He had both natures.
His manhood could do what His Godhead could not; it could atone for the
sins of men. Man had been overcome by Satan; Satan, in his turn, has been
overcome by Man. In the long conflict, enduring through Christ's life, of
which the first pitched battle was the Temptation, the last the Crucifixion,
the victory has been won by the Mediator in the flesh. The devil was in
the wrong throughout. He was deceived, or rather deceived himself, not
recognizing what it was for which Christ hungered. The same delusion as
to Christ' s character led him afterwards to exact the penalty of sin from
One Who had not deserved it. Thus the human sufferings of Christ,
unjustly inflicted, involve His enemy in condemnation and forfeit his right
to hold mankind enslaved. Therefore we are set free, and the sinless
Passion and death are the triumph of the flesh over spiritual wickedness
and the vengeance of God upon it. Man is set free, because he is justified
in Christ, Who is Man. But the fact that Christ could do the works
necessary to this end is proof that He is God. These works included the
endurance of such suffering — in the sense, of course, which Hilary
attached to the word — as no one who was not more than man could bear.

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Hence he emphasizes the Passion, because in doing he magnified the
Divine nature of Him Who sustained it. He sets forth the sufferings in the
light of deeds, of displays of power, the greatest wonder being that the Son
of God should have made Himself passable. Yet though it was from union
with the Godhead that His humanity possessed the purity, the
willingness, the power to win this victory, and though, in Hilary's words,
it was immortal God Who died upon the Cross, still it was a victory won
not by God but by the flesh. But the Passion must not be regarded simply
as an attack, ending in his overthrow, made by Satan upon Christ. It is also
a free satisfaction offered to God by Christ as Man, in order that His
sufferings might release us from the punishment we had deserved, being
accepted instead of ours. This latter was a thought peculiarly characteristic
of the West, and especially of St. Cyprian's teaching; but Hilary has had
his share of giving prominence to the propitiatory aspect of Christ's
self-sacrifice. Yet it must be confessed that the death of Christ is
somewhat in the background; that Hilary is less interested in its positive
value than in its negative aspect, as the cessation from earthly life and the
transition to glory. Upon this, and upon the evidential importance of the
Passion as a transcendent exertion of power, whereby the Son of God held
Himself down and constrained Himself to suffer and die, Hilary chiefly
dwells. The death has not, in his eyes, the interest of the Resurrection. The
reason is that it does not belong to the course of the Incarnation as
fore-ordained by God, but is only a modification of it, rendered necessary
by the sinful self-will of man. Had there been no Fall, the visible, palpable
flesh would still have been laid aside, though not by death upon the Cross,
when Christ's work in the world was done; and there would have been
some event corresponding to the Ascension, if not to the Resurrection.
The body, laid aside on earth, would have been resumed in glory; and
human flesh, unfallen and therefore not corrupt, yet free and therefore
corruptible, would have entered into perfectly harmonious union with His
Divinity, and so have been rendered anterior to the beginnings of sin; and it
is this broader conception that renders the Passion itself intelligible, while
relegating it to a secondary place. But Hilary, though as a rule he mentions
the subject not for its own sake but in the course of argument, has as firm a
faith in the efficacy of Christ's death and of His continued intercession in
His humanity for mankind as he has in His triumphant Resurrection.

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In regard to the manner in which man is to profit by the Atonement,
Hilary shows the same inconsistency as in the case of sin. On the one
hand, he lays frequent stress on knowledge concerning God and concerning
the nature of sin as the first conditions of salvation; on the other, he
insists, less often yet with equal emphasis, upon its being God's
spontaneous gift to men, to be appropriated only by faith. We have
already seen that one of Hilary's positions is that man must take the first
step towards God; that if we will make the beginning He will give the
increase. This increase is the knowledge of God imparted to willing minds,
which lifts them up to piety. He states strongly the superiority of
knowledge to faith; — "There is a certain greater effectiveness in knowledge
than in faith, thus the writer here did not believe; he knew. For faith has
the reward of obedience, but it has not the assurance of ascertained truth.
The Apostle has indicated the breadth of the interval between the two by
putting the latter in the lower place in his list of the gifts of graces. 'To the
first wisdom, to the next knowledge, to the third faith' is his message; for
he who believes may be ignorant even while he believes, but he who has
come to know is saved by his possession of knowledge from the very
possibility of unbelief." This high estimation of sound knowledge was due,
no doubt, to the intellectual character of the Arian conflict, in which each
party retorted upon the other the charge of ignorance and folly; and it must
have been confirmed by the observation that some who were conspicuous
for the misinterpretation of Scripture were notorious also for moral
obliquity. There was, however, that deeper reason which influenced all
Hilary's thought; the conviction that if there is to be any harmony, any
understanding between God and the soul of man, it must be a perfect
harmony and understanding. And knowledge is pre-eminently the sphere
in which this is possible, for the revelation of God is clear and precise, and
unmistakably in its import. But there was another, a directly practical
reason for this insistence. Apprehension of Divine truths is the unfailing
test of a Christian mind; conduct changes and faith varies in intensity, but
the facts of religion remain the same, and the believer can be judged by his
attitude towards them. Hence we cannot be surprised that Hilary
maintains the insufficiency of 'simplicity of faith,' and ranks its advocates
with heathen philosophers who regard purity of life as a substitute for
religion. God, he says, has provided copious knowledge, with which we
cannot dispense. But this knowledge is to embrace not only the truth

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concerning God, but also concerning the realities of human life. It is to be a
knowledge of the fact that sins have been committed and an opening of the
eyes to their enormity. This will be followed by confession to God, by the
promise to Him that we will henceforth regard sin as He regards it, and by
the profession of a firm purpose to abandon it. Here again the
starting-point is human knowledge. When the right attitude towards sin,
intellectually and therefor morally, has been assumed, when there is the
propose of amendment and an earnest and successful struggle against
sensual and worldly temptations, then we shall become 'worthy of the
favor of God.' In this light confession is habitually regarded; it is a
voluntary moral act, a self-enlightenment to the realities of sin, necessarily
followed by repugnance and the effort to escape, and antecedent to Divine
pardon and aid. But in contrast to this, Hilary's normal judgment, there are
passages where human action is put altogether in the background.
Forgiveness is the spontaneous bounty of God, overflowing from the
riches of His loving-kindness, and faith the condition of its bestowal and
the means by which it is appropriated. Even the Psalmist himself perfect
in all good works, prayed for mercy; he put his whole trust in God, and so
must we. And faith precedes knowledge also, which is unattainable except
by the believer. Salvation does not come first, and then faith, but through
faith is the hope of salvation; the blind man believed before he saw. Here
again, as in the case of sin, we have two groups of statements without
attempt at reconciliation; but that which lays stress upon human initiative
is far more numerous than the other, and must be regarded as expressing
Hilary's underlying thought in his exhortations to Christian conduct, to his
doctrine of which we may now turn.

We must first premise that Christ' s work as our Example as well as our
Savior is fully recognized. Many of his deeds on earth were done by way
of dispensation, in order to set us a pattern of life and thought. Christian
life has, of course, its beginning in the free gift of Baptism, with the new
life and the new facilities then bestowed, which render possible the
illumination of the soul. Hilary, as was natural at a time when Baptism
was often deferred by professed Christians, and there were many converts
from paganism, seems to contemplate that of adults as the rule; and he
feels it necessary to warn them that their Baptism will not restore them to
perfect innocence. In fact, by a strange conjecture tentatively made, he

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once suggests that our Baptism is that wherewith John baptized our Lord,
and that the Baptism of the Holy Ghost awaits us hereafter, in cleansing
fires beyond the grave or in the purification of martyrdom. Hilary nowhere
says in so many words that while Baptism abolishes sins previously
committed, alms and other good deeds perform a similar office for later
offenses, but his view, which will be presently stated, concerning good
works show that he agreed in this respect with St. Cyprian; neither,
however, would hold that the good works were sufficient in ordinary cases
without the further purification. Martyrdoms had, of course, ceased in
Hilary's day throughout the Roman empire, but it is interesting to observe
that the old opinion, which had such power in the third century, still
survived. The Christian, then, has need for fear, but he has a good hope,
for all the baptized while in this world are still in the land of the living, and
can only forfeit their citizenship by willful and persistent unworthiness.
The means for maintaining the new life of effort is the Eucharist, which is
equally necessary with Baptism. But the Eucharist is one of the many
matters of practical importance on which Hilary is almost silent, having
nothing new to say, and being able to assume that his readers and hearers
were well informed and of one mind with himself. His reticence is never a
proof that he regarded them with indifference.

The Christian life is thus a life of hope and of high possibilities. But Hilary
frankly and often recognizes the serious short-comings of the average
believers of his day. Sometimes, in his zeal for their improvement and in
the wish to encourage his flock, he even seems to condone their faults,
venturing to ascribe to God what may almost be styled as mere
good-nature, as when he speaks of God, Himself immutable, as no stern
Judge of our changefulness, but rather appeased by the wish on our part
for better things than angry, because we cannot perform impossibilities.
But in this very passage, he holds up for our example the high attainment
of the Saints, explaining that the Psalmist's words, 'There is none that
doeth good, no not one,' refer only to those who are altogether gone out of
the way and become abominable, and not to all mankind. Indeed, holding as
he does that all Christians may have as much grace from God as they will
take, and that the conduct which is therefore possible is also necessary to
salvation, he could not consistently maintain the lower position. In fact,
the standard of life which Hilary sets in the Homilies on the Psalms is very

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high. Cleanness of hand and heart is the first object at which we must aim,
and the Law of God must be our delight. This is the lesson inculcated
throughout his discourses of Psalm 1 19. He recognizes the complexity of
life, with its various duties and difficulties, which are, however, a privilege
inasmuch as there is honor to be won by victory over them; and he takes a
common-sense view of our powers and responsibilities. But though his
tone is buoyant and life in his eyes is well worth living for the Christian,
he insists not merely upon a general purity of life, but upon renunciation
of worldly pleasures. Like Cyprian, he would apparently have the wealthy
believer dispose of his capital and spend his income in works of charity,
without thought of economy. Like Cyprian, again, he denounces the
wearing of gold and jewelry, and the attendance at public places of
amusement. Higher interests, spiritual and intellectual, must take the place
of such dissipation. Sacred melody will be more attractive than the
immodest dialogue of the theatre, and study of the course of the stars a
more pleasing pursuit than a visit to the racecourse. Yet strictly and even
sternly Christian as Hilary is, he does not allow us altogether to forget that
his is an age with another code than ours. Vengeance with him is a
Christian motive. He takes with absolute literalness the Psalmist's
imprecations. Like every other emotion which he expresses, that of delight
at the punishment of evil doers ought to have a place in the Christian soul.
This was an inheritance from the days of persecution, which were still
within the memory of living men. Cyprian often encourages the confessors
to patience by the prospect of seeing the wrath of God upon their
enemies; but he never gives so strong expression to the feeling as Hilary
does, when he enforces obedience to our Lord's command to turn the other
cheek by the consideration that fuller satisfaction will be failed if the
wrong be stored up against the Day of Judgment. There is something hard
and Puritan in the tone which Hilary has caught from the men of the times
of persecution; of vengeance upon them. This was not mere pardonable
excitement of feeling; it was a Christen duty and privilege to rejoice in the
future destruction of his opponents, but there is an even stranger
difference between his standard and ours. Among the difficulties of
keeping in the strait and narrow way he reckons that of truthfulness. A lie,
he says, is often necessary, and deliberate falsehood sometimes useful. We
may mislead an assassin, and so enable his intended victim to escape; our
testimony may save a defendant who is in peril in the courts; we may have

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to cheer a sick man by making light of his ailment. Such are the cases in
which the Apostle says that our speech is to be 'seasoned with salt.' It is
not the lie that is wrong; the point of conscience is whether or no it will
inflict injury upon another. Hilary is not alone in taking falsehood lightly,
and allowance must be made for the age in which he lived. And his words
cast light upon the history of the time. The constant accusations made
against the character and conduct of theological opponents, which are so
painful a feature of the controversies of the early centuries, find their
justification in the principle which Hilary has stated. No harm was done,
rather a benefit was conferred upon mankind, if a false teacher could be
discredited in a summary and effective manner; such was certainly a
thought which presented itself to the minds of combatants, both orthodox
and heterodox. Apart from these exceptions, which, however, Hilary
would not have regarded as such, his standard of life, as has been said, is a
high one both in faith and in practice, and his exhortation is full of strong
common sense. It is, however, a standard set for educated people; there is
little attention paid to those who are safe from the dangers of intellect and
wealth. The worldliness which he rebukes is that of the rich and influential;
and his arguments are addressed to the reading class, as are his numerous
appeals to his audience in the Homilies on the Psalms to study Scripture
for themselves. Indeed, his advice to them seems to imply that they have
abundance leisure for spiritual exercises and for reflection. But he does not
simply ignore the illiterate, still mostly pagans, for the work of St. Martin
of Tours only began, as we saw, in Hilary's last days; in one passage at
least he speaks with the scorn of an ancient philosopher of 'the rustic
mind,' which will fail to find the meaning of the Psalms.

Hilary is not content with setting a standard which his flock must strive to
reach. He would have them attain to a higher level than is commanded, and
at the same time constantly remember that they are failing to perform their
duty to God. This higher life is set before his whole audience as their aim.
He recognizes the peculiar honor of the widow and the virgin, but has
singular little to say about these classes of the Christian community, or
about the clergy, and no special counsel for them. The works of
supererogation — the word is not his — which he preaches are within the
reach of all Christians. They consist in the more perfect practice of the
ordinary virtues. King David 'was not content henceforth to be confined to

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the express commands of the Law, nor to be subject to a mere necessity of
obedience.' 'The Prophet prays that these free-will offerings may be
acceptable to God, because the deeds done in compliance to the Law's
edict are performed under the actual compulsion of servitude. As an
instance he gives the character of David. His duty was to be humble; he
made himself humble exceedingly, thus doing more than he was legally
bound to do. He spared his enemies so far as in him lay, and bewailed their
death; this was a free service to which he was bound by no compulsion.
Such conduct places those who practice it on the same level with those
whose lives are formally consecrated; the state of the latter being regarded,
as always in earlier times, as admirable in itself, and not as a means
towards higher things. Vigils and fasts and acts of mercy are the methods
advocated by Hilary for such attainment. But they must not stand alone,
nor must the Christian put his trust in them. Humility must have faith for
its principle, and fasting be combined with charity. And the Christian must
never forget that though he may in some respects be doing more than he
need, yet in others he is certainly falling short. For the conflict is
unceasing; the devil, typified by the mountains in the Psalm, has been
touched by God and is smoking, but is not yet burning and powerless for
mischief. Hence there is a constant danger lest the Christian fall into
unbelief or unfruitfulness, sins equally fatal; future temptations. Nor may
he dismiss his past offenses from his memory. It can never cease to be
good for us to confess our former sins, even though we have become
righteous. St. Paul did not allow himself to forget that he had persecuted
the Church of God. But there is a further need than that of penitence. Like
Cyprian before him and Augustine after him, Hilary insists upon the value
of alms in the sight of God. The clothing of the naked, the release of the
captive plead with God for the remission of our sins; and the man who
redeems his faults by alms is classes among those who win His favor, with
the perfect in love and the blameless in faith.

Thus the thought of salvation by works greatly preponderates over that of
salvation by grace. Hilary is fearful of weakening man's sense of moral
responsibility of swelling too much upon God's work which, however, he
does not fail to recognize. Of the two great dangers, that of faith and that
of life, the former seemed to him the more serious. God's requirements in
that respect were easy of fulfillment; He had stated the truth and He

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expected it to be unhesitatingly accepted. But if unbelief, being an exertion
of the will, was easy, misbelief must be peculiarly and fatally wicked. The
confessions of St. Peter, the foundation upon which the Church is built, is
that Christ is God; the sin against the Holy Ghost is denial of this truth.
These are the highest glory and the deepest shame of man. It does not
seem that Hilary regarded any man, however depraved, as beyond hope so
long as he did not dispute this truth; he has no code of mortal sins. But
heresy concerning Christ, whatever the conduct and character of the
heretic, excludes all possibility of salvation, for it necessarily cuts him off
from the one Faith and the one Church which are the condition and the
sphere of growth towards perfection; and the severance is just, because
misbelief is a willful sin. Since, then, compliance or non-compliance with
one of God's demands, that for faith in His revelation, depends upon the
will, it was natural that Hilary should lay stress upon the importance of
the will in regard to God's other demand, that for a Christian life. This
was, in a sense, a lighter requirement, for various degrees of obedience were
possible. Conduct could neither give nor deny faith, but only affect its
growth, while without the frank recognition of the facts of religion no
conduct could be acceptable to God. Life presents to the will a constantly
changing series of choices between good and evil, while the Faith must be
accepted or rejected at once and as a whole. It is clear from Hilary's
insistence upon this that the difficulties, apart from heresy, with which he
had to content resembled those of Mission work in modern India. There
were many who would accept Christianity as a revelation, yet had not the
moral strength to live in conformity with their belief. Of such persons
Hilary will not despair. They have the first essential of salvation, a clear
and definite acceptance of doctrinal truth; they have also the offer of
sufficient grace, and the free will and power to use it. And time and
opportunity are granted, for the vicissitudes of life form a progressive
education; they are, if taken aright, the school, the training-ground for
immorality. This is because all Christians are in Christ, by virtue of his
Incarnation. They are, as St. Paul says, complete in Him, furnished with
the faith and hope they need. But this is only a preparatory completeness;
hereafter they shall be complete in themselves, when the perfect harmony
is attained and they are conformed to His glory. Thus to the end the
dignity and responsibility of mankind is maintained. But it is obvious that
Hilary has failed to correlate the work of Christ with the work of the

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Christian. The necessity of His guidance and aid, and the manner in which
these are bestowed, is sufficiently stated, and the duty of the Christian
man is copiously and eloquently enforced. But the importance of Christ's
work within Himself, in harmonizing the two natures, has withdrawn most
of Hilary's attention from His work within the believing soul; and the
impression which Hilary's writings leave upon the mind concerning the
Savior and redeemed mankind is that of allied forces seeking the same end
but acting independently, each in a sphere of its own.

There still remains to be considered Hilary's account of the future state.
The human soul, being created after the image of God is imperishable;
resurrection is as inevitable as death. And the resurrection will be in the
body, for good and bad alike. The body of the good will be glorified, like
that of Christ; its substance will be the same as in the present life, its glory
such that it will be in all other respects a new body. Indeed, the true life of
man only begins when this transformation takes place. No such changes
awaits the wicked; we shall all rise, but we shall not all be changed, as St.
Paul says. They remain as they are, or rather are subjected to a ceaseless
process of deterioration, whereby the soul is degraded to the level of the
body, while this in the case of others is raised, either instantly or by a
course of purification, to the level of the soul. Their last state is vividly
described in language which recalls that of Virgil; crushed to powder and
dried to dust they will fly for ever before the wind of God's wrath. For the
thoroughly good and the thoroughly bad the final state begins at the
moment of death. There is no judgment for either class, but only for those
whose character contains element of both good and evil. For perfect
goodness is only a theoretical possibility, and Hilary is not certain of the
condemnation of any except willful unbelievers. Evil is mingled in varying
proportions with good in the character of men at large; God can detect it in
the very best. All therefore need to be purified after death, if they are to
escape condemnation on the Day of Judgment. Even the Mother of our
Lord needs the purification of pain; this is the sword which should pierce
through her soul. All who are infected by sin, the heretic who has erred in
ignorance among them, must pass through cleansing fires after death. Then
comes the general Resurrection. To the good it brings the final change to
perfect glory; the bad will rise only to return to their former place. The
multitude of men will be judged, and after the education and purification of

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suffering to which, by God's mercy, they have been submitted, will be
accepted by Him. Hilary's writings contain no hint that any who are
allowed to present themselves on the Day of Judgment will then be
rejected.

We have now completed the survey of Hilary's thought. Many of these
were strange and new to his contemporaries, and his originality, we may be
sure, deprived him of some of the influence he wished to exert in the
controversies of his day. Yet he shared the spirit and entered heartily into
the interests and conflicts of his age, and therefore his thoughts in many
ways were different from our own. To this we owe, no doubt, the
preservation of his works; writings which anticipated modern opinion
would have been powerless for good in that day, and would not have
survived to ours. Thus from his own century to ours Hilary has been
somewhat isolated and neglected, and even misunderstood. Yet he is one of
the most notable figures in the history of the early Church, and must be
numbered among those who have done most to make Christian thought
richer and more exact. If we would appreciate him aright as one of the
builders of the dogmatic structure of the Faith, we must omit from the
materials of our estimate a great part of his writings, and a part which has
had a wider influence than any other. His interpretation of the letter,
though not of the spirit, of Scripture must be dismissed; interesting as it
always is; and often suggestive, it was not his own and was a hindrance,
though he did not see it, to the freedom of his thought. Yet his exegesis in
detail is often admirable. For instance, it would not be easy to overpraise
his insight and courage in resisting the conventional orthodoxy, sanctioned
by Athanasius in his own generation and by Augustine in the next, which
interpreted St. Paul's 'First-born of every creature' as signifying the
Incarnation of Christ, and not His eternal generation. We must omit also
much that Hilary borrowed without question from current opinion; it is his
glory that he concentrated his attention upon some few questions of
supreme importance, and his strength, not his weakness, that he was ready
to adopt in other matters the best and wisest judgments to which he had
access. An intelligent, and perhaps ineffective, curiosity may keep itself
abreast of the thought of the time, to quote a popular phrase; Hilary was
content to survey wide regions of doctrine and discipline with the eyes of
Origen and of Cyprian. This limitation of the interests of a powerful mind

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has enabled him to penetrate further into the mysteries of the Faith than
any of his predecessors; to points, in fact, where his successors have failed
to establish themselves. We cannot blame him that later theologians,
starting where he left off, have in some directions advanced further still.
The writings of Hilary are the quarry whence many of the best thoughts of
Ambrose and of Leo and hewn. Eminent and successful as these men were,
we cannot rank them with Hilary as intellectually his equals; we may even
wonder how many of their conclusions they would have drawn had not
Hilary supplied the premisses. It is a greater honor that the unrivaled
genius of Augustine is deeply indebted to him. Nor may we blame him,
save lightly, for some rashness and error in his speculations. He set out,
unwillingly, as we know, but not half-heartedly, upon his novel journey of
exploration. He had not, as we have, centuries of criticism behind him, and
could not know that some of the avenues he followed would lead him
astray. It may be that we are sober because we are, in a sense,
disillusioned; that modern Christian thought which starts from the old
premisses tends to excess of circumspection. And certainly Hilary would
not have earned his fame as one of the most original and profound of
teachers, whose view of Christology is one of the most interesting in the
whole of Christian antiquity, had he not been inspired by a sense of
freedom and of hope in his quest. Yet great as was his genius and reverent
the spirit in which he worked, the errors into which he fell, though few,
were serious. There are instances in which he neglects his habitual
balancing of corresponding infinities; as when he shuts his eyes to half the
revelation, and asserts that Christ could not be ignorant and could not feel
pain. And there is that whole system of dispensations which he has built
up in explanation of Christ's life on earth; a system against which our
conscience and our common sense rebel, for it contradicts the plain words
of Scripture and attributes to God 'a process of Divine reserve which is in
fact deception.' We may compare Hilary's method in such cases to the
architecture of Gloucester and of Sherborne, where the ingenuity of a later
age has connected and adorned the massive and isolated columns of
Norman date by its own light and graceful drapery of stonework. We
cannot but admire the result; yet there is a certain concealment of the
original design, and perhaps a perilous cutting away of the solid structure.
But, injustice to Hilary, we must remember that in these speculations he
is venturing away from the established standards of doctrine. When he is

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enunciating revealed truths, or arguing onward from them to conclusions
towards which they point, he had the company of the Creeds, or at least
they indicate the way he must go. But in explaining the connection
between doctrine and doctrine he is left to his own guidance. It is as though
a traveller, not content to acquaint himself with the highroads, should make
his way over hedge and ditch from one of them to another; he will not
always hit upon the best and straightest course. But at least Hilary's
conclusions, though sometimes erroneous, were reached by honest and
reverent reasoning, and neither ancient nor modern theology can afford to
reproach him. The tendency of the former, especially after the rise of
Nestorius, was to exaggerate some of his errors; and the latter has failed to
develop and enforce some of his highest teaching.

This is, indeed, worthy of all admiration. On the moral side of Christianity
we see him insisting upon the voluntary character of Christ's work; upon
His acts of will, which are a satisfaction to God and an appeal to us. On
the intellectual side we find the Unity in Trinity so luminously declared
that Bishop French of Lahore, one of the greatest of missionaries, had the
works of Hilary constantly in his hands, and contemplated as translation
of the De Trinitate into Arabic for the benefit of Mohammedans. This was
not because Hilary's explanation of our Lord's sufferings might seem t
commend the Gospel to their prejudices; such a concession would have
been repugnant to the French's whole mode of thought. It was because in
the central argument on behalf of the Godhead of Christ, where he had
least scope for originality of thought, Hilary has never suffered himself to
become a mere mechanical compiler. The light which he has cast upon his
subject, though clear, in never hard; and the doctrine which, because it was
attractive to himself, he has made attractive to his readers, is that of the
unity of God, the very doctrine which is of supreme importance in
Mohammedan eyes.

But, above all, is Hilary's doctrine concerning the Incarnation as the eternal
purpose of God for the union of the creature with the Creator, that must
excite our interest and awaken our thoughts. He renders it, on the one
hand, impossible to rate too highly the dignity of man, created to share the
nature and the life of God; impossible, on the other hand, to estimate
highly enough the condescension of Christ in assuming humanity. It is by
His humiliation that we are saved; by the fact that the nature of man was

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taken by his Maker, not by the fact that Christ, being man, remained
sinless. For sin began against God's will and after His counsel was formed;
it might deflect the march of His purpose towards fulfillment, but could no
more impede its consummation than it could cause its inception. The true
salvation of man is not that which rescues him, when corrupt, from sin and
its consequences, but that which raises him, corruptible, because free, even
though he had not become corrupt, into the safety of union with the nature
of God. Human life, though pure from actual sin, would have been aimless
and hopeless without the Incarnation. And the human body would have
had no glory, for its glory is that Christ has taken it, worn it awhile in its
imperfect state, laid it aside and finally resumed it in its perfection. All this
He must have done, in accordance with God's purpose, even though the
Fall had never occurred. Hence the Incarnation and the Resurrection are the
facts of paramount interest; the death of Christ, corresponding as it does
to the hypothetical thought. It is represented as being primarily for Christ
the moment of transition, for the Christian the act which enables him to
profit by the Incarnation; but it is the Incarnation itself whereby, in
Hilary's words, we are saved into the nature and the name of God. But
though we may feel that this great truth is not stated in its full
impressiveness, we must allow that the thought which has taken the
foremost place is no mere academic speculation. And, after all, sin and the
Atonement are copiously treated in his writings, though they do not
control his exposition of the Incarnation. Yet even in this there are large
spaces of his argument where these considerations have a place, though
only to give local color, so to speak, and a sense of reality to the
description of a purpose formed and a work done for man because he is
man, not because he is fallen. But if Hilary has somewhat erred in placing
the Cross in the background, he is not in error in magnifying the scope of
the reconciliation which includes it as in a wider horizon. Man has in
Christ the nature of God; the infinite Mind is intelligible to the finite. The
Creeds are no dry statement of facts which do not touch our life; the truths
they contain are the revelation of God's self to us. Not for the pleasure of
weaving theories, but in the interests of practical piety, Hilary has fused
belief and conduct into the unity of that knowledge which Isaiah foresaw
and St. John possessed; the knowledge which is not a means toward life,
but life itself.

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INTRODUCTION TO THE TREATISE

DE SYNODIS

Hilary had taken no part in the Synod held at Ancyra in the spring of
A.D. 358, but he had been made acquainted with its decisions and even
with the anathemas which the legates of that Synod concealed at Sirmium.
He saw that these decisions marked an approach. The horror which was
felt at the Sirmian Blasphemiaby those Eusebians whose only objection to
the Nicene faith was that they did not understand it, augured well for the
future. At the same time the majority of the Eastern bishops were
deliberately heretical. It was natural that Hilary should be anxious about
the episcopate of the West.

He had been in exile about three years and had corresponded with the
Western bishops. From several quarters letters had now ceased to arrive,
and the fear came that the bishops did not care to write to one whose
convictions were different to their own. Great was his joy when, at the end
of the year 358, he received a letter which not only explained that the
innocent cause of their silence was ignorance of his address, but also that
they had persistently refused communion with Saturninus and condemned
the Blasphemia.

Early in 359 he dispatched to them the Liber de Synodis. It is a double
letter, addressed to Western bishops, but containing passages intended for
Orientals, into whose hands the letter would doubtless come in time.
Hilary recognized that the orthodox of the West had kept aloof from the
orthodox of the East, firstly from ignorance of events, secondly from
misunderstanding of the word 6u.oo\)Gio^ and thirdly from the feelings of
distrust then prevalent. These facts determined the contents of his letter.
He begins with an expression of the delight he experienced on receiving the
news that the Gallican bishops had condemned the notorious Sirmian
formula. He praises the consistency of their faith.

152

He then mentions that he has received from certain of their number a
request that he would furnish them with an account of the creeds which
had been composed in the East. He modestly accedes to this request
beseeching his readers not to criticize his letter until they have read the
whole letter and mastered the complete argument. His aim throughout is to
frustrate the heretic and assist the Catholic.

In the first or historical division of the letter he promises a transcription,
with explanations, of all the creeds drawn up since the Council of Nicaea.
He protests that he is not responsible for any statement contained in these
creeds, and leaves his readers to judge of their orthodoxy.

The Greek confessions had already been translated into Latin, but Hilary
considered it necessary to give his own independent translations, the
previous versions having been half-unintelligible on account of their slavish
adherence to the original.

The historical part of the book consists of fifty-four chapters (c. 10 — 63).
It begins with the second Sirmian formula, and the opposing formula
promulgated at Ancyra in A.D. 358. The Sirmian creed being given in c. 10,
Hilary, before proceeding to give the twelve anathemas directed against its
teaching by the bishops who assembled at Ancyra, explains the meaning of
essentia and substantia. Concerning the former he says, Essentia est res
quae est, vel ex quibus est, et quae in eo quod maneat subsistit. This
essentia is therefore identical with substantia, quia res quae est necesse est
subsistat in sese. The Ancyran anathemas are then appended, with notes
and a summary.

In the second division (c. 29 — 33) of the historical part, Hilary considers
the Dedication creed drawn up at Antioch in A.D. 341. He interprets is
somewhat favorably. After stating that the creed is perhaps not
sufficiently explicit in declaring the exact likeness of the Father and the
Son, he excuses this inadequacy by pointing out that the Synod was not
held to contradict Anomoean teaching, but teaching of a Sabellian
tendency. The complete similarity of the Son's essence to that of the
Father appears to him to be guarded by the phrase Deum de Deo, totum ex
toto.

153

The third division (c. 34 — 37) contains the creed drawn up by the Synod,
or Cabal Synod, which met at Philippopolis in A.D. 343. Hilary does not
discuss the authority of the Synod; it was enough for his purpose that it
was composed of Orientals, and that its language emphatically condemns
genuine Arianism and asserts the Son is God of God. The anathema which
the creed pronounces on those who declare the Son to have been begotten
without the Father's will, is interpreted by Hilary as an assertion that the
eternal Birth was not conditioned by those passions which affect human
generation.

The fourth division (c. 38 — 61) contains the long formula drawn up at
Sirmium in A.D. 351 against Photinus. The twenty-seven anathemas are
then separately considered and commended. The two remaining chapters
of the historical part of the work include a reflection on the many-sided
character of these creeds both in their positive and negative aspects. God is
infinitus et immensus, and therefore short statements concerning His nature
may often prove misleading. The bishops have used many definitions and
phrases because clearness will remove a danger. These frequent definitions
would have been quite unnecessary if it had not been for the prevalence of
heresy. Asia as a whole is ignorant of God, presenting a piteous contrast
to the fidelity of the Western bishops.

The theological part of the work opens in c. 64 with Hilary's expositions
of his own belief. He denies that there is in God only one personality, as
he denies that there is any difference of substance. The Father is greater is
that He is Father, the Son is not less because He is Son. He asks his
readers to remember that if his words fall short, his meaning is sound. This
done, he passes to discuss the meaning of the word 6(j,oo\>aiov. Three
wrong meanings may be attributed to it. Firstly, it may be understood to
deny the personal distinctions in the Trinity. Secondly, it may be thought
to imply that the divine essence is capable of division. Thirdly, it may be
represented as implying that the Father and the Son both equally partake
of one prior substance. A short expression like 6jj,oo\)gio<; must therefore
receive an exact explanation. A risk is attached to its use, but there is no
risk if we understand it to mean that the Father is unbegotten and the Son
derives His being from the Father, and is like Him in power, and honor,
and nature. The Son is subordinate to the Father as to the Author of His
being, yet it was not by a robbery that He made Himself equal with God.

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He is not from nothing. He is wholly God. He is not the Author of the
divine life, but the Image. He is no creature, but is God. Not a second God,
but one god with the Father through similarity of essence. This is the ideal
meaning of 6jj,oo\)gio<;, and in this sense it is not an error to assert, but to
deny, the consubstantiality.

Hilary them makes a direct appeal to the Western bishops. They might
forget the contests of the word while retaining the sound, but provided
that the meaning was granted, what objection could be made to the word?
Was the word ouxhotjcjiov free from all possible objections? Hilary (c.
72 — 75) shows that really like means really equal. Scripture is appealed to
as proving the assertion that the Son is both like God and equal to God.
This essential likeness can alone justify the statement that the Father and
the Son are one. It is blasphemous to represent the similarity as a mere
analogy. The similitude is a similitude of proper nature and equality. The
conclusion of the argument is that the word ouxhotjoioc;, if understood,
leads us to the word 6u.ooijgio<; which helps to guard it, and that it does
not imply any separation between the Person of the Trinity.

The saint now turns to the Eastern bishop, a small number of whom still
remained faithful. He bestowed upon them titles of praise, and expresses
his joy at the decisions they had made, and at the Emperor's repudiation
of his former mistake. With Pauline fervor Hilary exclaims that he would
remain in exile all his life, if only truth might be preached.

Then, in a chapter which displays alike his knowledge of the Bible and his
power of refined sarcasm, he unveils his suspicions concerning Valens and
Urascius. He doubts whether they could have been so inexperienced as to
be ignorant of the meaning of the word ouxdougioi when they signed the
third Sirmian Creed. Furthermore he is obliged to point out a defect in the
letter which the Oriental bishops wrote at the Synod of Ancyra. The word
6u.oo\)oiov is there rejected. The three grounds for rejection could only be
that the word was thought to imply a prior substance, or the teaching of
Paul of Samosata, or that the word was not in Scripture. The first two
grounds were only illusions, the third was equally fatal to the word
opoicuGiov. Those who intelligibly maintained opocuGiov or
6(j,oioijgio<;, meant the same thing and condemned the same in piety (c.
82). Why should any one wish to decline the word which the Council of

155

Nicaea had used for an end which was unquestionably good? The argument
is enforced by the insertion of the Nicene Creed in full. True, the word
ouoouaiov is quite capable of misconstruction. But the application of this
test to the difficult passages in the Bible would lead to the chaos of all
belief. The possible abuse of the word does not abolish its use. The
authority of the eighty bishops who condemned the Samosatene abuse of
it does not affect the authority of the three hundred and eighteen who
ratified its Nicene meaning. Hilary adds a statement of great importance.
Before he was acquainted with the term he had personally believed what it
implied. The term has merely invigorated his previous faith (c. 88, cf. c.
91). In other words, Hilary tells his contemporaries, and tells posterity
that the word opoouoiov is Scripture because it is the sense of Scripture,
and is truly conservative because it alone adequately preserves the faith of
the fathers. The argument in interwoven with a spirited appeal to the
Eastern bishops to return to that faith as expressed at Nicaea.

The last chapter (c. 92) is addressed to the Western bishops. It modestly
defends the action of Hilary in writing, and urges a corresponding energy
of the part of his readers. The whole concludes with a devout prayer.

The Liber de Synodis, like other works in which Catholicism has
endeavored to be conciliatory, did not pass unchallenged. It satisfied
neither the genuine Arian nor the violently orthodox. The notes or
fragments which we call Hilary's Apology throw light upon the latter fact.
Hilary has to explain that the had not meant that the Eastern bishops had
stated the true faith at Ancyra, and tells his Lord and brother Lucifer that
it was against his will that he had mentioned the word ouxhoijgiov. We
must ourselves confess that Hilary puts an interpretation on the meaning
of the Eastern formulae which would have been impossible if he had
written after the Synod of Ariminum. Speaking when he did, his arguments
were not only pardonable but right.

156

ON THE COUNCILS

OR

THE FAITH OF THE EASTERNS

To the most dearly loved and blessed brethren our fellow-bishops of the
province of Germania Prima and Germania Secunda, Belgica Prima and
Belgica Secunda, Lugdunensis Prima and Lugdunensis Secunda, and the
province of Aquitania, and the province of Novempopulana, and to the
laity and clergy of Tolosa in the Provincia Narbonensis, and to the bishops
of the provinces of Britain, Hilary the servant of Christ, eternal salvation
in God our Lord.

I had determined, beloved brethren, to send no letter to you concerning the
affairs of the Church in consequence of your prolonged silence. For when I
had by writing from several cities of the Roman world frequently informed
you of the faith and efforts of our religions brethren, the bishops of the
East, and bow the Evil One profiting by the discords of the times had with
envenomed lips and tongue hissed out his deadly doctrine, I was afraid. I
feared lest while so many bishops were involved in the serious danger of
disastrous sin or disastrous mistake, you were holding your peace because
a defiled and sin-stained conscience tempted you to despair. Ignorance I
could not attribute to you; you had been too often warned. I judged
therefore that I also ought to observe silence towards you, carefully
remembering the Lord's saying, that those who after a first and second
entreaty, and in spite of the witness of the Church, neglect to hear, are to
be unto us as heathen men and publicans.

2. But when I received the letters that your blessed faith inspired, and
understood that their slow arrival and their paucity were due to the
remoteness and secrecy of my place of exile, I rejoiced in the Lord that you
had continued pure and undefiled by the contagion of any execrable heresy,
and that you were united with me in faith and spirit, and so were partakers
of that exile into which Saturninus, fearing his own conscience, had thrust
me after beguiling the Emperor, and after that you had denied him

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communion for the whole three years ago until now. I equally rejoiced that
the impious and infidel creed which was sent straightway to you from
Sirmium was not only not accepted by you, but condemned as soon as
reported and notified. I felt that it was now binding on me as a religious
duty to write sound and faithful words to you as my fellow-bishops, who
communicate with me in Christ. I, who through fear of what might have
been could at one time only rejoice with my own conscience that I was free
from all these errors, was now bound to express delight at the purity of
our common faith. Praise God for the unshaken stability of your noble
hearts, for your firm house built on the foundation of the faithful rock, for
the undefiled and unswerving constancy of a will that has proved
immaculate! For since the good profession at the Council of Biterrae,
where I denounced the ringleaders of this heresy with some of you for my
witnesses, it has remained and still continues to remain, pure, unspotted
and scrupulous.

3. You awaited the noble triumph of a holy and steadfast perseverance
without yielding to the threats, the powers and the assaults of Saturninus:
and when all the waves of awakening blasphemy struggled against God,
you who still remain with me faithful in Christ did not give way when
threatened with the onset of heresy, and now by meeting that onset you
have broken all its violence. Yes, brethren, you have conquered, to the
abundant joy of those who share your faith: and your unimpaired
constancy gained the double glory of keeping a pure conscience and giving
an authoritative example. For the fame of your unswerving and unshaken
faith has moved certain Eastern bishops, late though it be, to some shame
for the heresy fostered and supported in those regions: and when they
heard of the godless confession composed at Sirmium, they contradicted
its audacious authors by passing certain decrees themselves. And though
they withstood them not without in their turn raising some scruples, and
inflicting some wounds upon a sensitive piety, yet they withstood them
so vigorously as to compel those who at Sirmium yielded to the views of
Potamius and Hosius as accepting and confirming those views, to declare
their ignorance and error in so doing; in fact they had to condemn in writing
their own action. And they subscribed with the express purpose of
condemning something else in advance.

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4. But your invincible faith keeps the honorable distinction of conscious
worth, and content with repudiating crafty, vague, or hesitating action,
safely abides in Christ, preserving the profession of its liberty. You
abstain from communion with those who oppose their bishops with their
blasphemies and keep them in exile, and do not by assenting to any crafty
subterfuge bring yourselves under a charge of unrighteous judgment. For
since we all suffered deep and grievous pain at the actions of the wicked
against God, within our boundaries alone is communion in Christ to be
found from the time that the Church began to be harried by disturbances
such as the expatriation of bishops, the deposition of priests, the
intimidation of the people, the threatening of the faith, and the
determination of the meaning of Christ's doctrine by human will and
power. Your resolute faith does not pretend to be ignorant of these facts or
profess that it can tolerate them, perceiving that by the act of hypocritical
assent it would bring itself before the bar of conscience.

5. And although in all your actions, past and present, you bear witness to
the uninterrupted independence and security of your faith; yet in
particular you prove your warmth and fervor of spirit by the fact that
some of you whose letters have succeeded in reaching me have expressed a
wish that I, unfit as I am, should notify to you what the Easterns have
since said in their confessions of faith. They affectionately laid the
additional burden upon me of indicating my sentiments on all their
decisions. I know that my skill and learning are inadequate, for I feel it
most difficult to express in words my own belief as I understand it in my
heart; far less easy must it be to expound the statements of others.

6. Now I beseech you by the mercy of the Lord, that as I will in this letter
according to your desire write to you of divine things and of the witness of
a pure conscience to our faith, no one will think to judge me by the
beginning of my letter before he has read the conclusion of my argument.
For it is unfair before the complete argument has been grasped, to conceive
a prejudice on account of initial statements, the reason of which is yet
unknown, since it is not with imperfect statements before us that we must
make a decision for the sake of investigation, but on the conclusion for the
sake of knowledge. I have some fear, not about you, as God is witness of
my heart, but about some who in their own esteem are very cautious and
prudent but do not understand the blessed apostle's precept not to think

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of themselves more highly than they ought: for I am afraid that they are
unwilling to know all those facts, the complete account of which I will
offer at the end, and at the same time they avoid drawing the true
conclusion from the aforesaid facts. But whoever takes up these lines to
read and examine them has only to be consistently patient with me and
with himself and peruse the whole to its completion. Perchance all this
assertion of my faith will result in those who conceal their heresy being
unable to practice the deception they wish, and in true Catholics attaining
the object which they desire.

7. Therefore I comply with your affectionate and urgent wish, and I have
set down all the creeds which have been promulgated at different times and
places since the holy Council of Nicaea, with my appended explanations
of all the phrases and even words employed. If they be thought to contain
anything faulty, no one can impute the fault to me: for I am only a
reporter, as you wished me to be, and not an author. But if anything is
found to be laid down in right and apostolic fashion, no one can doubt that
it is no credit to the interpreter but to the originator. In any case I have
sent you a faithful account of these transactions: it is for you to determine
by the decision your faith inspires whether their spirit is Catholic or
heretical.

8. For although it was necessary to reply to your letters, in which you
offered me Christian communion with your faith, (and, moreover, certain
of your number who were summoned to the Council which seemed
pending in Bithynia did refuse with firm consistency of faith to hold
communion with any but myself outside Gaul), it also seemed fit to use
my episcopal office and authority, when heresy was so rife, in submitting
to you by letter some godly and faithful counsel. For the word of God
cannot be exiled as our bodies are, or so chained and bound that it cannot
be imparted to you in any place. But when I had learnt that synods were
to meet in Ancyra and Ariminum, and that one or two bishops from each
province in Gaul would assemble there, I thought it especially needful that
I, who am confined in the East, should explain and make known to you the
grounds of those mutual suspicious which exist between us and the
Eastern bishops, though some of you know those grounds; in order that
whereas you had condemned and they had anathematized this heresy that
spreads from Sirmium, you might nevertheless know with what confession

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of faith the Eastern bishops had come to the same result that you had
come to, and that I might prevent you, whom I hope to see as shining
lights in future Councils, differing, through a mistake about words, even a
hair's-breadth from pure Catholic belief, when your interpretation of the
apostolic faith is identically the same and you are Catholics at heart.

9. Now it seems to me right and appropriate, before I begin my argument
about suspicions and dissensions as to words, to give as complete an
account as possible of the decisions of the Eastern bishops adverse to the
heresy compiled at Sirmium. Others have published all these transactions
very plainly, but much obscurity is caused by a translation from Greek
into Latin, and to be absolutely literal is to be sometimes partly
unintelligible.

10. You remember that in the Blasphemia, lately written at Sirmium, the
object of the authors was to proclaim the Father to be the one and only
God of all things, and deny the Son to be God: and while they determined
that men should hold their peace about 6u.ooijgiov and ouxhotjgiov they
determined that God the Son should be asserted to be born not of God the
Father, but of nothing, as the first creatures were, or of another essence
than God, as the later creatures. And further that in saying the Father was
greater in honor, dignity, splendor and majesty, they implied that the Son
lacked those things which constitute the Father's superiority. Lastly, that
while it is affirmed that His birth is unknowable, we were commanded by
this Compulsory Ignorance Act not to know that He is of God: just as if it
could be commanded or decreed that a man should know what in future he
is to be ignorant of, or be ignorant of what he already knows. I have
subjoined in full this pestilent and godless blasphemy, though against my
will, to facilitate a more complete knowledge of the worth and reason of
the replies made on the opposite side by those Easterns who endeavored
to counteract all the wiles of the heretics according to their understanding
and comprehension.

A copy of the Blasphemia composed at Sirmium by Osius and Polamius.

1 1 . Since there appeared to be some misunderstanding respecting the faith,
all points have been carefully investigated and discussed at Sirmium in the
presence of our most reverend brothers and fellow-bishops, Valens,
Ursacius and Germinius.

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It is evident that there is one God, the Father Almighty, according as it is
believed throughout the whole world; and His only Son Jesus Christ our
Savior, begotten of Him before the ages. But we cannot and ought not to
say that there are two Gods, for the Lord Himself said, I will go unto My
Father and your Father, unto My God and your God. So there is one God
over all, as the Apostle hath taught us, Is He God of the Jews only? Is He
not also of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also: seeing it is one God,
which shall justify the circumcision by faith, and the uncircumcision
through faith. And in all other things they agreed thereto, nor would they
allow any difference.

But since some or many persons were disturbed by questions concerning
substance, called in Greek oxjgioc, that is, to make it understood more
exactly, as to opocuoiov, or what is called opoiouoiov, there ought to be
no mention made of these at all. Nor ought any exposition to be made of
them for the reason and consideration that they are not contained in the
divine Scriptures, and that they are above man's understanding, nor can
any man declare the birth of the Son, of whom it is written, Who shall
declare His generation? For it is plain that only the Father knows how He
begot the Son, and the Son how He was begotten of the Father. There is no
question hat the Father is greater. No one can doubt hat the Father is
greater than the Son in honor, dignity, splendor, majesty, and in the very
name of Father, the Son Himself testifying, He that sent Me is greater than
I. And no one is ignorant that it is Catholic doctrine that there are two
Persons of Father and Son; and that the Father is greater, and that the Son
is subordinated to the Father, together with all things which the Father has
subordinated to Him, and that the Father has no beginning and is invisible,
immortal and impassible, but that the Son has been begotten of the Father
God of God, Light of Light, and that the generation of this Son, as is
aforesaid, no one knows but His Father, And that the Son of God Himself,
our Lord and God, as we read took flesh, that is, a body, that is, man of
the womb of the Virgin Mary, of the Angel announced. And as all the
Scriptures teach, and especially the doctor of the Gentiles himself, He took
of Mary the Virgin, man, through whom He suffered. And the whole faith
is summed up and secured in this, that the Trinity must always be
preserved, as we read in the Gospel, Go ye and baptize all nations in the
Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Complete and

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perfect is the number of the Trinity. How the Paraclete, the Spirit, is
through the Son: Who was sent and came according to His promise in order
to instruct, teach and sanctify the apostles and all believers.

12. After these many and most impious statements had been made, the
Eastern bishops on their side again met together and composed definitions
of their confession. Since, however, we have frequently to mention the
words essence and substance, we must determine the meaning of essence,
lest in discussing facts we prove ignorant of the signification of our words.
Essence is a reality which is, or the reality of those things from which it is,
and which subsists inasmuch as it is permanent. Now we can speak of the
essence, or nature, or genus, or substance of anything. And the strict
reason why the word essence is employed is because it is always. But this
is identical with substance, because a thing which is, necessarily subsists in
itself, and whatever thus subsists possesses unquestionably a permanent
genus, nature or substance. When, therefore, we say that essence signifies
nature, or genus, or substance, we mean the essence of that thing which
permanently exists in the nature, genus, or substance. Now, therefore, let
us review the definitions of faith drawn up by the Easterns.

I. "If any one hearing that the Son is the image of the invisible God, says
that the image of God is the same as the invisible God, as though refusing
to confess that He is truly Son: let him be anathema."

13. Hereby is excluded the assertion of those who wish to represent the
relationship of Father and Son as a matter of names, inasmuch as every
image is similar in species to that of which it is an image. For no one is
himself his own image, but it is necessary that the image should
demonstrate him of whom it is an image. So an image is the figured and
indistinguishable likeness of one thing equated with another. Therefore the
Father is, and the Son is, because the Son is the image of the Father: and he
who is an image, if he is to be truly an image, must have in himself his
original' s species, nature and essence in virtue of the fact that he is an
image.

II. "And if any one hearing the Son say, As the Father hath life in Himself,
so also hath He given to the Son to have life in Himself , shall say that He
who has received life from the Father, and who also declares, I live by the
Father, is the same as He who gave life: let him be anathema."

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14. The person of the recipient and of the giver are distinguished so that
the same should not be made one and sole. For since he is under anathema
who has believed that, when recipient and giver are mentioned one solitary
and unique person is implied, we may not suppose that the selfsame
person who gave received from Himself. For He who lives and He through
whom He lives are not identical, for one lives to Himself, the other declares
that He lives through the Author of His life, and no one will declare that
He who enjoys life and He through whom His life is caused are personally
identical.

III. "And if any one hearing that the Only-begotten Son is like the invisible
God, denies that the Son who is the image of the invisible God (whose
image is understood to include essence) is Son in essence, as though
denying His true Sonship: let him be anathema."

15. It is here insisted that the nature is indistinguishable and entirely
similar. For since He is the Only -begotten Son of God and the image of the
invisible God, it is necessary that He should be of an essence similar in
species and nature. Or what distinction can be made between Father and
Son affecting their nature with its similar genus, when the Son subsisting
through the nature begotten in Him is invested with the properties of the
Father, viz., glory, worth, power, invisibility, essence? And while these
prerogatives of divinity are equal we neither understand the one to be less
because He is Son, nor the other to be greater because He is Father; since
the Son is the image of the Father in species, and not dissimilar in genus;
since the similarity of a Son begotten of the substance of His Father does
not admit of any diversity of substance, and the Son and image of the
invisible God embraces in Himself the whole form of His Father's divinity
both in kind and in amount: and this is to be truly Son, to reflect the truth
of the Father's forth by the perfect likeness of the nature imaged in
Himself.

IV. "And if any one hearing this text, For as the Father hath life in Himself
so also He hath given to the Son to have life in Himself; denies that the Son
is like the Father even in essence, though He testifies that it is even as He
has said; let him be anathema. For it is plain that since the life which is
understood to exist in the Father signifies substance, and the life of the
Only-begotten which was begotten of the Father is also understood to

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mean substance or essence, He there signifies a likeness of essence to
essence."

16. With the Son's origin as thus stated is connected the perfect birth of
the undivided nature. For what in each is life, that in each is signified by
essence. And in the life which is begotten of life, i.e. in the essence which
is born of essence, seeing that it is not born unlike (and that because life is
of life), He keeps in Himself a nature wholly similar to His original,
because there is no diversity in the likeness of the essence that is born and
that besets, that is, of the life which is possessed and which has been
given. For though God begat Him of Himself, in likeness to His own
nature, He in whom is the unbegotten likeness did not relinquish the
property of His natural substance. For He only has what He gave; and as
possessing life He gave life to be possessed. And thus what is born of
essence, as life of life, is essentially like itself, and the essence of Him who
is begotten and of Him who begets admits no diversity or unlikeness.

V. "It any one hearing the words formed or treated it and begat me spoken
by the same lips, refuses to understand this begat me of likeness of
essence, but says that begat me and formed me are the same: as if to deny
that the perfect Son of God was here signified as Son under two different
expressions, as Wisdom has given Us to piously understand, and asserts
that formed me and begat me only imply formation and not sonship: let
him be anathema."

17. Those who say that the Son of God is only a creature or formation are
opposed on the fact that they say they have read The Lord formed or
created me, which seems to imply formation or creation; hot they omit the
following sentence, which is the key to the first, and from the first wrest
authority for their impious statement that the Son is a creature, because
Wisdom has said that she was created. But if she were created, how could
she be also born? For all birth, of whatever kind, attains its own nature
from the nature that begets it: but creation takes its beginning from the
power of the Creator, the Creator being able to form a creature from
nothing. So Wisdom, who said that she was created, does in the next
sentence say that she was also begotten, using the word creation of the act
of the changeless nature of her Parent, which nature, unlike the manner and
wont of human parturition, without any detriment or change of self created

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from itself what it begat. Similarly a Creator has no need of passion or
intercourse or parturition. And that which is created out of nothing begins
to exist at a definite moment. And He who creates makes His object
through His mere power, and creation is the work of might, not the birth of
a nature from a nature that besets it. But because the Son of God was not
begotten after the manner of corporeal childbearing, but was born perfect
God of perfect God; therefore Wisdom says that she was created,
excluding in her manner of birth every kind of corporeal process.

18. Moreover, to shew that she possesses a nature that was born and not
created, Wisdom has added that she was begotten, that by declaring that
she was created and also begotten, she might completely explain her birth.
By speaking of creation she implies that the nature of the Father is
changeless, and she also shews that the substance of her nature begotten of
God the Father is genuine and real. And so her words about creation and
generation have explained the perfection of her birth: the former that the
Father is changeless, the latter the reality of her own nature. The two
things combined become one, and that one is both in perfection: for the
Son being born of God without any change in God, is so born of the Father
as to be created; and the Father, who is changeless in Himself and the
Son's Father by nature, so forms the Son as to beget Him. Therefore the
heresy which has dared to aver that the Son of God is a creature is
condemned because while the first statement shews the impossible
perfection of the divinity, the second, which asserts His natural generation,
crushes the impious opinion that He was created out of nothing.

VI. "And if any one grant the Son only a likeness of activity, but rob Him
of the likeness of essence which is the corner-stone of our faith, in spite of
the fact that the Son Himself reveals His essential likeness with the Father
in the words, For as the Father hath life in Himself, so also hath He given
to the Son to have life in Himself, as well as His likeness in activity by
teaching us that What things soever the Father doeth, these also doeth the
Son likewise, such a man robs himself of the knowledge of eternal life
which is in the Father and the Son, and let him be anathema."

19. The heretics when beset by authoritative passages in Scripture are
wont only to grant that the Son is like the Father in might while they
deprive Him of similarity of nature. This is foolish and impious, for they

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do not understand that similar might can only be the result of a similar
nature. For a lower nature can never attain to the might of a higher and
more powerful nature. What will the men who make these assertions say
about the omnipotence of God the Father, if the might of a lower nature is
made equal to His own? For they cannot deny that the Son's power is the
same, seeing that He has said What things soever the Father doeth, these
also doeth the Son likewise.

No, a similarity of nature follows on a similarity of might when He says,
As the Father hath life in Himself, so also hath He given to the Son to have
lift in Himself. In life is implied nature and essence; this, Christ teaches,
has been given Him to have as the Father hath. Therefore similarity of life
contains similarity of might: for there cannot be similarity of life where the
nature is dissimilar. So it is necessary that similarity of essence follows on
similarity of might: for as what the Father does, the Son does also, so the
life that the Father has He has given to the Son to have likewise. Therefore
we condemn the rash and impious statements of those who confess a
similarity of might but have dared to preach a dissimilarity of nature, since
it is the chief ground of our hope to confess that in the Father and the Son
there is an identical divine substance.

VII. "And if any one professing that he believes that there is a Father and a
Son, says that the Father is Father of an essence unlike Himself but of
similar activity; for speaking profane and novel words against the essence
of the Son and nullifying His true divine Sonship, let him be anathema."

20. By confused and involved expressions the heretics very frequently
elude the truth and secure the ears of the unwary by the mere sound of
common words, such as the titles Father and Son, which they do not
truthfully utter to express a natural and genuine community of essence: for
they are aware that God is called the Father of all creation, and remember
that all the saints are named sons of God. In like manner they declare that
the relationship between the Father and the Son resembles that between
the Father and the universe, so that the names Father and Son are rather
titular than real. For the names are titular if the Persons have a distinct
nature of a different essence, since no reality can be attached to the name
of father unless it be based on the nature of his offspring. So the Father
cannot be called Father of an alien substance unlike His own, for a perfect

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birth manifests no diversity between itself and the original substance.
Therefore we repudiate all the impious assertions that the Father is Father
of a Son begotten of Himself and yet not of His own nature. We shall not
call God Father for having a creature like Him in might and activity, but for
begetting a nature of an essence not unlike or alien to Himself: for a natural
birth does not admit of any dissimilarity with the Father's nature.
Therefore those are anathema who assert that the Father is Father of a
nature unlike Himself, so that something other than God is born of God,
and who suppose that the essence of the Father degenerated in begetting
the Son. For so far as in them lies they destroy the very birthless and
changeless essence of the Father by daring to attribute to Him in the birth
of His Only-begotten an alteration and degeneration of His natural essence.

VIII. "And if any one understanding that the Son is like in essence to Him
whose Son He is admitted to be, says that the Son is the same as the
Father, or part of the Father, or that it is through an emanation or any such
passion as is necessary for the procreation of corporeal children that the
incorporeal Son draws His life from the incorporeal Father: let him be
anathema."

21. We have always to beware of the vices of particular perversions, and
countenance no opportunity for delusion. For many heretics say that the
Son is like the Father in divinity in order to support the theory that in
virtue of this similarity the Son is the same Person as the Father: for this
undivided similarity appears to countenance a belief in a single monad. For
what does not differ in kind seems to retain identity of nature.

22. But birth does not countenance this vain imagination; for such identity
without differentiation excludes birth. For what is born has a father who
caused its birth. Nor because the divinity of Him who is being born is
inseparable from that of Him who begets, are the Begetter and the
Begotten the same Person; while on the other hand He who is born and He
who begets cannot be unlike. He is therefore anathema who shall proclaim
a similarity of nature in the Father and the Son in order to abolish the
personal meaning of the word Son: for while through mutual likeness one
differs in no respect from the other, yet this very likeness, which does not
admit of bare union, confesses both the Father and the Son because the Son
is the changeless likeness of the Father. For the Son is not part of the

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Father so that He who is born and He who begets can be called one Person.
Nor is He an emanation so that by a continual flow of a corporeal
uninterrupted stream the flow is itself kept in its source, the source being
identical with the flow in virtue of the successive and unbroken continuity.
But the birth is perfect, and remains alike in nature; not taking its beginning
materially from a corporeal conception and bearing, but as an incorporeal
Son drawing His existence from an incorporeal Father according to the
likeness which belongs to an identical nature.

FX. "And if any one, because the Father is never admitted to be the Son
and the Son is never admitted to be the Father, when he says that the Son
is other than the Father (because the Father is one Person and the Son
another, inasmuch as it is said, There is another that beareth witness of
Me, even the father who sent Me), does in anxiety for the distinct
personal qualities of the Father and the Son which in the Church must be
piously understood to exist, fear that the Son and the Father may
sometimes be admitted to be the same Person, and therefore denies that the
Son is like in essence to the Father: let him be anathema."

23. It was said unto the apostles of the Lord, Be ye wise as serpents, and
harmless as doves. Christ therefore wished there to be in us the nature of
different creatures: but in such a sort that the harmlessness of the dove
might temper the serpent's wisdom, and the wisdom of the serpent might
instruct the harmlessness of the dove, and that so wisdom might be made
harmless and harmlessness wise. This precept has been observed in the
exposition of this creed. For the former sentence of which we have spoken
guarded against the teaching of a unity of person under the cloak of an
essential likeness, and against the denial of the Son's birth as the result of
an identity of nature, lest we should understand God to be a single monad
because one Person does not differ in kind from the other. In the next
sentence, by harmless and apostolic wisdom we have again taken refuge in
that wisdom of the serpent to which we are bidden to be conformed no
less than to the harmlessness of the dove, lest perchance through a
repudiation of the unity of persons on the ground that the Father is one
Person and the Son another, a preaching of the dissimilarity of their
natures should again take us unawares, and test on the ground that He who
sent and He who was sent are two Persons (for the Sent and the Sender
cannot be one Person) they should be considered to have divided and

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dissimilar natures, though He who is born and He who begets Him cannot
be of a different essence. So we preserve in Father and in Son the likeness
of an identical nature through an essential birth: yet the similarity of nature
does not injure personality by making the Sent and the Sender to be but
one. Nor do we do away with the similarity of nature by admitting distinct
personal qualities, for it is impossible that the one God should be called
Son and Father to Himself. So then the truth as to the birth supports the
similarity of essence and the similarity of essence does not undermine the
personal reality of the birth. Nor again does a profession of belief in the
Begetter and the Begotten exclude a similarity of essence; for while the
Begetter and the Begotten cannot be one Person, He who is born and He
who begets cannot be of a different nature.

X. "And if any one admits that God became Father of the Only-begotten
Son at any point in times and not that the Only-begotten Son came into
existence without passion beyond all times and beyond all human
calculation: for contravening the teaching of the Gospel which scorned any
interval of times between the being of the Father and the Son and faithfully
has instructed us that In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was
with God, and the Word was God, let him be anathema."

24. It is a pious saying that the Father is not limited by times: for the true
meaning of the name of Father which He bore before times began surpasses
comprehension. Although religion teaches us to ascribe to Him this name
of Father through which comes the impassible origin of the Son, yet He is
not bound in time, for the eternal and infinite God cannot be understood as
having become a Father in time, and according to the teaching of the
Gospel the Only-begotten God the Word is recognized even in the
beginning rather to be with God than to be born.

XL "And if any one says that the Father is older in times than His
Only-begotten Son, and that the Son is younger than the Father: let him be
anathema"

25. The essential likeness conformed to the Father's essence in kind is also
taught to be identical in time: lest He who is the image of God, who is the
Word, who is God with God in the beginning, who is like the Father, by
the insertion of times between Himself and the Father should not have in
Himself in perfection that which is both image, and Word, and God. For if

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He be proclaimed to be younger in time, He has lost the truth of the image
and likeness: for that is no longer likeness which is found to be dissimilar
in times. For that very fact that God is Father prevents there being any
times in which He was not Father: consequently there can be no times in
the Son's existence in which He was not Son. Wherefore we must neither
call the Father older than the Son nor the Son younger than the Father: for
the true meaning of neither name can exist without the other.

XII. "And if any one attributes the timeless substance (i.e. Person) of the
Only -begotten Son derived from the Father to the unborn essence of God,
as though calling the Father Son: let him be anathema."

26. The above definition when it denied that the idea of time could be
applied to the birth of the Son seemed to have given an occasion for heresy
(we saw that it would be monstrous if the Father were limited by time, but
that He would be so limited if the Son were subjected to time), so that by
the help of this repudiation of time, the Father who is unborn might under
the appellation of Son be proclaimed as both Father and Son in a single and
unique Person. For in excluding times from the Son's birth it seemed to
countenance the opinion that there was no birth, so that He whose birth is
not in times might be considered not to have been born at all. Wherefore,
lest at the suggestion of this denial of times the heresy of the unity of
Persons should insinuate itself, that impiety is condemned which dares to
refer the timeless birth to the unique and singular Person of the unborn
essence. For it is one thing to be outside times and another to be unborn;
the first admits of birth (though outside time), the other, so far as it is, is
the one sole author froth eternity of its being what it is.

27. We have reviewed, beloved brethren, all the definitions of faith made
by the Eastern bishops which they formulated in their assembly against
the recently emerging heresy. And we, as far as we have been able, have
adapted the wording of our exposition to express their meaning, following
their diction rather than desiring to be thought the originators of new
phrases. In these words they decree the principles of their conscience and
a long maintained doctrine against a new and profane impiety. Those who
compiled this heresy at Sirmium, or accepted it after its compilation, they
have thereby compelled to confess their ignorance and to sign such decrees.
There the Son is the perfect image of the Father: there under the qualities

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of an identical essence, the Person of the Son is not annihilated and
confounded with the Father: there the Son is declared to be image of the
Father in virtue of a real likeness, and does not differ in substance from the
Father, whose image He is: there on account of the life which the Father
has and the life which the Son has received, the Father can have nothing
different in substance (this being implied in life) from that which the Son
received to have: there the begotten Son is not a creature, but is a Person
undistinguished from the Father's nature: there, just as an identical might
belongs to the Father and the Son, so their essence admits of no difference:
there the Father by begetting the Son in no wise degenerates from Himself
in Him through any difference of nature: there, though the likeness of
nature is the same in each, the proper qualities which mark this likeness are
repugnant to a confusion of Persons, so that there is not one subsisting
Person who is called both Father and Son: there, though it is piously
affirmed that there is both a Father who sends and a Son who is sent, yet
no distinction in essence is drawn between the Father and the Son, the Sent
and the Sender: there the truth of God's Fatherhood is not bound by limits
of times: there the Son is not later in time: there beyond all time is a
perfect birth which refutes the error that the Son could not be born.

28. Here, beloved brethren, is the entire creed which was published by
some Easterns, few in proportion to the whole number of bishops, and
which first saw light at the very times when you repelled the introduction
of this heresy. The reason for its promulgation was the fact that they were
bidden to say nothing of the 6|xooijgiov. But even in former times,
through the urgency of these numerous causes, it was necessary at
different occasions to compose other creeds, the character of which will be
understood from their wording. For when you are frilly aware of the
results, it will be easier for us to bring to a full consummation, such as
religion and unity demand, the argument in which we are interested.

An exposition of the faith of the Church made at the Council held an the occasion
of the Dedication of the church at Antioch by ninety-seven bishops there present,
because of suspicions felt as to the orthodoxy of a certain bishop.

29. "We believe in accordance with evangelical and apostolic tradition in
one God the Father Almighty, the Creator, Maker and Disposer of all
things that are, and from whom are all things.

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"And in one Lord Jesus Christ, His Only-begotten Son, God through
whom are all things, who was begotten of the Father, God of God, whole
God of whole God, One of One perfect God of perfect God, King of King,
Lord of Lord, the Word, the Wisdom, the Life, true Light, true Way, the
Resurrection the Shepherd, the Gate, unable to change or alter, the
unvarying image of the essence and might and glory of the Godhead, the
first-born of all creation, who always was in the beginning with God, the
Word of God, according to what is said in the Gospel, and the Word was
God, through whom all things were made, and in whom all things subsist,
who in the last days came down from above, and was born of a virgin
according to the Scriptures, and was made the Lamb, the Mediator
between God and man, the Apostle of our faith, and leader of life. For He
said, came down from heaven, not to do Mine own will, but the will of
Him that sent me. Who suffered and rose again for us on the third day, and
ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of the Father, and is to
come again with glory to judge the quick and the dead.

"And in the Holy Ghost, who was given to them that believe, to comfort,
sanctify and perfect, even as our Lord Jesus Christ ordained His disciples,
saying, Go ye, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, manifestly, that is, of a
Father who is truly Father, and clearly of a Son who is truly Son, and a
Holy Ghost who is truly a Holy Ghost, these words not being set forth
idly and without meaning, but carefully signifying the Person, and order,
and glory of each of those who are named, to teach us that they are three
Persons, but in agreement one.

30. "Having therefore held this faith from the beginning, anti being resolved
to hold it to the end in the sight of God and Christ, we say anathema to
every heretical and perverted sect, and if any man teaches contrary to the
wholesome and right faith of the Scriptures, saying that there is or was
time, or space, or age before the Son was begotten, let him be anathema.
And if any one say that the Son is a formation like one of the things that
are formed, or a birth resembling other births, or a creature like the
creatures, and not as the divine Scriptures have affirmed in each passage
aforesaid, or teaches or proclaims as the Gospel anything else than what
we have received: let him be anathema. For all those things which were

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written in the divine Scriptures by Prophets and by Apostles we believe
and follow truly and with fear."

31. Perhaps this creed has not spoken expressly enough of the identical
similarity of the Father and the Son, especially in concluding that the
names Father, Son and Holy Ghost referred to the Person and order and
glory of each of those who are named to teach us that they are three
Persons, but in agreement one.

32. But in the first place we must remember that the bishops did not
assemble at Antioch to oppose the heresy which has dared to declare that
the substance of the Son is unlike that of the Father, but to oppose that
which, in spite of the Council of Nicaea, presumed to attribute the three
names to the Father. Of this we will treat in its proper place. I recollect
that at the beginning of my argument I besought the patience anti
forbearance of my readers and hearers until the completion of my letter,
lest any one should rashly rise to judge me before he was acquainted with
the entire argument. I ask it again. This assembly of the saints wished to
strike a blow at that impiety which by a mere counting of names evades
the truth as to the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost; which
represents that there is no personal cause for each name, and by a false use
of these names makes the triple nomenclature imply only one Person, so
that the Father alone could be also called both Holy Ghost and Son.
Consequently they declared there were three substances, meaning three
subsistent Persons, and not thereby introducing any dissimilarity of
essence to separate the substance of Father and Son. For the words to
teach us that they are three in substance, but in agreement one are free
from objection, because as the Spirit is also named, and He is the Paraclete,
it is more fitting that a unity of agreement should be asserted than a unity
of essence based on likeness of substance.

33. Further the whole of the above statement has drawn no distinction
whatever between the essence and nature of the Father and the Son. For
when it is said, God of God, whole God of whole God, there is no room
for doubting that whole God is born of whole God. For the nature of God
who is of God admits of no difference, and as whole God of whole God He
is in all in which the Father is. One of One excludes the passions of a
human birth and conception, so that since He is One of One, He comes

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from no other source, nor is different nor alien, for He is One of One,
perfect God of perfect God. Except in having a cause of its origin His birth
does not differ from the birthless nature since the perfection of both
Persons is the same. King of King. A power that is expressed by one and
the same title allows no dissimilarity of power. Lord of Lord. In 'Lord'
also the lordship is equal: there can be no difference where domination is
confessed of both without diversity. But plainest of all is the statement
appended after several others unable to change or alter, the unvarying
image of the Godhead and essence and might and glory. For as God of
God, whole God of whole God, One of One, perfect God of perfect God,
King of King and Lord of Lord, since in all that glory and nature of
Godhead in which the Father ever abides, the Son born of Him also
subsists; He derives this also from the Father's substance that He is unable
to change. For in His birth that nature from which He is born is not
changed; but the Son has maintained a changeless essence since His origin
is in a changeless nature. For though He is an image, yet the image cannot
alter, since in Him was born the image of the Father's essence, and there
could not be in Him a change of nature caused by any unlikeness to the
Father's essence from which He was begotten. Now when we are taught
that He was brought into being as the first of all creation, and He is
Himself said to have always been in the beginning with God as God the
Word, the fact that He was brought into being shews that He was born,
and the fact that He always was, shews that He is not separated from the
Father by time. Therefore this Council by dividing the three substances,
which it did to exclude a monad God with a threefold title, did not
introduce any separation of substance between the Father and the Son.
The whole exposition of faith makes no distinction between Father and
Son, the Unborn and the Only-begotten, in time, or name, or essence, or
dignity, or domination. But our common conscience demands that we
should gain a knowledge of the other creeds of the same Eastern bishops,
composed at different times and places, that by the study of many
confessions we may understand the sincerity of their faith.

The Creed according to the Council of the East.

34. "We, the holy synod met in Sardica from different provinces of the
East, namely, Thebais, Egypt, Palestine, Arabia, Phoenicia, Coele Syria,
Mesopotamia, Cilicia, Cappadocia, Pontus, Paphlagonia, Galatia, Bithynia

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and Hellespont, from Asia, namely, the two provinces of Phrygia, Pisidia,
the islands of the Cyclades, Pamphylia, Caria, Lydia, from Europe,
namely, Thrace, Haemimontus, Moesia, and the two provinces of
Pannonia, have set forth this creed.

"We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Creator and Maker of all
things, from whom all fatherhood in heaven and earth is named:

"And we believe in His Only-begotten Son our Lord Jesus Christ, who
before all ages was begotten of the Father, God of God, Light of Light,
through whom were made all things which are in heaven and earth, visible
and invisible: who is the Word and Wisdom and Might and Life and true
Light: and who in the last days for our sake was incarnate, and Was born
of the holy Virgin, who was crucified and dead and buried, And rose from
the dead on the third day, And was received into heaven, And sitteth on
the right hand of the Father, And shall come to judge the quick and the
dead and to give to every man according to his works: Whose kingdom
remaineth without end for ever and ever. For He sitteth on the right hand
of the Father not only in this age, but also in the age to come.

"We believe also in the Holy Ghost, that is, the Paraclete, whom according
to His promise He sent to His apostles after His return into the heavens to
teach them and to bring all things to their remembrance, through whom also
the souls of them that believe sincerely in Him are sanctified.

"But those who say that the Son of God is sprung from things
non-existent or from another substance and not from God, and that there
was a time or age when He was not, the holy Catholic Church holds them
as aliens. Likewise also those who say that there are three Gods, or that
Christ is not God and that before the ages He was neither Christ nor Son
of God, or that He Himself is the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost,
or that the Son is incapable of birth; or that the Father begat the Son
without purpose or will: the holy Catholic Church anathematizes."

35. In the exposition of this creed, concise but complete definitions have
been employed. For in condemning those who said that the Son sprang
from things non-existent, it attributed to Him a source which had no
beginning but continues perpetually. And lest this source from which He
drew His permanent birth should be understood to be any other substance

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than that of God, it also declares to be blasphemers those who said that
the Son was born of some other substance and not of God. And so since
He does not draw His subsistence from nothing, or spring from any other
source than God, it cannot be doubted that He was born with those
qualities which are God's; since the Only -begotten essence of the Son is
generated neither from things which are non-existent nor from any other
substance than the birthless and eternal substance of the Father. But the
creed also rejects intervals of times or ages: on the assumption that He
who does not differ in nature cannot be separable by time.

36. On every side, where anxiety might be felt, approach is barred to the
arguments of heretics lest it should be declared that there is any difference
in the Son. For those are anathematized who say that there are three Gods:
because according to God's true nature His substance does not admit a
number of applications of the title, except as it is given to individual men
and angels in recognition of their merit, though the substance of their
nature and that of God is different. In that sense there are consequently
many gods. Furthermore in the nature of God, God is one, yet in such a
way that the Son also is God, because in Him there is not a different
nature: and since He is God of God, both must be God, and since there is
no difference of kind between them there is no distinction in their essence.
A number of titular Gods is rejected; because there is no diversity in the
quality of the divine nature. Since therefore he is anathema who says there
are many Gods and he is anathema who denies that the Son is God; it is
fully shewn that the fact that each has one and the same name arises from
the real character of the similar substance in each: since in confessing the
Unborn God the Father, and the Only-begotten God the Son, with no
dissimilarity of essence between them, each is called God, yet God must
be believed and be declared to be one. So by the diligent and watchful care
of the bishops the creed guards the similarity of the nature begotten and
the nature begetting, confirming it by the application of one name.

37. Yet to prevent the declaration of one God seeming to affirm that God
is a solitary monad without offspring of His own, it immediately
condemns the rash suggestion that because God is one, therefore God the
Father is one and solitary, having in Himself the name of Father and of
Son: since in the Father who begets and the Son who comes to birth one
God must be declared to exist on account of the substance of their nature

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being similar in each. The faith of the saints knows nothing of the Son
being incapable of birth: because the nature of the Son only draws its
existence from birth. But the nature of the birth is in Him so perfect that
He who was born of the substance of God is born also of His purpose and
will. For from His will and purpose, not from the process of a corporeal
nature, springs the absolute perfection of the essence of God born from the
essence of God. It follows that we should now consider that creed which
was compiled not long ago when Photinus was deposed from the
episcopate.

A copy of the creed composed at Sirmium by the Easterns to offense Photinus.

38. "We believe in one God the Father Almighty, the Creator and Maker,
from whom every fatherhood in heaven and in earth is named.

"And in His only Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who was born of the Father
before all ages, God of God, Light of Light through whom all things were
made in heaven and in earth, visible and invisible. Who is the Word and
Wisdom and Might and Life and true Light: who in the last days for our
sake took a body, And was born of the holy Virgin, And was crucified,
And was dead and buried: who also rose from the dead on the third day,
And ascended into heaven, And sitteth on the right hand of the Father,
And shall come at the end of the world to judge the quick and the dead;
whose kingdom continueth without end and remaineth for perpetual ages.
For He shall be sitting at the right hand of the Father not only in this age,
but also in the age to come.

"And in the Holy Ghost, that is, the Paraclete, whom according to His
promise He sent to the apostles after He ascended into heaven to teach
them and to remind them of all things, through whom also are sanctified
the souls of those who believe sincerely in Him.

I. "But those who say that the Son is sprung from things non-existent, or
from another substance and not from God, and that there was a time or age
when He was not, the holy Catholic Church regards as aliens.

II. "If any man says that the Father and the Son are two Gods: let him be
anathema.

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III. "And if any man says that God is one, but does not confess that
Christ, God the Son of God, ministered to the Father in the creation of all
things: let him be anathema.

IV. "And if any man dares to say that the Unborn God, or a part of Him,
was born of Mary: let him be anathema.

V. "And if any man say that the Son born of Mary was, before born of
Mary, Son only according to foreknowledge or predestination, and denies
that He was born of the Father before the ages and was with God, and that
all things were made through Him: let him be anathema.

VI. "If any man says that the substance of God is expanded and
contracted: let him be anathema.

VII. "If any man says that the expanded substance of God makes the Son;
or names Son His supposed expanded substance: let him be anathema.

VIII. "If any man says that the Son of God is the internal or uttered Word
of God: let him be anathema.

IX. "If any man says that the man alone born of Mary is the Son: let him
be anathema.

X. "If any man though saying that God and Man was born of Mary,
understands thereby the Unborn God: let him be anathema.

XL "If any man hearing The Word was, made Flesh thinks that the Word
was transformed into Flesh, or says that He suffered change in taking
Flesh: let him be anathema.

XII. "If any man hearing that the only Son of God was crucified, says that
His divinity suffered corruption, or pain, or change, or diminution, or
destruction: let him be anathema.

XIII. "If any man says Let us make man was not spoken by the Father to
the Son, but by God to Himself: let him be anathema.

XIV. "If any man says that the Son did not appear to Abraham, but the
Unborn God, or a part of Him: let him be anathema.

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XV. "If any man says that the Son did not wrestle with Jacob as a man,
but the Unborn God, or a part of Him: let him be anathema.

XVI. "If any man does not understand The Lord rained from the Lord to
be spoken of the Father and the Son, but that the Father rained from
Himself: let him be anathema. For the Lord the Son rained from the Lord
the Father.

XVII. "If any man says that the Lord and the Lord, the Father and the Son
are two Gods, because of the aforesaid words: let him be anathema. For we
do not make the Son the equal or peer of the Father, but understand the
Son to be subject. For He did not come down to Sodom without the
Father' s will, nor rain from Himself but from the Lord, to wit by the
Father's authority; nor does He sit at the Father's right hand by His own
authority, but He hears the Father saying. Sit thou on My, right hand.

XVIII. "If any man says that the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost
are one Person: let him be anathema.

XIX. "If any man speaking of the Holy Ghost the Paraclete says that He
is the Unborn God: let him be anathema.

XX. "If any man denies that, as the Lord has taught us, the Paraclete is
different from the Son; for He said, And the Father shall send you another
Comforter, whom I shall ask: let him be anathema.

XXI. "If any man says that the Holy Spirit is a part of the Father or of the
Son: let him be anathema.

XXII. "If any man says that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit
are three Gods: let him be anathema.

XXIII. "If any man after the example of the Jews understands as said for
the destruction of the Eternal Only-begotten God the words, I am the first
God, and I am the last God, and beside Me there is no God, which were
spoken for the destruction of idols and them that are no gods: let him be
anathema.

XXIV. "If any man says that the Son was made by the will of God, like
any object in creation: let him be anathema.

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XXV. "If any man says that the Son was born against the will of the
Father: let him be anathema. For the Father was not forced against His
own will, or induced by any necessity of nature to beget the Son: but as
soon as He willed, before time and without passion He begat Him of
Himself and shewed Him forth.

XXVI. "If any man says that the Son is incapable of birth and without
beginning, saying as though there were two incapable of birth and unborn
and without beginning, and makes two Gods: let him be anathema. For the
Head, which is the beginning of all things, is the Son; but the Head or
beginning of Christ is God: for so to One who is without beginning and is
the beginning of all things, we refer the whole world through Christ.

XXVII. "Once more we strengthen the understanding of Christianity by
saying, If any man denies that Christ who is God and Son of God,
personally existed before time began and aided the Father in the perfecting
of all things; but says that only from the time that He was born of Mary
did He gain the name of Christ and Son and a beginning of His deity: let
him be anathema."

39. The necessity of the moment urged the Council to set forth a wider and
broader exposition of the creed including many intricate questions, because
the heresy which Photinus was reviving was sapping our Catholic home
by many secret mines. Their purpose was to oppose every form of
stealthy subtle heresy by a corresponding form of pure and unsullied faith,
and to have as many complete explanations of the faith as there were
instances of peculiar faithlessness. Immediately after the universal and
unquestioned statement of the Christian mysteries, the explanation of the
faith against the heretics begins as follows.

I. "But those who say that the Son is sprung from things non-existent, or
from another substance and not from God, and that there was a time or age
when He was not, the holy Catholic Church regards as aliens."

40. What ambiguity is there here? What is omitted that the consciousness
of a sincere faith could suggest? He does not spring from things
non-existent: therefore His origin has existence. There is no other
substance extant to be His origin, but that of God: therefore nothing else
can be born in Him but all that is God; because His existence is not from

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nothing, and He draws subsistence from no other source. He does not
differ in time: therefore the Son like the Father is eternal. And so the
Unborn Father and the Only-begotten Son share all the same qualities.
They are equal in years, and that very similarity between the sole-existing
paternal essence and its offspring prevents distinction in any quality.

II. "If any man says that the Father and the Son are two Gods: let him be
anathema.

III." And if any man says that God is one, but does not confess that Christ
who is God and eternal Son of God ministered to the Father in the creation
of all things: let him be anathema."

41. The very statement of the name as our religion states it gives us a clear
insight into the fact. For since it is condemned to say that the Father and
the Son are two Gods, and it is also accursed to deny that the Son is God,
any opinion as to the substance of the one being different from that of the
other in asserting two Gods is excluded. For there is no other essence,
except that of God the Father, from which God the Son of God was born
before time. For since we are compelled to confess God the Father, and
roundly declare that Christ the Son of God is God, and between these two
truths lies the impious confession of two Gods: They must on the ground
of their identity of nature and name be one in the kind of their essence if
the name of their essence is necessarily one.

IV. "If any one dares to say that the Unborn God, or a part of Him, was
born of Mary: let him be anathema."

42. The fact of the essence declared to be one in the Father and the Son
having one name on account of their similarity of nature seemed to offer an
opportunity to heretics to declare that the Unborn God, or a part of Him,
was born of Mary. The danger was met by the wholesome resolution that
he who declared this should be anathema. For the unity of the name which
religion employs and which is based on the exact similarity of their natural
essence, has not repudiated the Person of the begotten essence so as to
represent, trader cover of the unity of name, that the substance of God is
singular and undifferentiated because we predicate one name for the
essence of each, that is, predicate one God, on account of the exactly
similar substance of the undivided nature in each Person.

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V. "If any man say that the Son existed before Mary only according to
foreknowledge or predestination, and denies that He was born of the
Father before the ages and with God, and that all things were made through
Him: let him be anathema."

43. While denying that the God of us all, the Son of God, existed before He
was born in bodily form, some assert that He existed according to
foreknowledge and predestination, and not according to the essence of a
personally subsistent nature: that is, because the Father predestined the
Son to have existence some day by being born of the Virgin, He was
announced to us by the Father' s foreknowledge rather than born and
existent before the ages in the substance of the divine nature, and that all
things which He Himself spake in the prophets concerning the mysteries
of His incarnation and passion were simply said concerning Him by the
Father according to His foreknowledge. Consequently this perverse
doctrine is condemned, so that we know that the Only-begotten Son of
God was born of the Father before all worlds, and formed the worlds and
all creation, and that He was not merely predestined to be born.

VI. "If any man says that the substance of God is expanded and
contracted: let him be anathema."

44. To contract and expand are bodily affections: but God who is a Spirit
and breathes where He listeth, does not expand or contract Himself
through any change of substance. Remaining free and outside the bond of
any bodily nature, He supplies out of Himself what He wills, when He
wills, and where He wills. Therefore it is impious to ascribe any change of
substance to such an unfettered Power.

VII. "If any man says that the expanded substance of God makes the Son,
or names Son His expanded substance: let him be anathema."

45. The above opinion, although meant to teach the immutability of God,
yet prepared the way for the following heresy. Some have ventured to say
that the Unborn God by expansion of His substance extended Himself as
far as the holy Virgin, in order that this extension produced by the increase
of His nature and assuming manhood might be called Son. They denied that
the Son who is perfect God born before time began was the same as He

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who was afterwards born as Man. Therefore the Catholic Faith condemns
all denial of the immutability of the Father and of the birth of the Son.

VIII. "If any man says that the Son is the internal or uttered Word of God:
let him be anathema."

46. Heretics, destroying as far as in them lies the Son of God, confess Him
to be only the word, going forth as an utterance from the speaker's lips
and the unembodied sound of an impersonal voice: so that God the Father
has as Son a word resembling any word we utter in virtue of our inborn
power of speaking. Therefore this dangerous deceit is condemned, which
asserts that God the Word, who was in the beginning with God, is only the
word of a voice sometimes internal and sometimes expressed.

IX. "If any man says that the man alone born of Mary is the Son: let him
be anathema."

We cannot declare that the Son of God is born of Mary without declaring
Him to be both Man and God. But lest the declaration that He is both God
and Man should give occasion to deceit, the Council immediately adds,

X. "If any man though saying that God and Man was born of Mary,
understands thereby the Unborn God: let him be anathema"

47. Thus is preserved both the name and power of the divine substance.
For since he is anathema who says that the Son of God by Mary is man
and not God; and he falls under the same condemnation who says that the
Unborn God became man: God made Man is not denied to be God but
denied to be the Unborn God, the Father being distinguished from the Son
not under the head of nature or by diversity of substance, but only by
such pre-eminence as His birthless nature gives.

XL "If any man hearing The Word was made Flesh thinks that the Word
was transformed into Flesh, or says that He suffered change in taking
Flesh: let him be anathema."

48. This preserves the dignity of the Godhead: so that in the fact that the
Word was made Flesh, the Word, in becoming Flesh, has not lost through
being Flesh what constituted the Word, nor has become transformed into
Flesh, so as to cease to be the Word; but the Word was made Flesh in
order that the Flesh might begin to be what the Word is. Else whence came

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to His Flesh miraculous power in working, glory on the Mount, knowledge
of the thoughts of human hearts, calmness in His passion, life in His
death? God knowing no change, when made Flesh lost nothing of the
prerogatives of His substance.

XII. "If any man hearing that the only Son of God was crucified, says that
His divinity suffered corruption or pain or change or diminution or
destruction: let him be anathema."

49. It is clearly shewn why the Word, though He was made Flesh, was
nevertheless not transformed into Flesh. Though these kinds of suffering
affect the infirmity of the flesh, yet God the Word when made Flesh could
not change under suffering. Suffering and change are not identical. Suffering
of every kind causes all flesh to change through sensitiveness and
endurance of pain. But the Word that was made Flesh, although He made
Himself subject to suffering, was nevertheless unchanged by the liability to
suffer. For He was able to suffer, and yet the Word was not possible.
Possibility denotes a nature that is weak; but suffering in itself is the
endurance of pains inflicted, and since the Godhead is immutable and yet
the Word was made Flesh, such pains found in Him a material which they
could affect though the Person of the Word had no infirmity or possibility.
And so when He suffered His Nature remained immutable because like His
Father, His Person is of an impossible essence, though it is born.

XIII. "If any man says Let us make man was not spoken by the Father to
the Son, but by God to Himself: let him be anathema.

XIV. "If any man says that the Son did not appear to Abraham, but the
Unborn God, or a part of Him: let him be anathema.

XV. "If any man says that the Son did not wrestle with Jacob as a man,
but the Unborn God, or a part of Him: let him be anathema.

XVI: "If any man does not understand The Lord rained from the Lord to
be spoken of the Father and the Son, but says that the Father rained from
Himself: let him be anathema. For the Lord the Son rained from the Lord
the Father."

50. These points had to be inserted into the creed because Photinus,
against whom the synod was held, denied them. They were inserted lest

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any one should dare to assert that the Son of God did not exist before the
Son of the Virgin, and should attach to the Unborn God with the foolish
perversity of an insane heresy all the above passages which refer to the
Son of God, and while applying them to the Father, deny the Person of the
Son. The clearness of these statements absolves us from the necessity of
interpreting them.

XVII. "If any man says that the Lord and the Lord, the Father and the
Son, are two Gods because of the aforesaid words: let him be anathema.
For we do not make the Son the equal or peer of the Father, but
understand the Son to be subject. For He did not come down to Sodom
without the Father' s will, nor rain from Himself but from the Lord, to wit,
by the Father's authority; nor does He sit at the Father's right hand by
His own authority, but because He hears the Father saying, Sit Thou on
My right hand."

51. The foregoing and the following statements utterly remove any ground
for suspecting that this definition asserts a diversity of different deities in
the Lord and the Lord. No comparison is made because it was seen to be
impious to say that there are two Gods: not that they refrain from making
the Son equal and peer of the Father in order to deny that He is God. For,
since he is anathema who denies that Christ is God, it is not on that score
that it is profane to speak of two equal Gods. God is One on account of
the true character of His natural essence and because from the Unborn God
the Father, who is the one God, the Only-begotten God the Son is born,
and draws His divine Being only from God; and since the essence of Him
who is begotten is exactly similar to the essence of Him who begot Him,
there must be one name for the exactly similar nature. That the Son is not
on a level with the Father and is not equal to Him is chiefly shewn in the
fact that He was subjected to Him to render obedience, in that the Lord
rained from the Lord and that the Father did not, as Photinus and Sabellius
say, rain from Himself, as the Lord from the Lord; in that He then sat
down at the right hand of God when it was told Him to seat Himself; in
that He is sent, in that He receives, in that He submits in all things to the
will of Him who sent Him. But the subordination of filial love is not a
diminution of essence, nor does pious duty cause a degeneration of nature,
since in spite of the fact that both the Unborn Father is God and the
Only-begotten Son of God is God, God is nevertheless One, and the

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subjection and dignity of the Son are both taught in that by being called
Son He is made subject to that name which because it implies that God is
His Father is yet a name which denotes His nature. Having a name which
belongs to Him whose Son He is, He is subject to the Father both in
service and name; yet in such a way that the subordination of His name
bears witness to the true character of His natural and exactly similar
essence.

XVIII. "If any man says that the Father and the Son are one Person: let
him be anathema."

52. Sheer perversity calls for no contradiction: and yet the mad frenzy of
certain men has been so violent as to dare to predicate one Person with
two names.

XIX. "If any man speaking of the Holy Ghost the Paraclete say that He is
the Unborn God: let him be anathema."

53. The further clause makes liable to anathema the predicating Unborn
God of the Paraclete. For it is most impious to say that He who was sent
by the Son for our consolation is the Unborn God.

XX. "If any man deny that, as the Lord has taught us, the Paraclete is
different from the Son; for He said, And the Further shall send you another
Comforter, whom I shall ask: let him be anathema."

54. We remember that the Paraclete was sent by the Son, and at the
beginning the creed explained this. But since through the virtue of His
nature, which is exactly similar, the Son has frequently called His own
works the works of the Father, saying, I do the works of My Father: so
when He intended to send the Paraclete, as He often promised, He said
sometimes that He was to be sent from the Father, in that He was piously
wont to refer all that He did to the Father. And from this the heretics often
seize an opportunity of saying that the Son Himself is the Paraclete: while
by the fact that He promised to pray that another Comforter should be
sent from the Father, He shews the difference between Him who is sent
and Him who asked.

XXI. "If any man says that the Holy Spirit is a part of the Father or of the
Son: let him be anathema."

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55. The insane frenzy of the heretics, and not any genuine difficulty,
rendered it necessary that this should be written. For since the name of
Holy Spirit has its own signification, and the Holy Spirit the Paraclete has
the office and rank peculiar to His Person, and since the Father and the Son
are everywhere declared to be immutable: how could the Holy Spirit be
asserted to be a part either of the Father or of the Son? But since this folly
is often affirmed amid other follies by godless men, it was needful that the
pious should condemn it.

XXII. "If any man says that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit
are three Gods: let him be anathema."

56. Since it is contrary to religion to say that there are two Gods, because
we remember and declare that nowhere has it been affirmed that there is
more than one God: how much more worthy of condemnation is it to name
three Gods in the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost? Nevertheless, since
heretics say this, Catholics rightly condemn it.

XXIII. "If any man, after the example of the Jews, understand as said for
the destruction of the Eternal Only-begotten God, the words, I am the first
God, and I am the last God, and beside Me there is no God, which were
spoken for the destruction of idols and them that are no gods: let him be
anathema."

57. Though we condemn a plurality of gods and declare that God is only
one, we cannot deny that the Son of God is God. Nay, the true character
of His nature causes the name that is denied to a plurality to be the
privilege of His essence. The words, Beside Me there is no God, cannot
rob the Son of His divinity: because beside Him who is of God there is no
other God. And these words of God the Father cannot annul the divinity
of Him who was born of Himself with an essence in no way different from
His own nature. The Jews interpret this passage as proving the bare unity
of God, because they are ignorant of the Only-begotten God. But we,
while we deny that there are two Gods, abhor the idea of a diversity of
natural essence in the Father and the Son. The words, Beside Me there is
no God, take away an impious belief in false gods. In confessing that God
is One, and also saying that the Son is God, our use of the same name
affirms that there is no difference of substance between the two Persons.

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XXIV. "If any man says that the Son was made by the will of God, like
any object in creation: let him be anathema."

58. To all creatures the will of God has given substance: but a perfect birth
gave to the Son a nature from a substance that is impossible and itself
unborn. All created things are such as God willed them to be: but the Son
who is born of God has such a personality as God has. God's nature did
not produce a nature unlike itself: but the Son begotten of God's substance
has derived the essence of His nature by virtue of His origin, not from an
act of will after the manner of creatures.

XXV. "If any man says that the Son was born against the will of the
Father: let him be anathema. For the Father was not forced against His
own will, or induced against His will by any necessity of nature, to beget
Ills Son; but as soon as He willed, before time and without passion He
begat Him of Himself and shewed Him forth."

59. Since it was taught that the Son did not, like all other things, owe His
existence to God's will, lest He should be thought to derive His essence
only at His Father's will and not in virtue of His own nature, an
opportunity seemed thereby to be given to heretics to attribute to God the
Father a necessity of begetting the Son from Himself, as though He had
brought forth the Son by a law of nature in spite of Himself. But such
liability to be acted upon does not exist in God the Father in the ineffable
and perfect birth of the Son it was neither mere will that begat Him nor
was the Father's essence changed or forced at the bidding of a natural law.
Nor was any substance sought for to beget Him, nor is the nature of the
Begetter changed in the Begotten, nor is the Father's unique name affected
by time. Before all time the Father, out of the essence of His nature, with a
desire that was subject to no passion, gave to the Son a birth that
conveyed the essence of His nature.

XXVI. "If any man says that the Son is incapable of birth and without
beginning, speaking as though there were two incapable of birth and
unborn and without beginning, and makes two Gods: let him be anathema.
For the Head, which is the beginning of all things, is the Son; but the Head
or beginning of Christ is God: for so to One who is without beginning and
is the beginning of all things, we refer the whole world through Christ."

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60. To declare the Son to be incapable of birth is the height of impiety.
God would no longer be One: for the nature of the one Unborn God
demands that we should confess that God is one. Since therefore God is
one, there cannot be two incapable of birth: because God is one (although
both the Father is God and the Son of God is God) for the very reason that
incapability of birth is the only quality that can belong to one Person only.
The Son is God for the very reason that He derives His birth from that
essence which cannot be born. Therefore our holy faith rejects the idea that
the Son is incapable of birth in order to predicate one God incapable of
birth and consequently one God, and in order to embrace the
Only-begotten nature, begotten from the unborn essence, in the one name
of the Unborn God. For the Head of all things is the Son: but the Head of
the Son is God. And to one God through this stepping-stone and by this
confession all things are referred, since the whole world takes its beginning
from Him to whom God Himself is the beginning.

XXVII. "Once more we strengthen the understanding of Christianity by
saying, If any man denies that Christ, who is God and the Son of God,
existed before time began and aided the Father in the perfecting of all
things; but says that only from the time that He was born of Mary did He
gain the name of Christ and Son and a beginning of His deity: let him be
anathema."

61. A condemnation of that heresy on account of which the Synod was
held necessarily concluded with an explanation of the whole faith that was
being opposed. This heresy falsely stated that the beginning of the Son of
God dated from His birth of Mary. According to evangelical and apostolic
doctrine the corner-stone of our faith is that our Lord Jesus Christ, who is
God and Son of God, cannot be separated from the Father in title or power
or difference of substance or interval of time.

62. You perceive that the truth has been sought by many paths through
the advice and opinions of different bishops, and the ground of their views
has been set forth by the separate declarations inscribed in this creed.
Every separate point of heretical assertion has been successfully refuted.
The infinite and boundless God cannot be made comprehensible by a few
words of human speech. Brevity often misleads both learner and teacher,
and a concentrated discourse either causes a subject not to be understood,

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or spoils the meaning of an argument where a thing is hinted at, and is not
proved by full demonstration. The bishops fully understood this, anti
therefore have used for the purpose of teaching many definitions and a
profusion of words that the ordinary understanding might find no
difficulty, but that their hearers might be saturated with the truth thus
differently expressed, and that in treating of divine things these adequate
and manifold definitions might leave no room for danger or obscurity.

63. You must not be surprised, dear brethren, that so many creeds have
recently been written. The frenzy of heretics makes it necessary. The
danger of the Eastern Churches is so great that it is rare to find either priest
or layman that belongs to this faith, of the orthodoxy of which you may
judge. Certain individuals have acted so wrongly as to support the side of
evil, and the strength of the wicked has been increased by the exile of some
of the bishops, the cause of which you are acquainted with. I am not
speaking about distant events or writing down incidents of which I know
nothing: I have heard and seen the faults which we now have to combat.
They are not laymen but bishops who are guilty. Except the bishop
Eleusius and his few comrades, the greater part of the ten provinces of
Asia, in which I am now staying, really know not God. Would that they
knew nothing about Him, for their ignorance would meet with a readier
pardon than their detraction. These faithful bishops do not keep silence in
their pain. They seek for the unity of that faith of which others have long
since robbed them. The necessity of a united exposition of that faith was
first felt when Hosius forgot his former deeds and words, and a fresh yet
festering heresy broke out at Sirmium. Of Hosius I say nothing, I leave his
conduct in the background lest man's judgment should forget what once he
was. But everywhere there are scandals, schisms and treacheries. Hence
some of those who had formerly written one creed were compelled to sign
another. I make no complaint against these long-suffering Eastern bishops,
it was enough that they gave at least a compulsory assent to the faith after
they had once been willing to blaspheme. I think it a subject of
congratulation that a single penitent should be found among such obstinate,
blaspheming and heretical bishops. But, brethren, you enjoy happiness
and glory in the Lord, who meanwhile retain and conscientiously confess
the whole apostolic faith, and have hitherto been ignorant of written
creeds. You have not needed the letter, for you abounded in the spirit. You

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required not the office of a hand to write what you believed in your hearts
and professed unto salvation. It was unnecessary for you to read as
bishops what you held when new-born converts. But necessity has
introduced the custom of ex-pounding creeds and signing expositions.
Where the conscience is in danger we must use the letter. Nor is it wrong
to write what it is wholesome to confess.

64. Kept always from guile by the gift of the Holy Spirit, we confess and
write of our own will that there are not two Gods but one God; nor do we
therefore deny that the Son of God is also God; for He is God of God. We
deny that there are two incapable of birth, because God is one through the
prerogative of being incapable of birth; nor does it follow that the
Unbegotten is not God, for His source is the Unborn substance. There is
not one subsistent Person, but a similar substance in both Persons. There
is not one name of God applied to dissimilar natures, but a wholly similar
essence belonging to one name and nature. One is not superior to the other
on account of the kind of His substance, but one is subject to the other
because born of the other. The Father is greater because He is Father, the
Son is not the less because He is Son. The difference is one of the meaning
of a name anti not of a nature. We confess that the Father is not affected
by time, but do not deny that the Son is equally eternal. We assert that the
Father is in the Son because the Son has nothing in Himself unlike the
Father: we confess that the Son is in the Father because the existence of
the Son is not from any other source. We recognize that their nature is
mutual and similar because equal: we do not think them to be one Person
because they are one: we declare that they are through the similarity of an
identical nature one, in such a way that they nevertheless are not one
Person.

65. 1 have expounded, beloved brethren, my belief in our common faith so
far as our wonted human speech permitted and the Lord, whom I have ever
besought, as He is my witness, has given me power. If I have said too
little, nay, if I have said almost nothing, I ask you to remember that it is
not belief but words that are lacking. Perhaps I shall thereby prove that
my human nature, though not my will, is weak: and I pardon my human
nature if it cannot speak as it would of God, for it is enough for its
salvation to have believed the things of God.

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66. Since your faith and mine, so far as I am conscious, is in no danger
before God, and I have shewn you, as you wished, the creeds that have
been set forth by the Eastern bishops (though I repeat that they were few
in number, for, considering how numerous the Eastern Churches are, that
faith is held by few), I have also declared my own convictions about divine
things, according to the doctrine of the apostles, it remains for you to
investigate without suspicion the points that mislead the unguarded
temper of our simple minds, for there is now no opportunity left of
hearing. And although I shall no longer fear that sentence will not be
passed upon me in accordance with the whole exposition of the creed, I
ask you to allow me to express a wish that I may not have the sentence
passed until the exposition is actually completed.

67. Many of us, beloved brethren, declare the substance of the Father and
the Son to be one in such a spirit that I consider the statement to be quite
as much wrong as right. The expression contains both a conscientious
conviction and the opportunity for delusion. If we assert the one
substance, understanding it to mean the likeness of natural qualities and
such a likeness as includes not only the species but the genus, we assert it
in a truly religious spirit, provided we believe that the one substance
signifies such a similitude of qualities that the unity is not the unity of a
monad but of equals. By equality I mean exact similarity so that the
likeness may be called an equality, provided that the equality imply unity
because it implies an equal pair, and that the unity which implies an equal
pair be not wrested to mean a single Person. Therefore the one substance
will be asserted piously if it does not abolish the subsistent personality or
divide the one substance into two, for their substance by the true character
of the Son's birth and by their natural likeness is so free from difference
that it is called one.

68. But if we attribute one substance to the Father and the Son to teach
that there is a solitary personal existence although denoted by two titles:
then though we confess the Son with our lips we do not keep Him in our
hearts, since in confessing one substance we then really say that the Father
and the Son constitute one undifferentiated Person. Nay, there
immediately arises an opportunity for the erroneous belief that the Father
is divided, and that He cut off a portion of Himself to be His Son. That is
what the heretics mean when they say the substance is one: and the

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terminology of our good confession so gratifies them that it aids heresy
when the word 6(xootjgio<; is left by itself, undefined and ambiguous.
There is also a third error. When the Father and the Son are said to be of
one substance this is thought to imply a prior substance, which the two
equal Persons both possess. Consequently the word implies three things,
one original substance and two Persons, who are as it were fellow-heirs of
this one substance. For as two fellow-heirs are two, and the heritage of
which they are fellow-heirs is anterior to them, so the two equal Persons
might appear to be sharers in one anterior substance. The assertion of the
one substance of the Father and the Son signifies either that there is one
Person who has two titles, or one divided substance that has made two
imperfect substances, or that there is a third prior substance which has
been usurped and assumed by two and which is called one because it was
one before it was severed into two. Where then is there room for the Son's
birth? Where is the Father or the Son, if these names are explained not by
the birth of the divine nature but a severing or sharing of one anterior
substance?

69. Therefore amid the numerous dangers which threaten the faith, brevity
of words must be employed sparingly, lest what is piously meant be
thought to be impiously expressed, and a word be judged guilty of
occasioning heresy when it has been used in conscientious and
unsuspecting innocence. A Catholic about to state that the substance of
the Father and the Son is one, must not begin at that point: nor hold this
word all important as though true faith did not exist where the word was
not used. He will be safe in asserting the one substance if he has first said
that the Father is unbegotten, that the Son is born, that He draws His
personal subsistence from the Father, that He is like the Father in might,
honor and nature, that He is subject to the Father as to the Author of His
being, that He did not commit robbery by making Himself equal with God,
in whose form He remained, that He was obedient unto death. He did not
spring from nothing, but was born. He is not incapable of birth but equally
eternal. He is not the Father, but the Son begotten of Him. He is not any
portion of God, but is whole God. He is not Himself the source but the
image; the image of God born of God to be God. He is not a creature but is
God. Not another God in the kind of His substance, but the one God in
virtue of the essence of His exactly similar substance. God is not one in

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Person but in nature, for the Born and the Begetter have nothing different
or unlike. After saying all this, he does not err in declaring one substance of
the Father and the Son. Nay, if he now denies the one substance he sins.

70. Therefore let no one think that our words were meant to deny the one
substance. We are giving the very reason why it should not be denied. Let
no one think that the word ought to be used by itself and unexplained.
Otherwise the word 6u.ooijgio<; is not used in a religious spirit. I will not
endure to hear that Christ was born of Mary unless I also hear, In the
beginning was the Word, and the Word was God. I will not hear Christ was
hungry, unless I hear that after His fast of forty days He said, Man doth
not live by bread alone. I will not hear He thirsted unless I also hear,
Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst. I
will not hear Christ suffered unless I hear, The hour is come that the Son
of man should be glorified. I will not hear He died unless I hear He rose
again. Let us bring forward no isolated point of the divine mysteries to
rouse the suspicions of our hearers and give an occasion to the
blasphemers. We must first preach the birth and subordination of the Son
and the likeness of His nature, and then we may preach in godly fashion
that the Father and the Son are of one substance. I do not personally
understand why we ought to preach before everything else, as the most
valuable and important of doctrines and in itself sufficient, a truth which
cannot be piously preached before other truths, although it is impious to
deny it after them.

71. Beloved brethren, we must not deny that there is one substance of the
Father and the Son, but we must not declare it without giving our reasons.
The one substance must be derived from the true character of the begotten
nature, not from any division, any confusion of Persons, any sharing of an
anterior substance. It may be right to assert the one substance, it may be
right to keep silence about it. You believe in the birth and you believe in
the likeness. Why should the word cause mutual suspicions, when we
view the fact in the same way? Let us believe and say that there is one
substance, but in virtue of the true character of the nature and not to imply
a blasphemous unity of Persons. Let the oneness be due to the fact that
there are similar Persons and not a solitary Person.

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72. But perhaps the word similarity may not seem fully appropriate. If so,
I ask how I can express the equality of one Person with the other except
by such a word? Or is to be like not tile same thing as to be equal? If I say
the divine nature is one I am suspected of meaning that it is
undifferentiated: if I say the Persons are similar, I mean that I compare
what is exactly like. I ask what position equal holds between like and one?
I enquire whether it means similarity rather than singularity. Equality does
not exist between things unlike, nor does similarity exist in one. What is
the difference between those that are similar and those that are equal? Can
one equal be distinguished from the other? So those who are equal are not
unlike. If then those who are unlike are not equals, what can those who are
like be but equals?

73. Therefore, beloved brethren, in declaring that the Son is like in all
things to the Father, we declare nothing else than that He is equal. Likeness
means perfect equality, and this fact we may gather from the Holy
Scriptures, And Adam lived two hundred and thirty years, and begat a son
according to his own image and according to his own likeness; and called
his name Seth. I ask what was the nature of his likeness and image which
Adam begot in Seth? Remove bodily infirmities, remove the first stage of
conception, remove birth-pangs, and every kind of human need. I ask
whether this likeness which exists in Seth differs in nature from the author
of his being, or whether there was in each an essence of a different kind, so
that Seth had not at his birth the natural essence of Adam? Nay, he had a
likeness to Adam, even though we deny it, for his nature was not different.
This likeness of nature in Seth was not due to a nature of a different kind,
since Seth was begotten from only one father, so we see that a likeness of
nature renders things equal because this likeness betokens an exactly
similar essence. Therefore every son by virtue of his natural birth is the
equal of his father, in that he has a natural likeness to him. And with regard
to the nature of the Father and the Son the blessed John teaches the very
likeness which Moses says existed between Seth and Adam, a likeness
which is this equality of nature. He says, Therefore the Jews sought the
more to kill Him, because He not only had broken the Sabbath, but said
also that God was His father, making Himself equal with God. Why do we
allow minds that are dulled with the weight of sin to interfere with the
doctrines and sayings of such holy men, and impiously match our rash

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though sluggish senses against their impregnable assertions? According to
Moses, Seth is the likeness of Adam, according to John, the Son is equal to
the Father, yet we seek to find a third impossible something between the
Father and the Son. He is like the Father, He is the Son of the Father, He is
born of Him: this fact alone justices the assertion that they are one.

74. 1 am aware, dear brethren, that there are some who confess the
likeness, but deny the equality. Let them speak as they will, and insert the
poison of their blasphemy into ignorant ears. If they say that there is a
difference between likeness and equality, I ask whence equality can be
obtained? If the Son is like the Father in essence, might, glory and eternity,
I ask why they decline to say He is equal? In the above creed an anathema
was pronounced on any man who should say that the Father was Father of
an essence unlike Himself. Therefore if He gave to Him whom He begat
without effect upon Himself a nature which was neither another nor a
different nature, He cannot have given Him any other than His own.
Likeness then is the sharing of what is one's own, the sharing of one's own
is equality, and equality admits of no difference. Those things which do
not differ at all are one. So the Father and the Son are one, not by unity of
Person but by equality of nature.

75. Although general conviction and divine authority sanction no difference
between likeness and equality, since both Moses and John would lead us
to believe the Son is like the Father and also His equal, yet let us consider
whether the Lord, when the Jews were angry with Him for calling God His
Father and thus making Himself equal with God, did Himself teach that He
was equal with God. He says, The Son can do nothing of Himself, but
what He seeth the Father do. He shewed that the Father originates by
saying Can do nothing of Himself, He calls attention to His own obedience
by adding, but what He seeth the Father do. There is no difference of
might, He says He can do nothing that He does not see because it is His
nature and not His sight that gives Him power. But His obedience consists
in His being able only when He sees. And so by the fact that He has
power when He sees, He shews that He does not gain power by seeing but
claims power on the authority of seeing. The natural might does not differ
in Father and Son, the Son's equality of power with the Father not being
due to any increase or advance of the Son's nature but to the Father's
example. In short that honor which the Son's subjection retained for the

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Father belongs equally to the Son on the strength of His nature. He has
Himself added, What things soever He doeth, these also doeth the Son
likewise. Surely then the likeness implies equality. Certainly it does, even
though we deny it: for these also doeth the Son likewise. Are not things
done likewise the same? Or do not the same things admit equality? Is there
any other difference between likeness and equality, when things that are
done likewise are understood to be made the same? Unless perchance any
one will deny that the same things are equal, or deny that similar things are
equal, for things that are done in like manner are not only declared to be
equal but to be the same things.

76. Therefore, brethren, likeness of nature can be attacked by no cavil, and
the Son cannot be said to lack the true qualities of the Father's nature
because He is like Him. No real likeness exists where there is no equality
of nature, and equality of nurture cannot exist unless it imply unity, not
unity of person but of kind. It is right to believe, religious to feel, and
wholesome to confess, that we do not deny that the substance of the
Father and the Son is one because it is similar, and that it is similar because
they are one.

77. Beloved, after explaining in a faithful and godly manner the meaning of
the phrases one substance, in Greek 6|xooijoiov, and similar substance or
ouxhoijgiov, and shewing very completely the faults which may arise
from a deceitful brevity or dangerous simplicity of language, it only
remains for me to address myself to the holy bishops of the East. We have
no longer any mutual suspicions about our faith, and those which before
now have been due to mere misunderstanding are being cleared away. They
will pardon me if I proceed to speak somewhat freely with them on the
basis of our common faith.

78. Ye who have begun to be eager for apostolic and evangelical doctrine,
kindled by the fire of faith amid the thick darkness of a night of heresy,
with how great a hope of recalling the true faith have you inspired us by
consistently checking the bold attack of infidelity! In former days it was
only in obscure corners that our Lord Jesus Christ was denied to be the
Son of God according to His nature, and was asserted to have no share in
the Father's essence, but like the creatures' to have received His origin
from things that were not. But the heresy now bursts forth backed by civil

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authority, and what it once muttered in secret it has of late boasted of in
open triumph. Whereas in former times it has tried by secret mines to
creep into the Catholic Church, it has now put forth every power of this
world in the fawning, manners of a false religion. For the perversity of
these men has been so audacious that when they dared not preach this
doctrine publicly themselves, they beguiled the Emperor to give them
hearing. For they did beguile an ignorant sovereign so successfully that
though he was busy with war he expounded their infidel creed, and before
he was regenerate by baptism imposed a form of faith upon the churches.
Opposing bishops they drove into exile. They drove me also to wish for
exile, by trying to force me to commit blasphemy. May I always be an
exile, if only the truth begins to be preached again! I thank God that the
Emperor, through your warnings, acknowledged his ignorance, and through
these your definitions of faith came to recognize an error which was not
his own but that of his advisers. He freed himself from the reproach of
impiety in the eyes of God and men, when he respectfully received your
embassy, and after you had won from him a confession of his ignorance,
shewed his knowledge of the hypocrisy of the men whose influence
brought him under this reproach.

79. These are deceivers, I both fear and believe they are deceivers, beloved
brethren; for they have ever deceived. This very document is marked by
hypocrisy. They excuse themselves for having desired silence as to
6u.oo\)Giov and ouxhotjgiov on the ground that they taught that the
meaning of the words was identical. Rustic bishops, I trow, and untutored
in the significance of opocuaiov: as though there had never been any
Council about the matter, or any dispute. But suppose they did not know
what 6u.oo\)Giov was, or were really unaware that ouxhotjoiov meant of a
like essence. Granted that they were ignorant of this, why did they wish to
be ignorant of the generation of the Son? If it cannot be expressed in
words, is it therefore unknowable? But if we cannot know how He was
born, can we refuse to know even this, that God the Son being born not of
another substance but of God, has not an essence differing from the
Father' s? Have they not read that the Son is to be honored even as the
Father, that they prefer the Father in honor? Were they ignorant that the
Father is seen in the Son, that they make the Son differ in dignity, splendor
and majesty? Is this due to ignorance that the Son, like all other things, is

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made subject to the Father, and while thus subjected is not distinguished
from them? A distinction does exist, for the subjection of the Son is filial
reverence, the subjection of all other things is the weakness of things
created. They knew that He suffered, but when, may I ask, did they come
to know that He jointly suffered? They avoid the words ouxjoijoiov and
ouxhoijgiov, because they are not in Scripture: I enquire whence they
gathered that the Son jointly suffered? Can they mean that there were two
Persons who suffered? This is what the word leads us to believe. What of
those words, Jesus Christ the Son of God? Is Jesus Christ one, and the
Son of God another? If the Son of God is not one and the same inwardly
and outwardly, it ignorance on such a point is permissible, then believe
that they were ignorant of the meaning of ojjxjoijoiov. But if on these
points ignorance leads to blasphemy and yet cannot find even a false
excuse, I fear that they lied in professing ignorance of the word
ouxhoijgiov. I do not greatly complain of the pardon you extended them;
it is reverent to reserve for God His own prerogatives, and mistakes of
ignorance are but human. But the two bishops, Ursacius and Valens, must
pardon me for not believing that at their age and with their experience they
were really ignorant. It is very difficult not to think they are lying, seeing
that it is only by a falsehood that they can clear themselves on another
score. But God rather grant that I am mistaken than that they really knew.
For I had rather be judged in the wrong than that your faith should be
contaminated by communion with the guilt of heresy.

80. Now I beseech you, holy brethren, to listen to my anxieties with
indulgence. The Lord is my witness that in no matter do I wish to criticize
the definitions of your faith, which you brought to Sirmium. But forgive
me if I do not understand certain points; I will comfort myself with the
recollection that the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets.
Perhaps I am not presumptuous in gathering from this that I too may
understand something that another does not know. Not that I have dared
to hint that you are ignorant of anything according to the measure of
knowledge: but for the unity of the Catholic faith suffer me to be as
anxious as yourselves.

81. Your letter on the meaning of ou.oo'ugiov and ouxhoijgiov, which
Valens, Ursacius and Germinius demanded should be read at Sirmium, I
understand to have been on certain points no less cautious than outspoken.

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And with regard to opooijcnov and opoiouaiov your proof has left no
difficulty untouched. As to the latter, which implies the similarity of
essence, our opinions are the same. But in dealing with the 6u.ooijgiov, or
the one essence, you declared that it ought to be rejected because the use of
this word led to the idea that there was a prior substance which two
Persons had divided between themselves. I see the flaw in that way of
taking it. Any such sense is profane, and must be rejected by the Church's
common decision. The second reason that you added was that our fathers,
when Paul of Samosata was pronounced a heretic, also rejected the word
6|j,ooijgiov, on the ground that by attributing this title to God he had
taught that He was single and undifferentiated, and at once Father and to
Himself. Wherefore the Church still regards it as most profane to exclude
the different personal qualities, and, under the mask of the aforesaid
expressions, to revive the error of confounding the Persons and denying
the personal distinctions in the Godhead. Thirdly you mentioned this
reason for disapproving of the ojiocugiov that in the Council of Nicaea
our fathers were compelled to adopt the word on account of those who
said the Son was a creature: although it ought not to be accepted, because it
is not to be found in Scripture. Your saying this causes me some
astonishment. For if the word opoouoiov must be repudiated on account
of its novelty, I am afraid that the word opoiouaiov which is equally
absent in Scripture, is some danger.

82. But I am not needlessly critical on this point. For I had rather use an
expression that is new than commit sin by rejecting it. So, then, we will
pass by this question of innovation, and see whether the real question is
not reduced to something which all our fellow-Christians unanimously
condemn. What man in his senses will ever declare that there is a third
substance, which is common to both the Father and the Son? And who
that has been reborn in Christ and confessed both the Son and the Father
will follow him of Samosata in confessing that Christ is Himself to Himself
both Father and Son? So in condemning the blasphemies of the heretics we
hold the same opinion, and such an interpretation of 6u.ootjctiov we not
only reject but hate. The question of an erroneous interpretation is at an
end, when we agree in condemning the error.

83. But when I at last turn to speak on the third point, I pray you to let
there be no conflict of suspicions where there is peace at heart. Do not

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think I would advance anything hurtful to the progress of unity. For it is
absurd to fear cavil about a word when the fact expressed by the word
presents no difficulty. Who objects to the fact that the Council of Nicaea
adopted the word opoo-uoiov? He who does so, must necessarily like its
rejection by the Arians. The Arians rejected the word, that God the Son
might not be asserted to be born of the substance of God the Father, but
formed out of nothing, like the creatures. This is no new thing that I speak
of. The perfidy of the Arians is to be found in many of their letters and is
its own witness. If the godlessness of the negation then gave a godly
meaning to the assertion, I ask why we should now criticize a word which
was then rightly adopted because it was wrongly denied? If it was rightly
adopted, why after supporting the right should that which extinguished the
wrong be called to account? Having been used as the instrument of evil it
came to be the instrument of good.

84. Let us see, therefore, what the Council of Nicaea intended by saying
ou-ooijgiov, that is, of one substance: not certainly to hatch the heresy
which arises from an erroneous interpretation of ojxootjoiov. I do not
think the Council says that the Father and the Son divided and shared a
previously existing substance to make it their own. It will not be adverse
to religion to insert in our argument the creed which was then composed to
preserve religion.

"We believe in one God the Father Almighty, Maker of all things visible
and invisible:

"And in one our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, born of the Father,
Only-begotten, that is, of the substance of the Father, God of God, Light
of Light, Very God of very God, born not made, of one substance with the
Father (which in Greek they call ojxootjgiov); By whom all things were
made which are in heaven and in earth, Who for our salvation came down,
And was incarnate, And was made man, And suffered, And rose again the
third day, And ascended into heaven, And shall come to judge the quick
and the dead.

"And in the Holy Ghost.

"But those who say, There was when He was not, And before He was
born He was not, And that He was made of things that existed not, or of

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another substance and essence, saying that God was able to change and
alter, to these the Catholic Church says anathema."

Here the Holy Council of religious men introduces no prior substance
divided between two Persons, but the Son born of the substance of the
Father. Do we, too, deny or confess anything else? And after other
explanations of our common faith, it says, Born not made, of one
substance with the Father (which in Greek they call 6(j,ooijctiov). What
occasion is there here for an erroneous interpretation? The Son is declared
to be born of the substance of the Father, not made: lest while the word
born implies His divinity, the word made should imply He is a creature.
For the same reason we have of one substance, not to teach that there is
one solitary divine Person, but that the Son is born of the substance of
God and subsists from no other source, nor in any diversity caused by a
difference of substance. Surely again this is our faith, that He subsists from
no other source, and He is not unlike the Father. Is not the meaning here of
the word 6(j,ootjoiov) that the Son is produced of the Father's nature, the
essence of the Son having no other origin, and that both, therefore, have
one unvarying essence? As the Son's essence has no other origin, we may
rightly believe that both are of one essence, since the Son could be born
with no substance but that derived from the Father's nature which was its
source.

85. But perhaps on the opposite side it will be said that it ought to meet
with disapproval, because an erroneous interpretation is generally put
upon it. If such is our fear, we ought to erase the words of the Apostle,
There is one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,
because Photinus uses this to support his heresy, and refuse to read it
because he interprets it mischievously. And the fire or the sponge should
annihilate the Epistle to the Philippians, lest Marcion should read again in
it, And was found in fashion as a man, and say Christ' s body was only a
phantasm and not a body. Away with the Gospel of John, lest Sabellius
learn from it, I and the Father are one. Nor must those who now affirm the
Son to be a creature find it written, The Father is greater than I. Nor must
those who wish to declare that the Son is unlike the Father read: But of
that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not tire angels which are in heaven,
neither the Son, but the Father. We must dispense, too, with the books of
Moses, lest the darkness be thought coeval with God who dwells in the

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unborn light, since in Genesis the day began to be after the night; lest the
years of Methuselah extend later than the date of the deluge, and
consequently more than eight souls were saved lest God hearing the cry of
Sodom when the measure of its sins was full should come down as though
ignorant of the cry to see if the measure of its sins was full according to the
cry, and be found to be ignorant of what He knew; lest any one of those
who buried Moses should have known his sepulcher when he was buried;
lest these passages, as the heretics think, should prove that the
contradictions of the law make it its own enemy. So as they do not
understand them, we ought not to read them. And though I should not
have said it myself unless forced by the argument, we must, if it seems fit,
abolish all the divine and holy Gospels with their message of our salvation,
lest their statements be found inconsistent; lest we should read that the
Lord who was to send the Holy Spirit was Himself born of the Holy
Spirit; lest He who was to threaten death by the sword to those who
should take the sword, should before His passion command that a sword
should be brought; lest He who was about to descend into hell should say
that He would be in paradise with the thief; lest finally the Apostles
should be found at fault, in that when commanded to baptize in the name
of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, they baptized in the name
of Jesus only. I speak to ton, brethren, to you, who are no longer
nourished with milk, but with meat, and are strong. Shall we, because the
wise men of the world have not understood these things, and they are
foolish unto them, be wise as the world is wise and believe these things
foolish? Because they are hidden from the godless, shall we refuse to shine
with the truth of a doctrine which we understand? We prejudice the cause
of divine doctrines when we think that they ought not to exist, because
some do not regard them as holy. If so, we must not glory in the cross of
Christ, because it is a stumbling-block to the world; and we must not
preach death m connection with the living God, lest the godless argue that
God is dead.

86. Some misunderstand 6u.ooijgiov; does that prevent me from
understanding it? The Samosatene was wrong in using the word
opooiJGiov; does that make the Arians right in denying it? Eighty bishops
once rejected it; but three hundred and eighteen recently accepted it. And
for my own part I think the number sacred, for with such a number

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Abraham overcame the wicked kings, and was blessed by Him who is a
type of the eternal priesthood. The former disapproved of it to oppose a
heretic: the latter surely approved of it to oppose a heretic. The authority
of the fathers is weighty, is the sanctity of their successors trivial? If their
opinions were contradictory, we ought to decide which is the better: but if
both their approval and disapproval established the same fact, why do we
carp at such good decisions?

87. But perhaps you will reply, 'Some of those who were then present at
Nicaea have now decreed that we ought to keep silence about the word
opooiJGiov.' Against my will I must answer: Do not the very same men
rule that we must keep silence about the word ouxhotjgiov? I beseech you
that there may be found no one of them but Hosius, that old man who
loves a peaceful grave too well, who shall be found to think that we ought
to keep silence about both. Amid the fury of the heretics into what straits
shall we fall at last, if while we do not accept both, we keep neither? For
there seems to be no impiety in saying that since neither is found in
Scripture, we ought to confess neither or both.

88. Holy brethren, I understand by opoo-uaiov God of God, not of an
essence that is unlike, not divided but born, and that the Son has a birth
which is unique, of the substance of the unborn God, that He is begotten
yet co-eternal and wholly like the Father. I believed this before I knew the
word opooijcjiov but it greatly helped my belief. Why do you condemn
my faith when I express it by opoouaiov while you cannot disapprove it
when expressed by ouxhoijgiov? For you condemn my faith, or rather
your own, when you condemn its verbal equivalent. Do others
misunderstand it? Let us join in condemning the misunderstanding, but not
deprive our faith of its security. Do you think we must subscribe to the
Samosatene Council to prevent any one from using 6u.ooijgiov in the
sense of Paul of Samosata? Then let us also subscribe to the Council of
Nicaea, so that the Arians may not impugn the word. Have we to fear that
ou.oio'UGiov does not imply the same belief as opooijcnov ? Let us decree
that there is no difference between being of one or of a similar substance.
The word opoouoiov can be understood in a wrong sense Let us prove
that it can be understood in a very good sense. We hold one and the same
sacred truth. I beseech you that we should agree that this truth, which is
one and the same, should be regarded as sacred. Forgive me, brethren, as I

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have so often asked you to do. You are not Arians: why should you be
thought to be Arians by denying the 6u.oo\)cnov?

89. But you say: 'The ambiguity of the word 6u.ooijgiov troubles and
offends me.' I pray you hear me again and be not offended. I am troubled
by the inadequacy of the word ouxhoijgiov. Many deceptions come from
similarity. I distrust vessels plated with gold, for I may be deceived by the
metal underneath: and yet that which is seen resembles gold. I distrust
anything that looks like milk, lest that which is offered to me be milk but
not sheep's milk: for cow's milk certainly looks like it. Sheep's milk
cannot be really like sheep's milk unless drawn from a sheep. True
likeness belongs to a true natural connection. But when the true natural
connection exists, the 6u.oo\)Giov is implied. It is a likeness according to
essence when one piece of metal is like another and not plated, if milk
which is of the same color as other milk is not different in taste. Nothing
can be like gold but gold, or like milk that did not belong to that species. I
have often been deceived by the color of wine: and yet by tasting the
liquor have recognized that it was of another kind. I have seen meat look
like other meat, but afterwards the flavor has revealed the difference to me.
Yes, I fear those resemblances which are not due to a unity of nature.

90. 1 am afraid, brethren, of the brood of heresies which are successively
produced in the East: and I have already read what I tell you I fear. There
was nothing whatever suspicious in the document which some of you,
with the assent of certain Orientals, took on your embassy to Sirmium to
be there subscribed. But some misunderstanding has arisen in reference to
certain statements at the beginning which I believe you, my holy brethren,
Basil, Eustathius, and Eleusius, omitted to mention lest they should give
offense. If it was right to draw them up, it was wrong to bury them in
silence. But if they are now unmentioned because they were wrong we
must beware lest they should be repeated at some future time. Out of
consideration for you I have hitherto said nothing about this: yet you
know as well as I do that this creed was not identical with the creed of
Ancyra. I am not talking gossip: I possess a copy of the creed, and I did
not get it from laymen, it was given me by bishops.

91.1 pray you, brethren, remove all suspicion and leave no occasion for it.
To approve of ouxhoijgiov, we need not disapprove of 6|xooijgiov. Let

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us think of the many holy prelates now at rest: what judgment will the
Lord pronounce upon us if we now say anathema to them? What will be
our case if we push the matter so far as to deny that they were bishops
and so deny that we are ourselves bishops? We were ordained by them and
are their successors. Let us renounce our episcopate, if we took its office
from men under anathema. Brethren, forgive my anguish: it is an impious
act that you are attempting. I cannot endure to hear the man anathematized
who says opoouaiov and says it in the right sense. No fault can be found
with a word which does no harm to the meaning of religion. I do not know
the word ouxhoijgiov, or understand it, unless it confesses a similarity of
essence. I call the God of heaven and earth to witness, that when I had
heard neither word, my belief was always such that I should have
interpreted opoioiJGiovby ou.oo'uaiov. That is, I believed that nothing
could be similar according to nature unless it was of the same nature.
Though long ago regenerate in baptism, and for some time a bishop, I never
heard of the Nicene creed until I was going into exile, but the Gospels and
Epistles suggested to me the meaning of opoouoiov and ojjxho'ugiov. Our
desire is sacred. Let us not condemn the fathers, let us not encourage
heretics, lest while we drive one heresy away, we nurture another. After
the Council of Nicaea our fathers interpreted the due meaning of
opoouaiov with scrupulous care; the books are extant, the facts are fresh
in men's minds: if anything has to be added to the interpretation, let us
consult together. Between us we can thoroughly establish the faith, so that
what has been well settled need not be disturbed, and what has been
misunderstood may be removed.

92. Beloved brethren, I have passed beyond the bounds of courtesy, and
forgetting my modesty I have been compelled by my affection for you to
write thus of many abstruse matters which until this our age were
unattempted and left in silence. I have spoken what I myself believed,
conscious that I owed it as my soldier's service to the Church to send to
you in accordance with the teaching of the Gospel by these letters the
voice of the office which I hold in Christ. It is yours to discuss, to provide
and to act, that the inviolable fidelity in which you stand you may still
keep with conscientious hearts, and that you may continue to hold what
you hold now. Remember my exile in your holy prayers. I do not know,
now that I have thus expounded the faith, whether it would be as sweet to

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return unto you again in the Lord Jesus Christ as it would be full of peace
to die. That our God and Lord may keep you pure and undefiled unto the
day of His appearing is my desire, dearest brethren.

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INTRODUCTION TO THE

DETRINITATE

Since the circumstances in which the De Trinitate was written, and the
character and object of the work, are discussed in the general Introduction,
it will suffice to give here a brief summary of its content, adapted, in the
main, from the Benedictine edition.

BOOK 1. The treatise begins with St. Hilary's own spiritual history, the
events of which are displayed, no doubt, more logically and symmetrically
in the narrative than they had occurred in the writer's experience. He tells
of the efforts of a pure and noble soul, impeded, end and aim of life. He
rises first to the conception of the old philosophers, and then by
successive advances, as he learns more and more of the Divine revelation in
Scripture, he attains the object of his search in the apprehension of God as
revealed in the Catholic Faith. But this happiness is not the result of a
mere intellectual knowledge, but of belief as well. In §§ 1 — 14, we have this
advance from ignorance and fear to knowledge and peace. And here he
might have rested, had he not been charged with the sacerdotal (i.e., in the
language of that time, the episcopal) office, which laid upon him the duty
of caring for the salvation of others. And such care was needed, for (§§ 15,
16) heresies were abroad, and chiefly two; the Sabellian which said that
Father and son were mere names or aspects of one Divine Person, and
therefore there had been no true birth of the Son; and the Arian (which,
however, Hilary rarely calls by the name of its advocate, preferring to
style it the 'new heresy') asserting more or less openly that the Son is
created and not born, and therefore is different in kind from the Father, and
not, in the true sense, God. Hilary declares (§§ 17) that his purpose is to
refute these heresies and to demonstrate the true faith by the evidence of
Scripture. He demands from his hearers a loyal belief in the Scriptures
which he will cite; without such faith his arguments will not profit them (§
18); and in § 19 he wards them of the limits of the argument from analogy,
which he must employ, inadequate as it is in respect of the finite

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illustrations which he must use to express the infinite. Then in § 20 he
speaks with a modest pride of his careful marshaling of the arguments
which shall lead his readers to the right conclusion, and in §§ 21 — 36 he
gives a summary of the contents of the work. He concludes the first Book
(§§ 37, 38) with a prayer which expresses his certainty that what he holds
is the truth, and entreats the Father and the Son that he may have the
eloquence of language and the cogency of reasoning needed for the worthy
presentation of the truth concerning Them.

BOOK 2. He begins with the command to baptize all nations (St.
Matthew 28:19) as a summary of the faith; this by itself would suffice
were not explanations rendered necessary by heretical misrepresentations
of it meaning. For (§§ 3, 4) heresy is the result of Scripture misunderstood;
and here we must notice that Scripture is regarded as ground common to
both sides. All accept it as literally true, and combine its texts as well best
serve their own purposes. Hilary, regarding all heresies as one combined
opposition to the truth, makes to two objections that their arguments are
mutually destructive, and that they are modern. Then in § 5 he expresses
the awe with which he approaches the subject. The language which he
must use is utterly inadequate, and yet he is compelled to use it. In §§ 6, 7
he begins with the notion of God as Father; in §§ 8 — 1 1 he proceeds to
that of God the Son. He states the faith as it must be believed; it is not
enough (§§ 12, 13) to accept the truth of Christ's miracles. The mystery,
as it is revealed in St. John 1:1 — 4, must be the object of faith. In §§
14 — 21 he expounds this passage in the face of current objections, and
then triumphantly asserts that all the efforts of heresy are vain (§ 22). He
advances proof- texts in § 23 against each objector, and then points out in
§§ 24,25 our indebtedness to the infinite Divine condescension thus
revealed. For, in all the humiliation to which Christ stooped the Divine
Majesty was still inseparably His, and was manifested both in the
circumstances of His birth and in His life on earth (§§ 26 — 28). The book
concludes (§§ 29 — 35) with a statement of the doctrine of the Holy Ghost,
as perfect as in the undeveloped state of that doctrine was possible.

BOOK 3. In §§ 1 — 4, the words, / in the Father and the Father in Me, are
taken as typical. Man cannot comprehend, but only apprehend them. So
far as they are explicable Hilary explains them. But God's self- revelation is

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always mysterious. The miracles of Christ are inexplicable (§§ 5 — 8); this
is God's way, and meant to check presumption. Human wisdom is limited,
and when it passes its bounds, and invades the realm of faith, it becomes
folly. Next, in §§ 9 — 17, the passage, St. John, 17:1 ff., is explained as
proving that in the One God there are the Persons of Father and of Son,
and as revealing God in the aspect of the Father. Then, in §§ 18 — 21, the
wonderful deeds of Christ are put forth as evidence of His wonderful birth.
We must not ask how He can be coeternal with the Father, for it is in vain
that we should ask how He could pass through the closed door. Either
question is mere presumption. The revelation which Christ makes (§§ 22,
23) is that of God as His Father; Unum sunt, non Unus. And finally, in §§
25, 26, he returns to the futility of reasoning. True wisdom is to believe
where we cannot comprehend; we must trust to faith, not to proof.

BOOK 4. This book is in a sense the beginning of the treatise, and is
sometimes cited later on as the first. Its three predecessors, he says in § 1,
had been written some time before. They had contained a statement of the
truth concerning the Divinity of Christ, and a summary refutation of the
various heresies. He now commences his main attack upon Arianism. First
(§ 2) he repeats what his difficulty is; that human language and thought
cannot cope with the Infinite. Then (§ 3) he tells how the Arians explain
away the eternal Sonship of Christ. As a defense against this tampering
with the truth, the Church has adopted the term Homoousion (§§ 4 — 7);
Hilary explains and defends its use. In § 8 he shows, by a collection of the
passages of Scripture which they wrest to their own purposes, that such a
definition is necessary, and in §§ 9, 10 that their use of these passages is
dishonest. In § 1 1 he tells us exactly what the Arian teaching is, and sets it
forth in one of their own formularies, the Epistola Arii ad Alexandrum (§§
12, 13). In § 14 this doctrine is denounced; it does not explain, but explains
away. The proclamation made through Moses, Hear, O Israel, the Lord
thy God is One, upon which the Arians take their stand, reveals only one
aspect of the truth (§ 15). It does not exhaust the truth; for God is
represented as not one solitary Person in the history of creation (§§ 16 —
22), in the life of Abraham (§§ 23—31), and in that of Moses (§§ 32—34).
And this again is the teaching of the Prophets, as is shown by passages
selected from Isaiah, Hosea, and Jeremiah (§§ 35 — 42). All evidence thus

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collected shows that in the Godhead there is both Father and Son, and that
the Son is God.

BOOK 5. Hilary now points out (§ 1) the controversial strength of the
Arian position. If he is silent in face of their assertion, they will claim that
he agrees with them that the Son is God only in some inferior sense. On
the other hand, if he opposes them, he will seem to be contradicting the
Mosaic revelation of the Divine unity. In § 2 he recapitulates the argument
of Book IV., that the witness of Scripture proves that God is not a solitary
Person; that, as he says, there is God and God. But the Arians had a
further loophole; their creed asserted (§ 3) one true God. They might argue
that Christ is indeed God, but of a nature different from that of the Father.
In refutation of this Hilary goes one more through the history of creation
(§§ 4 — 10), proving that the narrative reveals not only the Son's share in
that work, but also His equality and oneness of nature with the Father; in
other words, that He is not only God but true God. The same truth is
demonstrated from the life of Abraham (§§ 1 1 — 16). Moreover, these
self -revelations of the Son (as the Angel, on various occasions) are
anticipations of the Incarnation. He was first seen in flesh, afterwards born
in flesh. The Arians concentrate their attention on the humble conditions
of Christ's human life, and so, from want of a comprehensive view, fail to
discern His true Godhead. But Hilary will not anticipate the evidence of
the Gospels (§§ 17, 18). He returns to the Old Testament, and proves his
point from Jacob's visions (§§ 19, 20), and by the revelations made to
Moses (§§ 24, 25), he proceeds to prove from certain passages of Isaiah
that the Prophet recognized the Son as true God (§§ 26 — 31), and that St.
Paul understood him in that sense (§§ 32, 33). Then in §§ 34, 35, the result
which has been attained is dwelt upon. Hilary shows that it is the Arians
who fail to recognize the one true God; for Christ is true God, yet not a
second God. Finally, in §§ 36 — 39, Moses Isaiah, and Jeremiah are
adduced as testifying that Christ is God from God, and God in God.

BOOK 6. Hilary begins by lamenting the wide extension of Arianism; his
love for souls leads him to combat the heresy, whose insidiousness makes
it the more dangerous (§§ 1 — 4). He repeats in §§ 5, 6 the same Arian creed
which he had given in Book 4. The heretics here gain the appearance of
orthodoxy by condemning errors inconsistent with their own; and this
condemnation is designed to cast upon the Catholic faith the suspicion of

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complicity in such errors. Hence he must postpone his appeal to the New
Testament till he has examined them (§§ 7, 8). Accordingly in §§ 9 — 12 he
explains successively the doctrines of Valentinus, Manichaeus, Sabelluis
and Hieracas, and shows that the Church rejects them all, as she does (§
13) the doctrine which the Arians in their creed have falsely assigned to
her. Their object is to deny that the Son is coeternal with the Father and of
one substance with Him (§§ 16, 17). The Arians would make a creature of
Christ (§ 18), to Whom, in §§ 19 — 21, Hilary turns with an impassioned
declaration of certainty that He is very God. He then resumes the
argument, and proves that Christ is Son by birth, not by adoption, from
the words both of Father and Son as recorded in the Gospel (§§ 22 — 25).
This is confirmed (§§ 26, 27) by the Gospel account of His acts, which are
otherwise inexplicable. The argument is clenched by a discussion of St.
John 7:28, 29, and 8:42 (§§ 28—31). The true Sonship of Christ is further
proved by the faith of the Apostles, whose certainty increased with their
knowledge (§§ 31 — 35), and especially by that of St. Peter (§§ 36 — 38), of
St. John (§§ 39—43), and of St. Paul (§§ 44, 45). To reject such a weight of
testimony is to prefer Antichrist to Christ (§ 46). And, moreover, we have
witness of those for whom He wrought miracles, of devils, of the Jews, of
the Apostles in peril on the sea, of the centurion by the Cross, that Christ
is truly the Son of God (§§ 47—52).

BOOK 7. The Arians are adepts at concealing their meaning; at the use of
Scripture terms in unscriptural senses (§1). They have already been
refuted by the proof that Christ is the true and coeternal Son; and Hilary
now advances to the proof of the true Divinity of Christ, which is logically
inseparable from His true Sonship (§ 2). But the danger is great lest, in
attacking one heresy, he should use language which would sanction others
(§ 3). Yet the truth is one, while heresies are manifold. Each of them can be
trusted to demolish the others, while none can establish its own case. He
illustrates this by the mutually destructive arguments of Sabellius, Arius
and Photinus (§§ 5 — 7). Christ is proved to be God by the name God
which is given Him in Scripture: The Word was God (§§ 8, 9). the name is
His in the strict sense, and not any derivative meaning (§§ 10, 11). Yet
Father, and Son are not two, but one God (§ 13). Being the Son of God, He
has the nature of God, and therefore is God ( § 14 — 17), and yet not one
Person with the Father (§ 18). Again, His power, manifested in His works,

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proves His Godhead (§ 19), as does the fact that all judgment has been
given Him by the Father (§ 20). Christ's own words display the truth (§
21). The Arians are blind to the plain sense of Scripture, and are more
blasphemous than the Jews; Christ's reply to the latter meets to
objections of the former (§§ 22 — 24). He asserts His unity with the Father
(§ 25), and makes His works the proof (§ 26). The Father is in the Son and
the Son is in the Father (§ 27): this is illustrated by the transmission of
physical properties from parent to child and from flame to flame (§§ 28 —
30). In fact, the Catholic is the only rational explanation of the words of
Scripture (§§31, 32). Again (§§ 33 — 38), the way to the Father is through
the Son, and knowledge of the Son is knowledge of the Father. This would
be impossible, were not the Son God in the same sense in which the Father
is God. Thus the contrary doctrines of Sabellius and of Arius are confuted;
there is neither one Person, not yet two Gods (§§ 39, 40). Christ calls
upon us to believe the truth, and belief is not only possible but reasonable
(§ 41).

BOOK 8. Piety is necessary in a Bishop, but he needs also knowledge and
dialectical skill in the face of such heresies as were rampant in Hilary's
day; for the heretics outdo the orthodox in zeal, and are masters in the art
of devising pitfalls for the unwary reasoner (§§ 1 — 3). He maintains (§ 4)
that hitherto he has established his case; and now turns, in § 5, to the Arian
interpretation of / and the Father are One, as meaning that They are one in
will, not in nature. The fallacy of this is shown by a comparison of the
unity of Christians in Christ (§§ 7 — 9); a unity which is confessedly one of
nature, yet is not more natural than that of Father and Son, of which it is a
type (§ 10). And indeed the words, / and the Father are One, and
ill- adapted to express a mere harmony of will (§ 11). This gift of unity of
nature could not be given, as it is, though the Incarnation and the Eucharist,
to Christians, unless the Givers Themselves possessed it; i.e. unless Father
and son were One God (§§ 12 — 14). As a matter of fact, we have a perfect
union through the mediation of Christ, with the Father; and it is a unity in
nature, a permanent abiding; an assurance to us of the indwelling of Father
in Son and Son in Father, and of the fact that Christ is not a creature, one
in will with the Father, but a Son, one in nature with Him (§§ 15 — 18).
For, again (§§ 19 — 21), the Mission of the Holy Ghost is jointly from the
Father and the Son; He is called sometimes the Spirit of the Son, and this is

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a further proof of the unity in nature of Father and Son. Hilary now
enquires (§§ 22 — 25) into the senses in which Scripture speaks of the Holy
Spirit. Sometimes this title is given to the Father, sometimes to the Son, in
both cases to save us from corporeal conceptions of God. But it is also
used, in the strictest sense, of the Paraclete, as on the day of Pentecost.
Now the Divine Spirit dwells in Christians; but this Spirit, whether styled
the Spirit of God, or the Spirit of Christ, or the Spirit of Truth, proceeding
from the Father and sent by the son, is only one Spirit. Hence the
Godhead in One, and the nature of the Persons within that Godhead one
also (§§ 26, 27). He next points out (§ 28) that the Arians are inconsistent
in worshipping Christ, and yet styling Him a creature; for thus they fall
under the curse of the Law, and forfeit the Holy Spirit. Again (§§ 29 — 34)
the powers and graces bestowed by God are described indiscriminately as
gifts of one or another Person in the Godhead. The Son, therefore, as a
Giver, must be one with the Father, Who is also a Giver, and one with the
Spirit. There is One God and One Lord (§ 35); if we deny that the Son is
God, we must also deny that the Father is Lord; which is absurd. They are
One God, with one Spirit, but not one Person (§ 36). St. Paul expressly
says that Christ is God over all; an expression which must, like all the
Apostles teaching, bear the Catholic sense, and is incompatible with
Arianism (§§ 37 — 39). The supporters of Arianism are thus alien from the
faith (§ 40). After a restatement of the truth (§ 41), Hilary proceeds to
deduce the Divine nature of the Son from the fact that He has been sealed
by the Father (§§ 42 — 45). This sealing makes Him the Father's
counterpart, Whose Image He thus becomes, though in the form of a
servant. If He were thus the Image of God after His Incarnation, how much
more before that condescension (§ 46). In § 47 he again denies that this
teaching reduces the Father and the Son to one Person; and then (§§ 48 —
50) works out the sense in which Christ is the Image of God. It means that
They are of one nature and of one power, and that the Son is the Firstborn,
through Whom all things were created. But creation and also reconciliation
is the joint work of Father and Son (§51). Christ could not have stated
more explicitly than He has done His unity with the Father; the
recognition of this truth is the test of the true Church (§ 52). Heresy is
blind to the essential difference between the life-giving Christ and the
created universe, which owes its life to Him (§ 53). In Him dwells the
whole fullness of the Godhead bodily. The Indweller and the Indwealt are

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Both Persons, yet are One God; and the whole Godhead dwells in Each (§§
54—56).

BOOK 9. After a summary (§ 1) of the results already obtained, Hilary
returns, in § 2, to certain of the Arian proof-texts, and warns his readers
that their life depends on the recognition in Christ of true god and true
man, for it is this twofold nature which makes Him he Mediator (§ 3).
Universal analogy and our consciousness of the capacity to rise to the life
in God convince us of these two natures in Him, Who makes this rise
possible (§ 4). But heresy lays hold of words spoken by Christ Incarnate,
appropriate to His humility as Man, and assigns them to Him in His
previous state; thus they make Him deny His true Godhead. But His
utterances before the Incarnation, during His life on earth, and after His
return to glory, must be carefully distinguished (§§ 5,6). Hilary now
examines the aims and achievements of Christ Incarnate, and shows that
His work for men was a Divine work, accomplished by Him for us only
because He was throughout both God and Man, the two natures in Him
being inseparable (§§ 7 — 14). After reaching this conclusion from a general
survey of Christ's life on earth, he examines in the light of it the Arian
arguments from isolated words. They assert that Christ refused to be
called Good or Master. He refused neither title, and yet declared that both
belong to God only (§§ 15 — 18). And, indeed, He could not have
associated Himself more closely than He did with the Father, while yet He
kept His Person distinct (§ 19). The Father Himself bears witness to the
Son; and the sin and loss of the Jews in this, that, seeing the Father's
works done by Christ, they did not see in Him the Son (§§ 20, 21). The
honor and glory of Christ is inseparable from that of God (§§ 22, 23). The
Scribe did well to confess the Divine unity, but was still outside the
Kingdom because He did not believe in Christ as God (§§ 24 — 27). Next,
the Arian argument from the words, This is life eternal, that they may know
Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ Whom Thou hast sent, is refuted
by comparison with cognate passages (§§ 28 — 35). For indeed, if the
Father be the only true God, the Son must also be the only true God (§
36). That Divine nature which is common to Father and Son is subject to
no limitations, and the eternal generation can be illustrated by no analogy
of created things (§ 37). Christ took humanity, and, since the Father's
nature did not share in this, the unity was so far impaired. But humanity

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has been raised in Christ to God; and this could only be because His unity
in the Divine nature with the Father was perfect. Otherwise the flesh
which Christ took could not have entered into the Divine glory (§38).
There is but only gory of Father and of Son; the Son sought in the
Incarnation not glory for the Word but for the flesh (§§ 39, 40). The glory
of Father and Son is one; in that unity the Son bestows, as well as receives,
glory (§§ 41, 42), and this glory, common to Both, is evidence that the
Divine nature also is common to Both (§ 42). Again, the Arians allege the
words, The Son can do nothing of Himself, which Hilary shows, by an
examination of the contest, to be a support of the Catholic cause (§§ 43 —
46). The Son does the Father's work, not under compulsion as an inferior,
but because They are One. His will is free, yet in perfect harmony with
that of the Father, because of their unity of nature (§§ 47 — 50). The Arians
also appeal to the text, The Father is greater than I. The Father is, in fact,
greater, first as being the Unbegotten, and secondly inasmuch as the Son
has condescended to the state of man, yet without forfeiting His Godhead
(§ 51). But He is not greater in nature than the Son, Who is His Image; or
rather, the Begetter is the greater, while the Son, as the Begotten, is not
less than He, for, although begotten, He had no beginning of existence (§§
52 — 57). Next, the allegation of ignorance, based on St. Mark 13:32, and
therefore of difference in nature from God Omniscient is refuted (§§ 58 —
62), both by express statements of Scripture and by a consideration of the
Divine character. It is only in figurative senses that God is stated in the
Old Testament sometimes to come to know, sometimes to be ignorant of,
particular facts (§§ 63, 64). And so it is with Christ; His ignorance is but a
wise and merciful concealment of knowledge (§§ 65 — 67). Yet the Arians,
though they admit that Christ, being superior to man, knows all the secrets
of humanity, assert that He can and does, for Each is in the Other and is
mirrored in the Other (§ 69). The ignorance can be nothing but
concealment. Only the Father knows, i.e. He has told none but the Son; the
Son dies not know, i.e. He will not to reveal His knowledge (§§ 70, 71).
God is unlimited; unlimited therefore in knowledge, They are One (§§ 72 —
74). And the Apostles, by repeating their question after the Resurrection,
show that they were aware that His ignorance meant reserve. And Christ
did not, this time, speak of ignorance, though He withheld the knowledge
which they asked (§75).

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BOOK 10. Theological differences are not the result of honest reasoning,
but of reasoning distorted, as in the case of the Arians, by preconceived
opinions, whose cause is sin and their result hypocrisy (§§ 1 — 3). Hilary
had fallen on the evil times foretold by the Apostle; truth is banished and
so is he, yet his sufferings do not affect his joy in the Lord (§ 4). In the
preceding books he has stated the exact truth, of which he now gives a
summary (§§ 5 — 8). But the further objection is raised that, while God is
impassible, Christ in His Passion suffered fear and pain (§ 9). But He Who
taught others not to fear death could not fear it Himself (§ 10). He died of
His own free will, knowing that in three days His Body and Spirit would
rise again (§§ 11, 12). Nor did He fear bodily tortures, for pain is an
affection of the weak human soul, which inhabits our body, and is not felt
by the body itself (§§ 13, 14). And, although the Virgin fulfilled entirely
the part of the human mother, yet the Begetter was Divine. Christ, when
He took the form of a servant, remained still in the form of God, and was
born perfect even as the Begetter was perfect, for Mary was not the
Cause, but only the means, of His human life (§§ 15, 16). St. Paul draws a
clear distinction between the First Man, who was earthly, and the Second
Man, Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, and in Whom what is Flesh,
in one aspect, in Bread from heaven in another ( §§ 17, 18). He is therefore
perfect Man as well as perfect God, and did not inherit the flesh or the
soul of Adam. His whole human nature is derived from the Holy Ghost,
by Whom the Virgin conceived ( §§ 19, 20). Again (§ 21) the Arians argue
that the Word was in Jesus in the same sense in which the Spirit was in the
Prophets, and reproach the Catholics with denying the true humanity of
Christ. Hilary replies that just as Christ was the cause of the birth of His
own human Body, so He was the Author of His own human Soul; for no
soul is transmitted. Thus His human nature is complete; He has taken the
form of a servant, but all the while He is in the form of God, i.e. He Who is
God and also Man is one Christ, Who was born and died and rose (§ 22).
In all this He endured passion but not pain, even as air or water, if pierced
by a blow, is unaffected by it. The blow is real, and the Passion was real;
but it was not inflicted on our limited humanity but on a human nature
which could walk on water and pass through locked doors (§ 23). If it be
argued that he wept, hungered, thirsted, Hilary answers that He could
wipe away tears and supply needs, and therefore was not subject to them;
that though He endured them, and true Man, He was not affected by them.

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Such sufferings are habitual with men, and He endured them to show that
He had a true Body (§ 24). For such a Body He had, although )since He
was not conceived in sin) one free from the defects of our bodies; not
sinful flesh, but only the likeness of sinful flesh. For he was the Word
made Flesh, and continued to be true God as He had been before (§§ 25,
26). The Lord f glory suffered neither fear nor pain in His Passion, as is
shown by the powers which He exercised on the verge of death (§§ 27, 28).
His utterances in the Garden and on the Cross are not evidences of pain or
fear, for they may be matched by lofty expressions of calmness and hope
(§§ 29 — 32). Thus no proof or fear or pain or weakness can be drawn from
the circumstances of the Passion. Nor was the Cross a shame, for it was
His road from humiliation to glory (§ 33), nor the descent to hell a
degradation, for all the while He was in heaven. How different the faith of
the Thief on the cross to that of the Arian! (§ 34). The argument is
summed up in § 35. Next the Agony is considered. Christ does not say
that He is sorrowful on account of death, by unto death. It is anxiety on
the Apostle's account, lest their faith should fail; a fear which reached to
His death, not beyond, for He knew that after His death His glory would
revive their faith. This was the fear in which He was comforted by the
Angel; for Himself He was fearless, being conscious of His Godhead (§§
36 — 43). He was free from pain and fear, for it is the sinful body which
transmits these affections to the soul. Yet even human bodies rise
sometimes superior to them, e.g. Daniel and other heroes of faith: how
much more Christ (§§ 44 — 46). In the same way we must understand His
bearing our suffering and our sin (§ 47), for, as St. Paul says, His Passion
was itself a triumph (§ 48). The complaint that He was forsaken by the
Father is similarly explained (§ 49). The purpose of the Arian argument is
to displace the truth of Christ as very God and very man in favor of one or
other heretical hypothesis, all of which the Church rejects (§§ 50 — 52).
Our reason must recognize its limitations and be content to believe,
without understanding, apparently contradictory truths (§§ 53, 54). Christ
weeping over Jerusalem and at the grave of Lazarus is equally inexplicable,
yet certain (§§ 55, 56). His laying down and taking again His life is
accounted for by the two natures inseparably united in one Person (§§
57 — 62). After a short summary (§ 63) he returns to the union of two
natures, which is the stumbling block of worldly wisdom (§ 64), and
shows it to be the only reasonable explanation of the facts (§§65, 66). As

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St. Paul says, our belief must be according to the Scriptures; the necessity
and the rewards of faith (§§ 67 — 70). The seeming infirmity of Christ was
assumed for our instruction and for our salvation.

BOOK 11. The Faith is one, even as God is One; but the faiths of heretics
are many (§§1,2). Hilary has now demonstrated the truth about Christ, so
that it cannot be denied; it is attested also by miracles even in his own day
(§ 3). The Arians preach another, a created Christ; and in making Christ a
creature they proclaim another God, not a Father but a Creator (§ 4). The
Son, as the Image, is of one nature with the Father; if He is inferior He is
not the Image (§ 5). But the Arians explain the oneness away by arguments
from His condescension to our estate (§6), and, even after His
Resurrection, plead that He confesses His inequality. They argue thus
from I Corinthians 15:24 — 28, a passage to which the rest of the book is
devoted (§§ 7, 8). but we must recognize the mysteriousness of the truth,
accepting the two sides of it, both clearly revealed though we cannot
reconcile them (§9). They regard only one aspect; Hilary in reply proves
once more that Christ is both born from God, and Himself God (§§ 10 —
12). But at His Incarnation he began to have as Lord the God Who had
been His Father eternally (§ 13), and when He said the He was ascending
to His God, He spoke as when He calls His brethren (§§ 14, 15). Thus
there are two senses in which God is the Father of Christ; and He Who is
Father to Christ the Son is Lord to Christ the Servant (§§ 16, 17). And it
was to Him as Servant that the Psalmist said, Thy God hath anointed Thee;
the words would have not meaning if addressed to Him as Son (§§ 18, 19).
It is through this lower nature that He is our Brother and God our Father,
and He the Mediator (§ 20).But it is argued that His subjection at the last
and the delivery of the kingdom to the Father is a proof of inequality. The
passage must be taken as a whole (§§21, 22). There are some truths which
it is difficult for man to grasp, and if we misunderstand them we must not
be ashamed to confess our error (§§ 23, 24). In this passage the Arians aid
their case by changing the order of the prophecy (§§ 25 — 27). The end
means a final and enduring state, not the coming to an end (§ 28), and
though He delivers up the kingdom He does not cease to reign (§ 29). His
subjection to the Father and the subjection of all things to Him is next
considered; in one sense it is figurative language, in another it proves the
unity of Father and Son. The subjection of the Son means His partaking in

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the glory of the Father (§§ 30 — 36). The Transfiguration shows the glory
of Christ's Body; a glory which the faithful shall share (§§ 37, 38). The
righteous are His kingdom, which He, as Man, shall deliver to the Father,
for By man came also the resurrection of the dead (§ 39). And at last God
shall be all in all, humanity in Christ not being declared, but glorified and
received into the Godhead (§ 40). Christ, as well as St. Paul, has foretold
the (§41, 42). The Arian misrepresentation of this truth is mere folly (§
43). Any rational explanation must assume that God's majesty cannot be
augmented, even as it cannot be measured (§§ 44, 45), while our reason is
limited, and so contrasted with the Divine infinity. God cannot become
greater than He was in becoming All in all. Father and Son, after as before,
must Each be as He was (§§ 46 — 48). All was done for us that we might be
glorified, being conformed to the likeness of Him Who is the Image of the
Father (§ 49).

BOOK 12. Hilary gives a final explanation of the great Arian text, The
Lord created me for a beginning of His ways; the words must not be taken
literally. Christ is not created, by Creator (§§ 1 — 5). If He is a creature, the
Father also is a creature, for They are One in nature and in honor (§§ 6, 7).
The similar passage, / begat Thee from the womb, is figurative; elsewhere
God's Hands and Eyes are spoken of. The sense is that the Son is God
from God (§§ 8 — 10). Nor was Christ made; He is the Son, not the
handiwork, of the Father (§§ 11, 12). And His Sonship is immediate, not
derivative like ours, or like that of Israel His firstborn. This latter kind of
sonship has a definite beginning of existence, and an origin out of nothing
(§§ 13 — 16). The Arian arguments fail to prove that the Sonship of Christ
has either of these characters (§§ 17, 18). Truth is to be attained not by
self-confidence arguing but by faith (§ 19), yet it is not enough for us to
avoid their reasonings; we must overthrow them (§ 20). the Son was born
from eternity , being the Son of the eternal Father (§21). The objection
that sonship involves beginning does not hold in His case ( §§ 22, 23). The
Son has all that the Father has; He has therefore eternity and an
unconditioned existence (§ 24). He is from the Eternal, and therefore
eternal Himself; from the Eternal, and therefore not from nothing. Reason
cannot grasp, and therefore cannot refute, this. We must not assert that
there was a time before He was born, a time when He was not (§§ 25 — 27).
We must not argue, from the analogy of our own birth, that the truth is

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impossible (§ 28), not that, because of His eternal existence, the son was
not born (§§ 29 — 32). Again, the Arians deny the eternal Fatherhood of
God; He always existed, they say, but was not always the Father. This
contradicts Scripture (§§ 33, 34). They argue that Wisdom is said to be the
first of God's creatures; but creation, in this sense, is a synonym for
generation, and Wisdom was antecedent to creation (§§ 40, 41). Nor may
we believe that Christ was a begotten simply in order to perform the
creative work, as God's Minister, for Wisdom took part in the design as
well as in the execution (§§ 42, 43). And again, Wisdom is spoken of as
created, as an indication of Her control over created things (§ 44). The
creation to be a beginning of God's ways is a separate event from the
eternal generation. It means that Christ, as the Way of Life, under the Old
Covenant took the semblance, under the New covenant the substance, of
the creature man, to lead us into the way. The two senses must not be
confused (§§ 45 — 49). Yet mere inaccuracy of speech, without heretical
intent, is not unpardonable (§ 50). After a final assertion (§ 51) of faith in
Christ as God from God, the eternal Son, Hilary appeals to the Almighty
Father, declaring his creed, his consciousness of human infirmity and of the
need of faith (§§ 52, 53). The Son is the Only-begotten of God, the Second
because He is the Son (§ 54). The Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father
and is sent by the Son. He also is no creature, but of one nature with the
God Whose mysteries He knows, and ineffable like Him Whose Spirit He
is (§ 55). Finally, Hilary prays that, as he was baptized, so he may remain
in the faith of Three Persons in One God.

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ON THE TRINITY

BOOK I

1 . When I was seeking an employment adequate to the powers of human
life and righteous in itself, whether prompted by nature or suggested by
the researches of the wise, whereby I might attain to some result worthy
of that Divine gift of understanding which has been given us, many things
occurred to me which in general esteem were thought to render life both
useful and desirable. And especially that which now, as always in the past,
is regarded as most to be desired, leisure combined with wealth, came
before my mind. The one without the other seemed rather a source of evil
than an opportunity for good, for leisure in poverty is felt to be almost an
exile from life itself, while wealth possessed amid anxiety is in itself an
affliction, rendered the worse by the deeper humiliation which he must
suffer who loses, after possessing, the things that most are wished and
sought. And yet, though these two embrace the highest and best of the
luxuries of life, they seem not far removed from the normal pleasures of
the beasts which, as they roam through shady places rich in herbage, enjoy
at once their safety from toil and the abundance of their food. For if this be
regarded as the best and most perfect conduct of the life of man, it results
that one Object is common, though the range of feelings differ, to us and
the whole unreasoning animal world, Since all of them, in that bounteous
provision and absolute leisure which nature bestows, have full scope for
enjoyment without anxiety for possession.

2. 1 believe that the mass of mankind have spurned from themselves and
censured in others this acquiescence in a thoughtless, animal life, for no
other reason than that nature herself has taught them that it is unworthy of
humanity to hold themselves born only to gratify their greed and their
sloth, and ushered into life for no high aim of glorious deed or fair
accomplishment, and that this very life was granted without the power of
progress towards immortality; a life, indeed, which then we should
confidently assert did not deserve to be regarded as a gift of God, since,

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racked by pain and laden with trouble, it wastes itself upon itself from the
blank mind of infancy to the wanderings of age. I believe that men,
prompted by nature herself, have raised themselves through teaching and
practice to the virtues which we name patience and temperance and
forbearance, under the conviction that right living means right action and
right thought, and that Immortal God has not given life only to end in
death; for none can believe that the Giver of good has bestowed the
pleasant sense of life in order that it may be overcast by the gloomy fear of
dying.

3. And yet, though I could not tax with folly and uselessness this counsel
of theirs to keep the soul free from blame, and evade by foresight or elude
by skill or endure with patience the troubles of life, still I could not regard
these men as guides competent to lead me to the good and happy Life.
Their precepts were platitudes, on the mere level of human impulse;
animal instinct could not fail to comprehend them, and he who understood
but disobeyed would have fallen into an insanity baser than animal
unreason. Moreover, my soul was eager not merely to do the things,
neglect of which brings shame and suffering, but to know the God and
Father Who had given this great gift, to Whom, it felt, it owed its whole
self, Whose service was its true honor, on Whom all its hopes were fixed,
in Whose lovingkindness, as in a safe home and haven, it could rest amid all
the troubles of this anxious life. It was inflamed with a passionate desire to
apprehend Him or to know Him.

4. Some of these teachers brought forward large households of dubious
deities, and under the persuasion that there is a sexual activity in divine
beings narrated births and lineages from God to God. Others asserted that
there were gods greater and less, of distinction proportionate to their
power. Some denied the existence of any gods whatever, and confined their
reverence to a nature which, in their opinion owes its being to chance-led
vibrations and collisions. On the other hand, many followed the common
belief in asserting the existence of a God, but proclaimed Him heedless and
indifferent to the affairs of men. Again, some worshipped in the elements
of earth and air the actual bodily and visible forms of created things; and,
finally, some made their gods dwell within images of men or of beasts,
tame or wild, of birds or of snakes, and confined the Lord of the universe
and Father of infinity within these narrow prisons of metal or stone or

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wood. These I was sure, could be no exponents of truth, for though they
were at one in the absurdity, the foulness, the impiety of their
observances, they were at variance concerning the essential articles of their
senseless belief. My soul was distracted amid all these claims, yet still it
pressed along that profitable road which leads inevitably to the true
knowledge of God. It could not hold that neglect of a world created by
Himself was worthily to be attributed to God, or that deities endowed
with sex, and lines of begetters and begotten, were compatible with the
pure and mighty nature of the Godhead. Nay, rather, it was sure that that
which is Divine and eternal must be one without distinction of sex, for that
which is self-existent cannot have left outside itself anything superior to
itself. Hence omnipotence and eternity are the possession of One only, for
omnipotence is incapable of degrees of strength or weakness, and eternity
of priority or succession. In God we must worship absolute eternity and
absolute power.

5. While my mind was dwelling on these and on many like thoughts, I
chanced upon the books which, according to the tradition of the Hebrew
faith, were written by Moses and the prophets, and found in these words
spoken by God the Creator testifying of Himself 'I am that I am, and
again, He that is hath sent me unto you.' I confess that I was amazed to
find in them an indication concerning God so exact that it expressed in the
terms best adapted to human understanding an unattainable insight into the
mystery of the Divine nature. For no property of God which the mind can
grasp is more characteristic of Him than existence, since existence, in the
absolute sense, cannot be predicated of that which shall come to an end, or
of that which has had a beginning, and He who now joins continuity of
being with the possession of perfect felicity could not in the past, nor can
in the future, be non-existent; for whatsoever is Divine can neither be
originated nor destroyed. Wherefore, since God's eternity is inseparable
from Himself, it was worthy of Him to reveal this one thing, that He is, as
the assurance of His absolute eternity.

6. For such an indication of God's infinity the words 'I am that I am'
were clearly adequate; but, in addition, we needed to apprehend the
operation of His majesty and power. For while absolute existence is
peculiar to Him Who, abiding eternally, had no beginning in a past however
remote, we hear again an utterance worthy of Himself issuing from the

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eternal and Holy God, Who says, Who holdeth the heaven in His palm and
the earth in His hand, and again, The heaven is My throne and the earth is
the footstool of My feet. What house will ye build Me or what shall be
the place of My rest? The whole heaven is held in the palm of God, the
whole earth grasped, in His hand. Now the word of God, profitable as it is
to the cursory thought of a pious mind, reveals a deeper meaning to the
patient student than to the momentary hearer. For this heaven which is
held in the palm of God is also His throne, and the earth which is grasped
in His hand is also the footstool beneath His feet. This was not written
that from throne and footstool, metaphors drawn from the posture of one
sitting, we should conclude that He has extension in space, as of a body,
for that which is His throne and footstool is also held in hand and palm by
that infinite Omnipotence. It was written that in all born and created things
God might be known within them and without, overshadowing and
indwelling, surrounding all and interfused through all, since palm and hand,
which hold, reveal the might of His external control, while throne and
footstool, by their support of a sitter, display the subservience of outward
things to One within Who, Himself outside them, encloses all in His grasp,
let dwells within the external world which is His own. In this wise does
God, from within and from without, control and correspond to the
universe; being infinite He is present in all things, in Him Who is infinite all
are included. In devout thoughts such as these my soul, engrossed in the
pursuit of truth, took its delight. For it seemed that the greatness of God
so far surpassed the mental powers of His handiwork, that however far the
limited mind of man might strain in the hazardous effort to define Him, the
gap was not lessened between the finite nature which struggled and the
boundless infinity that lay beyond its ken, I had come by reverent
reflection on my own part to understand this, but I found it confirmed by
the words of the prophet, Whither shall I go from Thy Spirit? Or whither
shall I flee from Thy face? If I ascend up into heaven, Thou art there; if I
go down into hell, Thou art there also; if I have taken my wings before
dawn and made my dwelling in the uttermost parts of the sea (Thou art
there). For thither Thy hand shall guide me and Thy right hand shall hold
me. There is no space where God is not; space does not exist apart from
Him. He is in heaven, in hell, beyond the seas; dwelling in all things and
enveloping all. Thus He embraces, and is embraced by, the universe,
confined to no part of it but pervading all.

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7. Therefore, although my soul drew joy from the apprehension of this
august and unfathomable Mind, because it could worship as its own Father
and Creator so limitless an Infinity, yet with a still more eager desire it
sought to know the true aspect of its infinite and eternal Lord, that it might
be able to believe that that immeasurable Deity was appareled in splendor
befitting the beauty of His wisdom. Then, while the devout soul was
baffled and astray through its own feebleness, it caught from the prophet's
voice this scale of comparison for God, admirably expressed, By the
greatness of His works and the beauty of the things that He hath made the
Creator of worlds is rightly discerned. The Creator of great things is
supreme in greatness, of beautiful things in beauty. Since the work
transcends our thoughts, all thought must be transcended by the Maker.
Thus heaven and air and earth and seas are fair: fair also the whole
universe, as the Greeks agree, who from its beautiful ordering call it
Koauxx;, that is, order. But if our thought can estimate this beauty of the
universe by a natural instinct — an instinct such as we see in certain birds
and beasts whose voice, though it fall below the level of our understanding,
yet has a sense clear to them though they cannot utter it, and in which,
since all speech is the expression of some thought, there lies a meaning
patent to themselves — must not the Lord of this universal beauty be
recognized as Himself most beautiful amid all the beauty that surrounds
Him? For though the splendor of His eternal glory overtax our mind's best
powers, it cannot fail to see that He is beautiful. We must in truth confess
that God is most beautiful, and that with a beauty which, though it
transcend our comprehension, forces itself upon our perception.

8. Thus my mind, full of these results which by its own reflection and the
teaching of Scripture it had attained, rested with assurance, as on some
peaceful watch-tower, upon that glorious conclusion, recognizing that its
true nature made it capable of one homage to its Creator, and of none
other, whether greater or less; the homage namely of conviction that His is
a greatness too vast for our comprehension but not for our faith. For a
reasonable faith is akin to reason and accepts its aid, even though that same
reason cannot cope with the vastness of eternal Omnipotence.

9. Beneath all these thoughts lay an instinctive hope, which strengthened
my assertion of the faith, in some perfect blessedness hereafter to be
earned by devout thoughts concerning God and upright life; the reward, as

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it were, that awaits the triumphant warrior. For true faith in God would
pass unrewarded, if the soul be destroyed by death, and quenched in the
extinction of bodily life. Even unaided reason pleaded that it was
unworthy of God to usher man into an existence which has some share of
His thought and wisdom, only to await the sentence of life withdrawn and
of eternal death; to create him out of nothing to take his place in the World,
only that when he has taken it he may perish. For, on the only rational
theory of creation, its purpose was that things non-existent should come
into being, not that things existing should cease to be.

10. Yet my soul was weighed down with fear both for itself and for the
body. It retained a firm conviction, and a devout loyalty to the true faith
concerning God, but had come to harbor a deep anxiety concerning itself
and the bodily dwelling which must, it thought, share its destruction.
While in this state, in addition to its knowledge of the teaching of the Law
and Prophets, it learned the truths taught by the Apostle in the Gospel; —
In the beginning was the Ward, and the Word was with God, and the Word
was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made
through Him, and without Him was not anything made. That which was
made in Him is life, and the life was the light of men, and the light shineth
in darkness, and the darkness apprehended it not. There was a man sent
from God, whose name was John. He came for witness, that he might bear
witness of the light. That was the true light, which lighteneth every man
that cometh into this world. He was in the world, and the world was made
through Him, and the world knew Him not. He came unto His own things,
and they that were His own received Him not. But to as many as received
Him He gave power to become sons of God, even to them that believe on
His Name; which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of man, nor of
the will of the flesh, but of God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt
among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the Only -begotten from the
Father, full of grace and truth. Here the soul makes an advance beyond the
attainment of its natural capacities, is taught more than it had dreamed
concerning God. For it learns that its Creator is God of God; it hears that
the Word is God and was with God in the beginning. It comes to
understand that the Light of the world was abiding in the world and that
the world knew Him not; that He came to His own possession and that
they that were His own received Him not; but that they who do receive

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Him by virtue of their faith advance to be sons of God, being born not of
the embrace of the flesh nor of the conception of the blood nor of bodily
desire, but of God; finally, it learns that the Word became flesh and dwelt
among us, and that His glory was seen, which, as of the Only-begotten
from the Father, is perfect through grace and truth.

1 1 . Herein my soul, trembling and distressed, found a hope wider than it
had imagined. First came its introduction to the knowledge of God the
Father. Then it learnt that the eternity and infinity and beauty which, by
the light of natural reason, it had attributed to its Creator belonged also to
God the Only-begotten. It did not disperse its faith among a plurality of
deities, for it heard that He is God of God; nor did it fall into the error of
attributing a difference of nature to this God of God, for it learnt that He is
full of grace and truth. Nor yet did my soul perceive anything contrary to
reason in God of God, since He was revealed as having been in the
beginning God with God. It saw that there are very few who attain to the
knowledge of this saving faith, though its reward be great, for even His
own received Him not though they who receive Him are promoted to be
sons of God by a birth, not of the flesh but of faith. It learnt also that this
sonship to God is not a compulsion but a possibility, for, while the Divine
gift is offered to all, it is no heredity inevitably imprinted but a prize
awarded to willing choice. And test this very truth that whosoever will
may become a son of God should stagger the weakness of our faith (for
most we desire, but least expect, that which from its very greatness we
find it hard to hope for), God the Word became flesh, that through His
Incarnation our flesh might attain to union with God the Word. And lest
we should think that this incarnate Word was some other than God the
Word, or that His flesh was of a body different from ours, He dwelt among
us that by His dwelling He might be known as the indwelling God, and, by
His dwelling among us, known as God incarnate in no other flesh than our
own, and moreover, though He had condescended to take our flesh, not
destitute of His own attributes; for He, the Only-begotten of the Father,
full of grace and truth, is fully possessed of His own attributes and truly
endowed with ours.

12. This lesson in the Divine mysteries was gladly welcomed by my soul,
now drawing near through the flesh to God, called to new birth through
faith, entrusted with liberty and power to win the heavenly regeneration,

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conscious of the love of its Father and Creator, sure that He would not
annihilate a creature whom He had summoned out of nothing into life. And
it could estimate how high are these truths above the mental vision of man;
for the reason which deals with the common objects of thought can
conceive of nothing as existent beyond what it perceives within itself or
can create out of itself. My soul measured the mighty workings of God,
wrought on the scale of His eternal omnipotence, not by its own powers
of perception but by a boundless faith; and therefore refused to disbelieve,
because it could not understand, that God was in the beginning with God,
and that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, but bore in mind the
truth that with the will to believe would come the power to understand.

13. And lest the soul should stray and linger in some delusion of heathen
philosophy, it receives this further lesson of perfect loyalty to the holy
faith, taught by the Apostle in words inspired: — Beware lest any man
spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men,
after the rudiments of the word, and not after Christ; for in Him dwelleth
all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and ye are made full in Him, Which
is the Head of all principality and power; in Whom ye were also
circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands, in putting off the
body, of the flesh, but wash the circumcision of Christ; buried with Him in
Baptism, wherein also ye have risen again through faith in the working of
God, Who raised Him from the dead. And you, when ye were dead in sins
and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, He hath quickened with Him,
having forgiven you all your sins, blotting out the band which was against
us by its ordinances, which was contrary to us; and He hath taken it out of
the way, nailing it to the Cross; and having put off the flesh He made a
show of powers openly, triumphing over them through confidence in
Himself. Steadfast faith rejects the vain subtleties of philosophic enquiry;
truth refuses to be vanquished by these treacherous devices of human
folly, and enslaved by falsehood. It will not confine God within the limits
which barred our common reason, nor judge after the rudiments of the
world concerning Christ, in Whom dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead
bodily, and in such wise that the utmost efforts of the earthly mind to
comprehend Him are baffled by that immeasurable Eternity and
Omnipotence. My soul judged of Him as One Who, drawing us upward to
partake of His own Divine nature, has loosened henceforth the bond of

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bodily observances Who, unlike the Symbolic Law, has initiated us into no
rites of mutilating the flesh, but Whose purpose is that our spirit,
circumcised from vice, should purify all the natural faculties of the body
by abstinence from sin, that we being buried with His Death in Baptism
may return to the life of eternity (since regeneration to life is death to the
former life), and dying to our sins be born again to immortality, that even
as He abandoned His immortality to die for us, so should we awaken from
death to immortality with Him. For He took upon Him the flesh in which
we have sinned that by wearing our flesh He might forgive sins; a flesh
which He shares with us by wearing it, not by sinning in it. He blotted out
through death the sentence of death, that by a new creation of our race in
Himself He might sweep away the penalty appointed by the former Law.
He let them nail Him to the cross that He might nail to the curse of the
cross and abolish all the curses to which the world is condemned. He
suffered as man to the utmost that He might put powers to shame. For
Scripture had foretold that He Who is God should die; that the victory and
triumph of them that trust in Him lay in the fact that He, Who is immortal
and cannot be overcome by death, was to die that mortals might gain
eternity. These deeds of God, wrought in a manner beyond our
comprehension, cannot, I repeat, be understood by our natural faculties,
for the work of the Infinite and Eternal can only be grasped by an infinite
intelligence. Hence, just as the truths that God became man, that the
Immortal died that the Eternal was buried, do not belong to the rational
order but are an unique work of power, so on the other hand it is an effect
not of intellect but of omnipotence that He Who is man is also God, that
He Who died is immortal, that He Who was buried is eternal. We, then, are
raised together by God in Christ through His death. But, since in Christ
there is the fullness of the Godhead, we have herein a revelation of God the
Father joining to raise us in Him Who died; and we must confess that
Christ Jesus is none other than God in all the fullness of the Deity.

14. In this calm assurance of safety did my soul gladly and hopefully take
its rest, and feared so little the interruption of death, that death seemed
only a name for eternal life. And the life of this present body was so far
from seeming a burden or affliction that it was regarded as children regard
their alphabet, sick men their draught, shipwrecked sailors their swim,
young men the training for their profession, future commanders their first

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campaign; that is, as an endurable submission to present necessities,
bearing the promise of a blissful immortality. And further, I began to
proclaim those truths in which my soul had a personal faith, as a duty of
the episcopate which had been laid upon me, employing my office to
promote the salvation of all men.

15. While I was thus engaged there came to light certain fallacies of rash
and wicked men, hopeless for themselves and merciless towards others,
who made their own feeble nature the measure of the might of God's
nature. They claimed, not that they had ascended to an infinite knowledge
of infinite things, but that they had reduced all knowledge, undefined
before, within the scope of ordinary reason, and fixed the limits of the
faith. Whereas the true work of religion is a service of obedience; and these
were men heedless of their own weakness, reckless of Divine realities, who
undertook to improve upon the teaching of God.

16. Not to touch upon the vain enquiries of other heretics — concerning
whom however, when the course of my argument gives occasion, I will not
be silent — there are those who tamper with the faith of the Gospel by
denying, under the cloak of loyalty to the One God, the birth of God the
Only-begotten. They assert that there was an extension of God into man,
not a descent; that He, Who for the season that He took our flesh was Son
of Man, had not been previously, nor was then, Son of God; that there
was no Divine birth in His case, but an identity of Begetter and Begotten;
and (to maintain what they consider a perfect loyalty to the unity of God)
that there was an unbroken continuity in the Incarnation, the Father
extending Himself into the Virgin, and Himself being born as His own Son.
Others, on the contrary (heretics, because there is no salvation apart from
Christ, Who in the beginning was God the Word with God), deny that He
was born and declare that He was merely created. Birth, they hold, would
confess Him to be true God, while creation proves His Godhead unreal;
and though this explanation be a fraud against the faith in the unity of God,
regarded as an accurate definition, yet they think it may pass muster as
figurative language. They degrade, in name and in belief, His true birth to
the level of a creation, to cut Him off front the Divine unity, that, as a
creature called into being, He may not claim the fullness of the Godhead,
which is not His by a true birth.

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17. My soul has been burning to answer these insane attacks. I call to mind
that the very center of a saving faith is the belief not merely in God, but in
God as a Father; not merely in Christ, but in Christ as the Son of God; in
Him, not as a creature, but as God the Creator, born of God. My prime
object is by the clear assertions of prophets and evangelists to refute the
insanity and ignorance of men who use the unity of God (in itself a pious
and profitable confession) as a cloak for their denial either that in Christ
God was born, or else that He is very God. Their purpose is to isolate a
solitary God at the heart of the faith by making Christ, though mighty,
only a creature; because, so they allege, a birth of God widens the
believer's faith into a trust in more gods than one. But we, divinely taught
to confess neither two Gods nor yet a solitary God, will adduce the
evidence of the Gospels and the prophets for our confession of God the
Father and God the Son, united, not confounded, in our faith. We will not
admit Their identity nor allow, as a compromise, that Christ is God in
some imperfect sense; for God, born of God, cannot be the same as His
Father, since He is His Son, nor yet can He be different in nature.

18. And you, whose warmth of faith and passion for a truth unknown to
the world and its philosophers shall prompt to read me, must remember to
eschew the feeble and baseless conjectures of earthly minds, and in devout
willingness to learn must break down the barriers of prejudice and
half-knowledge. The new faculties of the regenerate intellect are needed;
each must have his understanding enlightened by the heavenly gift
imparted to the soul. First he must take his stand upon the sure ground
[substantia = vnoaxacei] of God, as holy Jeremiah says, that since he is
to hear about that nature [substantial he may expand his thoughts till they
are worthy of the theme, not fixing some arbitrary standard for himself,
but judging as of infinity. And again, though he be aware that he is partaker
of the Divine nature, as the holy apostle Peter says in his second Epistle,
yet he must not measure the Divine nature by the limitations of his own,
but gauge God's assertions concerning Himself by the scale of His own
glorious self-revelation. For he is the best student who does not read his
thoughts into the book, but lets it reveal its own; who draws from it its
sense, and does not import his own into it, nor force upon its words a
meaning which he had determined was the right one before he opened its
pages. Since then we are to discourse of the things of God, let us assume

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that God has full knowledge of Himself, and bow with humble reverence to
His words. For He Whom we can only know through His own utterances
is the fitting witness concerning Himself.

19. If in our discussion of the nature and birth of God we adduce certain
analogies, let no one suppose that such comparisons are perfect and
complete. There can be no comparison between God and earthly things,
yet the weakness of our understanding forces us to seek for illustrations
from a lower sphere to explain our meaning about loftier themes. The
course of daily life shews how our experience in ordinary matters enables
us to form conclusions on unfamiliar subjects. We must therefore regard
any comparison as helpful to man rather than as descriptive of God, since
it suggests, rather than exhausts, the sense we seek. Nor let such a
comparison be thought too bold when it sets side by side carnal anti
spiritual natures, things invisible and things palpable, since it avows itself
a necessary aid to the weakness of the human mind, and deprecates the
condemnation due to an imperfect analogy. On this principle I proceed
with my task, intending to use the terms supplied by God, yet coloring
my argument with illustrations drawn from human life.

20. And first, I have so laid out the plan of the whole work as to consult
the advantage of the reader by the logical order in which its books are
arranged. It has been my resolve to publish no half-finished and
ill-considered treatise, lest its disorderly array should resemble the
confused clamor of a mob of peasants. And since no one can scale a
precipice unless there be jutting ledges to aid his progress to the summit, I
have here set down in order the primary outlines of our ascent leading our
difficult course of argument up the easiest path; not cutting steps in the
face of the rock, but leveling it to a gentle slope, that so the traveler, almost
without a sense of effort may reach the heights.

21. Thus, after the present first book, the second expounds the mystery of
the Divine birth, that those who shall be baptized in the Name of the
Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost may know the true Names,
and not be perplexed about their sense but accurately informed as to fact
and meaning, and so receive full assurance that in the words which are used
they have the true Names, and that those Names involve the truth.

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22. After this short and simple discourse concerning the Trinity, the third
book makes further progress, sure though slow. Citing the greatest
instances of His power, it brings within the range of faith's understanding
that saying, in itself beyond our comprehension, I in the Father and the
Father in Me, which Christ utters concerning Himself. Thus truth beyond
the dull wit of man is the prize of faith equipped with reason and
knowledge; for neither may we doubt God's Word concerning Himself, nor
can we suppose that the devout reason is incapable of apprehending His
might.

23. The fourth book starts With the doctrines of the heretics, and disowns
complicity in the fallacies whereby they are traducing the faith of the
Church. It publishes that infidel creed which a number of them have lately
promulgated, and exposes the dishonesty, and therefore the wickedness, of
their arguments from the Law for what they call the unity of God. It sets
out the whole evidence of Law and Prophets to demonstrate the impiety
of asserting the unity of God to the exclusion of the Godhead of Christ,
and the treason of alleging that if Christ be God the Only-begotten, then
God is not one.

24. The fifth book follows in reply the sequence of heretical assertion.
They had falsely declared that they followed the law in the sense which
they assigned to the unity of God, and that they had proved from it that
the true God is of one Person; and this in order to rob the Lord Christ of
His birth by their conclusion concerning the One true God, for birth is the
evidence of origin. In answer I assert, step by step, what they deny; for
from the Law and the Prophets I demonstrate that there are not two gods,
nor one isolated true God, neither perverting the faith in the Divine unity
nor denying the birth of Christ. And since they say that the Lord Jesus
Christ, created rather than born, bears the Divine Name by gift and not by
right, I have proved His true Divinity from the Prophets in such a way
that, He being acknowledged very God, the assurance of His inherent
Godhead shall hold us fast to the certainty that God is One.

25. The sixth book reveals the full deceitfulness of this heretical teaching.
To win credit for their assertions they denounce the impious doctrine of
heretics: — of Valentinus, to wit, and Sabellius and Manichaeus and
Hieracas, and appropriate the godly language of the Church as a cover for

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their blasphemy. They reprove and alter the language of these heretics,
correcting it into a vague resemblance to orthodoxy, in order to suppress
the holy faith while apparently denouncing heresy. But we state clearly
what is the language and what the doctrine of each of these men, and acquit
the Church of any complicity or fellowship with condemned heretics.
Their words which deserve condemnation we condemn, and those which
claim our humble acceptance we accept. Thus that Divine Sonship of Jesus
Christ, which is the object of their most strenuous denial, we prove by the
witness of the Father, by Christ's own assertion, by the preaching of
Apostles, by the faith of believers, by the cries of devils, by the
contradiction of Jews, in itself a confession, by the recognition of the
heathen who had not known God; and all this to rescue from dispute a
truth of which Christ had left us no excuse for ignorance.

26. Next the seventh book, starting from the basis of a true faith now
attained, delivers its verdict in the great debate. First, armed with its sound
and incontrovertible proof of the impregnable faith, it takes part in the
conflict raging between Sabellius and Hebion and these opponents of the
true Godhead. It joins issue with Sabellius on his denial of the
pre-existence of Christ, and with his assailants on their assertion that He is
a creature. Sabellius overlooked the eternity of the Son, but believed that
true God worked in a human body. Our present adversaries deny that He
was born, assert that He was created, and fail to see in His deeds the
works of very God. What both sides dispute, we believe. Sabellius denies
that it was the Son who was working, and he is wrong; but he proves his
case triumphantly when he alleges that the work done was that of true
God. The Church shares his victory over those who deny that in Christ
was very God. But when Sabellius denies that Christ existed before the
worlds, his adversaries prove to conviction that Christ's activity is from
everlasting, and we are on their side in this confutation of Sabellius, who
recognizes true God, but not God the Son, in this activity. And our two
previous adversaries join forces to refute Hebion, the second
demonstrating the eternal existence of Christ, while the first proves that
His work is that of very God. Thus the heretics overthrow one another,
while the Church, as against Sabellius, against those who call Christ a
creature, against Hebion, bears witness that the Lord Jesus Christ is very
God of very God, born before the worlds and born in after times as man.

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27. No one can doubt that we have taken the course of true reverence and
of sound doctrine when, after proving from Law and Prophets first that
Christ is the Son of God, and next that He is true God, and flits without
breach of the mysterious unity, we proceed to support the Law and the
Prophets by the evidence of the Gospels, and prove from them also that
He is the Son of God and Himself very God. It is the easiest of tasks, after
demonstrating His right to the Name of Son, to shew that the Name truly
describes His relation to the Father; though indeed universal usage regards
the granting of the name of son as convincing evidence of sonship. But, to
leave no loophole for the trickery and deceit of these traducers of the true
birth of God the Only-begotten, we have used His true Godhead as
evidence of His true Sonship; to shew that He Who (as is confessed by all)
bears the Name of Son of God is actually God, we have adduced His
Name, His birth, His nature, His power, His assertions. We have proved
that His Name is an accurate description of Himself, that the title of Son is
an evidence of birth, that in His birth He retained His Divine Nature, and
with His nature His power, and that that power manifested itself in
conscious and deliberate self-revelation. I have set down the Gospel proofs
of each several point, shewing how His self-revelation displays His power,
how His power reveals His nature, how His nature is His by birthright,
and from His birth comes His title to the name of Son. Thus every whisper
of blasphemy is silenced, for the Lord Jesus Christ Himself by the witness
of His own mouth has taught us that He is, as His Name, His birth, His
nature, His power declare, in the true sense of Deity, very God of very
God.

28. While its two predecessors have been devoted to the confirmation of
the faith in Christ as Son of God and true God, the eighth book is taken up
with the proof of the unity of God, shewing that this unity is consistent
with the birth of the Son, and that the birth involves no duality in the
Godhead. First it exposes the sophistry with which these heretics have
attempted to avoid, though they could not deny, the confession of the real
existence of God, Father and Son; it demolishes their helpless and absurd
plea that in such passages as, And the multitude of them that believed
were one soul and heart, and again, He that planteth and He that watereth
are one, and Neither far these only do I pray, but for them also that shall
believe on Me through their word, that they may all be one, even as Thou,

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Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be in Us, a unity of
will and mind, not of Divinity, is expressed. From a consideration of the
true sense of these texts we shew that they involve the reality of the
Divine birth; and then, displaying the whole series of our Lord's
self-revelations, we exhibit, in the language of Apostles and in the very
words of the Holy Spirit, the whole and perfect mystery of the glory of
God as Father and as Only-begotten Son. Because there is a Father we
know that there is a Son; in that Son the Father is manifested to us, and
hence our certainty that He is born the Only-begotten and that He is very
God.

29. In matters essential to salvation it is not enough to advance the proofs
which faith supplies and finds sufficient. Arguments which we have not
tested may delude us into a misapprehension of the meaning of our own
words, unless we take the offensive by exposing the hollowness of the
enemy's proofs, and so establish our own faith upon the demonstrated
absurdity of his. The ninth book, therefore, is employed in refuting the
arguments by which the heretics attempt to invalidate the birth of God the
Only -begotten; — heretics who ignore the mystery of the revelation
hidden from the beginning of the world, and forget that the Gospel faith
proclaims the union of God and man. For their denial that our Lord Jesus
Christ is God, like unto God and equal with God as Son with Father, born
of God and by right of His birth subsisting as very Spirit, they are
accustomed to appeal to such words of our Lord as, Why callest thou Me
good? None is good save One, even God. They argue that by His reproof
of the man who called Him good, and by His assertion of the goodness of
God only, He excludes Himself from the goodness of that God Who alone
is good and from that true Divinity which belongs only to One. With this
text their blasphemous reasoning connects another, And this is life eternal
that they should know Thee the only true God, and Him Whom Thou
didst send, Jesus Christ. Here, they say, He confesses that the Father is
the only true God, and that He Himself is neither true nor God, since this
recognition of an only true God is limited to the Possessor of the attributes
assigned. And they profess to be quite clear about His meaning in this
passage, since He also says, The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what
He hath seen the Father doing. The fact that He can only copy is said to be
evidence of the limitation of His nature. There can be no comparison

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between Omnipotence and One whose action is dependent upon the
previous activity of Another reason itself draws an absolute line between
power and the want of power. That line is so clear that He Himself has
avowed concerning God the Father, The Father is greater than I. So frank a
confession silences all demur; it is blasphemy and madness to assign the
dignity and nature of Gaol to One who disclaims them. So utterly devoid is
He of the qualities of true God that He actually bears witness concerning
Himself, But of that day and hour knoweth no one, neither the angels in
heaven nor the Son, but God only A son who knows not his father's
secret must, from his ignorance, be alien from the father who knows; a
nature limited in knowledge cannot partake of that majesty and might
which alone is exempt from the tyranny of ignorance.

30. We therefore expose the blasphemous misunderstanding at which they
have arrived by distortion and perversion of the meaning of Christ's
words. We account for those words by stating what manner of questions
He was answering, at what times He was speaking, what partial knowledge
He was deigning to impart; we make the circumstances explain the words,
and do not force the former into consistency with the latter. Thus each
case of variance, that for instance between The Father is greater than I, and
I and the Father are One, or between None is good save One, even God,
and He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father also, or a difference so wide
as that between Father, all things that are Mine are Thine, and Thine are
Mine, and That they may know Thee, the only, true God, or between I in
the Father and the Father in Me, and But of the day and hour knoweth no
one, neither the angels in heaven nor the Son, but the Father only, is
explained by a discrimination between gradual revelation and full
expression of His nature and power. Both are utterances of the same
Speaker, and an exposition of the real force of each group will shew that
Christ's true Godhead is no whir impaired because, to form the mystery of
the Gospel faith, the birth and Name of Christ were revealed gradually, and
under conditions which He chose of occasion and time.

31. The purpose of the tenth book is one in harmony with the faith. For
since, in the folly which passes with them for wisdom, the heretics have
twisted some Of the circumstances and utterances of the Passion into an
insolent contradiction of the Divine nature and power of the Lord Jesus
Christ, I am compelled to prove that this is a blasphemous

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misinterpretation, and that these things were put on record by the Lord
Himself as evidences of His true and absolute majesty. In their parody of
the faith they deceive themselves with words such as, My soul is
sorrowful even unto death. He, they think, must be far removed from the
blissful and passionless life of God, over Whose soul brooded this crushing
fear of an impending woe, Who under the pressure of suffering even
humbled Himself to pray, Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass away
from Me, and assuredly bore the appearance of fearing to endure the trials
from which He prayed for release; Whose whole nature was so
overwhelmed by agony that in those moments on the Cross He cried, My
God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? forced by the bitterness of
His pain to complain that He was forsaken: Who, destitute of the Father's
help, gave up the ghost with the words, Father; into Thy hands I commend
My Spirit. The fear, they say, which beset Him at the moment of expiring
made Him entrust His Spirit to the care of God the Father: the very
hopelessness of His own condition forced Him to commit His Soul to the
keeping of Another.

32. Their folly being as great as their blasphemy, they fail to mark that
Christ's words, spoken under similar circumstances, are always consistent;
they cleave to the letter and ignore the purpose of His words. There is the
widest difference between My soul is sorrowful even unto death, and
Henceforth ye shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power
so also between Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass away, from Me,
and The cup which the Father hath given Me, shall I not drink it? and
further between My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? and
Verily I say unto thee, Today shall thou be with Me in Paradise, and
between Father into Thy hands I commend My Spirit, and Father, forgive
them, for they know not what they do; and their narrow minds, unable to
grasp the Divine meaning, plunge into blasphemy in the attempt at
explanation. There is a broad distinction between anxiety and a mind at
ease, between haste and the prayer for delay, between words of anguish
and words of encouragement, between despair for self and confident
entreaty for others; and the heretics display their impiety by ignoring the
assertions of Deity and the Divine nature of Christ, which account for the
one class, of His words, while they concentrate their attention upon the
deeds and words which refer only to His ministry on earth. I have

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therefore set out all the elements contained in the mystery of the Soul and
Body of the Lord Jesus Christ; all have been sought out, none suppressed.
Next, casting the calm light of reason upon the question, I have referred
each of His sayings to the class to which its meaning attaches it, and so
have shewn that He had also a confidence which never wavered a will
which never faltered, an assurance which never murmured, that, when He
commended His own soul to the Father, in this was involved a prayer for
the pardon of others. Thus a complete presentment of the teaching of the
Gospel interprets and confirms all (and not some only) of the words of
Christ.

33. And so — for not even the glory of the Resurrection has opened the
eyes of these lost men and kept them within the manifest bounds of the
faith — they have forged a weapon for their blasphemy out of a pretended
reverence, and even perverted the revelation of a mystery into an insult to
God. From the words, I ascend unto My Father and your Father, to My
God and your God, they argue that since that Father is ours as much as
His, and that God also ours and His, His own confession that He shares
with us in that relation to the Father and to God excludes Him from true
Divinity, and subordinates Him to God the Creator Whose creature and
inferior He is, as we are, although He has received the adoption of a Son.
Nay more, we must not suppose that He possesses any of the characters
of the Divine nature, since the Apostle says, But when He saith, all things
are put in subjection, this is except Him Who did subject all things unto
Him, for when all things shall have been subjected unto Him, then shall
also He Himself be subjected to Him that did subject all things unto Him,
that God may be all in all. For, so they say, subjection is evidence of want
of power in the subject and of its possession by the sovereign. The
eleventh book is employed in a reverent discussion of this argument; it
proves from these very words of the Apostle not only that subjection is
no evidence of want of power in Christ but that it actually is a sign of His
true Divinity as God the Son; that the fact that His Father and God is also
our Father and God is an infinite advantage to us and no degradation to
Him, since He Who has been born as Man and suffered all the afflictions of
our flesh has gone up on high to our God and Father, to receive His glory
as Man our Representative.

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34. In this treatise we have followed the course which we know is pursued
in every branch of education. First come easy lessons and a familiarity,
slowly attained by practice, with the groundwork of the subject; then the
student may make proof, in the business of life, of the training which he
has received. Thus the soldier, when he is perfect in his exercises, can go
out to battle; the advocate ventures into the conflicts of the courts when he
is versed in the pleadings of the school of rhetoric; the sailor who has
learned to navigate his ship in the land-locked harbor of his home may be
trusted amid the storms of open seas and distant climes. Such has been our
proceeding in this most serious and difficult science in which the whole
faith is taught. First came simple instruction for the untaught believer in
the birth, the name, the Divinity, the true Divinity of Christ; since then we
have quietly and steadily advanced till our readers can demolish every plea
or the heretics; and now at last we have pitted them against the adversary
in the present great and glorious conflict. The mind of men is powerless
with the ordinary resources of unaided reason to grasp the idea of an
eternal birth, but they attain by study of things Divine to the
apprehension of mysteries which lie beyond the range of common thought.
They can explode that paradox concerning the Lord Jesus, which derives
all its strength and semblance of cogency from a purblind pagan
philosophy: the paradox which asserts, There was a time when He was
not, and He was not before He was born, and He was made out of nothing;
as though His birth were proof that He had previously been non-existent
and at a given moment came into being, and God the Only-begotten could
thus be subjected to the conception of time, as if the faith itself [by
conferring the title of 'Son'] and the very nature of birth proved that there
was a time when He was not. Accordingly they argue that He was born
out of nothing, on the ground that birth implies the grant of being to that
which previously had no being. We proclaim in answer, on the evidence of
Apostles and Evangelists, that the Father is eternal and the Son eternal,
and demonstrate that the Son is God of all with an absolute, not a limited,
pre-existence; that these bold assaults of their blasphemous logic — He
was born out of nothing, and He was not before He was barn — are
powerless against Him; that His eternity is consistent with sonship, and
His sonship with eternity; that there was in Him no unique exemption
from birth but a birth from everlasting, for, while birth implies a Father,
Divinity is inseparable from eternity.

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35. Ignorance of prophetic diction and unskilfulness in interpreting
Scripture has led them into a perversion of the point and meaning of the
passage, The Lord created Me far a beginning of His ways for His works.
They labor to establish from it that Christ is created, rather than born, as
God, and hence partakes the nature of created beings, though He excel
them in the manner of His creation, and has no glory of Divine birth but
only the powers of a transcendent creature. We in reply, without
importing any new considerations or preconceived opinions, will make this
very passage of Wisdom display its own true meaning and object. We will
show that the fact that He was created for the beginning of the ways of
God and for His works, cannot be twisted into evidence concerning the
Divine and eternal birth, because creation for these purposes and birth
from everlasting are two entirely different things. Where birth is meant,
there birth, and nothing but birth, is spoken of; where creation is
mentioned, the cause of that creation is first named. There is a Wisdom
born before all things, and again there is a wisdom created for particular
purposes; the Wisdom which is from everlasting is one, the wisdom which
has come into existence during the lapse of time is another.

36. Having thus concluded that we must reject the word 'creation' from
our confession of faith in God the Only-begotten, we proceed to lay down
the teachings of reason and of piety concerning the Holy Spirit, that the
reader, whose convictions have been established by patient and earnest
study of the preceding books, may be provided with a complete
presentation of the faith. This end will be attained when the blasphemies
of heretical teaching on this theme also have been swept away, and the
mystery, pure and undefiled, of the Trinity which regenerates us has been
fixed in terms of saving precision on the authority of Apostles and
Evangelists. Men will no longer dare, on the strength of mere human
reasoning, to rank among creatures that Divine Spirit, Whom we receive as
the pledge of immortality and source of fellowship with the sinless nature
of God.

37. 1 know, O Lord God Almighty, that I owe Thee, as the chief duty of
my life, the devotion of all my words and thoughts to Thyself. The gift of
speech which Thou hast bestowed can bring me no higher reward than the
opportunity of service in preaching Thee and displaying Thee as Thou art,
as Father and Father of God the Only-begotten, to the world in its

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blindness and the heretic in his rebellion. But this is the mere expression of
my own desire; I must pray also for the gift of Thy help and compassion,
that the breath of Thy Spirit may fill the sails of faith and confession
which I have spread, and a favoring wind be sent to forward me on my
voyage of instruction. We can trust the promise of Him Who said, Ask,
and it shall be given you, seek, and ye shall find, knock, and it shall be
opened unto you; and we in our want shall pray for the things we need.
We shall bring an untiring energy to the study of Thy Prophets and
Apostles, and we shall knock for entrance at every gate of hidden
knowledge, but it is Thine to answer the prayer, to grant the thing we seek,
to open the door on which we beat. Our minds are born with dull and
clouded vision, our feeble intellect is penned within the barriers of an
impassable ignorance concerning things Divine; but the study of Thy
revelation elevates our soul to the comprehension of sacred truth, and
submission to the faith is the path to a certainty beyond the reach of
unassisted reason.

38. And therefore we look to Thy support for the first trembling steps of
this undertaking, to Thy aid that it may gain strength and prosper. We
look to Thee to give us the fellowship of that Spirit Who guided the
Prophets and the Apostles, that we may take their words in the sense in
which they spoke and assign its right shade of meaning to every utterance.
For we shall speak of things which they preached in a mystery; of Thee, O
God Eternal, Father of the Eternal and Only-begotten God, Who alone art
without birth, and of the One Lord Jesus Christ, born of Thee from
everlasting. We may not sever Him from Thee, or make Him one of a
plurality of Gods, on any plea of difference of nature. We may not say
that He is not begotten of Thee, because Thou art One. We must not fail to
confess Him as true God, seeing that He is born of Thee, true God, His
Father. Grant us, therefore, precision of language, soundness of argument,
grace of style, loyalty to truth. Enable us to utter the things that we
believe, that so we may confess, as Prophets and Apostles have taught us,
Thee, One God our Father, and One Lord Jesus Christ, and put to silence
the gainsaying of heretics, proclaiming Thee as God, yet not solitary, and
Him as God, in no unreal sense.

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BOOK II

1 . Believers have always found their satisfaction in that Divine utterance,
which our ears heard recited from the Gospel at the moment when that
Power, which is its attestation, was bestowed upon us: — Go now and
teach all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son,
and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I
command you; and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the
world. What element in the mystery of man's salvation is not included in
those words? What is forgotten, what left in darkness? All is full, as from
the Divine fullness; perfect, as from the Divine perfection. The passage
contains the exact words to be used, the essential acts, the sequence of
processes, an insight into the Divine nature. He bade them baptize in the
Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, that is with
confession of the Creator and of the Only-begotten, and of the Gift. For
God the Father is One, from Whom are all things; and our Lord Jesus
Christ the Only-begotten, through Whom are all things, is One; and the
Spirit, God's Gift to us, Who pervades all things, is also One. Thus all are
ranged according to powers possessed and benefits conferred; — the One
Power from Whom all, the One Offspring through Whom all, the One Gilt
Who gives us perfect hope. Nothing can be found lacking in that supreme
Union which embraces, in Father, Son and Holy Spirit, infinity in the
Eternal, His Likeness in His express Image, our enjoyment of Him in the
Gift.

2. But the errors of heretics and blasphemers force us to deal with
unlawful matters, to scale perilous heights, to speak unutterable words, to
trespass on forbidden ground. Faith ought in silence to fulfill the
commandments, worshipping the Father, reverencing with Him the Son,
abounding in the Holy Ghost, but we must strain the poor resources of our
language to express thoughts too great for words. The error of others
compels us to err in daring to embody in human terms truths which ought
to be hidden in the silent veneration of the heart.

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3. For there have risen many who have given to the plain words of Holy
Writ some arbitrary interpretation of their own, instead of its true anti
only sense, and this in defiance of the clear meaning of words. Heresy lies
in the sense assigned, not in the word written; the guilt is that of the
expositor, not of the text. Is not truth indestructible? When we hear the
name Father, is not sonship involved in that Name? The Holy Ghost is
mentioned by name; must He not exist? We can no more separate
fatherhood from the Father or sonship from the Son than we can deny the
existence in the Holy Ghost of that gift which we receive. Yet men of
distorted mind plunge the whole matter in doubt and difficulty, fatuously
reversing the clear meaning of words, and depriving the Father of His
fatherhood because they wish to strip the Son of His sonship. They take
away the fatherhood by asserting that the Son is not a Son by nature; for a
son is not of the nature of his father when begetter and begotten have not
the same properties, and he is no son whose being is different from that of
the father, and unlike it. Yet in what sense is God a Father (as He is), if He
have not begotten in His Son that same substance and nature which are His
own?

4. Since, therefore, they cannot make any change in the facts recorded,
they bring novel principles and theories of man's device to bear upon
them. Sabellius, for instance, makes the Son an extension of the Father, and
the faith in this regard a matter of words rather than of reality, for he
makes one and the same Person, Son to Himself and also Father. Hebion
allows no beginning to the Son of God except from Mary, and represents
Him not as first God and then man. but as first man then God; declares
that the Virgin did not receive into herself One previously existent, Who
had been in the beginning God the Word dwelling with God, but that
through the agency of the Word she bore Flesh; the 'Word' meaning in his
opinion not the nature of the pre-existent Only-begotten God, but only the
sound of an uplifted voice. Similarly certain teachers of our present day
assert that the Image and Wisdom and Power of God was produced out of
nothing, and in time. They do this to save God, regarded as Father of the
Son, from being lowered to the Son's level. They are fearful lest this birth
of the Son from Him should deprive Him of His glory, and therefore come
to God's rescue by styling His Son a creature made out of nothing, in order
that God may live on in solitary perfection without a Son born of Himself

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and partaking His nature. What wonder that their doctrine of the Holy
Ghost should be different from ours, when they presume to subject the
Giver of that Holy Ghost to creation, and change, and non-existence. Thus
do they destroy the consistency and completeness of the mystery of the
faith. They break up the absolute unity of God by assigning differences of
nature where all is clearly common to Each; they deny the Father by
robbing he Son of His true Sonship; they deny the Holy Ghost in their
blindness to the facts that we possess Him and that Christ gave Him.
They betray ill-trained souls to ruin by their boast of the logical perfection
of their doctrine; they deceive their hearers by emptying terms of their
meaning, through the Names remain to witness to the truth. I pass over the
pitfalls of other heresies, Valentinian, Marcionite, Manichee and the rest.
From time to time they catch the attention of some foolish souls and prove
fatal by the very infection of their contact; one plague as destructive as
another when once the poison of their teaching has found its way into the
hearer's thoughts.

5. Their treason involves us in the difficult and dangerous position of
having to make a definite pronouncement, beyond the statements of
Scripture, upon this grave and abstruse matter. The Lord said that the
nations were to be baptized in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and
of the Holy Ghost. The words of the faith are clear; the heretics do their
utmost to involve the meaning in doubt. We may not on this account add
to the appointed form, yet we must set a limit to their license of
interpretation. Since their malice, inspired by the devil's cunning, empties
the doctrine of its meaning while it retains the Names which convey the
truth, we must emphasize the truth which those Names convey. We must
proclaim, exactly as we shall find them in the words of Scripture, the
majesty and functions of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and so debar the
heretics from robbing these Names of their connotation of Divine
character, and compel them by means of these very Names to confine their
use of terms to their proper meaning. I cannot conceive what manner of
mind our opponents have, who pervert the truth, darken the light, divide
the indivisible rend the scatheless, dissolve the perfect unity. It may seem
to them a light thing to tear up Perfection, to make laws for Omnipotence,
to limit Infinity; as for me, the task of answering them fills me with
anxiety; my brain whirls, my intellect is stunned, my very words must be

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a confession, not that I am weak of utterance, but that I am dumb. Yet a
wish to undertake the task forces itself upon me; it means withstanding the
proud, guiding the wanderer, warning the ignorant. But the subject is
inexhaustible; I can see no limit to my venture of speaking concerning God
in terms more precise than He Himself has used. He has assigned the
Names — Father, Son and Holy Ghost, — which are our information of
the Divine nature. Words cannot express or feeling embrace or reason
apprehend the re suits of enquiry carried further; all is ineffable,
unattainable, incomprehensible. Language is exhausted by the magnitude of
the theme, the splendor of its effulgence blinds the gazing eye, the intellect
cannot compass its boundless extent. Still, under the necessity that is laid
upon us, with a prayer for pardon to Him Whose attributes these are, we
will venture, enquire and speak; and moreover — it is the only promise
that in so grave a matter we dare to make — we will accept whatever
conclusion He shall indicate.

6. It is the Father to Whom all existence owes its origin. In Christ and
through Christ He is the source of all. In contrast to all else He is
serf-existent. He does not draw His being from without, but possesses it
from Himself and in Himself. He is infinite, for nothing contains Him and
He contains all things; He is eternally unconditioned by space, for He is
illimitable; eternally anterior to time, for time is His creation. Let
imagination range to what you may suppose is God's utmost limit, and
you will find Him present there; strain as you will there is always a further
horizon towards which to strain. Infinity is His property, just as the
power of making such effort is yours. Words will fail you, but His being
will not be circumscribed. Or again, turn back the pages of history, and
you will find Him ever present; should numbers fail to express the
antiquity to which you have penetrated, yet God's eternity is not
diminished. Gird up your intellect to comprehend Him as a whole; He
eludes you, God, as a whole, has left something within your grasp, but this
something is inextricably involved in His entirety. Thus you have missed
the whole, since it is only a part which remains in your hands; nay, not
even a part, for you are dealing with a whole which you have failed to
divide. For a part implies division, a whole is undivided, and God is
everywhere and wholly present wherever He is. Reason, therefore, cannot
cope with Him, since no point of contemplation can be found outside

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Himself and since eternity is eternally His. This is a true statement of the
mystery of that unfathomable nature which is expressed by the Name
'Father:' God invisible, ineffable, infinite. Let us confess by our silence
that words cannot describe Him; let sense admit that it is foiled in the
attempt to apprehend, and reason in the effort to define. Yet He has, as we
said, in 'Father' a name to indicate His nature; He is a Father
unconditioned. He does not, as men do, receive the power of paternity
from an external source. He is unbegotten, everlasting, inherently eternal.
To the Son only is He known, for no one knoweth the Father save the Son
and him to whom the Son willeth to reveal Him, nor yet the Son save the
Father. Each has perfect and complete knowledge of the Other. Therefore,
since no one knoweth the Father save the Son, let our thoughts of the
Father be at one with the thoughts of the Son, the only faithful Witness,
Who reveals Him to us.

7. It is easier for me to feel this concerning the Father than to say it. I am
well aware that no words are adequate to describe His attributes. We must
feel that He is invisible, incomprehensible, eternal. But to say that He is
self-existent and self-originating and self-sustained, that He is invisible and
incomprehensible and immortal; all this is an acknowledgment of His glory,
a hint of our meaning, a sketch of our thoughts, but speech is powerless to
tell us what God is, words cannot express the reality. You hear that He is
self-existent; human reason cannot explain such independence. We can find
objects which uphold, and objects which are upheld, but that which thus
exists is obviously distinct from that which is the cause of its existence.
Again, if you hear that He is self-originating, no instance can be found in
which the giver of the gift of life is identical with the life that is given. If
you hear that He is immortal, then there is something which does not
spring from Him and with which He has, by His very nature, no contact;
and, indeed, death is not the only thing which this word 'immortal' claims
as independent of God. If you hear that He is incomprehensible, that is as
much as to say that He is non-existent, since contact with Him is
impossible. If you say that He is invisible, a being that does not visibly
exist cannot be sure of its own existence. Thus our confession of God fails
through the defects of language; the best combination of words we can
devise cannot indicate the reality and the greatness of God. The perfect
knowledge of God is so to know Him that we are sure we must not be

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ignorant of Him, yet cannot describe Him. We must believe, must
apprehend, must worship; and such acts of devotion must stand in lieu of
definition.

8. We have now exchanged the perils of a harborless coast for the storms
of the open sea. We can neither safely advance nor safely retreat, yet the
way that lies before us has greater hardships than that which lies behind.
The Father is what He is, and as He is manifested, so we must believe. The
mind shrinks in dread from treating of the Son; at every word I tremble lest
I be betrayed into treason. For He is the Offspring of the Unbegotten, One
from One, true from true, living from living, perfect from perfect; the
Power of Power, the Wisdom of Wisdom, the Glory of Glory, the
Likeness of the invisible God, the Image Unbegotten Father. Yet in what
sense can we conceive that the Only -begotten is the Offspring of the
Unbegotten? Repeatedly the Father cries from heaven, This is My beloved
Son in Whom I well pleased. It is no rending or severance, for He that
begat is without passions, and He that was born is the Image of the
invisible God and bears witness, The Father is in Me and I in the Father. It
is no mere adoption, for He is the true Son of God and cries, He that hath
seen Me hath seen the Father also. Nor did He come into existence in
obedience to a command as did created things, for He is the Only-begotten
of the One God; and He has life in Himself, even as He that begot Him has
life, for He says, As the Father hath life in Himself, even so gave He to the
Son to have life in Himself. Nor is there a portion of the Father resident in
the Son, for the Son bears witness, All things that the Father hath are
Mine, and again, And all things that are Mine are Thine, and Thine are
Mine, and the Apostle testifies, For in Him dwelleth all the fullness of the
Godhead bodily; and by the nature of things a portion cannot possess the
whole. He is the perfect Son of the perfect Father, for He Who has all has
given all to Him. Yet we must not imagine that the Father did not give,
because He still possesses, or that He has lost, because He gave to the Son.

9. The manner of this birth is therefore a secret confined to the Two. If
any one lays upon his personal incapacity his failure to solve the mystery,
ill spite of the certainty that Father and Son stand to Each Other in those
relations, he will be still more pained at the ignorance to which I confess. I,
too, am in the dark, yet I ask no questions. I look for comfort to the fact
that Archangels share my ignorance, that Angels have not heard the

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explanation, and worlds do not contain it, that no prophet has espied it
and no Apostle sought for it, that the Son Himself has not revealed it. Let
such pitiful complaints cease. Whoever you are that search into these
mysteries, I do not bid you resume your exploration of height and breadth
and depth; I ask you rather to acquiesce patiently in your ignorance of the
mode of Divine generation, seeing that you know not how His creatures
come into existence. Answer me this one question: — Do your senses give
you any evidence that you yourself were begotten? Can you explain the
process by which you became a father? I do not ask whence you drew
perception, how you obtained life, whence your reason comes, what is the
nature of your senses of smell, touch, sight, hearing; the fact that we have
the use of all these is the evidence that they exist. What I ask is: — How
do you give them to your children? How do you ingraft the senses, lighten
the eyes, implant tile mind? Tell me, if you can. You have, then, powers
which you do not understand, you impart gifts which you cannot
comprehend. You are calmly indifferent to the mysteries of your own
being, profanely impatient of ignorance concerning the mysteries of God's.

10. Listen then to the Unbegotten Father, listen to the Only-begotten Son.
Hear His words, The Father is greater than I, and I and the Father are One,
and He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father also, and The Father is in
Me and I in the Father, and I went out from the Father, and Who is in the
bosom of the Father, and Whatsoever the Father hath He hath delivered to
the Son, and The Son hath life in Himself, even as the Father hath in
Himself. Hear in these words the Son, the Image, the Wisdom, the Power,
the Glory of God. Next mark the Holy Ghost proclaiming Who shall
declare His generation? Note the Lord's assurance, No one knoweth the
Son save the Father, neither doth any know the Father save the Son and
He to whom the Son willeth to reveal Him, Penetrate into the mystery,
plunge into the darkness which shrouds that birth, where you will be alone
with God the Unbegotten and God the Only-begotten. Make your start,
continue, persevere. I know that you will not reach the goal, but I shall
rejoice at your progress. For He who devoutly treads an endless road,
though he reach no conclusion, will profit by his exertions. Reason will fail
for want of words, but when it comes to a stand it will be the better for the
effort made.

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11. The Son draws His life from that Father Who truly has life; the Only
begotten from the Unbegotten, Offspring from Parent, Living from Living.
As the Father hath life in Himself, even so gave He to the Son also to have
life in Himself. The Son is perfect from Him that is perfect, for He is
whole from Him that is whole. This is no division or severance, for Each is
in the Other, and the fullness of the Godhead is in the Son.
Incomprehensible is begotten of Incomprehensible, for none else knows
Them, but Each knows the Other; Invisible is begotten of Invisible, for the
Son is the Image of the invisible God, and he that has seen the Son has seen
the Father also. There is a distinction, for They are Father and Son; not
that Their Divinity is different in kind, for Both are One, God of God, One
God Only begotten of One God Unbegotten. They are not two Gods, but
One of One; not two Unbegotten, for the Son is born of the Unborn. There
is no diversity, for the life of the living God is in the living Christ. So much
I have resolved to say concerning the nature of their Divinity not imagining
that I have succeeded in making a summary of the faith, but recognizing
that the theme is inexhaustible. So faith, you object, has no service to
render, since there is nothing that it can comprehend. Not so; the proper
service of faith is to grasp and confess the truth that it is incompetent to
comprehend its Object.

12. It remains to say something more concerning the mysterious generation
of the Son; or rather this something more is everything. I quiver, I linger,
my powers fail, I know not where to begin. I cannot tell the time of the
Son's birth; it were impious not to be certain of the fact. Whom shall I
entreat? Whom shall I call to my aid? From what books shall I borrow the
terms needed to state so hard a problem? Shall I ransack the philosophy of
Greece? No! I have read, Where is the wise? Where is the enquirer of this
world? In this matter, then, the world's philosophers, the wise men of
paganism, are dumb: for they have rejected the wisdom of God. Shall I turn
to the Scribe of the law? He is in darkness, for the Cross of Christ is an
offense to him. Shall I, perchance, bid you shut your eyes to heresy, and
pass it by in silence, on the ground that sufficient reverence is shown to
Him Whom we preach if we believe that lepers were cleansed, the deaf
heard, the lame ran, the palsied stood, the blind (in general) received sight,
the blind from his birth had eyes given to him, devils were routed, the sick
recovered, the dead lived. The heretics confess all this, and perish.

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13. Look now to see a thing not less miraculous than lame men running,
blind men seeing, the flight of devils, the life from the dead. There stands
by my side, to guide me through the difficulties which I have enunciated, a
poor fisherman, ignorant, uneducated, fishing-lines in hand, clothes
dripping, muddy feet, every inch a sailor. Consider and decide whether it
were the greater feat to raise the dead or impart to an untrained mind the
knowledge of mysteries so deep as he reveals by saying, In the beginning
was the Word. What means this In the beginning was? He ranges backward
over the spaces of time, centuries are left behind, ages are canceled. Fix in
your mind what date you will for this beginning; you miss the mark, for
even then He, of Whom we are speaking, was. Survey the universe, note
well what is written of it, In the beginning God made the heaven and the
earth. This word beginning fixes the moment of creation; you can assign its
date to an event which is definitely stated to have happened in the
beginning. But this fisherman of mine, unlettered and unread, is
untrammeled by time, undaunted by its immensity; he pierces beyond the
beginning. For his was has no limit of time and no commencement; the
uncreated Word was in the beginning.

14. But perhaps we shall find that our fisherman has been guilty of
departure from the terms of the problem proposed for solution. He has set
the Word free from the limitations of time; that which is free lives its own
life and is bound to no obedience. Let us, therefore, pay our best attention
to what follows: — And the Word was with God. We find that it is with
God that the Word, Which was before the beginning, exists unconditioned
by time. The Word, Which was, is with God. He Who is absent when we
seek for His or gin in time is present all the while with the Creator of time.
For this once our fisherman has escaped; perhaps he will succumb to the
difficulties which await him.

15. For you will plead that a word is the sound of a voice; that it is a
naming of things, an utterance of thoughts. This Word was with God, and
was in the beginning; the expression of the eternal Thinker's thoughts must
be eternal. For the present I will give you a brief answer of my own on the
fisherman' s behalf, till we see what defense he has to make for his own
simplicity. The nature, then, of a word is that it is first a potentiality,
afterwards a past event; an existing thing only while it is being heard. How
can we say, In the beginning was the Word, when a word neither exists

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before, nor lives after, a definite point of time? Can we even say that there
is a point of time in which a word exists? Not only are the words in a
speaker's mouth non-existent until they are spoken, and perished the
instant they are uttered, but even in the moment of utterance there is a
change from the sound which commences to that which ends a word. Such
is the reply that suggests itself to me as a bystander. But your opponent
the Fisherman has an answer of his own. He will begin by reproving you
for your inattention. Even though your unpracticed ear failed to catch the
first clause, In the beginning was the Word, why complain of the next, And
the Word was with God? Was it And the Word was in God that you
heard, — the dictum of some profound philosophy? Or is it that your
provincial dialect makes no distinction between in and with? The assertion
is that Which was in the beginning was with, not in, Another. But I will
not argue from the beginning of the sentence; the sequel can take care of
itself. Hear now the rank and the name of the Word: — And the Word was
God. Your plea that the Word is the sound of a voice, the utterance of a
thought, falls to the ground. The Word is a reality, not a sound, a Being,
not a speech, God, not a nonentity.

16. But I tremble to say it; the audacity staggers me. I hear, And the Word
was God; I, whom the prophets have taught that God is One. To save me
from further fears, give me, friend Fisherman, a fuller imparting of this
great mystery. Show that these assertions are consistent with the unity of
God; that there is no blasphemy in them, no explaining away, no denial of
eternity. He continues, He was in the beginning with God. This He was in
the beginning removes the limit of time; the word God shows that He is
more than a voice; that He is with God proves that He neither encroaches
nor is encroached upon, for His identity is not swallowed up in that of
Another, and He is clearly stated to be present with the One Unbegotten
God as God, His One and Only-begotten Son.

17. We are still waiting, Fisherman, for your full description of the Word.
He was in the beginning, it may be said, but perhaps He was not before the
beginning. To this also I will furnish a reply on my Fisherman's behalf.
The Word could not be other than He was; that was is unconditional and
unlimited. But what says the Fisherman for himself? All things were made
through Him. Thus, since nothing exists apart from Him through Whom
the universe came into being, He, the Author of all things, must have an

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immeasurable existence. For time is a cognizable and divisible measure of
extension, not in space, but in duration. All things are from Him, without
exception; time then itself is His creature.

18. But, my Fisherman, the objection will be raised that you are reckless
and extravagant in your language; that All things were made through Him
needs qualification. There is the Unbegotten, made of none; there is also
the Son, begotten of the Unborn Father. This All things is an unguarded
statement, admitting no exceptions. While we are silent, not daring to
answer or trying to think of some reply, do you break in with, And
without Him was nothing made. You have restored the Author of the
Godhead to His place, while proclaiming that He has a Companion. From
your saying that nothing was made without Him, I learn that He was not
alone. He through Whom the work was done is One; He without Whom it
was not done is Another: a distinction is drawn between Creator and
Companion.

19. Reverence for the One Unbegotten Creator distressed me, lest in your
sweeping assertion that all things were made by the Word you had
included Him. You have banished my fears by your Without Him was
nothing made. Yet this same Without Him was nothing made brings trouble
and distraction. There was, then, something made by that Other; not made,
it is true, without Him. If the Other did make anything, even though the
Word were present at the making, then it is untrue that through Him all
things were made. It is one thing to be the Creator's Companion, quite
another to be the Creator' s Self. I could find answers of my own to the
previous objections; in this case, Fisherman, I can only turn at once to
your words, All things were made through Him. And now I understand,
for the Apostle has enlightened me: — Things visible and things invisible,
whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers, all are through
Him and in Him..

20. Since, then, all things were made through Him, come to our help and
tell us what it was that was made not without Him. That which was made
in Him is life. That which was made in Him was certainly not made
without Him; for that which was made in Him was also made through
Him. All things were created in Him and through Him. They were created
in Him, for He was born as God the Creator. Again, nothing that was made

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in Him was made without Him, for the reason that God the Begotten was
life, and was born as Life, not made life after His birth; for there are not
two elements in Him, one inborn and one afterwards conferred. There is no
interval in His case between birth and maturity. None of the things that
were created in Him was made without Him, for He is the Life which made
their creation possible. Moreover God, the Son of God, became God by
virtue of His birth, not after He was born. Being born the Living from the
Living, the True from the True, the Perfect from the Perfect, He was born
in full possession of His powers. He needed not to learn in after time what
His birth was, but was conscious of His Godhead by the very fact that He
was born as God of God. I and the Father are One, are the words of the
Only-begotten Son of the Unbegotten. It is the voice of the One God
proclaiming Himself to be Father and Son; Father speaking in the Son and
Son in the Father. Hence also He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father
also; hence All that the Father hath, He hath given to the Son; hence As the
Father hath life in Himself so hath He given to the Son to have life in
Himself; hence No one knoweth the Father save the Son, nor the Son save
the Father; hence In Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.

21. This Life is the Light of men, the Light which lightens the darkness. To
comfort us for that powerlessness to describe His generation of which the
prophet speaks, the Fisherman adds, And the darkness comprehended
Him not. The language of unaided reason was baffled and silenced; the
Fisherman who lay on tile bosom of the Lord was taught to express the
mystery. His language is not the world's language, for He deals with things
that are not of the world. Let us know what it is, if there be any teaching
that you can extract from his words, more than their plain sense conveys;
if you can translate into other terms the truth we have elicited, publish
them abroad. If there be none — indeed, because there are none — let us
accept with reverence this teaching of the fisherman, and recognize in his
words the oracles of God. Let us cling in adoration to the true confession
of Father and Son, Unbegotten and Only-begotten ineffably, Whose
majesty defies all expression and all perception. Let us, like John, lie on
the bosom of the Lord Jesus, that we too may understand and proclaim the
mystery.

22. This faith, and every part of it, is impressed upon us by the evidence
of the Gospels, by the teaching of the Apostles, by the futility of the

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treacherous attacks which heretics make on every side. The foundation
stands firm and unshaken in face of winds and rains and torrents; storms
cannot overthrow it, nor dripping waters hollow it, nor floods sweep it
away. Its excellence is proved by the failure of countless assaults to impair
it. Certain remedies are so compounded as to be of value not merely
against some single disease but against all; they are of universal efficacy. So
it is with the Catholic faith. It is not a medicine for some special malady,
but for every ill; virulence cannot master, nor numbers defeat, nor
complexity baffle it. One and unchanging it faces and conquers all its foes.
Marvelous it is that one form of words should contain a remedy for every
disease, a statement of truth to confront every contrivance of falsehood.
Let heresy muster its forces and every sect come forth to battle. Let our
answer to their challenge be that there is One Unbegotten God the Father,
and One Only -begotten Son of God, perfect Offspring of perfect Parent;
that the Sun was begotten by no lessening of the Father or subtraction
from His Substance, but that He Who possesses all things begot an
all-possessing Son; a Son not emanating nor proceeding from the Father,
but compact of, and inherent in, the whole Divinity, of Him Who wherever
He is present is present eternally; One free from time, unlimited in
duration, since by Him all things were mode, and, indeed, He could not be
confined within a limit created by Himself. Such is the Catholic and
Apostolic Faith which the Gospel has taught us and we avow.

23. Let Sabellius, if he dare, confound Father and Son as two names with
one meaning, making of them not Unity but One Person. He shall have a
prompt answer from the Gospels, not once or twice, but often repeated,
This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased. He shall hear the
words, The Father is greater than I, and I go to the Father, and Father, I
thank Thee, and Glorify Me, Father, and Thou art the Son of the living
God. Let Hebion try to sap the faith, who allows the Son of God no life
before the Virgin's womb, and sees in Him the Word only after His life as
flesh had begun. We will bid him read again, Father, glorify Me with Thine
own Self with that glory which I had with Thee before the world was, and
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word
was God, and All things were made through Him, and He was in the world,
and the world was made through Him, and the world knew Him not. Let
the preachers whose apostleship is of the newest fashion — an

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apostleship of Antichrist — come forward and pour their mockery and
insult upon the Son of God. They must hear, I came out from the Father
and The Son in the Father's bosom, and I and the Father are One, and I in
the Father, and the Father in Me. And lastly, if they be wrath, as the Jews
were, that Christ should claim God for His own Father, making Himself
equal with God, they must take the answer which He gave the Jews,
Believe My works, that the Father is in Me and I in the Father. Thus our
one immovable foundation, our one blissful rock of faith, is the confession
from Peter's mouth, Thou art the Son of the living God. On it we can base
an answer to every objection with which perverted ingenuity or embittered
treachery may assail the truth.

24. In what remains we have the appointment of the Father's will. The
Virgin, the birth, the Body, then the Cross, the death, the visit to the lower
world; these things are our salvation. For the sake of mankind the Son of
God was born of tile Virgin and of the Holy Ghost. In this process He
ministered to Himself; by His own power — the power of God — which
overshadowed her He sowed the beginning of His Body, and entered on
the first stage of His life in the flesh. He did it that by His Incarnation He
might take to Himself from the Virgin the fleshly nature, and that through
this commingling there might come into being a hallowed Body of all
humanity; that so through that Body which He was pleased to assume all
mankind might be hid in Him, and He in return, through His unseen
existence, be reproduced in all. Thus the invisible Image of God scorned
not the shame which marks the beginnings of human life. He passed
through every stage; through conception, birth, wailing, cradle and each
successive humiliation.

25. What worthy return can we make for so great a condescension? The
One Only -begotten God, ineffably born of God, entered the Virgin's
womb and grew and took the frame of poor humanity. He Who upholds
the universe, within Whom and through Whom are all things, was brought
forth by common childbirth; He at Whose voice Archangels and Angels
tremble, and heaven and earth and all the elements of this world are melted,
was heard in childish wailing. The Invisible and Incomprehensible, Whom
sight and feeling and touch cannot gauge, was wrapped in a cradle. If any
man deem all this unworthy of God, the greater must he own his debt for
the benefit conferred the less such condescension befits the majesty of

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God. He by Whom man was made had nothing to gain by becoming Man;
it was our gain that God was incarnate and dwelt among us, making all
flesh His home by taking upon Him the flesh of One. We were raised
because He was lowered; shame to Him was glory to us. He, being God,
made flesh His residence, and we in return are lifted anew from the flesh to
God.

26. But lest perchance fastidious minds be exercised by cradle and wailing,
birth and conception, we must render to God the glory which each of these
contains, that we may approach His self-abasement with souls duly filled
with His claim to reign, and not forget His majesty in His condescension.
Let us note, therefore, who were attendant on His conception. All Angel
speaks to Zacharias; fertility is given to the barren; the priest comes forth
dumb from the place of incense; John bursts forth into speech while yet
confined within his mother's womb; an Angel blesses Mary and promises
that she, a virgin, shall be the mother of the Son of God. Conscious of her
virginity, she is distressed at this hard thing; the Angel explains to her the
mighty working of God, saying, The Holy Ghost shall come from above
into thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee. The
Holy Ghost, descending from above, hallowed the Virgin's womb, and
breathing therein (for The Spirit bloweth where it listeth), mingled Himself
with the fleshly nature of man, and annexed by force and might that foreign
domain. And, lest through weakness of the human structure failure should
ensue, the power of the Most High overshadowed the Virgin,
strengthening her feebleness in semblance of a cloud east round her, that
the shadow, which was the might of God, might fortify her bodily frame to
receive the procreative power of the Spirit. Such is the glory of the
conception.

27. And now let us consider the glory which accompanies the birth, the
wailing and the cradle. The Angel tells Joseph that the Virgin shall bear a
Son, and that Son shall be named Emmanuel, that is, God with us. The
Spirit foretells it through the prophet, the Angel bears witness; He that is
born is God with us. The light of a new star shines forth for the Magi; a
heavenly sign escorts the Lord of heaven. An Angel brings to the
shepherds the news that Christ the Lord is born, the Savior of the world.
A multitude of the heavenly host flock together to sing the praise of that
childbirth; the rejoicing of the Divine company proclaims the fulfillment of

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the mighty work. Then glory to God in heaven, and peace an earth to men
of good will is announced. And now the Magi come and worship Him
wrapped in swaddling clothes; after a life devoted to mystic rites of vain
philosophy they bow the knee before a Babe laid in His cradle. Thus the
Magi stoop to reverence the infirmities of Infancy; its cries are saluted by
the heavenly joy of angels; the Spirit Who inspired the prophet, the
heralding Angel, the light of the new star, all minister around Him. In such
wise was it that the Holy Ghost's descent and the overshadowing power
of the Most High brought Him to His birth. The inward reality is widely
different from the outward appearance; the eye sees one thing, the soul
another. A virgin bears; her child is of God. An Infant wails; angels are
heard in praise. There are coarse swaddling clothes; God is being
worshipped. The glory of His Majesty is not forfeited when He assumes
the lowliness of flesh.

28. So was it also during His further life on earth. The whole time which
He passed in human form was spent upon the works of God. I have no
space for details; it must suffice to say that in all the varied acts of power
and healing which He wrought, the fact is conspicuous that He was man
by virtue of the flesh He had taken, God by the evidence of the works He
did.

29. Concerning the Holy Spirit I ought not to be silent, and yet I have no
need to speak; still, for the sake of those who are in ignorance, I cannot
refrain. There is no need to speak, because we are bound to confess Him,
proceeding, as He does, from Father and Son. For my own part, I think it
wrong to discuss the question of His existence. He does exist, inasmuch as
He is given, received, retained; He is joined with Father and Son in our
confession of the faith, and cannot he excluded from a true confession of
Father and Son; take away a part, and the whole faith is marred. If any
man demand what meaning we attach to this conclusion, he, as well as we,
has read the words of the Apostle, Because ye are sons of God, God hath
sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father, and Grieve
not the Holy Spirit of God, in Whom ye have been sealed, and again, But
we have received not the spirit of this world, but the Spirit which is of
God, that we may know the things that are given unto us by God, and also
But ye are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God
is in you. But if any man hath not the Spirit of Christ, he is not His, and

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further, But if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead
dwelleth in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall quicken also
your mortal bodies for the sake of His Spirit which dwelleth in you.
Wherefore since He is, and is given, and is possessed, and is of God, let
His traducers take refuge in silence. When they ask, Through Whom is He?
To what end does He exist? Of what nature is He? We answer that He it is
through Whom all things exist, and from Whom are all things, and that He
is the Spirit of God, God's gift to the faithful. If our answer displease
them, their displeasure must also fall upon the Apostles and the Prophets,
who spoke of Him exactly as we have spoken. And furthermore, Father
and Son must incur the same displeasure.

30. The reason, I believe, why certain people continue in ignorance or
doubt is that they see this third Name, that of the Holy Spirit, often used
to signify the Father or the Son. No objection need be raised to this;
whether it be Father or Son, He is Spirit, and He is holy.

31. But the words of the Gospel, For God is Spirit, need careful
examination as to their sense and their purpose. For every saying has an
antecedent cause and an aim which must be ascertained by study of the
meaning. We must bear this in mind lest, on the strength of the words, God
is Spirit, we deny not only the Name, but also the work and the gift of the
Holy Ghost. The Lord was speaking with a woman of Samaria, for He had
come to be the Redeemer for all mankind, After He had discoursed at
length of the living water, and of her five husbands, and of him whom she
then had who was not her husband, the woman answered, Lord, I perceive
that Thou art a prophet. Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye
say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. The Lord
replied, Woman, believe Me, the hour cometh when neither in this
mountain, nor in Jerusalem, shall ye worship the Father. Ye worship that
which ye know not; we warship that which we know; far salvation is from
the Jews. But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers
shall worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth; for the Father seeketh
such to worship Him. For God is Spirit, and they that warship Him must
worship in the Spirit and in truth, for God is Spirit. We see that the
woman, her mind full of inherited tradition, thought that God must be
worshipped either on a mountain, as at Samaria, or in a temple, as at
Jerusalem; for Samaria in disobedience to the Law had chosen a site upon

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the mountain for worship, while the Jews regarded the temple founded by
Solomon as the home of their religion, and the prejudices of both confined
the all-embracing and illimitable God to the crest of a hill or the vault of a
building. God is invisible, incomprehensible, immeasurable; the Lord said
that the time had come when God should be worshipped neither on
mountain nor in temple. For Spirit cannot be cabined or confined; it is
omnipresent in space and time, and under all conditions present in its
fullness. Therefore, He said, they are the true worshippers who shall
worship in the Spirit and in truth. And these who are to worship God the
Spirit in the Spirit shall have the One for the means, the Other for the
object, of their reverence: for Each of the Two stands in a different relation
to the worshipper. The words, God is Spirit, do not alter the fact that the
Holy Spirit has a Name of His own, and that He is the Gift to us. The
woman who confined God to hill or temple was told that God contains all
things and is self-contained: that He, the Invisible and Incomprehensible
must be worshipper by invisible and incomprehensible means. The
imparted gift and the object of reverence were clearly shewn when Christ
taught that God, being Spirit, must be worshipped in the Spirit, and
revealed what freedom and knowledge, what boundless scope for
adoration, lay in this worship of God, the Spirit, in the Spirit.

32. The words of the Apostle are of like purport; For the Lord is Spirit,
and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. To make his meaning
clear he has distinguished between the Spirit, Who exists, and Him Whose
Spirit He is Proprietor and Property, He and Iris are different in sense.
Thus when he says, The Lord is Spirit he reveals the infinity of God;
when He adds, Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty, he indicates
Him Who belongs to God; for He is the Spirit of the Lord, and Where the
Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. The Apostle makes the statement not
from any necessity of his own argument, but in the interests of clearness.
For the Holy Ghost is everywhere One, enlightening all patriarchs and
prophets and the whole company of the Law, inspiring John even in his
mother's womb, given in due time to the Apostles and other believers, that
they might recognize the truth vouchsafed them.

33. Let us hear from our Lord's own words what is the work of the Holy
Ghost within us. He says, I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye
cannot bear them now. For it is expedient for you that I go: if I go I will

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send you the Advocate. And again, I will ask the Father and He shall send
you another Advocate, that He may be with you for ever, even the Spirit
of truth. He shall guide you into all truth, far He shall not speak from
Himself, but whatsoever things He shall hear lie shall speak, and He shall
declare unto you the things that are to come. He shall glorify Me, far He
shall take of Mine. These words were spoken to show how multitudes
should enter the kingdom of heaven; they contain an assurance of the
goodwill of the Giver, and of the mode and terms of the Gift. They tell
how, because our feeble minds cannot comprehend the Father or the Son,
our faith which finds God's incarnation hard of credence shall be illumined
by the gift of the Holy Ghost, the Bond of union and the Source of light.

34. The next step naturally is to listen to the Apostle's account of the
powers and functions of this Gift. He says, As many as are led by the
Spirit of God, these are the children of God. For ye received not the Spirit
of bondage again unto fear, but ye received the Spirit of adoption whereby
we cry, Abba, Father; and again, For no man by the Spirit of God saith
anathema to Jesus, and no man can say, Jesus is Lord, but in the Holy
Spirit; and he adds, Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit,
and diversities of ministrations, but the same Lord, and diversities of
workings, but the same God, Who worketh all things in all. But to each one
is given the enlightenment of the Spirit, to profit withal. Now to one is
given through the Spirit the word of wisdom, to another the word of
knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith in the same Spirit,
to another gifts of healings in the One Spirit, to another workings of
miracles, to another prophecy, to another discerning of spirits, to another
kinds of tongues, to another interpretation of tongues. But all these
worketh the One and same Spirit. Here we have a statement of the
purpose and results of the Gift; and I cannot conceive what doubt can
remain, after so clear a definition of His Origin, His action and His powers.

35. Let us therefore make use of this great benefit, and seek for personal
experience of this most needful Gift. For the Apostle says, in words I have
already cited, But we have not received the spirit of this world, but the
Spirit which is of God, that we may know tire the things that are given
unto us by God. We receive Him, then, that we may know. Faculties of
the human body, if denied their exercise, will lie dormant. The eye without
light, natural or artificial, cannot fulfill its office; the ear will be ignorant of

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its function unless some voice or sound be heard; the nostrils unconscious
of their purpose unless some scent be breathed. Not that the faculty will
be absent, because it is never called into use, but that there will be no
experience of its existence. So, too, the soul of man, unless through faith it
have appropriated the gift of the Spirit, will have the innate faculty Of
apprehending God, but be destitute of the light of knowledge, That Gift,
which is in Christ, is One, yet offered, and offered fully, to all; denied to
none, and given to each according to the measure of his willingness to
receive; its stores the richer, the more earnest the desire to earn them. This
gift is with us unto the end of the world, the solace of our waiting, the
assurance, by the favors which He bestows, of the hope that shall be ours,
the light of our minds, the sun of our souls. This Holy Spirit we must seek
and must earn, and then hold fast by faith and obedience to the commands
of God.

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BOOK III

1. The words of the Lord, I in the Father, and the Father in Me, confuse
many minds, and not unnaturally, for the powers of human reason cannot
provide them with any intelligible meaning. It seems impossible that one
object should be both within and without another, or that (since it is laid
down that the Beings of whom we are treating, though They do not dwell
apart, retain their separate existence and condition) these Beings can
reciprocally contain One Another, so that One should permanently
envelope, and also be permanently enveloped by, the Other, whom yet He
envelopes. This is a problem which the wit of man will never solve, nor
will human research ever find an analogy for this condition of Divine
existence. But what man cannot understand, God can be. I do not mean to
say that the fact that this is an assertion made by God renders it at once
intelligible to us. We must think for ourselves, and come to know the
meaning of the words, I in the Father, and the Father in Me: but this will
depend upon our success in gasping the truth that reasoning based upon
Divine verities can establish its conclusions, even though they seem to
contradict the laws of the universe.

2. In order to solve as easily as possible this most difficult problem, we
must first master the knowledge which the Divine Scriptures give of Father
and of Son, that so we may speak with more precision, as dealing with
familiar and accustomed matters. The eternity of the Father, as we
concluded after full discussion in the last Book, transcends space, and
time, and appearance, and all the forms of human thought. He is without
and within all things, He contains all and can be contained by none, is
incapable of change by increase or diminution, invisible, incomprehensible,
full, perfect, eternal, not deriving anything that He has from another, but, if
ought be derived from Him, still complete and self-sufficing.

3. He therefore, the Unbegotten, before time was begot a Son from
Himself; not from any pre-existent matter, for all things are through the
Son; not from nothing, for the Son is from the Father's self; not by way of
childbirth, for in God there is neither change nor void; not as a piece of

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Himself cut or torn off or stretched out, for God is passionless and
bodiless, and only a possible and embodied being could so be treated, and,
as the [Apostle says, in Christ dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead
bodily. Incomprehensibly, ineffably, before time or worlds, He begat the
Only-begotten from His own unbegotten substance, bestowing through
love and power His whole Divinity upon that Birth. Thus He is the
Only -begotten, perfect, eternal Son of the unbegotten, perfect, eternal
Father. But those properties which He has in consequence of the Body
which He took, are the fruit of His goodwill toward our salvation. For He,
being invisible and bodiless and incomprehensible, as the Son of God, took
upon Him such a measure of matter and of lowliness as was needed to
bring Him within the range of our understanding, and perception, and
contemplation. It was a condescension to our feebleness rather than a
surrender of His own proper attributes.

4. He, therefore, being the perfect Father's perfect Son. the Only-begotten
Offspring of the unbegotten God, who has received all from Him Who
possesses all, being God from God, Spirit from Spirit, Light from Light,
says boldly, The Father in Me, and I in the Father. For as the Father is
Spirit, so is the Son Spirit; as the Father is God, so is the Son God; as the
Father is Light, so is the Son Light. Thus those properties which are in the
Father are the source of those wherewith the Son is endowed; that is, He is
wholly Son of Him Who is wholly Father; not imported from without, for
before the Son nothing was; not made from nothing, for the Son is from
God; not a son partially, for the fullness of the Godhead is in the Son; not
a Son in some respects, but in all; a Son according to the will of Him who
had the power, after a manner which He only knows. What is in the Father
is in the Son also; what is in the Unbegotten is in the Only-begotten also.
The One is from the Other, and they Two are a Unity; not Two made
One, yet One in the Other, for that which is in Both is the same. The
Father is in the Son, for the Son is from Him; the Son is in the Father,
because the Father is His sole Origin; the Only-begotten is in the
Unbegotten, because He is the Only-begotten from the Unbegotten. Thus
mutually Each is in the Other, for as all is perfect in the Unbegotten
Father, so all is perfect in the Only-begotten Son. This is the Unity which
is in Son and Father, this the power, this the love; our hope, and faith, and
truth, and way, and life is not to dispute the Father's powers or to

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depreciate the Son, but to reverence the mystery and majesty of His birth;
to set the unbegotten Father above all rivalry, and count the Only-begotten
Son as His equal in eternity and might, confessing concerning God the Son
that He is from God.

5. Such powers are there in God; powers which the methods of our reason
cannot comprehend, but of which our faith, on the sure evidence of His
action, is convinced. We shall find instances of this action in the bodily
sphere as well as in the spiritual, its manifestation taking, not the form of
an analogy which might illustrate the Birth, but of a deed marvelous yet
comprehensible. On the wedding day in Galilee water was made wine.
Have we words to tell or senses to ascertain what methods produced the
change by which the tastelessness of water disappeared, and was replaced
by the full flavor of wine? It was not a mixing; it was a creation, and a
creation which was not a beginning, but a transformation. A weaker liquid
was not obtained by admixture of a stronger element; an existing thing
perished and a new thing came into being. The bridegroom was anxious, the
household in confusion, the harmony of the marriage feast imperiled. Jesus
is asked for help. He does not rise or busy Himself; He does the work
without an effort. Water is poured into the vessels, wine drawn out in the
cups. The evidence of the senses of the pourer contradicts that of the
drawer. They who poured expect water to be drawn; they who draw think
that wine must have been poured in. The intervening time cannot account
for any gain or loss of character in the liquid. The mode of action baffles
sight and sense, but the power of God is manifest in the result achieved.

6. In the case of the five loaves a miracle of the same type excites our
wonder. By their increase five thousand men and countless women and
children are saved from hunger; the method eludes our powers of
observation. Five loaves are offered and broken; while the Apostles are
dividing them a succession of new-created portions passes, they cannot
tell how, through their hands. The loaf which they are dividing grows no
smaller, yet their hands are continually full of the pieces. The swiftness of
the process baffles sight; you follow with the eye a hand full of portions,
and meantime you see that the contents of the other hand are not
diminished, and all the while the heap of pieces grows. The carvers are
busy at their task, the eaters are hard at work; the hungry are satisfied, and
the fragments fill twelve baskets. Sight or sense cannot discover the mode

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of so noteworthy a miracle. What was not existent is created; what we see
passes our understanding. Our only resource is faith in God's
omnipotence.

7. There is no deception in these miracles of God, no subtle pretense to
please or to deceive. These works of the Son of God were done from no
desire for self-display; He Whom countless myriads of angels serve never
deluded man. What was there of ours that He could need, through Whom
all that we have was created? Did He demand praise from us who now are
heavy with sleep, now sated with lust, now laden with the guilt of riot and
bloodshed, now drunken from reveling; — He Whom Archangels, and
Dominions, and Principalities, and Powers, without sleep or cessation or
sin, praise in heaven with everlasting and unwearied voice? They praise
Him because He, the Image of the Invisible God, created all their host in
Himself, made the worlds, established the heavens, appointed the stars,
fixed the earth, laid the foundations of the deep; because in after time He
was born, He conquered death, broke the gates of hell, won for Himself a
people to be His fellow-heirs, lifted flesh from corruption up to the glory
of eternity. There was nothing, then, that He might gain from us, that
could induce Him to assume the splendor of these mysterious and
inexplicable works, as though He needed our praise. But God foresaw how
human sin and folly would be misled, and knew that disbelief would dare
to pass its judgment even on the things of God, and therefore He
vanquished presumption by tokens of His power which must give pause
to our boldest.

8. For there are many of those wise men of the world whose wisdom is
folly with God, who contradict our proclamation of God from God, True
from True, Perfect from Perfect, One from One, as though we taught
things impossible They pin their faith to certain conclusions which they
have reached by process of logic: — Nothing can be born of one, far every
birth requires two parents, and If this Son be born of One He has received
a part of His Begetter: if He be a part, then Neither of the Two is perfect,
for something is missing from Him from Whom the Son issued, and there
cannot be fullness in One Who consists of a portion of Another. Thus
Neither is perfect, for the Begetter has lost His fullness, and the Begotten
has not acquired it. This is that wisdom of the world which was foreseen
by God even in the prophet' s days, and condemned through him in the

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words, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and reject the understanding
of the prudent. And the apostle says: Where is the wise? Where is the
scribe? Where is the inquirer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the
wisdom of this world? For because in the wisdom of God he world
through wisdom knew not God, it pleased God through the foolishness of
preaching to save them that believe. For the Jews seek signs, and the
Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews indeed a
stumbling-block and to the Gentiles foolishness, but unto them that are
called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of
God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness
of God is stronger than men.

9. The Son of God, therefore, having the charge of mankind, was first made
man, that men might believe on Him; that He might be to us a witness,
sprung from ourselves, of things Divine, and preach to us, weak and carnal
as we are, through the weakness of the flesh concerning God the Father, so
fulfilling the Father's will, even as He says, I came not to do Mine own
will, but the will of Him that sent Me. It was not that He Himself was
unwilling, but that He might manifest His obedience as the result of His
Father's will, for His own will is to do His Father's. This is that will to
carry out the Father's will of which He testifies in the words: Father, the
hour is come;,glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son may glorify Thee; even as
Thou hast given Him power over all flesh, that whatsoever Thou hast
given Him, He should give it eternal life. And this is life eternal, that they
should know Thee the only true God, and Him Whom Thou didst send,
Jesus Christ. I have glorified Thee upon earth, having accomplished the
work which Thou gavest Me to do. And now, O Father, glorify Me with
Thine own Self with the glory which I had with Thee before the world
was. I have manifested Thy Name unto the men whom Thou hast given
Me. In words short and few He has revealed the whole task to which He
was appointed and assigned. Yet those words, short and few as they are,
are the true faith's safeguard against every suggestion of the devil's
cunning. Let us briefly consider the force of each separate phrase.

10. He says, Father the hour is come; glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son may
glorify Thee. He says that the hour, not the day nor the time, is come. An
hour is a fraction of a day. What hour must this be? The hour, of course, of
which lie speaks, to strengthen His disciples, at the time of His passion:

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— Lo, the hour is come that the Son of Man should be glorified. This then
is the hour in which He prays to be glorified by the Father, that He
Himself may glorify the Father. But what does He mean? Does One who
is about to give glory look to receive it? Does One who is about to confer
honor make request for Himself? Is He in want of the very thing which He
is about to repay? Here let the world's philosophers, the wise men of
Greece, beset our path, and spread their syllogistic nets to entangle the
truth. Let them ask How? and Whence? and Why? When they can find no
answer, let us tell them that it is because God has chosen the foolish things
of the world to confound the wise. That is the reason why we in our
foolishness understand things incomprehensible to the world's
philosophers. The Lord had said, Father, the hour is come; He had revealed
the hour of His passion, for these words were spoken at the very moment;
and then He added, Glorify Thy Son. But how was the Son to be glorified?
He had been born of a virgin, from cradle and childhood He had grown to
man's estate, through sleep and hunger and thirst anti weariness and tears
He had lived man's life: even now He was to be spitted on, scourged,
crucified And why? These things were ordained for our assurance that in
Christ is pure man. But the shame of the cross is not ours; we are not
sentenced to the scourge, nor defiled by spitting. The Father glorifies the
Son; how? He is next nailed to the cross. Then what followed? The sun,
instead of setting, fled. How so? It did not retire behind a cloud, but
abandoned its appointed orbit, and all the elements of the world felt that
same shock of the death of Christ. The stars in their courses, to avoid
complicity in the crime, escaped by self-extinction from beholding the
scene. What did the earth? It quivered beneath the burden of the Lord
hanging on the tree, protesting that it was powerless to confine Him who
was dying. Yet surely rock and stone will not refuse Him a resting-place.
Yes, they are rent and cloven, and their strength fails. They must confess
that the rock-hewn sepulcher cannot imprison the Body which awaits its
burial.

11. And next? The centurion of the cohort, the guardian of the cross, cries
out, Truly this was the Son of God. Creation is set free by the mediation
of this Sin-offering; the very rocks lose their solidity and strength. They
who had nailed Him to the cross confess that truly this is the Son of God.
The outcome justifies the assertion. The Lord had said, Glorify Thy Son.

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He had asserted, by that word Thy, that He was God's Son not in name
only, but in nature. Multitudes of us are sons of God; He is Son in another
sense. For He is God's true and own Son, by origin and not by adoption,
not by name only but in truth, born and not created. So, after He was
glorified, that confession touched the truth; the centurion confessed Him
the true Son of God, that no believer might doubt a fact which even the
servant of His persecutors could not deny.

12. But perhaps some may suppose that He was destitute of that glory for
which He prayed, and that His looking to be glorified by a Greater is
evidence of want of power. Who, indeed, would deny that the Father is the
greater; the Unbegotten greater than the Begotten, the Father than the Son,
the Sender than the Sent, He that wills than He that obeys? He Himself
shall be His own witness: — The Father is greater than I. It is a fact which
we must recognize, but we must take heed lest with unskilled thinkers the
majesty of the Father should obscure the glory of the Son. Such
obscuration is forbidden by this same glory for which the Son prays; for
the prayer, Father glorify Thy Son, is completed by, That the San may
glorify Thee. Thus there is no lack of power in the Son, Who, when He has
received this glory, will make His return for it in glory. But why, if He
were not in want, did He make the prayer? No one makes request except
for something which he needs. Or can it be that the Father too is in want?
Or has He given His glory away so recklessly that He needs to have it
returned Him by the Son? No; the One has never been in want, nor the
Other needed to ask, and yet Each shall give to the Other. Thus the prayer
for glory to be given and to be paid back is neither a robbery of the Father
nor a depreciation of the Son, but a demonstration of the power of one
Godhead resident in Both. The Son prays that He may be glorified by the
Father; the Father deems it no humiliation to be glorified by the Son, The
exchange of glory given and received proclaims the unity of power in
Father and in Son.

13. We must next ascertain what and whence this glorifying is. God, I am
sure, is subject to no change; His eternity admits not of defect or
amendment, of gain or of loss. It is the character of Him alone, that what
He is, He is from everlasting. What He from everlasting is, it is by His
nature impossible that He should ever cease to be. How then can He
receive glory, a thing which He fully possesses, and of which His store

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does not diminish; there being no fresh glory which He can obtain, and
none that He has lost and can recover? We are brought to a standstill. But
the Evangelist does not fail us, though our reason has displayed its
helplessness. To tell us what return of glory it was that the Son should
make to the Father, he gives the words: Even as Thou hast given Him
power over all flesh, that whatsoever Thou hast given Him He may give it
eternal life. And this is life eternal that they should know Thee, the only
true God, and Jesus Christ Whom Thou hast sent. The Father, then, is
glorified through the Son, by His being made known to us. And the glory
was this, that the Son, being made flesh, received from Him power over all
flesh, and the charge of restoring eternal life to us, ephemeral beings
burdened with the body. Eternal life for us was the result not of work
done, but of innate power; not by a new creation, but simply by
knowledge of God, was the glory of that eternity to be acquired. Nothing
was added to God's glory; it had not decreased, and so could not be
replenished. But He is glorified through the Son in the sight of us, ignorant,
exiled, defiled, dwelling in hopeless death and lawless darkness; glorified
inasmuch as the Son, by virtue of that power over all flesh which the
Father gave Him, was to bestow on us eternal life. It is through this work
of the Son that the Father is glorified. So when the Son received all things
from the Father, the Father glorified Him; and conversely, when all things
were made through the Son, He glorified the Father. The return of glory
given lies herein, that all the glory which the Son has is the glory of the
Father, since everything He has is the Father' s gift. For the glory of Him
who executes a charge redounds to the glory of Him Who gave it, the glory
of the Begotten to the glory of the Begetter.

14. But in what does eternity of life consist? His own words tell us: —
That they way know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ Whom
Thou hast sent. Is there any doubt or difficulty here, or any
inconsistency? It is life to know the true God; but the bare knowledge of
Him does not give it. What, then, does He add? And Jesus Christ Whom
Thou hast sent. In Thee, the only true God, the Son pays the honor due to
His Father; by the addition, And Jesus Christ Whom Thou hast sent, He
associates Himself with the true Godhead. The believer in his confession
draws no line between the Two, for his hope of life rests in Both, and
indeed, the true God is inseparable from Him Whose Name follows in the

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creed. Therefore when we read, That they may know Thee, the only true
God, and Jesus Christ Whom Thou hast sent, these terms of Sender and of
Sent are not intended, under any semblance of distinction or
discrimination, to convey a difference between the true Godhead of Father
and of Son, but to be a guide to the devout confession of Them as Begetter
and Begotten.

15. And so the Son glorifies the Father fully and finally in the words which
follow, I have glorified Thee on the earth, having accomplished the work
which Thou hast given Me to do. All the Father's praise is from the Son,
for every praise bestowed upon the Son is praise of the Father, since all
that He accomplished is what the Father had willed The Son of God is
born as man; but the power of God is in the virgin-birth. The Son of God
is seen as man; but God is president in His human actions. The Son of God
is nailed to the cross; but on the cross God conquers human death. Christ,
the Son of God, dies; but all flesh is made alive in Christ. The Son of God
is in hell; but man is carried back to heaven. In proportion to our praise of
Christ for these His works, will be the praise we bring to Him from Whom
Christ's Godhead is. These are the ways in which the Father glorifies the
Son on earth; and in return the Son reveals by works of power to the
ignorance of the heathen and to the foolishness of the world, Him from
Whom He is. This exchange of glory, given anti received, implies no
augmentation of the Godhead, but means the praises rendered for the
knowledge granted to those who had lived in ignorance of God. What,
indeed, could there be which the Father, from Whom are all things, did not
richly possess? In what was the Son lacking, in Whom all the fullness of
the Godhead had been pleased to dwell? The Father is glorified on earth
because the work which He had commanded is finished.

16. Next let us see what this glory is which the Son expects to receive from
the Father; and then our exposition will be complete. The sequel is, I have
glorified Thee on the earth, having accomplished the work which Thou
hast given Me to do. And now, O Father, glorify Thou Me with Thine
own Self with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was. I
have manifested Thy name unto men. It is, then, by the Son's works that
the Father is glorified, in that He is recognized as God, as Father of God
time Only-begotten, Who for our salvation willed that His Son should be
born as man, even of a virgin; that Son Whose whole life, consummated in

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the Passion, was consistent with the humiliation of the virgin birth. Thus,
because the Son of God, all-perfect and horn from everlasting in the
fullness of the Godhead, had now by incarnation become Man and was
ready for His death, He prays that He may be glorified with God, even as
He was glorifying His Father on the earth; for at that moment the powers
of God were being glorified in the flesh before the eyes of a world that
knew Him not. But what is this glory with the Father, for which He looks?
It is that, of course, which He had with Him before the world was. He had
the fullness of the Godhead; He has it still, for He is God's Son. But He
Who was the Son of God had become the Son of man also, for The Word
was made flesh. He had not lost His former being, but He had become
what He was not before; He had not abdicated His own position, yet He
had taken ours; He prays that the nature which He had assumed may be
promoted to the glory which He had never renounced. Therefore, since the
Son is the Word, and the Word was made flesh, and the Word was God,
and was in the beginning with God, and the Word was Son before the
foundation of the world; this Son, now incarnate, prayed that flesh might
be to the Father what the Son had been. He prayed that flesh, born in time,
might receive the splendor of the everlasting glory, that the corruption of
the flesh might be swallowed up, transformed into the power of God and
the purity of the Spirit. It is His prayer to God, the Son's confession of
the Father, the entreaty of that flesh wherein all shall see Him on the
Judgment-day, pierced and bearing the marks of the cross; of that flesh
wherein His glory was foreshown upon the Mount, wherein He ascended
to heaven and is set down at the right hand of God, wherein Paul saw Him,
anti Stephen paid Him worship.

17. The name Father has thus been revealed to men; the question arises,
What is this Father' s own name? Yet surely the name of God has never
been unknown. Moses heard it from the bush, Genesis announces it at the
beginning of the history of creation, the Law has proclaimed and the
prophets extolled it, the history of the world has made mankind familiar
with it; the very heathen have worshipped it under a veil of falsehood.
Men have never been left in ignorance of the name of God. And yet they
were, in very truth, in ignorance. For no man knows God unless He
confess Him as Father, Father of the Only-begotten Son, and confess also
the Son a Son by no partition or extension or procession, but born of Him,

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as Son of Father, ineffably and incomprehensibly, and retaining the
fullness of that Godhead from which and in which He was born as true and
infinite and perfect God. This is what the fullness of the Godhead means.
If any of these things be lacking, there will not be that fullness which was
pleased to dwell in Him. This is the message of the Son, His revelation to
men in their ignorance. The Father is glorified through the Son when men
recognize that, He is Father of a Son so Divine.

18. The Son, wishing to assure us of the truth of this, His Divine birth, has
appointed His works to serve as an illustration, that from the ineffable
power displayed in ineffable deeds we may learn the lesson of the ineffable
birth. For instance, When water was made wine, and five loaves satisfied
five thousand men, beside women and children, and twelve baskets were
filled with the fragments, we see a fact though we cannot understand it; a
deed is done though it bares our reason; the process cannot be followed,
though the result is obvious. It is folly to intrude in the spirit of carping,
when the matter into which we enquire is such that we cannot probe it to
the bottom. For even as the Father is ineffable because He is Unbegotten,
so is the Son ineffable because He is the Only-begotten, since the Begotten
is the Image of the Unbegotten. Now it is by the use of our senses and of
language that we have to form our conception of an image; and it must be
by the same means that we form our idea of that which the image
represents. But in this case we, whose faculties can deal only with visible
and tangible things, are straining after the invisible, and striving to grasp
the impalpable. Yet we take no shame to ourselves, we reproach ourselves
with no irreverence, when we doubt and criticize the mysteries and powers
of God. How is He the Son? Whence is He? What did the Father lose by
His birth? Of what portion of the Father was He born? So we ask; yet all
the while there has been confronting us the evidence of works done to
assure us that God's action is not limited by our power of comprehending
His methods.

19. You ask what was the manner in which, as the Spirit teaches, the Son
was born? I will put a question to you as to things corporal. I ask not in
what manner He was born of a virgin; I ask only whether her flesh, in the
course of bringing His flesh to readiness for birth, suffered any loss.
Assuredly she did not conceive Him in the common way, or suffer the
shame of human intercourse, in order to bear Him: yet she bore Him,

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complete in His human Body, without loss of her own completeness.
Surely piety requires that we should regard as possible with God a thing
which we see became possible through his power in the case of a human
being.

20. But you, whoever you are that would seek into the unsearchable, and
in all seriousness form an opinion upon the mysteries and powers of God;
— I turn to you for counsel, and beg you to enlighten me, an unskilled and
simple believer of all that God says, as to a circumstance which I am about
to mention. I listen to the Lord's words and, since I believe what is
recorded, I am sure that after His Resurrection He offered Himself
repeatedly in the Body to the sight of multitudes of unbelievers. At any
rate, He did so to Thomas who had protested that he would not believe
unless he handled His wounds. His words are, Unless I shall see in His
hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails,
and thrust my hand into His side, I will not believe. The Lord stoops to
the level even of our feeble understanding; to satisfy the doubts of
unbelieving minds He works a miracle of His invisible power. Do you, my
critic of the ways of heaven, explain His action if you can. The disciples
were in a closed room; they had met and held their assembly in secret since
the Passion of the Lord. The Lord presents Himself to strengthen the faith
of Thomas by meeting his challenge; He gives him His Body to feel, His
wounds to handle. He, indeed, who would be recognized as having suffered
wounds must needs produce the body in which those wounds were
received. I ask at what point in the walls of that closed house the Lord
bodily entered. The Apostle has recorded the circumstances with careful
precision; Jesus came when the doors were shut, and stood in the midst.
Did He penetrate through bricks and mortar, or through stout woodwork,
substances whose very nature it is to bar progress? For there He stood in
bodily presence; there was no suspicion of deceit Let the eye of your mind
follow His path as He enters; let your intellectual vision accompany Him
as He passes into that closed dwelling. There is no breach in the walls, no
door has been unbarred; yet lo, He stands in the midst Whose might no
barrier can resist. You are a critic of things invisible; I ask you to explain a
visible event. Everything remains firm as it was; no body is capable of
insinuating itself through the interstices of wood and stone. The Body of
the Lord does not disperse itself, to come together again after a

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disappearance; yet whence comes He Who is standing in the midst? Your
senses and your words are powerless to account for it; the fact is certain,
but it lies beyond the region of human explanation. If, as you say, our
account of the Divine birth is a lie, then prove that this account of tile
Lord's entrance is a fiction. If we assume that an event did not happen,
because we cannot discover how it was done, we make the limits of our
understanding into the limits of reality. But the certainty of the evidence
proves the falsehood of our contradiction. The Lord did stand in a closed
house in the midst of the disciples; the Son was born of the Father. Deny
not that He stood, because your puny wits cannot ascertain how He came
there; renounce a disbelief in God the Only-begotten and perfect Son of
God the Unbegotten and perfect Father, which is based only on the
incapacity of sense and speech to comprehend the transcendent miracle of
that birth.

21. Nay more, the whole constitution of nature would bear us out against
the impiety of doubting the works and powers of God. And yet our
disbelief tilts even against obvious truth; we strive in our fury to pluck
even God from His throne. If we could, we would climb by bodily strength
to heaven, would fling into confusion the ordered courses of sun and stars,
would disarrange the ebb and flow of tides, check rivers at their source or
make their waters flow backward, would shake the foundations of the
world, in the utter irreverence of our rage against the paternal work of God.
It is well that our bodily limitations confine us within more modest
bounds. Assuredly, there is no concealment of the mischief we would do if
we could. In one respect we are free; and so with blasphemous insolence
we distort the truth and turn our weapons against the words of God.

22. The Son has said, Father, I have manifested Thy Name unto men.
What reason is there for denunciation or fury here? Do you deny the
Father? Why, it was the primary purpose of the Son to enable us to know
the Father. But in fact you do deny Him when, according to you, the Son
was not born of Him. Yet why should He have the name of Son if He be,
as others are, an arbitrary creation of God? I could feel awe of God as
Creator of Christ as well as Founder of the universe; it were an exercise of
power worthy of Him to be the Maker of Him Who made Archangels and
Angels, things visible and things invisible, heaven and earth and the whole
creation around us. But the work which the Lord came to do was not to

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enable you to recognize the omnipotence of God as Creator of all things,
but to enable you to know Him as the Father of that Son Who addresses
you. In heaven there are Powers beside Himself, Powers mighty and
eternal; there is but one Only-begotten Son, and the difference between
Him and them is not one of mere degree of might, but that they all were
made through Him. Since He is the true and only Son, let us not make Him
a bastard by asserting that He was made out of nothing. You hear the name
Son; believe that He is the Son. You hear the name Father; fix it in your
mind that He is the Father. Why surround these names with doubt and
illwill and hostility? The things of God are provided with names which
give a true indication of the realities; why force an arbitrary meaning upon
their obvious sense Father and Son are spoken of; doubt not that the
words mean what they say. The end and aim of the revelation of the Son is
that you should know the Father. Why frustrate the labors of the
Prophets, the Incarnation of the Word, the Virgin's travail, the effect of
miracles, the cross of Christ? It was all spent upon you, it is all offered to
you, that through it all Father and Son may be manifest to you. And you
replace the truth by a theory of arbitrary action, of creation or adoption.
Turn your thoughts to the warfare, the conflict waged by Christ. He
describes it thus: — Father, I have manifested Thy Name unto men. He
does not say, Thou hast created the Creator of all the heavens, or Thou
hast made the Maker of the whole earth. He says, Father, I have
manifested Thy Name unto men. Accept your Savior's gift of knowledge.
Be assured that there is a Father Who begot, a Son Who was born; born in
the truth of His Nature of the Father, Who is. Remember that the
revelation is not of the Father manifested as God, but of God manifested
as the Father.

23. You hear the words, I and the Father are one. Why do you rend and
tear the Son away from the Father? They are a unity: an absolute Existence
having all things in perfect communion with that absolute Existence, from
Whom He is. When you hear the Son saying, I and the Father are one,
adjust your view of facts to the Persons; accept the statement which
Begetter and Begotten make concerning Themselves. Believe that They are
One, even as They are also Begetter and Begotten. Why deny the common
nature? Why impugn the true Divinity? You hear again, The Father in Me,
and I in the Father. That this is true of Father and of Son is demonstrated

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by the Son's works. Our science cannot envelope body in body, or pour
one into another, as water into wine; but we confess that in Both is
equivalence of power and fullness of the Godhead. For the Son has
received all things from the Father; He is the Likeness of God, the Image of
His substance. The words, Image of His substance, discriminate between
Christ and Him from Whom He is but only to establish Their distinct
existence not to teach a difference of nature; and the meaning of Father in
Son and Son in Father is that there is the perfect fullness of the Godhead in
Both. The Father is not impaired by the Son's existence, nor is the Son a
mutilated fragment of the Father. An image implies its original; likeness is a
relative term. Now nothing can be like God unless it have its source in
Him; a perfect likeness can be reflected only from that which it represents;
an accurate resemblance forbids the assumption of any element of
difference. Disturb not this likeness; make no separation where truth
shews no variance, for He Who said, Let us make man after our image and
likeness, by those words Our likeness revealed the existence of Beings,
Each like the Other. Touch not handle not, pervert not. Hold fast the
Names which teach the truth, hold fast the Son's declaration of Himself. I
would not have you flatter the Son with praises of your own invention; it
is well with you if you be satisfied with the written word.

24. Again, we must not repose so blind a confidence in human intellect as
to imagine that we have complete knowledge of the objects of our thought,
or that the ultimate problem is solved as soon as we have formed a
symmetrical and consistent theory. Finite minds cannot conceive the
Infinite; a being dependent for its existence upon another cannot attain to
perfect knowledge either of its Creator or of itself, for its consciousness of
self is colored by its circumstances, and bounds are set which its
perception cannot pass. Its activity is not self-caused, but due to the
Creator, and a being dependent on a Creator has perfect possession of
none of its faculties, since its origin lies outside itself. Hence by an
inexorable law it is folly for that being to say that it has perfect knowledge
of any matter; its powers have limits which it cannot modify, and only
while it is under the delusion that its petty bounds are coterminous with
infinity can it make the empty boast of possessing wisdom. For of
wisdom it is incapable, its knowledge being limited to the range of its
perception, and sharing the impotence of its dependent existence. And

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therefore this masquerade of a finite nature boasting that it possesses the
wisdom Which springs only from infinite knowledge earns the scorn and
ridicule of the Apostle, who calls its wisdom folly. He says, For Christ
sent me not to baptize, but to preach the Gospel, not in the language of
wisdom, lest the cross of Christ should be made void. Far the word of the
cross is foolishness to then that are perishing, but unto them that are being
saved it is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom
of the wise and the understanding of the prudent I will reject. Where is the
wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the enquirer of this world? Hath not
God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For seeing that in the wisdom
of God the world through its wisdom knew not God, God decreed through
the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. For the Jews ask for
signs and the Greeks seek after wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified,
unto Jews indeed a stumbling-block and to Gentiles foolishness, but unto
them that are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and
the wisdom of God. Because the weakness of God is stranger than men,
and the foolishness of God is wiser than men. Thus all unbelief is
foolishness, for it takes such wisdom as its own finite perception can
attain, and, measuring infinity by that petty scale, concludes that what it
cannot understand must be impossible. Unbelief is the result of incapacity
engaged in argument. Men are sure that an event never happened, because
they have made up their minds that it could not happen.

25. Hence the Apostle, familiar with the narrow assumption of human
thought that what it does not know is not truth, says that he does not
speak in the language of knowledge, lest his preaching should be in vain.
To save himself from being regarded as a preacher of foolishness he adds
that the word of the cross is foolishness to them that perish, He knew that
the unbelievers held that the only true knowledge was that which formed
their own wisdom, and that, since their wisdom was cognizant only of
matters which lay within their narrow horizon, the other wisdom, which
alone is Divine and perfect, seemed foolishness to them. Thus their
foolishness actually consisted, in that feeble imagination which they
mistook for wisdom. Hence it is that the very things which to them that
perish are foolishness are the power of God to them that are saved; for
these last never use their own inadequate faculties as a measure, but
attribute to the Divine activities the omnipotence of heaven. God rejects

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the wisdom of the wise and the understanding of the prudent in this sense,
that just because they recognize their own foolishness, salvation is granted
to them that believe. Unbelievers pronounce the verdict of foolishness on
everything that lies beyond their ken, while believers leave to the power
and majesty of God the choice of the mysteries wherein salvation is
bestowed. There is no foolishness in the things of God; the foolishness lies
in that human wisdom which demands of God, as the condition of belief,
signs and wisdom. It is the foolishness of the Jews to demand signs; they
have a certain knowledge of the Name of God through long acquaintance
with the Law, but the offense of the cross repels them. The foolishness of
the Greeks is to demand wisdom; with Gentile folly and the philosophy of
men they seek the reason why God was lifted up on the cross. And
because, in consideration for the weakness of our mental powers, these
things have been hidden in a mystery, this foolishness, of Jews and Greeks
turns to unbelief; for they denounce, as unworthy of reasonable credence,
truths which their mind is inherently incapable of comprehending. But,
because the world's wisdom was so foolish, — for previously through
God's wisdom it knew not God, that is, the splendor of the universe, and
the wonderful order which He planned for His handiwork, taught it no
reverence for its Creator — God was pleased through the preaching of
foolishness to save them that believe, that is, through the faith of the cross
to make everlasting life the lot of mortals; that so the self-confidence of
human wisdom might be put to shame, and salvation found where men had
thought that foolishness dwelt. For Christ, Who is foolishness to Gentiles,
and offense to Jews, is the Power of God and the Wisdom of God; because
what seems weak and foolish to human apprehension in the things of God
transcends in true wisdom and might the thoughts and the powers of earth.

26. And therefore the action of God must not be canvassed by human
faculties; the Creator must not be judged by those who are the work of His
hands. We must clothe ourselves in foolishness that we may gain wisdom;
not in the foolishness of hazardous conclusions, but in the foolishness of a
modest sense of our own infirmity, that so the evidence of God's power
may teach us truths to which the arguments of earthly philosophy cannot
attain. For when we are fully conscious of our own foolishness, and have
felt the helplessness and destitution of our reason, then through the
counsels of Divine Wisdom we shall be initiated into the wisdom of God;

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setting no bounds to boundless majesty and power, nor tying the Lord of
nature down to nature's laws; sure that for us the one true faith concerning
God is that of which He is at once the Author and the Witness.

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BOOK IV

1. The earlier books of this treatise, written some time ago, contain, I
think, an invincible proof that we hold and profess the faith in Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit, which is taught by the Evangelists and Apostles, and that
no commerce is possible between us and the heretics, inasmuch as they
deny unconditionally, irrationally, and recklessly, the Divinity of our Lord
Jesus Christ. Yet certain points remained which I have felt myself bound
to include in this and the following books, in order to make our assurance
of the faith even more certain by exposure of every one of their falsehoods
and blasphemies. Accordingly, we will enquire first What are the dangers
of their teaching, the risks involved by such irreverence; next, what
principles they hold, and what arguments they advance against the
apostolic faith to which we adhere, and by what sleight of language they
impose upon the can dour of their hearers; and lastly, by what method of
comment they disarm the words of Scripture of their force and meaning.

2. We are well aware that neither the speech of men nor the analogy of
human nature can give us a full insight into the things of God. The ineffable
cannot submit to the bounds and limits of definition; that which is spiritual
is distinct from every class or instance of bodily things. Yet, since our
subject is that of heavenly natures, we must employ ordinary natures and
ordinary speech as our means of expressing what our mind apprehends; a
means no doubt unworthy of the majesty of God, but forced upon us by
feebleness of our intellect, which can use only our own circumstances and
our own words to convey to others our perceptions and our conclusions.
This truth has been enforced already in the first book, but is now repeated
in order that, in any analogies from human affairs which we adduce, we
may not be supposed to think of God as resembling embodied natures, or
to compare spiritual Beings with our passible selves, but rather be regarded
as advancing the outward appearance of visible things as a clue to the
inward meaning of things invisible.

3. For the heretics say that Christ is not from God, that is, that the Son is
not born from the Father, and is God not by nature but by appointment; in

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other words, that He has received an adoption which consists in the giving
of a name, being God's Son in the sense m which many are sons of God;
again, that Christ's majesty is an evidence of God's widespread bounty,
He being God in the sense in which there are gods many; although they
admit that in His adoption and naming as God a more liberal affection than
in other cases was shewn, His adoption being the first in order of time, and
He greater than other adopted sons, and first in rank among the creatures
because of the greater splendor which accompanied His creation. Some
add, by way of confessing the omnipotence of God, that He was created
into God's likeness, and that it was out of nothing that He, like other
creatures, was raised up to be the Image of the eternal Creator, bidden at a
word to spring from non-existence into being by the power of God, Who
can frame out of nothing the likeness of Himself.

4. Moreover, they use their knowledge of the historical fact that bishops
of a former time have taught that Father and Son are of one substance, to
subvert the truth by the ingenious plea that this is a heretical notion. They
say that this term 'of one substance,' in the Greek homoousion, is used to
mean and express that the Father is the same as the Son; that is, that He
extended Himself out of infinity into the Virgin, and took a body from her,
and gave to Himself, in the body which He had taken, the name of Son.
This is their first lie concerning the homoousion. Their next lie is that this
word homoousion implies that Father and Son participate in something
antecedent to Either and distinct from Both, and that a certain imaginary
substance, or ousia, anterior to all matter whatsoever, has existed
heretofore and been divided and wholly distributed between the Two;
which proves, they say, that Each of the Two is of a nature pro-existent to
Himself, and Each identical in matter with the Other. And so they profess
to condemn the confession of the homoousion on the ground that term
does not discriminate between Father and Son, and makes the Father
subsequent in time to that matter which He has in common with the Son.
And they have devised this third objection to the word homoousion, that
its meaning, as they explain it, is that the Son derives His origin from a
partition of the Father's substance, as though one object had been cut in
two and He were the severed portion. The meaning of 'one substance,'
they say, is that the part cut off from the whole continues to share the
nature of that from which it has been severed; but God, being impossible,

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cannot be divided, for, if He must submit to be lessened by division. He is
subject to change, and will be rendered imperfect if His perfect substance
leave Him to reside in the severed portion.

5. They think also that they have a compendious refutation of Prophets,
Evangelists and Apostles alike, in their assertion that the Son was born
within time. They pronounce us illogical for saying that the Son has
existed from everlasting; and, since they reject the possibility of His
eternity, they are forced to believe that He was born at a point in time. For
if He has not always existed, there was a time when He was not; and if
there be a time when He was not, time was anterior to Him. He who has
not existed everlastingly began to exist within time, while He Who is free
from the limits of time is necessarily eternal. The reason they give for their
rejection of the eternity of the Son is that His everlasting existence
contradicts the faith in His birth; as though by confessing that He has
existed eternally, we made His birth impossible.

6. What foolish and godless fears! What impious anxiety on God's behalf!
The meaning which they profess to detect in the word homoousion, and in
the assertion of the eternity of the Son, is detested, rejected, denounced by
the Church. She confesses one God front Whom are all things; she
confesses one Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom are all things; One
from Whom, One through Whom; One the Source of all, One the Agent
through Whom all were created. In the One from Whom are all things she
recognizes the Majesty which has no beginning, and in the One through
Whom are all things she recognizes a might coequal with His Source; for
Both are jointly supreme in the work of creation and in rule over created
things. In the Spirit she recognizes God as Spirit, impossible and
indivisible, for she has learnt from the Lord that Spirit has neither flesh nor
bones; a warning to save her from supposing that God, being Spirit, could
be burdened with bodily suffering and loss. She recognizes one God,
unborn from everlasting; she recognizes also one Only -begotten Son of
God. She confesses the Father eternal and without beginning; she confesses
also that the Son's beginning is from eternity. Not that He has no
beginning, but that He is Son of the Father Who has none; not that He is
self-originated, but that He is from Him Who is unbegotten from
everlasting; born from eternity, receiving, that is, His birth from the
eternity of the Father. Thus our faith is free from the guesswork of

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heretical perversity; it is expressed in fixed and published terms, though as
yet no reasoned defense of our confession has been put forth. Still, lest
any suspicion should linger around the sense in which the Fathers have
used the word homoousion and round our confession of the eternity of the
Son, I have set down the proofs whereby we may be assured that the Son
abides ever in that substance wherein He was begotten from the Father,
and that the birth of His Son has not diminished ought of that Substance
wherein the Father was abiding; that holy men, inspired by the teaching of
God, when they said that the Son is homoousios with the Father pointed
to no such flaws or defects as I have mentioned. My purpose has been to
counteract the impression that this ousia, this assertion that He is
homoousios with the Father, is a negation of the nativity of the
Only-begotten Son.

7. To assure ourselves of the needfulness of these two phrases, adopted
and employed as the best of safeguards against the heretical rabble of that
day, I think it best to reply to the obstinate misbelief of our present
heretics, and refute their vain and pestilent teaching by the witness of the
evangelists and apostles. They flatter themselves that they can furnish a
proof for each of their propositions; they have, in fact, appended to each
some passages or other from holy Writ; passages so grossly misinterpreted
as to ensnare none but the illiterate by the semblance of truth with which
perverted ingenuity has masked their explanation.

8. For they attempt, by praising the Godhead of the Father only, to
deprive the Son of His Divinity, pleading that it is written, Hear, Israel,
the Lord thy God is One, and that the Lord repeats this in His answer to
the doctor of the Law who asked Him what was the greatest
commandment in the Law; — Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God is One.
Again, they say that Paul proclaims, For there is One God, and One
Mediator between God and men. And furthermore, they insist that God
alone is wise, in order to leave no wisdom for the Son, relying upon the
words of the Apostle, Now to Him that is able to stablish you according
to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according, to the revelation
of the mystery which hath been kept in silence through age-long times, but
now is manifested through the scriptures of the prophets according to the
commandment of the eternal God Who is made known unto all nations
unto obedience of faith; to the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, to

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Whom be glory far ever and every. They argue also that He alone is true,
for Isaiah says, They shall bless Thee, the true God, and the Lord Himself
has borne witness in the Gospel, saying, And this is life eternal that they
should know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ Whom Thou hast
sent Again they reason that He alone is good, to leave no goodness for the
Son, because it has been said through Him, There is none goad save One,
even God; and that He alone has power, because Paul has said, Which in
His own times He shall skew to us, Who is the blessed and only Potentate,
the King of kings and Lord of lords. And further, they profess themselves
certain that in the Father there is no change nor turning, because He has
said through the prophet, I am the Lord your God, and I am not changed,
and the apostle James, With Whom there is no change; certain also that He
is the righteous Judge, for it is written, God is the righteous Judge, strong
and patient; that He cares for all, because the Lord has said, speaking of
the birds, And your heavenly. Father feedeth them, and, Are not two
sparrows sold for a farthing? And not one of them falleth upon the ground
without the will of your Father; but the very hairs of your head are
numbered. They say that the Father has prescience of all things, as the
blessed Susanna says, O eternal God, that knowest secrets, and knowest
all things before they be; that He is incomprehensible, as it is written, The
heaven is My throne, and the earth is the footstool of My feet. What
house will ye build Me, or what is the place of My rest? For these things
hath My hand made, and all these things are mine; that He contains all
things, as Paul bears witness, For in Him we live and move and have our
being, and the psalmist, Whither shall I go from Thy Spirit, and whither
shall I fly from Thy face? If I climb up into heaven, Thou art there; if I go
down to hell, Thou art present. If I take my wings before the light and
dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even thither Thy hand shall lead me
and Thy right hand shall hold me; that He is without body, for it is
written, For God is Spirit, and they that warship Him must worship in
spirit and in truth; that He is immortal and invisible, as Paul says, Who
only hath immortality, and dwelleth in light unapproachable, whom no
man hath seen nor can sees, and the Evangelist, No one hath seen God at
any time, except the Only-begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the
Father; that He alone abides eternally unborn, for it is written, I Am That I
Am, and Thus shall thou say to the children of Israel, I Am hath sent me
unto you, and through Jeremiah, O Lord, Who art Lord.

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9. Who can fail to observe that these statements are full of fraud and
fallacy? Cleverly as issues have been confused and texts combined, malice
and folly is the character indelibly imprinted upon this laborious effort of
cunning and clumsiness. For instance, among their points of faith they
have included this, that they confess the Father only to be unborn; as
though any one on our side could suppose that He, Who begot Him
through Whom are all things, derived His being from any external source.
The very fact that He bears the name of Father reveals Him as the cause of
His Son's existence. That name of lather gives no hint that He who bears it
is Himself descended from another, while it tells us plainly from Whom it
is that the Son is begotten. Let us therefore leave to the Father His own
special and incommunicable property, confessing that in Him reside the
eternal powers of an omnipotence without beginning. None, I am sure, can
doubt that the reason why, in their confession of God the Father, certain
attributes are dwelt upon as peculiarly and inalienably His own, is that He
may be left in isolated possession of them. For when they say that He
alone is true, alone is righteous, alone is wise, alone is invisible, alone is
good, alone is mighty, alone is immortal, they are raising up this word
alone as a barrier to cut off the Son from His share in these attributes. He
Who is alone, they say, has no partner in His properties. But if we
suppose that these attributes reside in the Father only, and not in the Son
also, then we must believe that God the Son has neither truth nor wisdom;
that He is a bodily being compact of visible and material elements,
ill-disposed and feeble and void of immortality; for we exclude Him from
all these attributes of which we make the Father the solitary Possessor.

10. We, however, who propose to discourse of that most perfect majesty
and fullest Divinity which appertains to the Only-begotten Son of God,
have no fear lest our readers should imagine that amplitude of phrase in
speaking of the Son is a detraction from the glory of God the Father, as
though every praise assigned to the Son had first been withdrawn from
Him. For, on the contrary, the majesty of the Son is glory to the Father;
the Source must be glorious from which He Who is worthy of such glory
comes. The Son has nothing but by virtue of His birth; the Father shares
all veneration received by that birthright. Thus the suggestion that we
diminish the Father's honor is put to silence, for all the glory which, as we

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shall teach, is inherent in the Son will be reflected back, to the increased
glory of Him who has begotten a Son so great.

1 1 . Now that we have exposed their plan of belittling the Son under cover
of magnifying the Father, the next step is to listen to the exact terms in
which they express their own belief concerning the Son. For, since we have
to answer in succession each of their allegations and to display on the
evidence of Holy Scripture the impiety of their doctrines, we must
append, to what they say of the Father, the decisions which they bare put
on record concerning the Son, that by a comparison of their confession of
the Father with their confession of the Son we may follow a uniform order
in our solution of the questions as they arise. They state as their verdict
that the Son is not derived from any pre-existent matter, for through Him
all things were created, nor yet begotten from God, for nothing can be
withdrawn from God; but that He was made out of what was nonexistent,
that is, that He is a perfect creature of God, though different from His
other creatures. They argue that He is a creature, because it is written, The
Lord hath created Me for a beginning of His ways; that He is the perfect
handiwork of God, though different from His other works, they prove, as
to the first point, by what Paul writes to the Hebrews, Being made so
much belief than the angels, as He possesseth a more excellent name than
they, and again, Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly
calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, Jesus
Christ, who is faithful to Him that made Him. For their depreciation of the
might and majesty and Godhead of the Son they rely chiefly on His own
words, The Father is greater than I. But they admit that He is not one of
the common herd of creatures on the evidence of All things were made
through Him. And so they sum up the whole of their blasphemous
teaching in these words which follow: —

12. "We confess One God, alone unmade, alone eternal, alone unoriginate,
alone true, alone possessing immortality, alone good, alone mighty,
Creator, Ordainer and Disposer of all things, unchangeable and unalterable,
righteous and good, of the Law and the Prophets and the New Testament.
We believe that this God gave birth to the Only-begotten Son before all
worlds, through Whom He made the world and all things; that He gave
birth to Him not in semblance, but in truth, following His own Will, so
that He is unchangeable and unalterable, God's perfect creature but not as

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one of His other creatures, His handiwork, but not as His Other works;
not, as Valentinus maintained, that the Son is a development of the Father;
nor, as Manichaeus has declared of the Son, a consubstantial part of the
Father; nor, as Sabellius, who makes two out of one, Son and Father at
once; nor, as Hieracas, a light from a light, or a lamp with two flames; nor
as if He was previously in being and afterwards born or created afresh to
be a Son, a notion often condemned by thyself, blessed Pope, publicly in
the Church and in the assembly of the brethren. But, as we have affirmed,
we believe that He was created by the will of God before times and
worlds, and has His life and existence from the Father, Who gave Him to
share His own glorious perfections. For, when the Father gave to Him the
inheritance of all things, He did not thereby deprive Himself of attributes
which are His without origination, He being the source of all things.

13. "So there are three Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. God, for His
part, is the cause of all things, utterly unoriginate and separate from all;
while the Son, put forth by the Father outside time, and created and
established before the worlds, did not exist before He was born, but, being
born outside time before the worlds, came into being as the Only Son of
the Only Father. For He is neither eternal, nor co-eternal, nor co-uncreate
with the Father, nor has He an existence collateral with the Father, as some
say, who postulate two unborn principles. But God is before all things, as
being indivisible and the beginning of all. Wherefore He is before the Son
also, as indeed we have learnt from thee in thy public preaching. Inasmuch
then as He hath His being from God, and His glorious perfections, and His
life, and is entrusted with all things, for this reason God is His source, and
hath rule over Him, as being His God, since He is before Him. As to such
phrases as from Him, and from the womb, and I went out from the Father
and am came, if they be understood to denote that the Father extends a
part and, as it were, a development of that one substance, then the Father
will be of a compound nature and divisible and changeable and corporeal,
according to them; and thus, as far as their words go, the incorporeal God
will be subjected to the properties of matter."

14. Such is their error, such their pestilent teaching; to support it they
borrow the words of Scripture, perverting its meaning and using the
ignorance of men as their opportunity of gaining credence for their lies. Yet
it is certainly by these same words of God that we must come to

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understand the things of God. For human feebleness cannot by any
strength of its own attain to the knowledge of heavenly things; the
faculties which deal with bodily matters can form no notion of the unseen
world. Neither our created bodily substance, nor the reason given by God
for the purposes of ordinary life, is capable of ascertaining and
pronouncing upon the nature and work of God. Our wits cannot rise to the
level of heavenly knowledge, our powers of perception lack the strength to
apprehend that limitless might. We must believe God's word concerning
Himself, and humbly accept such insight as He vouchsafes to give. We
must make our choice between rejecting His witness, as the heathen do, or
else believing in Him as He is, and this in the only possible way, by
thinking of Him in the aspect in which He presents Himself to us.
Therefore let private judgment cease; let human reason refrain from passing
barriers divinely set. In this spirit we eschew all blasphemous and reckless
assertion concerning God, and cleave to the very letter of revelation. Each
point in our enquiry shall be considered in the light of His instruction,
Who is our theme; there shall be no stringing together of isolated phrases
whose context is suppressed, to trick and misinform the unpracticed
listener. The meaning of words shall be ascertained by considering the
circumstances under which they were spoken words must be explained by
circumstances not circumstances forced into conformity will words. We, at
any rate, will treat our subject completely; we will state both the
circumstances under which words were spoken, and the true purport of
the words. Each point shall be considered in orderly sequence.

15. Their starting-point is this; We confess, they say, One only God,
because Moses says, Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God is One. But is this a
truth which anyone has ever dared to doubt? Or was any believer ever
known to confess otherwise than that there is One God from Whom are all
things, One Majesty which has no birth, and that He is that unoriginated
Power? Yet this fact of the Unity of God offers no chance for denying the
Divinity of His Son. For Moses, or rather God through Moses, laid it
down as His first commandment to that people, devoted both in Egypt
and in the Desert to idols and the worship of imaginary gods, that they
must believe in One God. There was truth and reason in the
commandment, for God, from Whom are all things, is One. But let us see
whether this Moses have not confessed that He, through Whom are all

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things, is also God. God is not robbed, He is still God, if His Son share the
Godhead. For the case is that of God from God, of One from One, of God
Who is One because God is from Him. And conversely the Son is not less
God because God the Father is One, for He is the Only-begotten Son of
God; not eternally unborn, so as to deprive the Father of His Oneness, nor
yet different from God, for He is born from Him. We must not doubt that
He is God by virtue of that birth from God which proves to us who
believe that God is One; yet let us see whether Moses, who announced to
Israel, The Lord thy God is One, has also proclaimed the Godhead of the
Son. To make good our confession of the Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ
we must employ the evidence of that same witness on whom the heretics
rely for the confession of One Only God, which they imagine to involve
the denial of the Godhead of the Son.

16. Since, therefore, the words of the Apostle, One God the Father, from
Whom are all things, and one Jesus Christ, our Lord, through Whom are all
things, form an accurate and complete confession concerning God, let us
see what Moses has to say of the beginning of the world. His words are,
And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the water, and let it
divide the water from the water. And it was so, and God made the
firmament and God divided the water through the midst. Here, then, you
have the God from Whom, and the God through Whom. If you deny it,
you must tell us through whom it was that God's work in creation was
done, or else point for your explanation to an obedience in things yet
uncreated, which, when God said Let there be a firmament, impelled the
firmament to establish itself. Such suggestions are inconsistent with the
clear sense of Scripture. For all things, as the Prophet says, were made out
of nothing; it was no transformation of existing things, but the creation into
a perfect form of the non-existent. Through whom? Hear the Evangelist:
things were made through Him. If you ask Who this is, the same Evangelist
will tell you: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were
made through Him. If you are minded to combat the view that it was the
Father Who said, Let there be a firmament, the prophet will answer you:
He spake, and they were made; He commanded, and they were created.
The recorded words, Let there be a firmament, reveal to us that the Father
spoke. But in the words which follow, And it was so, in the statement that

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God did this thing, we must recognize the Person of the Agent. He spake,
and they, were made; the Scripture does not say that He willed it, and did
it. He commanded, and they were created; you observe that it does not say
they came into existence, because it was His pleasure. In that case there
would be no office for a Mediator between God and the world which was
awaiting its creation. God, from Whom are all things, gives the order for
creation which God, through Whom are all things, executes. Under one and
the same Name we confess Him Who gave and Him Who fulfilled the
command. If you dare to deny that God made is spoken of the Son, how
do you explain All things were made through Him? Or the Apostle's
words, One resets Christ, our Lord, through, Whom are all things? Or, He
spake, and they were made? If these inspired words succeed in convincing
your stubborn mind, you will cease to regard that text, Hear, O Israel, the
Lord Hey God is One, as a refusal of Divinity to the Son of God, since at
the very foundation of the world He Who spoke it proclaimed that His
Son also is God. But let us see what increase of profit we may draw from
this distinction of God Who commands and God Who executes. For
though it is repugnant even to our natural reason to suppose that in the
words, He commanded, and they were made, one single and isolated
Person is intended, yet, for the avoidance of all doubts, we must expound
the events which followed upon the creation of the world.

17. When the world was complete and its inhabitant was to be created, the
words spoken concerning him were, Let Us make man after Our image and
likeness. I ask you, Do you suppose that God spoke those words to
Himself? Is it not obvious that He was addressing not Himself, but
Another? If you reply that He was alone, then out of His own mouth He
confutes you, for He says, Let Us make man after Our image and likeness.
God has spoken to us through the Lawgiver in the way which is intelligible
to us; that is, He makes us acquainted with His action by means of
language, the faculty with which He has been pleased to endow us. There
is, indeed, an indication of the Son of God through Whom all things were
made, in the words, And God said, Let there be a firmament, and in, And
God maple the firmament, which follows: but lest we should think these
words of God were wasted and meaningless, supposing that He issued to
Himself the command of creation, and Himself obeyed it, — for what
notion could be further from the thought of a solitary God than that of

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giving a verbal order to Himself, when nothing was necessary except an
exertion of His will? — He determined to give us a more perfect assurance
that these words refer to Another beside Himself. When He said, Let Us
make man after Our image and likeness, His cation of a Partner demolishes
the theory of His isolation. For an isolated being cannot be partner to
himself; and again, the words, Let Us make, are inconsistent with solitude,
while Our cannot be used except to a companion. Both words, Us and Our
are inconsistent with the notion of a solitary God speaking to Himself, and
equally inconsistent with that of the address being made to a stranger who
has nothing in common with the Speaker. If you interpret the passage to
mean that He is isolated, I ask you whether you suppose that He was
speaking with Himself? If you do not understand that He was speaking
with Himself, how can you assume that He was isolated? If He were
isolated, we should find Him described as isolated; if He had a companion,
then as not isolated. I and Mine would describe the former state; the latter
is indicated by Us and Our.

18. Thus, when we read, Let Us make man after Our image and likeness,
these two words Us and Our reveal that there is neither one isolated God,
nor yet one God in two dissimilar Persons; and our confession must be
framed in harmony with the second as well as with the first truth. For the
words our image — not our images — prove that there is one nature
possessed by Both But an argument from words is an insufficient proof;
unless its result be confirmed by the evidence of facts; and accordingly it is
written, And God made man; after the image of God made He him. If the
words He spoke, I ask, were the soliloquy of an isolated God, what
meaning shall we assign to this last statement? For in it I see a triple
allusion, to the Maker, to the being made, and to the image. The being
made is man; God made him, and made him in the image of God. If Genesis
were speaking of an isolated God, it would certainly have been And made
him after His own image. But since the book was foreshowing the
Mystery of the Gospel, it spoke not of two Gods, but of God and God,
for it speaks of man made through God in the image of God. Thus we find
that God wrought man after an image and likeness common to Himself and
to God; that the mention of an Agent forbids us to assume that He was
isolated; and that the work, done after an image and likeness which was

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that of Both, proves that there is no difference in kind between the
Godhead of the One and of the Other.

19. It may seem waste of time to bring forward further arguments, for
truths concerning God gain no strength by repetition; a single statement
suffices to establish them. Yet it is well for us to know all that has been
revealed upon the subject, for though we are not responsible for the words
of Scripture, yet we shall have to render an account for the sense we have
assigned to them. One of the many commandments which God gave to
Noah is, Whoso sheddeth man's blood for his blood shall his life be shed,
far after the image of God made 1 man. Here again is the distinction
between likeness, creature, and Creator. God bears wireless that He made
man after the image of God. When He was about to make man, because He
was speaking of Himself, yet not to Himself, God said, After our image;
and again, after man was made, God made man after the image of God. It
would have been no inaccuracy of language, had He said, addressing
Himself, I have made man after My image, for He had shewn that the
Persons are one in nature by, Let us make man after Our image. But for the
more perfect removal of all doubt as to whether God be, or be not, a
solitary Being, when He made man He made him, we are told, After the
image of God.

20. If you still wish to assert that God the Father in solitude said these
words to Him self, I can go with you as far as to admit the possibility that
He might in solitude nave spoken to Himself as if He were conversing with
a companion, and that it is credible that He wished the words I have made
man after the image of God to be equivalent to I have made man after My
own image. But your own confession of faith will refute you. For you
have confessed that all things are from the Father, but all through the Son;
and the words, Let Us make man, shew that the Source from Whom are all
things is He Who spoke thus, while God made him after the image of God
clearly points to Him through Whom the work was done.

21. And furthermore, to make all self-deception unlawful, that Wisdom,
which you have yourself confessed to be Christ, shall confront you with
the words, When tare was establishing the fountains under the heaven,
when He was making strong the foundations of the earth. I was with Him,
setting them in order. It was I, over Whom He rejoiced. Moreover, I was

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daily rejoicing in His sight, all the while that He was rejoining in the world
that He hart made, and in the sans of men. Every difficulty is removed;
error itself must recognize the truth. There is with God Wisdom, begotten
before the worlds; and not only present with Him, but setting in order, for
She was with Him, setting them in order. Mark this work of setting in
order, or arranging. The Father, by His commands, is the Cause; the Son,
by His execution of the things commanded, sets in order. The distinction
between the Persons is marked by the work assigned to Each. When it
says Let us make, creation is identified with the word of command; but
when it is written, I was with Him, setting them in order, God reveals that
He did not do the work in isolation. For He was rejoicing before Him,
Who, He tells us, rejoiced in return; Moreover, I was daily rejoicing in His
sight, all the while that He was rejoicing in the world that He had made,
and in the sans of men. Wisdom has taught us the reason of Her joy. She
rejoiced because of the joy of the Father, Who rejoices over the completion
of the world and over the sons of men. For it is written, And God saw that
they were good. She rejoices that God is well pleased with His work,
which has been made through Her, at His command. She avows that Her
joy results from the Father's gladness over the finished world and over the
sons of men; over the sons of men, because in the one man Adam the
whole human race had begun its course. Thus in the creation of the world
there is no mere soliloquy of an isolated Father; His Wisdom is His partner
in the work, and rejoices with Him when their conjoint labor ends.

22. 1 am aware that the full explanation of these words involves the
discussion of many and weighty problems. I do not shirk them, but
postpone them for the present, reserving their consideration for later
stages of the enquiry. For the present I devote myself to that article of the
blasphemers' faith, or rather faithlessness, which asserts that Moses
proclaims the solitude of God. We do not forget that the assertion is true
in the sense that there is One God, from Whom are all things; but neither
do we forget that this truth is no excuse for denying the Godhead of the
Son, since Moses throughout the course of his writings clearly indicates
the existence of God and God. We must examine bow the history of God's
choice, and of the giving of the Law, proclaims God co-ordinate with God.

23. After God had often spoken with Abraham, Sarah was moved to wrath
against Hagar, being jealous that she, the mistress, was barren, while her

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handmaid had conceived a son. Then, when Hagar had departed from her
sight, the Spirit speaks thus concerning her, And the angel of the Lord said
unto Hagar, Return to thy mistress, and submit thyself under her hands.
And the angel of the Lord said unto her, I will multiply thy seed
exceedingly, and it shall not be numbered for multitude, and again, And she
called the Name of the Lord that spake with her. Thou art God, Who hast
seen me. It is the Angel of God Who speaks, and speaks of things far
beyond the powers which a messenger, for that is the meaning of the word,
could have. He says, I will multiply thy seed exceedingly, and it shall not
be numbered for multitude. The power of multiplying nations lies outside
the ministry of an angel. Yet what says the Scripture of Him Who is called
the Angel of God, yet speaks words which belong to God alone? And she
calico the Name of the Lord that spake with her, Thou art God, Who hast
seen me. First He is the Angel of God; then He is the Lord, for She called
the Name of the Lord; then, thirdly, He is God, for Thou art God, Who
hast seen me. He Who is called the Angel of God is also Lord and God.
The Son of God is also, according to the prophet, the Angel of great
counsel. To discriminate clearly between the Persons, He is called the
Angel of God; He Who is God from God is also the Angel of God. but,
that He may have the honor which is His due, He is entitled also Lord and
God.

24. In this passage the one Deity is first the Angel of God, anti then,
successively. Lord and God. But to Abraham He is God only. For when
the distinction of Persons had first been made, as a safeguard against the
delusion that God is a solitary Being, then His true and unqualified name
could safely be uttered. And so it is written. And God said to Abraham,
Behold Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name
Isaac; and I will establish My covenant with him for an everlasting
covenant, and with his seed after him. And as far Ishmael, behold. I have
heard thee and have blessed him, and will multiply him exceedingly; twelve
nations shall he beget, and I will make him a great nation. Is it possible to
doubt that He Who was previously called the Angel of God is here, in the
sequel, spoken of as God? In both instances He is speaking of Ishmael; in
both it is the same Person Who shall multiply him. To save us from
supposing that this was a different Speaker from Him who had addressed
Hagar, the Divine words expressly attest the identity, saying, And I have

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blessed him, and will multiply him. The blessing is repeated from a former
occasion, for Hagar had already been addressed; the multiplication is
promised for a future day, for this is God's first word to Abraham
concerning Ishmael. Now it is God Who speaks to Abraham; to Hagar the
Angel of God had spoken. Thus God and the Angel of God are One; He
Who is the Angel of God is also God the Son of God. He is called the
Angel because He is the Angel of great counsel; but afterwards He is
spoken of as Go I, lest we should suppose that He Who is God is only an
angel. Let us now repeat the facts in order. The Angel of the Lord spoke to
Hagar; He spoke also to Abraham as God. One Speaker addressed both.
The blessing was given to Ishmael, and the promise that he should grow
into a great people.

25. In another instance the Scripture reveals through Abraham that it was
God Who spoke. He receives the further promise of a son, Isaac.
Afterwards there appear to him three men. Abraham, though he sees three,
worships One, and acknowledges Him as Lord. Three were standing before
him, Scripture says, but he knew well Which it was that he must worship
and confess. There was nothing in outward appearance to distinguish
them, but by the eye of faith, the vision of the soul, he knew his Lord.
Then the Scripture goes on, And He said unto him, I will certainly return
unto thee at this time hereafter, and Sarah thy wife shall have a son; and
afterwards the Lord said to Him, I will not conceal from Abraham My
servant the things that I will do; and again, Moreover the Lord said, The
cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is filled up, and their sins are exceeding great.
Then after long discourse, which for the sake of brevity shall be omitted,
Abraham, distressed at the destruction which awaited the innocent as well
as the guilty, said, In no wise wilt Thou, Who judgest the earth, execute
this judgment. And the Lord said, If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within
the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes. Afterwards, when
the warning to Lot, Abraham's brother, was ended, the Scripture says,
And the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire
from the Lord out of heaven; and, after a while, And the Lord visited Sarah
as He had said, and did unto Sarah as He had spoken, and Sarah conceived
and bare Abraham a son in his old age, at the set time of which God had
spoken to him. And afterwards, when the handmaid with her son had been
driven from Abraham' s house, and was dreading test her child should die in

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the wilderness for want of water, the same Scripture says And the Lord
God heard the voice of the lad, where he was, and the Angel of God called
to Hagar out of heaven, and said unto her, What is it, Hagar? Fear not, for
God hath heard the voice of the lad from the place where he is. Arise, and
take the lad and hold his hand, for I will make him a great nation.

26. What blind faithlessness it is, what dullness of an unbelieving heart,
what headstrong impiety, to abide in ignorance of all this, or else to know
and yet neglect it! Assuredly it is written for the very purpose that error
or oblivion may not hinder the recognition of the truth. If, as we shall
prove, it is impossible to escape knowledge of the facts, then it must be
nothing less than blasphemy to deny them. This record begins with the
speech of the Angel to Hagar, His promise to multiply Ishmael into a great
nation and to give him a countless offspring. She listens, and by her
confession reveals that He is Lord and God. The story begins with His
appearance as the Angel of God; at its termination He stands confessed as
God Himself. Thus He Who, while He executes the ministry of declaring
the great counsel is God's Angel, is Himself in name and nature God. The
name corresponds to the nature; the nature is not falsified to make it
conform to the name. Again, God speaks to Abraham of this same matter;
he is told that Ishmael has already received a blessing, and shall be
increased into a nation; I have blessed him, God says. This is no change
from the Person indicated before; He shews that it was He Who had
already given the blessing. The Scripture has obviously been consistent
throughout in its progress from mystery to clear revelation; it began with
the Angel of God, and proceeds to reveal that it was God Himself Who
had spoken in this same matter.

27. The course of the Divine narrative is accompanied by a progressive
development of doctrine. In the passage which we have discussed God
speaks to Abraham, and promises that Sarah shall bear a son. Afterwards
three men stand by him; he worships One and acknowledges Him as Lord.
After this worship and acknowledgment by Abraham, the One promises
that He will return hereafter at the same season, and that then Sarah shall
have her son. This One again is seen by Abraham in the guise of a man, and
salutes him with the same promise. The change is one of name only;
Abraham's acknowledgment in each case is the same. It was a Man whom
he saw, yet Abraham worshipped Him as Lord; he beheld, no doubt, in a

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mystery the coming Incarnation. Faith so strong has not missed its
recognition; the Lord says in the Gospel, Your father Abraham rejoined to
see My day; and he saw it, and was glade. To continue the history; the
Man Whom he saw promised that He would return at the same season.
Mark the fulfillment of the promise, remembering meanwhile that it was a
Man Who made it. What says the Scripture? And the Lord visited Sarah.
So this Man is the Lord, fulfilling His own promise. What follows next?
And God did unto Sarah as He had said. The narrative calls His words
those of a Man, relates that Sarah was visited by the Lord, proclaims that
the result was the work of God. You are sure that it was a Man who
spoke, for Abraham not only heard, but saw Him. Can you be less certain
that He was God, when the same Scripture, which had called Him Man,
confesses Him God? For its words are, And Sarah conceived, and bare
Abraham a son in his old age, and at the set time of which God had spoken
to him. But it was the Man who had promised that He would come.
Believe that He was nothing more than man; unless, in fact, He Who came
was God and Lord. Connect the incidents. It was, confessedly, the Man
who promised that He would come that Sarah might conceive and bear a
son. And now accept instruction, and confess the faith; it was the Lord
God Who came that she might conceive and bear. The Man made the
promise in the power of God; by the same power God fulfilled the
promise. Thus God reveals Himself both in word and deed. Next, two of
the three men whom Abraham saw depart; He Who remains behind is Lord
and God. And not only Lord and God, but also Judge, for Abraham stood
before the Lord and said, In no wise shall Thou do this things, to slay the
righteous with the wicked, for then the righteous shall be as the wicked. In
no wise wilt Thou Who judgest the whole earth, execute this judgment.
Thus by all his words Abraham instructs us in that faith, for which he was
justified; he recognizes the Lord from among the three, he worships Him
only, and confesses that He is Lord and Judge.

28. Lest you fall into the error of supposing that this acknowledgment of
the One was a payment of honor to all the three whom Abraham saw in
company, mark the words of Lot when he saw the two who had departed;
And when Lot saw them, he rose up to meet them, and he bowed himself
with his face toward the ground; and he said, Behold, my lords, turn in to
your servant's house. Here the plural lords shews that this was nothing

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more than a vision of angels; in the other case the faithful patriarch pays
the honor due to One only. Thus the sacred narrative makes it clear that
two of the three were mere angels; it had previously proclaimed the One as
Lord and God by the words, And the Lord said unto Abraham, Wherefore
did Sarah laugh, saying, Shall I then bear a child? But I am grown old. Is
anything from God impossible? this season I will return to thee hereafter,
and Sarah shall have a son. The Scripture is accurate and consistent; we
detect no such confusion as the plural used of the One God and Lord, no
Divine honors paid to the two angels. Lot, no doubt, calls them lords,
while the Scripture calls them angels. The one is human reverence, the
other literal truth.

29. And now there fails on Sodom and Gomorrah the vengeance of a
righteous judgment. What can we learn from it for the purposes of our
enquiry? The Lord rained brimstone and fire from the Lord. It is The Lord
from the Lord; Scripture makes no distinction, by difference of name,
between Their natures, but discriminates between Themselves. For we
read in the Gospel, The Father judgeth no man, but hath given all judgment
to the Son. Thus what the Lord gave, the Lord had received from the Lord.

30. You have now had evidence of God the Judge as Lord and Lord; learn
next that there is the same joint ownership of name in the case of God and
God. Jacob, when he fled through fear of his brother, saw in his dream a
ladder resting upon the earth and reaching to heaven, and the angels of God
ascending and descending upon it, and the Lord resting above it, Who gave
him all the blessings which He had bestowed upon Abraham and Isaac. At
a later time God spoke to him thus: And God said unto Jacob, Arise, go up
to the place Bethel, and dwell there, and make there an altar unto God, that
appeared unto thee when thou fleddest from the face of thy brother. God
demands honor for God, and makes it clear that demand is on behalf of
Another than Himself. He who appeared to thee when than fleddest are
His words: He guards carefully against any confusion of the Persons. It is
God Who speaks, and God of Whom He speaks. Their majesty is asserted
by the combination of Both under Their true Name of God, while the
words plainly declare Their several existence.

31. Here again there occur to me considerations which must be taken into
account in a complete treatment of the subject. But the order of defense

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must adapt itself to the order of attack, and I reserve these outstanding
questions for discussion in the next book. For the present, in regard to God
Who demanded honor for God, it will suffice for me to point out that He
Who was the Angel of God, when He spoke with Hagar, was God and
Lord when tie spoke of the same matter with Abraham; that the Man Who
spoke with Abraham was also God and Lord, while the two angels, who
were seen with the Lord and whom He sent to Lot, are described by the
prophet as angels, and nothing more. Nor was it to Abraham only that
God appeared in human guise; He appeared as Man to Jacob also. And not
only did He appear, but, so we are told, He wrestled; and not only did He
wrestle, but He was vanquished by His adversary. Neither the time at my
disposal, nor the subject, will allow me to discuss the typical meaning of
this wrestling. It was certainly God Who wrestled, for Jacob prevailed
against God, and Israel saw God.

32. And now let us enquire whether elsewhere than in the case of Hagar
the Angel of God has been discovered to be God Himself. He has been so
discovered, and found to be not only God, but the God of Abraham and of
Isaac and of Jacob. For the Angel of the Lord appeared to Moses from the
bush; and Whose voice, think you, are we to suppose was heard? The
voice of Him Who was seen, or of Another? There is no room for
deception; the words of Scripture are clear: And the Angel of the Lord
appeared unto him in a flame of fire from a bush, and again, The Lord
called unto him from the bush, Moses, Moses, and he answered, What is
it? And the Lord said, Draw not nigh hither, put off thy shoes from off
thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground. And He said
unto him, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of
Jacob, He who appeared in the bush speaks from the bush; the place of the
vision and of the voice is one; He Who speaks is none other than He Who
was seen. He Who is the Angel of God when the eye beholds Him is the
Lord when the ear hears Him, and the Lord Whose voice is heard is
recognized as the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob. When He is
styled the Angel of God, the fact is revealed that He is no self-contained
and solitary Being: for He is the Angel of God. When He is designated
Lord and God, He receives the full title which is due to His nature and His
name. You have, then, in the Angel Who appeared from the bush, Him
Who is Lord and God.

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33. Continue your study of the witness borne by Moses; mark how
diligently he seizes every opportunity of proclaiming the Lord and God.
You take note of the passage, Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God is One.
Note also the words of that Divine song of his; See, See, that I am the
Lord, and there is no God beside Me. While God has been the Speaker
throughout the poem, he ends with, Rejoice, ye heavens, together with
Him and let all the sans of God praise Him. Rejoice, O ye nations, with
His people, and let all the Angels of God do Him honor. God is to be
glorified by the Angels of God, and He says, For I am the Lord, and there
is no Gad beside Me. For He is God the Only-begotten, and the title
'Only-begotten' excludes all partnership in that character, just as the title
'Unoriginate' denies that there is, in that regard, any who shares the
character of the Unoriginate Father. The Son is One from One. There is
none unoriginate except God the Unoriginate, and so likewise there is none
only-begotten except God the Only-begotten. They stand Each single and
alone, being respectively the One Unoriginate and the One Only -begotten.
And so They Two are One God, for between the One, and the One Who is
His offspring there lies no gulf of difference of nature in the eternal
Godhead. Therefore He must be worshipped by the sons of God and
glorified by the angels of God. Honor and reverence is demanded for God
from the sons and from the angels of God. Notice Who it is that shall
receive this honor, and by whom it is to lie paid. It is God, and they are
the sons and angels of God. And test you should imagine that honor is not
demanded for God Who shares our nature, but that Moses is thinking here
of reverence due to God the Father, — though, indeed, it is in the Son that
the Father must be honored — examine the words of the blessing bestowed
by God upon Joseph, at the end of the same book. They are, And let the
things that are well-pleasing to Him that appeared in the bush came upon
the head and crown of Joseph. Thus God is to be worshipped by the sons
of God; but God Who is Himself the Son of God. And God is to be
reverenced by the angels of God; but God Who is Himself the Angel of
God. For God appeared from the bush as the Angel of God, and the prayer
for Joseph is that he may receive such blessings as He shall please, He is
none the less God because He is the Angel of God; and none the less the
Angel of God because He is God. A clear indication is given of the Divine
Persons; the line is definitely drawn between the Unbegotten and the
Begotten. A revelation of the mysteries of heaven is granted, and we are

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taught not to dream of God as dwelling in solitude, when angels and sons
of God shall worship Him, Who is God's Angel and Its Son.

34. Let this be taken as our answer from the books of Moses, or rather as
the answer of Moses himself. The heretics imagine that they can use his
assertion of the Unity of God in disproof of the Divinity of God the Son;
a blasphemy in defiance of the clear warning of their own witness, for
whenever he confesses that God is One he never fails to teach the Son's
Divinity. Our next step must be to adduce the manifold utterance of the
prophets concerning the same Son.

35. You know the words, Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God is One; would
that you knew them aright! As you interpret them, I seek in vain for their
sense. It is said in the Psalms, God, Thy God, hath anointed Thee .
Impress upon the reader's mind the distinction between the Anointer and
the Anointed; discriminate between the Thee and the Thy: make it clear to
Whom and of Whom the words are spoken. For this definite confession is
the conclusion of the preceding passage, which runs thus; Thy throne, O
God, is for ever and ever; the scepter of Thy kingdom is a right scepter.
Thou hast loved righteousness and hated iniquity. And then he continues,
Therefore God, Thy God, hath anointed Thee. Thus the God of the eternal
kingdom, in reward for His love of righteousness and hatred of iniquity, is
anointed by His God. Surely some broad difference is drawn, some gap too
wide for our mental span, between these names? No; the distinction of
Persons is indicated by Thee and Thy, but nothing suggests a difference of
nature. Thy points to the Author, Thee to Him Who is the Author's
offspring. For He is God from God, as these same words of the prophet
declare, God, Thy God, hath anointed Thee. And His own words bear
wireless that there is no God anterior to God the Unoriginate; Be ye My
witnesses, and I am witness, saith the Lord God, and My Servant Whom I
have chosen, that ye may know and believe and understand that I am, and
before? Me there is no other God, nor shall be after Me. Thus the majesty
of Him that has no beginning is declared, and the glory of Him that is from
the Unoriginate is safeguarded; for God, Thy God, hath anointed Thee.
That word Thy declares His birth, yet does not contradict His nature; Thy
God means that the Son was born from Him to share the Godhead. But the
fact that the Father is God is no obstacle to the Son's being God also, for
God, Thy God, hath anointed Thee. Mention is made both of Father and

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of Son; the one title of God conveys the assurance that in character and
majesty They are One.

36. But lest these words, For I am, and before Me there is no other God,
nor shall be after Me, be made a handle for blasphemous presumption, as
proving that the Son is not God, since after the God, Whom no God
precedes, there follows no other God, the purpose of the passage must be
considered. God is His own best interpreter, but His chosen Servant joins
with Him to assure us that there is no God before Him, nor shall be after
Him. His oxen witness concerning Himself is, indeed, sufficient, but He
has added the witness of the Servant Whom He has chosen. Thus we have
the united testimony of the Two, that there is no God before Him; we
accept the truth, because all things are from Him. We have Their witness
also that there shall be no God after Him; but They do not deny that God
has been born from Him in the past. Already there was the Servant
speaking thus, and bearing witness to the Father; the Servant born in that
tribe from which God's elect was to spring. He sets forth also the same
truth in the Gospels: Behold, My Servant Whom I have chosen, My
Beloved in Whom My soul is well pleased. This is the sense, then, in
which God says, There is no other God before Me, nor shall be after Me.
He reveals the infinity of His eternal and unchanging majesty by this
assertion that there is no God before or after Himself. But He gives His
Servant a share both in the bearing of wireless and in the possession of the
Name of God.

37. The fact is obvious from His own words. For He says to Hosea the
prophet, I will no more have mercy upon the house of Israel, but will
altogether be their enemy. But I will have mercy upon the children Judah,
and will save them in the Lord their God. Here God the Father gives the
name of God, without any ambiguity, to the Son, in Whom also He chose
us before countless ages. Their God, He says, for while the Father, being
Unoriginate, is independent of all, He has given us for an inheritance to His
Son. In like manner we read, Ask of Me, and I will give Thee the Gentiles
for Thine inheritance. None can be God to Him from Whom are all things,
for He is eternal and has no beginning; but the Son has God, from Whom
He was born, for His Father. Yet to us the Father is God and the Son is
God; the Father reveals to us that the Son is our God, and the Son teaches
that the Father is God over us. The point for us to remember is that in this

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passage the Father gives to the Son the name of God, the title of His own
unoriginate majesty. But I have commented sufficiently on these words of
Hosea.

38. Again, how clear is the declaration made by God the Father through
Isaiah concerning our Lord! He says, For thus saith the Lord, the holy God
of Israel, Who made the things to came, Ask me concerning your sons and
your daughters, and concerning the works of My hands command ye Me. I
have made the earth and man upon it, I have commanded all the stars, I
have raised up a King with righteousness, and all His ways are straight. He
shall build My city, and shall turn back the captivity of My people, not
for price nor reward, saith the Lord of Sabaoth. Egypt shall labor, and the
merchandise of the Ethiopians and Sabeans. Men of stature shall come
over unto Thee and shall be Thy servants, and shall follow after Thee,
bound in chains, and shall worship Thee and make supplication unto Thee,
for God is in Thee and there is no God beside Thee. For Thou art God, and
we knew it not, O God of Israel, the Savior. All that resist Him shall be
ashamed and confounded, and shall walk in confusion. Is any opening left
for gainsaying, or excuse for ignorance? If blasphemy continue, is it not in
brazen defiance that it survives? God from Whom are all things, Who made
all by His command, asserts that He is the Author of the universe, for,
unless He had spoken, nothing had been created. He asserts that He has
raised up a righteous King, who builds for Himself, that is, for God, a city,
and turns back the captivity of His people, for no gift nor reward, for
freely are we all saved. Next, He tells how after the labors of Egypt, and
after the traffic of Ethiopians and Sabeans, men of stature shall come over
to Him. How shall we understand these labors in Egypt, this traffic of
Ethiopians and Sabeans? Let us call to mind how the Magi of the East
worshipped and paid tribute to the Lord; let us estimate the weariness of
that long pilgrimage to Bethlehem of Judah. In the toilsome journey of the
Magian princes we see the labors of Egypt to which the prophet alludes.
For when the Magi executed, in their spurious, material way, the duty
ordained for them by the power of God, the whole heathen world was
offering in their person the deepest reverence of which its worship was
capable. And these same Magi presented gifts of gold and frankincense and
myrrh from the merchandise of the Ethiopians and Sabeans; a thing
foretold by another prophet, who has said, The Ethiopians shall full down

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before His face, and is enemies shall lick the dust. The Kings of Tharsis
shall offer presents, the Kings of the Arabians and Sabeans shall bring
gifts, and there shall be given to Him of the gold of Arabia? The Magi and
their offerings stand for the labor of Egypt and for the merchandise of
Ethiopians and Sabeans; the adoring Magi represent the heathen world, and
offer the choicest gifts of the Gentiles to the Lord Whom they adore.

39. As for the men of stature who shall come over to Him and follow Him
in chains, there is no doubt who they are. Turn to the Gospels; Peter,
when he is to follow his Lord, is girded up. Read the Apostles: Paul, the
servant of Christ, boasts of his bonds. Let us see whether this 'prisoner of
Jesus Christ' conforms in his teaching to the prophecies uttered by God
concerning God His Son. God hart said, They shall make supplication, for
God is in Thee. Now mark and digest these words of the Apostle: — God
was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself. And then the prophecy
continues, And there is no God beside Thee. The Apostle promptly
matches this with For there is one Jesus Christ our Lord, through Whom
are all things. Obviously there can be none other but He, for He is One.
The third prophetic statement is, Thou art God and we knew it not. But
Paul, once the persecutor of the Church, says, Whose are the fathers, from
Whom is Christ, Who is God over all. Such is to be the message of these
men in chains; men of stature, indeed, they will be, and shall sit on twelve
thrones to judge the tribes of Israel, and shall follow their Lord, witnesses
to Him in teaching and in martyrdom.

40. Thus God is in God, and it is God in Whom God dwells. But how is
There is no God beside Thee true, if God be within Him? Heretic ! In
support of your confession of a solitary Father you employ the words,
There is no God beside Me; what sense can you assign to the solemn
declaration of God the Father, There is no God beside Thee, if your
explanation of There is no God beside Me be a denial of the Godhead of
the Son? To whom, in that case, can God have said, There is no God
beside Thee? You cannot suggest that this solitary Being said it to Himself.
It was to the King Whom He summoned that the Lord said, by the mouth
of the men of stature who worshipped and made supplication, For God is
in Thee. The facts are inconsistent with solitude. In Thee implies that
there was One present within range, if I may say so, of the Speaker's
voice. The complete sentence, God is in Thee, reveals not only God

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present, but also God abiding in Him Who is present. The words
distinguish the Indweller from Him in Whom He dwells, but it is a
distinction of Person only, not of character. God is in Him, and He, in
Whom God is, is God. The residence of God cannot be within a nature
strange and alien to His own. He abides in One Who is His own, born from
Himself. God is in God, because God is from God. Far Than art God, and
we knew it not, O God of Israel, the Savior

41. My next book is devoted to the refutation of your denial that God is in
God; for the prophet continues, All that resist Him shall be ashamed and
confounded and shall walk in confusion. This is God's sentence, passed
upon your unbelief. You set yourself in opposition to Christ, and it is on
His account that the Father's voice is raised in solemn reproof; for He,
Whose Godhead you deny, is God. And you deny it under cloak of
reverence for God, because He says, There is no other God beside Me.
Submit to shame and confusion; the Unoriginate God has no need of the
dignity you offer; He has never asked for this majesty of isolation which
you attribute to Him. He repudiates your officious interpretation which
would twist His words, There is no other God beside Me, into a denial of
the Godhead of the Son Whom He begot from Himself. To frustrate your
purpose of demolishing the Divinity of the Son by assigning the Godhead
in some special sense to Himself, He rounds off the glories of the
Only-begotten by the attribution of absolute Divinity: — And there is no
God beside Thee. Why make distinctions between exact equivalents? Why
separate what is perfectly matched? It is the peculiar characteristic of the
Son of God that there is no God beside Him; the peculiar characteristic of
God the Father that there is no God apart from Him. Use His words
concerning Himself; confess Him in His own terms, and entreat Him as
King; For God is in Thee, and there is no God beside Thee. For Thou art
God, and we knew it not, O God of Israel, the Savior. A confession
couched in words so reverent is free from the taint of presumption: its
terms can excite no repugnance. Above all, we must remember that to
refuse it means shame and ignominy. Brood in thought over these words
God; employ them in your confession of Him, and so escape the
threatened shame. For if you deny the Divinity of the Son of God, you
will not be augmenting the glory of God by adoring Him in lonely majesty;
you will be slighting the Father by refusing to reverence the Son. In faith

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and veneration confess of the Unoriginate God that there is no God beside
Him; claim for God the Only-begotten that apart from Him there is no
God.

42. As you have listened already to Moses and Isaiah, so listen now to
Jeremiah inculcating the same truth as they: — This is our God, and there
shall be none other likened unto Him, Who hath found out all the way of
knowledge, and hath given it unto Jacob His servant and to Israel His
beloved. Afterward did He shew Himself upon earth and dwelt among
men. For previously he had said, And He is Man, and Who shall know
Him? Thus you have God seen on earth and dwelling among men. Now I
ask you what sense you would assign to No one hath seen Gad at any
time, save the Only-begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father,
when Jeremiah proclaims God seen on earth and dwelling among men? The
Father confessedly cannot be seen except by the Son; Who then is This
who was seen and dwelt among men? He must be our God, for He is God
visible in human form, Whom men can handle. And take to heart the
prophet's words, There shall be none other likened to Him. If you ask
how this can be, listen to the remainder of the sentence, lest you be
tempted to deny to the Father His share of the confession. Hear, O Israel,
the Lord thy God is One. The whole passage is, There shall be none
likened unto Him, Who hath found out all the way of knowledge, and hath
given it unto Jacob His servant and to Israel His beloved. Afterward did
He skew Himself upon earth and dwelt among men. For there is one
Mediator between God and Men, Who is both God and Man; Mediator
both in giving of the Law and in taking of our body. Therefore none other
can be likened unto Him, for He is One, born from God into God, and the
it was through Whom all things were created in heaven and earth, through
Whom times and worlds were made. Everything, in fine, that exists owes
its existence to His action. He it is that instructs Abraham, that speaks
with Moses, that testifies to Israel, that abides in the prophets, that was
born through the Virgin from the Holy Ghost, that nails to the cross of His
passion the powers that are our foes, that slays death in hell, that
strengthens the assurance of our hope by His Resurrection, that destroys
the corruption of human flesh by the glory of His Body. Therefore none
shall be likened unto Him. For these are the peculiar powers of God the
Only-begotten; He alone was born from God, the blissful Possessor of

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such great prerogatives. No second God can be likened unto Him, for He is
God from God, not born from any alien being. There is nothing new or
strange or modern created in Him. When Israel hears that its God is one,
and that no second God is likened, that men may deem him God, to God
Who is God's Son, the revelation means that God the Father and God the
Son are One altogether, not by confusion of Person but by unity of
substance. For the prophet forbids us, because God the Son is God, to
liken Him to some second deity.

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BOOKV

1. Our reply, in the previous books, to the mad and blasphemous
doctrines of the heretics has led us with open eyes into the difficulty that
our readers incur an equal danger whether we refute our opponents, or
whether we forbear. For while unbelief with boisterous irreverence was
thrusting upon us the unity of God, a unity which devout and reasonable
faith cannot deny, the scrupulous soul was caught in the dilemma that,
whether it asserted or denied the proposition, the danger of blasphemy
was equally incurred. To human logic it may seem ridiculous and irrational
to say that it can be impious to assert, and impious to deny, the same
doctrine, since what it is godly to maintain it must be godless to dispute; if
it serve a good purpose to demolish a statement, it may seem folly to
dream that good can come from supporting it. But human logic is fallacy in
the presence of the counsels of God, and folly when it would cope with
the wisdom of heaven; its thoughts are fettered by its limitations, its
philosophy confined by the feebleness of natural reason. It must be foolish
in its own eyes before it can be wise unto God; that is, it must learn the
poverty of its own faculties and seek after Divine wisdom. It must become
wise, not by the standard of human philosophy, but of that which mounts
to God, before it can enter into His wisdom, and its eyes be opened to the
folly of the world. The heretics have ingeniously contrived that this folly,
which passes for wisdom, shall be their engine. They employ the
confession of One God, for which they appeal to the witness of the Law
and the Gospels in the words, Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God is One.
They are well aware of the risks involved, whether their assertion be met
by contradiction or passed over in silence; and, whichever happens, they
see an opening to promote their heresy. If sacred truth, pressed with a
blasphemous intent, be met by silence, that silence is construed as consent;
as a confession that, because God is One, therefore His Son is not God,
and God abides in eternal solitude. If, on the other hand, the heresy
involved in their bold argument be met by contradiction, this opposition is
branded as a departure from the true Gospel faith, which states in precise
terms the unity of God, or else they cast in the opponent's teeth that he

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has fallen into the contrary heresy, which allows but one Person of Father
and of Son. Such is the deadly artifice, wearing the aspect of an attractive
innocence, which the world's wisdom, which is folly with God, has forged
to beguile us in this first article of their faith, which we can neither confess
nor deny without risk of blasphemy. We walk between dangers on either
hand; the unity of God may force us into a denial of the Godhead of His
Son, or, if we confess that the Father is God and the Son is God, we may
be driven into the heresy of interpreting the unity of Father and of Son in
the Sabellian sense. Thus their device of insisting upon the One God would
either shut out the Second Person from the Godhead, or destroy the Unity
by admitting Him as a second God, or else make the unity merely nominal.
For unity, they would plead, excludes a Second; the existence of a Second
is destructive of unity; and Two cannot be One.

2. But we who have attained this wisdom of God, which is folly to the
world, and purpose, by means of the sound and saving profession of true
faith in the Lord, to unmask the snake-like treachery of their teaching; we
have so laid out the plan of our undertaking as to gain a vantage ground for
the display of the truth without entangling ourselves in the dangers of
heretical assertion. We carefully avoid either extreme; not denying that
God is One, yet setting forth distinctly, on the evidence of the Lawgiver
who proclaims the unity of God, the truth that there is God and God. We
teach that it is by no confusion of the Two that God is One; we do not
rend Him in pieces by preaching a plurality of Gods, nor yet do we
profess a distinction only in name. But we present Him as God and God,
postponing at present for fuller discussion hereafter the question of the
Divine unity. For the Gospels tell us that Moses taught the truth when he
proclaimed that God is One; and Moses by his proclamation of One God
confirms the lesson of the Gospels, which tell of God and God. Thus we
do not contradict our authorities, but base our teaching upon them, proving
that the revelation to Israel of the unity of God gives no sanction to the
refusal of Divinity to the Son of God; since he who is our authority for
asserting that there is One God is our authority also for confessing the
Godhead of His Son.

3. And so the arrangement of our treatise follows closely the order of the
objections raised. Since the next article of their blasphemous and dishonest
confession is, We confess One true God, the whole of this second book is

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devoted to the question whether the Son of God be true God. For it is clear
that the heretics have ingeniously contrived this arrangement of first
naming One God and then One true God, in order to detach the Son from
the name and nature of God; since the thought must suggest itself that,
truth being inherent in the One God, it must be strictly confined to Him.
And therefore, since it is clear beyond a doubt that Moses, when he
proclaimed the unity of God, meant therein to assert the Divinity of the
Son, let us return to the leading passages in which his teaching is conveyed,
and enquire whether or no he wishes us to believe that the Son, Who, as he
has taught us, is God, is also true God. It is clear that the truth, or
genuineness, of a thing is a question of its nature and its powers. For
instance, true wheat is that which grows to a head with the beard bristling
round it, which is purged from the chaff and ground to flour, compounded
into a loaf and taken for food, and renders the nature and the uses of bread.
Thus natural powers are the evidence of truth; and let us see, by this test,
whether He, Whom Moses calls God, be true God. We will defer for the
present our discourse concerning this One God, Who is also true God, lest,
if I fail at once to take up their challenge and uphold the One True God in
the two Persons of Father and of Son, eager and anxious souls be
oppressed by dangerous doubts.

4. And now, since we accept as common ground the fact that God
recognizes His Son as God, I ask you: how does the creation of the world
disprove our assertion that the Son is true God? There is no doubt that all
things are through the Son, for, in the Apostle's words, All things are
through Him, and in Him. If all things are through Him, and all were made
out of noticing, and none otherwise than through Him, in what element of
true Godhead is He defective, Who possesses both the nature and the
power of God? He bad at His disposal the powers of the Divine nature, to
bring into being the non-existent and to create at His pleasure. For God
saw that they were good.

5. When the Law says, And God said, Let there be a firmament, and then
adds, And God made the firmament, it introduces no other distinction than
that of Person. It indicates no difference of power or nature, and makes no
change of name. Under the one title of God it reveals, first, the thought of
Him Who spoke, and then the action of Him Who created. The language of
the narrator says nothing to deprive Him of Divine nature and power; nay

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rather, how precisely does it inculcate His true Godhead. The power to
give effect to the word of creation belongs only to that Nature with Whom
to speak is the same as to fulfill. How then is He not true God, Who
creates, if He is true God, Who commands? If the word spoken was truly
Divine, the deed done was truly Divine also. God spoke, and God created;
if it was true God Who spoke, He Who created was true God also; unless
indeed, while the presence of true Godhead was displayed in the speech of
the One, its absence was manifested in the action of the Other. Thus in the
Son of God we behold the true Divine nature. He is God, He is Creator, He
is Son of God, He is omnipotent. It is not merely that He can do whatever
He will, for will is always the concomitant of power; but He can do also
whatever is commanded Him. Absolute power is this, that its possessor
can execute as Agent whatever His words as Speaker can express. When
unlimited power of expression is combined with unlimited power of
execution, then this creative power, commensurate with the commanding
word, possesses the true nature of God. Titus the Son of God is not false
God, nor God by adoption, nor God by gift of the name, but true God.
Nothing would be gained by the statement of the arguments by which His
true Godhead is opposed. His possession of the name and of the nature of
God is conclusive proof. He, by Whom all things were made, is God. So
much the creation of the world tells me about Him. He is God, equal with
God in name; true God, equal with true God in power. The might of God
is revealed to us in the creative word; the might of God is manifested also
in the creative act. And now again I ask by what authority you deny, in
your confession of Father and Son, the true Divine nature of Him Whose
name reveals His power, Whose power proves His right to the Name.

6. My reader must bear in mind that I am silent about the current
objections through no forgetfulness, and no distrust of my cause. For that
constantly cited text, The Father is greater than I, and its cognate passages
are perfectly familiar to me, and I have my interpretation of them ready,
which makes them witness to the true Divine nature of the Son. But it
serves my purpose best to adhere in reply to the order of attack, that our
pious effort may follow close upon the progress of their impious scheme,
and when we see them diverge into godless heresy we may at once
obliterate the track of error. To this end we postpone to the end of our
work the testimony of the Evangelists and Apostles, and join battle with

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the blasphemers for the present on the ground of the Law and the
Prophets, silencing their crooked argument, based on misinterpretation and
deceit, by the very texts with which they strive to delude us. The sound
method of demonstrating a truth is to expose the fallacy of the objections
raised against it; and the disgrace of the deceiver is complete if his own lie
be converted into an evidence for the truth. And, indeed, the universal
experience of mankind has learned that falsehood and truth are
incompatible, and cannot be reconciled or made coherent; that by their
very nature they are among those opposites which are eternally repugnant,
and can never combine or agree.

7. This being the case, I ask how a distinction can be made in the words,
Let Us make man after Our own image and likeness between a true God
and a false. The words express a meaning, the meaning is the outcome of
thought; the thought is set in motion by truth. Let us follow the words
back to their meaning, and learn from the meaning the thought, and from
the thought attain to the underlying truth. Thy enquiry is, whether He to
Whom the words Let Us make man after Our own image and likeness were
spoken, was not thought of as true by Him Who spoke; for they
undoubtedly express the feeling and thought of the Speaker. In saying Let
Us make, He clearly indicates One in no discord with Himself, no alien or
powerless Being, but One endowed with power to do the thing of which
He speaks. His own words assure us that this is the sense in which we
must understand that they were spoken.

8. To assure us still more fully of the true Godhead manifested in the
nature and work of the Son, He, Who expressed His meaning in the words
I have cited, shews that His thought was suggested by the true Divinity of
Him to Whom He said, After Our own image and likeness. How is He
falsely called God, to Whom the true God says, After Our own image and
likeness? Our is inconsistent with isolation, and with difference either in
purpose or in nature. Man is created, taking the words in their strict sense,
in Their common image. Now there can be nothing common to the true and
to the false. God, the Speaker, is speaking to God; man is being created in
the image of Father and of Son. The Two are One in name and One in
nature. It is only out image after which man is made. The time has not yet
come for me to discuss this matter; hereafter I will explain what is this
image of God the Father and of God the Son into which man was created.

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For the present we will stick to the question, was, or was not, He true
God, to Whom the true God said, La Us make man after Our own image
and likeness? Separate, if you can, the true from the false elements in this
image common to Both; in your heretical madness divide the indivisible.
For They Two are One, of Whose one image and likeness man is the one
copy.

9. But now let us continue our reading of this Scripture, to shew how the
consistency of truth is unaffected by these dishonest objections. The next
words are, And God made man; after the image of God made He him. The
image is in common; God made man after the image of God. I would ask
him who denies that God's Son is true God, in what God's image he
supposes that God made man? He must bear constantly in mind that all
things are through the Son; heretical ingenuity must not, for its own
purposes, twist this passage into action on the part of the Father. If,
therefore, man is created through God the Son after the image of God the
Father, he is created also after the image of the Son; for all admit that the
words After Our image and likeness were spoken to the Son. Thus His
true Godhead is as explicitly asserted by the Divine words as manifested
in the Divine action; so that it is God Who molds man into the image of
God, Who reveals Himself as God, and, moreover, as true God. For His
joint possession of the Divine image proves Him true God, while His
creative action displays Him as God the Son.

10. What wild insanity of abandoned souls! What blind audacity of
reckless blasphemy! You hear of God and God; you hear of Our image.
Why suggest that One is, and One is not, true God? Why distinguish
between God by nature and God in name? Why, under pretext of
defending the faith, do you destroy the faith? Why struggle to pervert the
revelation of One God, One true God, into a denial that God is One and
true? Not yet will I stifle your insane efforts with the clear words of
Evangelists and Prophets, in which Father and Son appear not as one
Person, but as One in nature, and Each as true God. For the present the
Law, unaided, annihilates you. Does the Law ever speak of One true God,
and One not true? Does it ever speak of Either, except by the name of
God, which is the true expression of Their nature? It speaks of God and
God; it speaks also of God as One. Nay, it does more than so describe
Them. It manifests Them as true God and true God, by the sure evidence

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of Their joint image. It begins by speaking of Them first by their strict
name of God; then it attributes true Godhead to Both in common. For
when man, Their creature, is created after the image of Both, sound reason
forces the conclusion that Each of Them is true God.

11. But let us travel once more in our journey of instruction over the
lessons taught in the holy Law of God. The Angel of God speaks to Hagar;
and this same Angel is God. But perhaps His being the Angel of God
means that He is not true God. For this title seems to indicate a lower
nature y where the name points to a difference in kind, it is thought that
true equality must be absent. The last book has already exposed the
hollowness of this objection; the title of Angel informs us of His office,
not of His nature. I have prophetic evidence for this explanation; Who
maketh His angels spirits, and His ministers a flaming fire. That flaming
fire is His ministers; that spirit which comes, His angels. These figures
shew the nature and the power of His messengers, or angels, and of His
ministers. This spirit is an angel, that flaming fire a minister, of God. Their
nature adapts them for the function of messenger or minister. Thus the
Law, or rather God through the Law, wishing to indicate God the Son as a
Person, yet as bearing the same name with the Father, calls Him the Angel,
that is, the Messenger, of God. The title Messenger proves that He has an
office of His own; that His nature is truly Divine is proved when lie is
called God. But this sequence, first Angel, then God, is in the order of
revelation, not in Himself. For we confess Them Father and Son in the
strictest sense, in such equality that the Only-begotten Son, by virtue of
His birth, possesses true Divinity from the Unbegotten Father. This
revelation of Them as Sender and as Sent is but another expression for
Father and Son; not contradicting the true Divine nature of the Son, nor
canceling His possession of the Godhead as His birthright. For none can
doubt that the Son by His birth partakes congenitally of the nature of His
Author, in such wise that from the One there comes into being an
indivisible Unity, because One is from One.

12. Faith burns with passionate ardor; the burden of silence is intolerable,
and my thoughts imperiously demand an utterance. Already, in the
preceding book I have departed from the intended method of my
demonstration. I was denouncing that blasphemous sense in which the
heretics speak of One God, and expounding the passages in which Moses

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speaks of God and God. I hastened on with a precipitate, though devout,
zeal to the true sense in which we hold the unity of God. And now again,
wrapped up in the pursuit of another enquiry, I have suffered myself to
wander from the course, and, while I was engaged upon the true Divinity
of the Son, the ardor of my soul has hurried me on before the time to make
the confession of true God as Father and as Son. But our own faith must
wait its proper place in the treatise. This preliminary statement of it has
been made as a safeguard for the reader; it shall be so developed and
explained hereafter as to frustrate the schemes of the gainsayer.

13. To resume the argument; this title of office indicates no difference of
nature, for He, Who is the Angel of God, is God. The test of His true
Godhead shall be, whether or no His words and acts were those of God.
He increases Ishmael into a great people, and promises that many nations
shall bear his name. Is this, I ask, within an angel's power? If not, and this
is the power of God, why do you refuse true Divinity to Him Who, on
your own confession, has the true power of God? Thus He possesses the
true and perfect powers of the Divine nature. True God, in all the types in
which He reveals Himself for the world's salvation, is not, nor ever can be,
other than true God.

14. Now first, I ask, what is the meaning of these terms, 'true God' and
'not true God'? If any one says to me 'This is fire, but not true fire; water,
but not true water,' I can attach no intelligible meaning to his words. What
difference in kind can there be between one true specimen, and another true
specimen, of the same class? If a thing be fire, it must be true fire; while its
nature remains the same it cannot lose this character of true fire. Deprive
water of its watery nature, and by so doing you destroy it as true water;
let it remain water, and it will inevitably still be true water. The only way
in which an object can lose its nature is by losing its existence; if it
continue to exist it must be truly itself. If the Son of God is God, then He
is true God; if He is not true God, then in no possible sense is tie God at
all. If He has not the nature, then He has no right to the name; if, on the
contrary, the name which indicates the nature is His by inherent right, then
it cannot be that He is destitute of that nature in its truest sense.

15. But perhaps it will be argued that, when the Angel of God is called
God, He receives the name as a favor, through adoption, and has in

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consequence a nominal, not a true, Godhead. If He gave us an inadequate
revelation of His Divine nature at the time when He was styled the Angel
of God, judge whether He has not fully manifested His true Godhead
under the name of a nature lower than the angelic. For a Man spoke to
Abraham, and Abraham worshipped Him as God. Pestilent heretic!
Abraham confessed Him, you deny Him, to be God. What hope is there
for you, in your blasphemy, of the blessings promised to Abraham? He is
Father of the Gentiles, but not for you; you cannot go forth from your
regeneration to join the household of his seed, through the blessings given
to his faith. You are no son, raised up to Abraham from the stones; you are
a generation of vipers, an adversary of his belief. You are not the Israel of
God, the heir of Abraham, justified by faith; for you have disbelieved God,
while Abraham was justified and appointed to be the Father of the
Gentiles through that faith wherein he worshipped the God Whose word
he trusted. God it was Whom that blessed and faithful Patriarch
worshipped then; and mark how truly He was God, to Whom, in His own
words, all things are possible. Is there any, but God alone, to Whom
nothing is impossible? And He, to Whom all things are possible, does He
fall short of true Divinity?

16. 1 ask further, Who is this God Who overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah?
For the Lord rained from the Lord; was it not the true Lord from the true
Lord? Have you any alternative to this Lord, and Lord? Or any other
meaning for the terms, except that in Lord, and Lord, their Persons are
distinguished? Bear in mind that Him Whom you have confessed as Alone
true, you have also confessed as Alone the righteous Judge 9. Now mark
that the Lord who rains from the Lord, and slays not the just with the
unjust, and judges the whole earth, is both Lord and also righteous Judge,
and also rains from the Lord. In the face of all this, I ask you Which it is
that you describe as alone the righteous Judge. The Lord rains from the
Lord; you will not deny that He Who rains from the Lord is the righteous,
Judge, for Abraham, the Father of the Gentiles — but not of the
unbelieving Gentiles — speaks thus: In no wise shall Thou do tills thing,
to slay the righteous with the wicked, for then shall the righteous be as the
wicked. In no wise shall Thou, Who judgest the earth, execute this
judgment. This God, then, the righteous Judge, is clearly also the true God.
Blasphemer! Your own falsehood confutes you. Not yet do I bring

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forward the witness of the Gospels concerning God the Judge; the Law has
told me that He is the Judge. You must deprive the Son of His judgeship
before you can deprive Him of His true Divinity. You have solemnly
confessed that He Who is the only righteous Judge is also the only true
God; your own statements bind you to the admission that He Who is the
righteous Judge is also true God. This Judge is the Lord, to Whom all
things are possible, the Promiser of eternal blessings, Judge of righteous
and of wicked. He is the God of Abraham, worshipped by him. Fool and
blasphemer that you are, your shameless readiness of tongue must invent
some new fallacy, if you are to prove that He is not true God.

17. His merciful and mysterious self-revelations are in no wise inconsistent
with His true heavenly nature; and His faithful saints never fail to
penetrate the guise He has assumed in order that faith may see Him. The
types of the Law foreshew the mysteries of the Gospel; they enable the
Patriarch to see and to believe what hereafter the Apostle is to gaze on and
publish. For, since the Law is the shadow of things to come, the shadow
that was seen was a true outline of the reality which cast it. God was seen
and believed and worshipped as Man, Who was indeed to be born as Man
in the fullness of time. He takes upon Him, to meet the Patriarch's eye, a
semblance which foreshadows the future truth. In that old day God was
only seen, not born, as Man; in due time He was born, as well as seen.
Familiarity with the human appearance, which He took that men might
behold Him, was to prepare them for the time when He should, in very
truth, be born as Man. Then it was that the shadow took substance, the
semblance reality, the vision life. But God remained unchanged, whether
He were seen in the appearance, or born in the reality, of manhood. The
resemblance was perfect between Himself, after His birth, and Himself, as
He had been seen in vision. As He was born, so He had appeared; as He
had appeared, so was He born. But, since the time has not yet come for us
to compare the Gospel account with that of the prophet Moses, let us
pursue our chosen course through the pages of the Law. Hereafter we shall
prove from the Gospels that it was the true Son of God Who was born as
Man; for the present, we are shewing from the Law that it was true God,
the Son of God, Who appeared to the Patriarchs in human form. For when
One appeared to Abraham as Man, He was worshipped as God and
proclaimed as Judge; and when the Lord rained from the Lord, beyond a

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doubt the Law tells us that the Lord rained from the Lord in order to reveal
to us the Father and the Son. Nor can we for a moment suppose that when
the Patriarch, with full knowledge, worshipped the Son as God, he was
blind to the fact that it was true God Whom he worshipped.

18. But godless unbelief finds it very hard to apprehend the true faith.
Their capacity for devotion has never been expanded by belief, and is too
narrow to receive a full presentment of the truth. Hence the unbelieving
soul cannot grasp the great work done by God in being born as Man to
accomplish the salvation of mankind; in the work of its salvation it fails to
see the power of God. They think of the travail of His birth, the feebleness
of infancy, the growth of childhood, the attainment of maturity, of bodily
suffering and of the Cross with which it ended, and of the death upon the
Cross; and all this conceals His true Godhead from their eyes. Yet He had
called into being all these capacities for Himself, as additions to His nature;
capacities which in His true Divine nature He had not possessed. Thus He
acquired them without loss of His true Divinity, and ceased not to be God
when He became Man; when He, Who is God eternally, became Man at a
point in time. They cannot see an exercise of the true God's power in His
becoming what He was not before, yet never ceasing to be His former Self.
And yet there would have been no acceptance of our feeble nature, had not
He by the strength of His own omnipotent nature, while remaining what
He was, come to be what previously He was not. What blindness of
heresy, what foolish wisdom of the world, which cannot see that the
reproach of Christ is the power of God, the folly of faith the wisdom of
God! So Christ in your eyes is not God because He, Who was from
eternity, was born, because the Unchangeable grew with years, the
Impassible suffered, the Living died, the Dead lives; because all His history
contradicts the common course of nature! Is not all this simply to say that
He, being God, was omnipotent? Not yet, ye holy and venerable Gospels,
do I turn your pages, to prove from them that Christ Jesus, amid these
changes and sufferings, is God. For the Law is tile forerunner of the
Gospels, and the Law must teach us that, when God clothed Himself in
infirmity, He lost not His Godhead. The types of the Law are our
convincing assurance of the mysteries of the Gospel faith.

19. Be with me now in thy faithful spirit, holy and blessed Patriarch
Jacob, to combat the poisonous hissings of the serpent of unbelief. Prevail

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once more in thy wrestling with the Man, and, being the stronger, once
more entreat His blessing. Why pray for what thou mightest demand from
thy weaker Opponent? Thy strong arm has vanquished Him Whose
blessing thou prayest. Thy bodily victory is in broad contrast to thy
soul's humility, thy deeds to thy thoughts. It is a Man whom thou holdest
powerless in thy strong grasp; but in thine eye this Man is true God, and
God not in name only, but in nature. It is not the blessing of a God by
adoption that thou dost claim, but the true God's blessing. With Man thou
strivest; but face to face thou seest God. What thou seest with the bodily
eye is different far from what thou beholdest with the vision of faith. Thou
hast felt Him to be weak Man; but thy soul has been saved because it saw
God in Him. When thou wast wrestling thou wast Jacob; thou art Israel
now, through faith in the blessing which thou didst claim. According to the
flesh, the Man is thy inferior, for a type of His passion in the flesh; but
thou canst recognize God in that weak flesh, for a sign of His blessing in
the Spirit. The witness of the eye does not disturb thy faith,; His
feebleness does not mislead thee into neglect of His blessing. Though He is
Man, His humanity is no bar to His being God, His Godhead no bar to His
being true God; for, being God, He must indeed be true.

20. The Law in its progress still follows the sequence of the Gospel
mystery, of which it is the shadow; its types are a faithful anticipation of
the truths taught by the Apostles. In the vision of his dream the blessed
Jacob saw God; this was the revelation of a mystery, not a bodily
manifestation. For there was shown to him the descent of angels by the
ladder, and their ascent to heaven, and God resting above the ladder; and
the vision, as it was interpreted, foretold that his dream should some day
become a revealed truth. The Patriarch's words, The house of God and the
gate of heaven, skew us the scene of Iris vision; and then, after a long
account of what he did, the narrative proceeds thus: And God said unto
Jacob, Arise, and go up to the place Bethel, and dwell there: and make
there a Sacrifice unto God, that appeared unto thee widen thou fleddest
from the face of Esau. If the faith of the Gospel has access through God
the Son to God the Father, and if it is only through God that God can be
apprehended, even shew us in what sense This is not true God, Who
demands reverence for God, Who rests above the heavenly ladder. What
difference of nature separates the Two, when Both bear the one name

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which indicates the one nature? It is God Who was seen; it is also God
Who speaks about God Who was seen. God cannot be apprehended except
through God; even as also God accepts no worship from us except through
God. We could not understand that the One must be reverenced, unless the
Other had taught us reverence for Him; we could not have known that the
One is God, unless we had known the Godhead of the Other. The
revelation of mysteries holds its appointed course; it is by God that we are
initiated into the worship of God. And when one name, which tells of one
nature, combines the Father with the Son, how can the Son so fall beneath
Himself as to be other than true God?

21. Human judgment must not pass its sentence upon God. Our nature is
not such that it Can lift itself by its own forces to the contemplation of
heavenly things. We must learn from God what we are to think of God; we
have no source of knowledge but Himself. You may be as carefully trained
as you will in secular philosophy; you may have lived a life of
righteousness. All this will contribute to your mental satisfaction, but it
will not help you to know God. Moses was adopted as the son of the
queen, and instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians; he had,
moreover, out of loyalty to his race avenged the wrong of the Hebrew by
slaying the Egyptian, and yet he knew not the God Who had blessed his
fathers. For when he left Egypt through fear of the discovery of his deed,
and was living as a shepherd in the land of Midian, he saw a fire in the
bush, and the bush unconsumed. Then it was that he heard the voice of
God, and asked His name, and learned His nature. Of all this he could have
known nothing except through God Himself. And we, in like manner, must
confine ourselves, in whatever we say of God, to the terms in which He
has spoken to our understanding concerning Himself.

22. It is the Angel of God Who appeared in the fire from the bush; and it is
God Who spoke from the bush amid the fire. He is manifested as Angel;
that is His office, not His nature. The name which expresses His nature is
given you as God; for the Angel of God is God. But perhaps He is not true
God. Is the God of Abraham, then, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, not
true God? For the Angel Who speaks from the bush is their God eternally.
And, lest you insinuate that the name is His only by adoption, it is the
absolute God Who speaks to Moses. These are His words: — And the
Lord said unto Moses, I Am that I Am; and He said, Thus shale thou say

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unto the children of Israel, He that is hath sent me unto you. God's
discourse began as the speech of the Angel, in order to reveal the mystery
of human salvation in the Son. Next He appears as the God of Abraham,
and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, that we may know the name
which is His by nature. Finally it is the God that is Who sends Moses to
Israel, that we may have full assurance that in the absolute sense He is
God.

23. What further fictions can the futile folly of insane blasphemy devise?
Do you still persist in your nightly sowing of tares, predestined to be
burnt, among the pure wheat, when the knowledge of all the Patriarchs
contradicts you? Nay more: if you believed Moses, you would believe also
in God, the Son of God; unless perchance you deny that it was of Him
that Moses spoke. If you propose to deny that, you must listen to the
words of God: — For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed Me
also, far he wrote of Me. Moses, indeed, will refute you with the whole
volume of the Law, ordained through angels, which he received by the hand
of the Mediator. Enquire whether He, Who gave the Law, were not true
God; for the Mediator was the Giver. And was it not to meet God that
Moses led out the people to the Mount? Was it not God Who came down
into the Mount? Or was it, perhaps, only by a fiction or an adoption, and
not by right of nature, that He, Who did all this, bore the name of God?
Mark the blare of the trumpets, the flashing of the torches, the clouds of
smoke, as from a furnace, rolling over the mountain, the terror of conscious
impotence on the part of man in the presence of God, the confession of the
people, when they prayed Moses to be their spokesman, that at the voice
of God they would die. Is He, in your judgment, not true God, when
simple dread lest He should speak filled Israel with the fear of death? He
Whose voice could not be borne by human weakness? In your eyes is He
not God, because He addressed you through the weak faculties of a man,
that you might hear, and live? Moses entered the Mount; in forty days and
nights he gained the knowledge of the mysteries of heaven, and set it all in
order according to the vision of the truth which was revealed to him there.
From intercourse with God, Who spoke with him, he received the reflected
splendor of that glory on which none may gaze? his corruptible
countenance was transfigured into the likeness of the unapproachable light
of Him, with Whom he was dwelling. Of this God he bears witness, of this

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God he speaks; he summons the angels of God to come and worship Him
amid the gladness of the Gentiles, and prays that the blessings which
please Him may descend upon the head of Joseph. In face of such evidence
as this, dare any man say that He has nothing but the name of God, and
deny His true Divinity?

24. This long discussion has, I believe, brought out the truth that no sound
argument has ever been adduced in favor of a distinction between One Who
is, and One Who is not, true God, in those passages where the Law speaks
of God and God, of Lord and Lord. I have proved that these terms are
inconsistent with difference between Them in name or in nature, and that
we can use the name as a test of the nature, and the nature as a clue to the
name. Thus I have shewn that the character, the power, the attributes, the
name of God are inherent in Him Whom the Law has called God. I have
shewn also that the Law, gradually unfolding the Gospel mystery, reveals
the Son as a Person by manifesting God as obedient, in the creation of the
world, to the words of God, and in the formation of man making what is
the joint image of God, and of God; and again, that in the judgment of the
men of Sodom the Lord is Judge from the Lord; that, in the giving of
blessings and ordaining of the mysteries of the Law, the Angel of God is
God. Thus, in support of the saving confession of God as ever manifested
in the Persons of Father and of Son, we have shewn how the Law teaches
the true Godhead by the use of the strict name of God; for, while the Law
states clearly that They are Two, it casts no shadow of doubt upon the
true Godhead of either.

25. And now the time has come for us to put a stop to that cunning artifice
of heresy, by which they pervert the devout and godly teachings of the
Law into a support for their own godless delusion. They preface their
denial of the Son of God with the words, Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God
is One; and then, because their blasphemy would be refuted by the
identity of name, since the Law speaks of God and God, they invoke the
authority of the prophetic words, They shall bless Thee, the true God, to
prove that the name is not used in the true sense. They argue that these
words teach that God is One, and that God, the Son of God, has His name
only and not His nature; and that therefore we must conclude that the true
God is one Person only. But perhaps you imagine, fool, that we shall
contradict these texts of yours, and so deny that there is one true God.

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Assuredly we do not contradict them by a confession conceived in your
sense. Our faith receives them, our reason accepts them, our words declare
them. We recognize One God, and Him true God. The name of God has no
dangers for our confession, which proclaims that in the nature of the Son
there is the One true God. Learn the meaning of your own words,
recognize the One true God, and then you will be able to make a faithful
confession of God, One and true. It is the words of our faith which you are
turning into the instrument of your blasphemy, preserving the sound and
perverting the sense. Masquerading in a foolish garb of imaginary wisdom,
under cover of loyalty to truth you are the truth's destroyer. You confess
that God is Out and true, on purpose to deny the truth which you confess.
Your language claims a reputation for piety on the strength of its impiety,
for truth on the strength of its falsehood. Your preaching of One true God
leads up to a denial of Him. For you deny that the Son is true God, though
you admit that He is God, but God in name only, not in nature. If His
birth be in name, not in nature, then you are justified in denying His true
right to the name; but if He be truly born as God, how then can He fail to
be true God by virtue of His birth? Deny the fact, and you may deny the
consequence; if you admit the fact, how can He be other than Himself? No
being can alter its own essential nature. About His birth I shall speak
presently; meantime I will refute your blasphemous falsehoods concerning
His true Divine nature by the utterances of prophets. But I shall take care
that in our assertion of the One true God I give no cover to the Sabellian
heresy that the Father is one Person with the Son, and none to that slander
against the Son's true Godhead, which you evolve out of the unity of the
One true God.

26. Blasphemy is incompatible with wisdom; where the fear of God,
which is the beginning of wisdom, is absent, no glimmer of intelligence
survives. An instance of this is seen in the heretics' citation of the
prophet's words, And they shall bless Thee, the true God, as evidence
against the Godhead of the Son. First, we see here the folly, which clogs
unbelief in the misunderstanding or (if it were understood) in the
suppression of the earlier part of the prophecy: and again we see it in their
fraudulent interpolation of that one little word, not to be found in the book
itself. This proceeding is as stupid as it is dishonest, since no one would
trust them so far as to accept their reading without referring for

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corroboration to the prophetic text. For that text does not stand thus:
They shall bless Thee, the true God, but thus: They shall bless the true
God. There is no slight difference between Thee, the true God and The
true Gad. If Thee be retained, the pronoun of the second person implies
that Another is being addressed; if Thee be omitted, True God, the object
of the sentence, is the Speaker.

27. To ensure that our explanation of the passage shall be complete and
certain, I cite the words in full: — Therefore thus saith the Lord, Behold,
they that serve Me shall eat, but ye shall be hungry, behold, they that
serve Me shall drink, but ye shall be thirsty, behold, they that serve Me
shall rejoice with gladness, but ye shall cry for sorrow of your heart, and
shall howl for vexation of spirit. For ye shall leave your name for a
rejoicing unto My chosen, but the Lord shall slay you. But My servants
shall be called by a new name, which shall be blessed upon earth; and they
shall bless the true God, and they that swear upon the earth shall swear by
the true God. There is always a good reason for any departure from the
accustomed modes of expression, but novelty is also made an opportunity
for misinterpretation. The question here is, Why, when so many earlier
prophecies have been uttered concerning God, and the name God, alone
and without epithet, has sufficed hitherto to indicate the Divine majesty
and nature, the Spirit of prophecy should now foretell through Isaiah that
the true God was to be blessed, and that men should swear upon earth by
the true God. First, we must bear in mind that this discourse was spoken
concerning times to come. Now, I ask, was not He, in the mind of the
Jews, true God, Whom men used then to bless, and by whom they swore?
The Jews, unaware of the typical meaning of their mysteries, and therefore
ignorant of God the Son, worshipped God simply as God, and not as
Father; for, if they had worshipped Him as Father, they would have
worshipped the Son also. It was God, therefore, Whom they blessed and
by Whom they swore. But the prophet testifies that it is trite God Who
shall be blessed hereafter; calling Him true God, because the
mysteriousness of His Incarnation was to blind the eyes of some to His
true Godhead. When falsehood was to be published abroad, it was
necessary that the truth should be clearly stated. And now let us review
this passage, clause by clause.

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28. Therefore thus saith the Lord, Behold, they that serve Me shall eat,
but ye shall be hungry; behold, they that serve Me shall drink, but ye shall
be thirsty. Note that one clause contains two different tenses, in order to
teach truth concerning two different times; They that serve Me shall eat.
Present piety is rewarded with a future prize, and similarly present
godlessness shall suffer the penalty of future thirst and hunger. Then He
adds, Behold, they that serve Me shall rejoice with gladness, but ye shall
cry for sorrow of your heart, and shall howl for vexation of spirit. Here
again, as before, there is a revelation for the future and for the present.
They who serve now shall rejoice with gladness, while they who do not
serve shall abide in crying and howling through sorrow of heart and
vexation of spirit. He proceeds, For ye shall leave your name for a rejoicing
unto My chosen, but the Lord shall slay you. These words, dealing with a
future time, are addressed to the carnal Israel, which is taunted with the
prospect of having to surrender its name to the chosen of God. What is
this name? Israel, of course; for to Israel the prophecy was addressed. And
now I ask, What is Israel to-day? The Apostle gives the answer: — They
who are in the spirit, not in the letter, they who walk in the Law of Christ,
are the Israel of God.

29. Furthermore, we must form a conclusion why it is that the words cited
above, Therefore thus saith the Lord, are followed by But the Lord shall
slay you, and as to the meaning of the next sentence, But my servants shall
be called by a new name, which shall be blessed upon earth. There can be
no doubt that both Therefore thus saith the Lord, and afterwards But the
Lord shall slay you, prove that it was the Lord Who both spoke, and also
purposed to slay, Who meant to reward His servants with that new name,
Who was well known to have spoken through the prophets and was to he
the judge of the righteous and of the wicked. And thus the remainder of
this revelation of the mystery of the Gospel removes all doubt concerning
the Lord as Speaker and as Slayer. It continues: — But My servants shall
be called by a new name, which shall be blessed upon earth Here
everything is in the future. What then is this new name of a religion; a
name which shall be blessed upon earth? If ever in past ages there were a
blessing upon the name Christian, it is not a new name. But if this
hallowed name of our devotion towards God be new, then this new title of

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Christian, awarded to our faith, is that heavenly blessing which is our
reward upon earth.

30. And now come words in perfect harmony with the inward assurance of
our faith. He says, And they shall bless the true God, and they that swear
upon earth shall swear by the true God. And indeed they who in God's
service have received the new name shall bless God; and moreover the God
by Whom they shall swear is the true God. What doubt is there as to Who
this true God is, by Whom men shall swear and Whom they shall bless,
through Whom a new and blessed name shall be given to them that serve
Him? I have on my side, in opposition to the blasphemous
misrepresentations of heresy, the clear and definite evidence of the
Church's faith; the witness of the new name which Thou, O Christ, hast
given, of the blessed title which Thou hast bestowed in reward of loyal
service. It swears that Thou art true God. Every mouth, O Christ, of them
that believe tells that Thou art God. The faith of all believers swears that
Thou art God, confesses, proclaims, is inwardly assured, that Thou art
true God.

31. And thus this passage of prophecy, taken with its whole context,
clearly describe, as God both Him Whom we serve for the new name's
sake, and Him through Whom the new name is blessed upon earth. It tells
us Who it is that is blessed as true God, and Who is sworn by as true God.
And this is the confession of faith made, in the fullness of time, by the
Church in loyal devotion to Christ her Lord. We can see how exactly the
words of prophecy conform to the truth, by their refraining from the
insertion of that pronoun of the second person. Had the words been Thee,
the true God, then they might have been interpreted as spoken to another.
The true God can refer to none but the Speaker. The passage, taken by
itself, shews to Whom it refers; the preceding words, taken in connection
with it, declare Who the Speaker is Who makes this confession of God.
They are these: — I have appeared openly to them that asked not for Me,
and, I have been found of them that sought Me not. I said, Here am I, unto
a nation that called not an My name. I have spread out My hands all the
day to an unbelieving and gainsaying people. Could a dishonest attempt to
suppress the truth be more completely exposed, or the Speaker be more
distinctly revealed as true God, than here? Who, I demand, was it that
appeared to them that asked not for Him, and was found of them that

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sought Him not? What nation is it that formerly called not on His name?
Who is it that spread out His hands all the day to an unbelieving and
gainsaying people? Compare with these words that holy and Divine Song
of Deuteronomy, in which God, in His wrath against them that are no
Gods, moves the unbelievers to jealousy against those that are no people
and a foolish nation. Conclude for yourself, Who it is that makes Himself
manifest to them that knew Him not; Who, though one people is His own,
becomes the possession of strangers; Who it is that spreads out His hands
before an unbelieving and gainsaying people, nailing to the cross the
writing of the former sentence against us. For the same Spirit in the
prophet, whom we are considering, proceeds thus in the course of this one
prophecy, which is connected in argument as well as continuos in
utterance: But My servants shall be called by a new name, which shall be
blessed upon earth, and they shall bless the true God, and they that swear
upon the earth shall swear by the trite God.

32. If heresy, in its folly and wickedness, shall attempt to entice the
simple-minded and uninstructed away from the true belief that these
words were spoken in reference to God the Son, by reigning that they are
an utterance of God the Father concerning Himself, it shall hear sentence
passed upon the lie by the Apostle and Teacher of the Gentiles. He
interprets all these prophecies as allusions to the passion of the Lord and
to the times of Gospel faith, when he is reproving the unbelief of Israel,
which will not recognize that the Lord is come in the flesh. His words are:
— For whosoever shall have called upon the name of the Lord shall be
saved. How shall they call on Him in Whom they have not believed? But
how shall they believe in Him of Whom they have not heard? And how
shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach, excerpt
they hare been sent? As it is written, How beautiful are the feel of them
that proclaim peace, of them that proclaim good things. But all do not
obey the Gospel. For Esaias saith, Lord, who hath believed our report? So
then faith cometh by hearing and hearing through the word. But I say,
Have they not heard? Yes verily, their sound went into all the earth, and
their words unto the ends of the world. But I say, Did not Israel know?
First Moses saith, I will provoke you to jealousy against them that are no
people, and against a foolish nation I will anger you. Moreover Esaias is
bold, and saith, I appeared unto them that seek Me not, I was found by

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them that asked not after Me. But to Israel what saith He? All day long I
have stretched forth My hands to a people that hearken not. Who art thou
that bast mounted up through the successive heavens, knowing not
whether thou wert in the body or out of the body, and canst explain more
faithfully than he the words of the prophet? Who art thou that hast heard,
and mayst not tell, the ineffable mysteries of the secret things of heaven,
and hast proclaimed with greater assurance the knowledge granted thee by
God for revelation? Who art thou that hast been fore-ordained to a full
share of the Lord's suffering on the Cross, and first has been caught up to
Paradise and drawn nobler teaching from the Scriptures of God than this
chosen vessel? If there be such a man, has he been ignorant that these are
the deeds and words of the true God, proclaimed to us by His own true
and chosen Apostle that we may recognize in Him their Author?

33. But it may be argued that the Apostle was not inspired by the Spirit of
prophecy when he borrowed these prophetic words; that he was only
interpreting at random the words of another man, and though, no doubt,
everything the Apostle says of himself comes to him by revelation from
Christ, yet his knowledge of the words of Isaiah is only derived from the
book. I answer that in the beginning of that utterance in which it is said
that the servants of the true God shall bless Him and swear by Him, we
read this adoration by the prophet: — From everlasting we have not heard,
nor have our eyes seen God, except Thee, and Thy works which Thou wilt
do for them that await Thy mercy. Isaiah says that he has seen no God but
Him. For he did actually see the glory of God, the mystery of Whose
taking flesh from the Virgin he foretold. And if you, in your heresy, do not
know that it was God the Only-begotten Whom the prophet saw in that
glory, listen to the Evangelist: — These things said Esaias, when he saw
His glory, and spake of Him. The Apostle, the Evangelist, the Prophet
combine to silence your objections. Isaiah did see God; even though it is
written, No one hath seen God at any time, save the Only-begotten Son
Who is in the bosom of the Father; He hath declared Him, it was God
Whom the prophet saw. He gazed upon the Divine glory, and men were
filled with envy at such honor vouchsafed to his prophetic greatness. For
this was the reason why the Jews passed sentence of death upon him.

34. Thus the Only -begotten Son, Who is in the bosom of the Father, has
told us of God, Whom no man has seen. Either disprove the fact that the

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Son has thus informed us, or else believe Him Who has been seen, Who
appeared to them who knew Him not, and became the God of the Gentiles
who called not upon Him and spread out His bands before a gainsaying
people. And believe this also concerning Him, that they who serve Him are
called by a new name, and that on earth men bless Him and swear by Him
as true God. Prophecy tells, the Gospel confirms, the Apostle explains,
the Church confesses, that He Who was seen is true God; but none venture
to say that God the Father was seen. And yet the madness of heresy has
run to such lengths that, while they pro-less to recognize this truth, they
really deny it. They deny it by means of the newfangled and godless
device of evading the truth, while making a studied pretense of adhesion to
it. For when they confess one God, alone true and alone righteous, alone
wise, alone unchangeable, alone immortal, alone mighty, they attach to
Him a Son different in substance, not born from God to be God, but
adopted through creation to be a Son, having the name of God not by
nature, but as a title received by adoption; and thus they inevitably
deprive the Son of all those attributes which they accumulate upon the
Father in His lonely majesty.

35. The distorted mind of heresy is incapable of knowing and confessing
the One true God; the sound faith and reason necessary for such
confession is incompatible with unbelief. We must confess Father and Son
before we can apprehend God as One awl true. When we have known the
mysteries of man's salvation, accomplished in us through the power of
regeneration unto life in the Father and the Son, then we may hope to
penetrate the mysteries of the Law and the Prophets. Godless ignorance of
the teaching of Evangelists and Apostles cannot frame the thought of One
true God. Out of the teaching of Evangelists and Apostles we shall present
the sound doctrine concerning Him, In accurate agreement with the faith of
true believers. We shall present Him in such wise that the Only-begotten,
Who is of the substance of the Father, shall be known as indivisible and
inseparable in nature, not in Person. We shall set forth God as One,
because God is from the nature of God. But we shall also establish this
doctrine of the perfect unity of God upon the words of the Prophets, and
make them the foundations of the Gospel structure, proving that there is
One God, with one Divine nature, by the fact that God the Only-begotten
is never classed apart as a second God. For throughout this book of our

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treatise we have followed the same course as in its predecessor; the same
methods which proved there that the Son is God, have proved here that He
is true God. I trust that our explanation of each passage has been so
convincing that we have now manifested Him as true God as effectually as
we formerly demonstrated His Godhead. The remainder of the book shall
be devoted to the proof that He, Who is now recognized as true God, must
not be regarded as a second God. Our disproof of the notion of a second
God will further establish the unity; and this truth shall be displayed as
not inconsistent with the personal existence of the Son, while yet it
maintains the unity of nature in God and God.

36. The true method of our enquiry demands that we should begin with
him, through whom God first manifested Himself to the world, that is,
with Moses, by whose mouth God the Only-begotten thus declared
Himself; See, see that I am God, and there is no God beside Me. That
godless heresy must not assign these words to God, the unbegotten Father,
is clear by the sense of the passage and by the evidence of the Apostle
who, as we have already stated, has taught us to understand this whole
discourse as spoken by God the Only-begotten. The Apostle also points
out the words, Rejoice, ye nations, with His people as those of the Son,
and in corroboration further cites this: — And there shall be a root of
Jesse, and One that shall arise to rule the nations; in Him shall the nations
trust. Thus Moses by the words, Rejoice, O ye nations, with His people
indicates Him Who said, There is no Gad beside Me; and the Apostle
refers the same words to our Lord Jesus Christ, God the Only -begotten, in
Whose rising as a king from the root of Jesse, according to the flesh, the
hope of the Gentiles rests. And therefore we must now consider the
meaning of these words, that we, who know that they were spoken by
Him, may ascertain in what sense He spoke them.

37. That true and absolute and perfect doctrine, which forms our faith, is
the confession of God from God and God in God, by no bodily process
but by Divine power, by no transfusion from nature into nature but
through the secret and mighty working of the One nature; God from God,
not by division or extension or emanation, but by the operation of a nature
which brings into existence, by means of birth, a nature One with itself.
The facts shall receive a fuller treatment in the next book, which is to be
devoted to an exposition of the teaching of the Evangelists and Apostles;

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for the present we must maintain our assertion and belief by means of the
Law and the Prophets. The nature with which God is born is necessarily
the same as that of His Source. He cannot come into existence as other
than God, since His origin is from none other than God. His nature is the
same, not in the sense that the Begetter also was begotten — for then the
Unbegotten, having been begotten, would not be Himself — but that the
substance of the Begotten consists in all those elements which are summed
up in the substance of the Begetter, Who is His only Origin. Thus it is due
to no external cause that His origin is from the One, and that His existence
partakes the Unity; their is no novel element in Him, because His life is
from the Living; no element absent, because the Living begot Him to
partake His own life. Hence, in the generation of the Son, the incorporeal
and unchangeable God begets, in accordance with His own nature, God
incorporeal and unchangeable; and this perfect birth of incorporeal and
unchangeable God from incorporeal and unchangeable God involves, as we
see in the light of the revelation of God from God, no diminution of the
Begetter's substance. And so God the Only-begotten bears witness
through the holy Moses; See, see that I am God, and there is no God
beside Me. For there is no second Divine nature, and so there can be no
God beside Him, since He is God, yet by the powers of His nature God is
also in Him. And because He is God and God is in Him, there is no God
beside Him; for God, than Whom there is no other Source of Deity, is in
Him, and consequently there is within Him not only His own existence,
but the Author of that existence.

38. This saving faith which we profess is sustained by the spirit of
prophecy, speaking with one voice through many mouths, and never,
through long and changing ages, bearing an uncertain witness to the truths
of revelation. For instance, the words which, as we are told through
Moses, were spoken by God the Only-begotten, are confirmed for our
better instruction by the prophetic spirit, speaking this time through those
men of stature, — For God is in Thee, and there is no God beside Thee.
Thou art God, and we knew it not, O God Israel, the Savior. Let heresy
fling itself with its utmost effort of despair and rage against this declaration
of a name and nature inseparably joined, and rend in twain, if its furious
struggles can, a union perfect in title and in fact. God is in God and beside
Him there is no God. Let heresy, if it can, divide the God within from the

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God within Whom He is, and classify, Each after His kind, the members of
that mystic union. For when He says God is in Thee, He teaches that the
true nature of God the Father is present in God the Son; for we must
understand that it is the God Who is that is in Him. And when He adds,
And there is no God beside Thee, He shews that outside Him there is no
God, since God's dwelling is within Himself. And the third assertion,
Thou art God and we knew it not, sets forth for our instruction what must
be the confession of the devout and believing soul. When it has learnt the
mysteries of the Divine birth, and the name Emmanuel which the angel
announced to Joseph, it must cry, Thou art God, and we knew it not, O
God of Israel, the Savior. It must recognize the subsistence of the Divine
nature in Him, inasmuch as God is in God, and the nonexistence of any
other God except the true. For, He being God and God being in Him, the
delusion of another God, of what kind soever, must be surrendered. Such is
the message of the prophet Isaiah; he bears witness to the indivisible and
inseparable Godhead of Father and of Son.

39. Jeremiah also, a prophet equally inspired, has taught that God the
Only-begotten is of a nature one with that of God the Father. His words
are: — This is our God, and there shall be none other likened unto Him,
hath found out all the way of knowledge, and hath given it unto Jacob His
servant, and to Israel His beloved Afterward He was seen upon earth, and
dwelt among men. Why try to transform the Son of God into a second
God? Learn to recognize and to confess the One True God. No second
God is likened to Christ, and so can claim to be God. He is God from God
by nature and by birth, for the Source of His Godhead is God. And, again,
He is not a second God, for no other is likened unto Him; the truth that is
in Him is nothing else than the truth of God. Why link together, in
pretended devotion to the unity of God, true and false, base and genuine,
unlike and unlike? The Father is God and the Son is God. God is in God;
beside Him there is no God, and none other is likened unto Him so as to be
God. If in these Two you shall recognize the Unity, instead of the
solitude, of God, you will share the Church's faith, which confesses the
Father in the Son. But if, in ignorance of the heavenly mystery, you insist
that God is One in order to enforce the doctrine of His isolation, then you
are a stranger to the knowledge of God, for you deny that God is in God.

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BOOK 6

1. It is with a full knowledge of the dangers and passions of the time that I
have ventured to attack this wild and godless heresy, which asserts that
the Son of God is a creature. Multitudes of Churches, in almost every
province of the Roman Empire, have already caught the plague of this
deadly doctrine; error, persistently inculcated and falsely claiming to be the
truth, has become ingrained in minds which vainly imagine that they are
loyal to the faith. I know how hardly the will is moved to a thorough
recantation, when zeal for a mistaken cause is encouraged by the sense of
numbers and confirmed by the sanction of general approval. A multitude
under delusion can only be approached with difficulty and danger. When
the crowd has gone astray, even though it know that it is in the wrong, it is
ashamed to return. It claims consideration for its numbers, and has the
assurance to command that its folly shall be accounted wisdom. It assumes
that its size is evidence of the correctness of its opinions; and thus a
falsehood which has found general credence is boldly asserted to have
established its truth.

2. For my own part, it was not only the claim which my vocation has
upon me, the duty of diligently preaching the Gospel which, as a bishop, I
owe to the Church, that has led me on. My eagerness to write has
increased with the increasing numbers endangered and enthralled by this
heretical theory. There was a rich prospect of joy in the thought of
multitudes who might be saved, if they could know the mysteries of the
right faith in God, and abandon the blasphemous principles of bureau
folly, desert the heretics and surrender themselves to God; if they would
forsake the bait with which the fowler snares his prey, and soar aloft in
freedom and safety, following Christ as Leader, prophets as instructors,
apostles as guides, and accepting the perfect faith and sure salvation in the
confession of Father and of Son. So would they, in obedience to the words
of the Lord, He that honoreth not the Son honoreth not the Father which
hath sent Him, be setting themselves to honor the Father, through honor
paid to the Son.

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3. For of late the infection of a mortal evil has gone abroad among mankind,
whose ravages have dealt destruction and death on every hand. The sudden
desolation of cities smitten, with their people in them, by earthquake to
the ground, the terrible slaughter of recurring wars, the widespread
mortality of an irresistible pestilence, have never wrought such fatal
mischief as the progress of this heresy throughout the world. For God,
unto Whom all the dead live, destroys those only who are self-destroyed.
From Him Who is to be the Judge of all, Whose Majesty will temper with
mercy the punishment allotted to the mistakes of ignorance, they who
deny Him can expect not even judgment, but only denial.

4. For this mad heresy does deny; it denies the mystery of the true faith
by means of statements borrowed from our confession, which it employs
for its own godless ends. The confession of their misbelief, which I have
already cited in an earlier book, begins thus: — "We confess one God,
alone unmade, alone eternal, alone unoriginate, alone true, alone possessing
immortality, alone good, alone mighty." Thus they parade the opening
words of our own confession, which runs, "One God, alone unmade and
alone unoriginate," that this semblance of truth may serve as introduction
to their blasphemous additions. For, after a multitude of words in which an
equally insincere devotion to the Son is expressed, their confession
continues, "God's perfect creature, but not as one of His other creatures,
His Handiwork, but not as His other works." And again, after an interval
in which true statements are occasionally interspersed in order to veil their
impious purpose of alleging, as by sophistry they try to prove, that He
came into existence out of nothing, they add, "He, created and established
before the worlds, did not exist before He was born." And lastly, as though
every point of their false doctrine, that He is to be regarded neither as Son
nor as God, were guarded impregnably against assault, they continue: —
"As to such phrases as from Him, and from the womb, and I went out
from the Father and am come, if they be understood to denote that the
Father extends a part and, as it were, a development of that one substance,
then the Father will be of a compound nature and divisible and changeable
and corporeal, according to them; and thus, as far as their words go, the
incorporeal God will be subjected to the properties of matter." But, as we
are now about to cover the whole ground once more, employing this time
the language of the Gospels as our weapon against this most godless

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heresy, it has seemed best to repeat here, in the sixth book, the whole
heretical document, though we have already given a full copy of it in the
fourth, in order that our opponents may read it again, and compare it,
point by point, with our reply, and so be forced, however reluctant and
argumentative, by the clear teaching of the Evangelists and Apostles, to
recognize the truth. The heretical confession is as follows: —

5. "We confess one God, alone unmade, alone eternal, alone unoriginate,
alone possessing immortality, alone good, alone mighty, Creator, Ordainer
and Disposer of all things, unchangeable and unalterable, righteous and
good, of the Law and the Prophets and the New Testament. We believe
that this God gave birth to the Only-begotten Son before all worlds,
through Whom He made the world and all things, that He gave birth to
Him not in semblance, but in truth, following His own will, so that He is
unchangeable and unalterable, God's perfect Creature, but not as one of
His other creatures, His Handiwork, but not as His other works; not, as
Valentinus maintained, that the Son is a development of the Father, nor, as
Manichaeus has declared of the Son, a consubstantial part of the Father,
nor, as Sabellius, who makes two out of One, Son and Father at once, nor,
as Hieracas, a light from a light, or a lamp with two flames, nor, as if He
was previously in being and afterwards born, or created afresh, to be a Son,
a notion often condemned by thyself, blessed Pope, publicly in the
Church, and in the assembly of the brethren. But, as we have affirmed, we
believe that He was created by the will of God before times and worlds,
and has His life and existence from the Father, Who gave Him to share His
own glorious perfections. For, when the Father gave to Him the inheritance
of all things, He did not thereby deprive Himself of attributes which are
His without origination, He being the source of all things.

6. "So there are three Persons, Father, Son and Holy Ghost. God, for His
part, is the Cause of all things, utterly unoriginate and separate from all;
while the Son, put forth by the Father outside time, and created and
established before the worlds, did not exist before He was born, but, being
born outside time before the worlds, came into being as the Only Son of
the Only Father. For He is neither eternal, nor co-eternal, nor co-uncreate
with the Father, nor has He an existence collateral with the Father, as some
say who postulate two unborn principles. But God is before all things, as
being indivisible and the beginning of all. Wherefore He is before the Son

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also, as indeed we have learnt from thee in thy public preaching. Inasmuch
then as He has His being from God, and His glorious perfections, and His
life, and is entrusted with all things, for this reason God is His Source. For
He rules over Him, as being His God, since He is before Him. As to such
phrases as from Him, and from the womb, and I went out from the Father
and am come, if they be understood to denote that the Father extends a
part and, as it were, a development of that one Substance, then the Father
will be of a compound nature and divisible and changeable and corporeal,
according to them; and thus, as far as their words go, the incorporeal God
will be subjected to the properties of matter."

7. Who can fail to see here the slimy windings of the serpent's track: the
coiled adder, with forces concentrated for the spring, concealing the deadly
weapon of its poisonous fangs within its folds? Presently we shall stretch
it out and examine it, and expose the venom of this hidden head. For their
plan is first to impress with certain sound statements, and then to infuse
the poison of their heresy. They speak us fair, in order to work us secret
harm. Yet, amid all their specious professions, I nowhere hear God's Son
entitled God; I never hear sonship attributed to the Son. They say much
about His having the name of Son, but nothing about His having the nature.
That is kept out of sight, that He may seem to have no right even to the
name. They make a show of unmasking other heresies to conceal the fact
that they are heretics themselves. They strenuously assert that there is
One only, One true God, to the end that they may strip the Son of God of
His true and personal Divinity.

8. And therefore, although in the two last books I have proved from the
teaching of the Law and Prophets that God and God, true God and true
God, true God the Father and true God the Son, must be confessed as One
true God, by unity of nature and not by confusion of Persons, yet, for the
complete presentation of the faith, I must also adduce the teaching of the
Evangelists and Apostles. I must show from them that true God, the Son
of God, is not of a different, an alien nature from that of the Father, but
possesses the same Divinity while having a distinct existence through a
true birth. And, indeed, I cannot think that any soul exists so witless as to
fancy that, although we know God's self-revelations, yet we cannot
understand them; that, if they can be understood, would not wish to
understand, or would dream that human reason can devise improvements

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upon them. But before I begin to discuss the facts contained in these
saving mysteries, I must first humble the pride with which these heretics
rebuke the names of other heresies. I shall hold up to the light this
ingenious cloak for their own impiety. I shall shew that this very means of
concealing the deadliness of their teaching serves rather to reveal and
betray it, and is a widely effectual warning of the true character of this
honeyed poison.

9. For instance, these heretics would have it that the Son of God is not
from God; that God was not born from God out of, and in, the nature of
God. To this end, when they have solemnly borne witness to "One God,
alone true," they refrain from adding "The Father." And then, in order to
escape from confessing one true Godhead of Father anti of Son by a denial
of the true birth, they proceed, "Not, as Valentinus maintained, that the
Son is a development of the Father." Thus they think to cast discredit
upon the birth of God from God by calling it a "development," as though
it were a form of the Valentinian heresy. For Valentinus was the author of
foul and foolish imaginations; beside the chief God, he invented a whole
household of deities and countless powers called aeons, and taught that our
Lord Jesus Christ was a development mysteriously brought about by a
secret action of will. The faith of the Church, the faith of the Evangelists
and Apostles, knows nothing of this imaginary development, sprung from
the brain of a reckless and senseless dreamer. It knows nothing of the
"Depth" and "Silence" and the thrice ten aeons of Valentinus. It knows
none but One God the Father, from Whom are all things, and One Jesus
Christ, our Lord, through Whom are all things, Who is God born from
God. But it occurred to them that He, in being born as God from God,
neither withdrew anything from the Divinity of His Author nor was
Himself born other than God; that He became God not by a new beginning
of Deity but by birth from the existing God; and that every birth appears,
as far as human faculties can judge, to be a development, so that even that
birth might be regarded as a development. And these considerations have
induced them to make an attack upon the Valentinian heresy of
development as a means of destroying faith in the true birth of the Son.
For the experience of common life leads worldly wisdom to suppose that
there is no great difference between a birth and a development. The mind
of man, dull and slow to grasp the things of God, needs to be constantly

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reminded of the principle, which I have stated more than once, that
analogies drawn from human experience are not of perfect application to
the mysteries of Divine power; that their only value is that this
comparison with material objects imparts to the spirit such a notion of
heavenly things that we may rise, as by a ladder of nature, to an
apprehension of the majesty of God. But the birth of God must not be
judged by such development as takes place in human births. When One is
born from One, God born from God, the circumstances of human birth
enable us to apprehend the fact; but a birth which presupposes intercourse
and conception and time and travail can give us no clue to the Divine
method. When we are told that God was born from God, we must accept it
as true that He was born, and be content with that. We shall, however, in
the proper place discourse of the truth of the Divine birth, as the Gospels
and the Apostles set it forth. Our present duty has been to expose this
device of heretical ingenuity, this attack upon the true birth of Christ,
concealed under the form of an attack upon a so-called development.

10. And then, in continuation of this same fraudulent assault upon the
faith, their confession proceeds thus: — "Nor, as Manichaeus has declared
of the Son, a consubstantial part of the Father." They have already denied
that He is a development, in order to escape from the admission of His
birth; now they introduce, labeled with the name of Manichaeus, the
doctrine that the Son is a portion of the one Divine substance, and deny it,
in order to subvert the belief in God from God. For Manichaeus, the
furious adversary of the Law and Prophets, the strenuous champion of the
devil's cause and blind worshipper of the sun, taught that That which was
in the Virgin's womb was a portion of the one Divine substance, and that
by the Son we must understand a certain piece of God's substance which
was cut off, and made its appearance in the flesh. And so they make the
most of this heresy that in the birth of the Son there was a division of the
one substance and use it as a means of evading the doctrine of the birth of
the Only-begotten, and the very name of the unity of substance. Because it
is sheer blasphemy to speak of a birth re- suiting from division of the one
substance they deny any birth; all forms of birth are joined in the
condemnation which they pass upon the Manichaean notion of birth by
severance. And again, they abolish the unity of substance, both name and
thing, because the heretics hold that the unity is divisible; and deny that

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the Son is God from God, by refusing to believe that He is truly possessed
of the Divine nature. Why does this mad heresy profess a fictitious
reverence, a senseless anxiety? The faith of the Church does, as these
insane propounders of error remind us, condemn Manichaeus, for she
knows nothing of the Son as a portion. She knows Him as whole God from
whole God, as One from One, not severed but born. She is assured that the
birth of God involves neither impoverishment of the Begetter nor
inferiority of the Begotten. If this be the Church's own imagining, reproach
her with the follies of a wisdom falsely claimed; but if she have learned it
from her Lord, confess that the Begotten knows the manner of His
begetting. She has learnt from God the Only-begotten these truths, that
Father and Son are One, and that in the Son the fullness of the Godhead
dwells. And therefore she loathes this attribution to the Son of a portion of
the one substance; and, because she knows that He was truly born of God,
she worships the Son as rightful Possessor of true Divinity. But, for the
present, let us defer our full answer to these several allegations, and hasten
through the rest of their denunciations.

11. What follows is this: — "Nor, as Sabellius, who makes two out of
One, Son and Father at once." Sabellius holds this in willful blindness to
the revelation of the Evangelists and Apostles. But what we see here is not
one heretic honestly denouncing other. It is the wish to leave no point of
union between Father and Son that prompts them to reproach Sabellius
with his division of an indivisible Person; a division which does not result
in the birth of a second Person, but cuts the One Person into two parts,
one of which enters the Virgin's womb. But we confess a birth; we reject
this confusion of two Persons in One, while yet we cleave to the Divine
unity. That is, we hold that God from God means unity of nature; for that
Being, Who, by a true birth from God, became God, can draw His
substance from no other source than the Divine. And since He continues to
draw His being, as He drew it at first, from God, He must remain true God
for ever; and hence They Two are One, for He, Who is God from God, has
no other than the Divine nature, and no other than the Divine origin. But
the reason why this blasphemous Sabellian confusion of two Persons into
One is here condemned is that they wish to rob the Church of her true
faith in Two Persons in One God. But now I must examine the remaining
instances of this perverted ingenuity, to save myself from the reputation

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of a censorious judge of sincere enquirers, moved rather by dislike than
genuine fear. I shall shew, by the terms with which they wind up their
confession, what is the deadly conclusion which they have skillfully
contrived shall be its inevitable issue.

12. Their next clause is: — "Nor, as Hieracas, a light from a light, or a lamp
with two flames, nor as if He was previously in being, and afterwards
born, or created afresh, to be a Son." Hieracas ignores the birth of the
Only-begotten, and, in complete unconsciousness of the meaning of the
Gospel revelations, talks of two flames from one lamp. This symmetrical
pair of flames, fed by the supply of oil contained in one bowl, is His
illustration of the substance of Father and Son. It is as though that
substance were something separate from Either Person, like the oil in the
lamp, which is distinct from the two flames, though they depend upon it
for their existence; or like the wick, of one material throughout and burning
at both ends, which is distinct from the flames, yet provides them and
connects them together. All this is a mere delusion of human folly, which
has trusted to itself, and not to God, for knowledge. But the true faith
asserts that God is born from God, as light from light, which pours itself
forth without self-diminution, giving what it has yet having what it gave. It
asserts that by His birth He was what He is, for as He is so was He born;
that His birth was the gift of the existing Life, a gift which did not lessen
the store from which it was taken; and that They Two are One, for He,
from Whom He is born, is as Himself, and He that was born has neither
another source nor another nature, for He is Light from Light. It is in order
to draw men's faith away from this, the true doctrine, that this lantern or
lamp of Hieracas is cast in the teeth of those who confess Light from
Light. Because the phrase has been used in an heretical sense, and
condemned both now and in earlier days, they want to persuade us that
there is no true sense in which it can be employed. Let heresy forthwith
abandon these groundless fears, and refrain from claiming to be the
protector of the Church's faith on the score of a reputation for zeal earned
so dishonestly. For we allow nothing bodily, nothing lifeless, to have a
place among the attributes of God; whatever is God is perfect God. In Him
is nothing but power, life, light, blessedness, Spirit. That nature contains
no dull, material elements; being immutable, it has no incongruities within
it. God, because He is God, is unchangeable; and the unchangeable God

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begat God. Their bond of union is not, like that of two flames, two wicks
of one lamp, something outside Themselves. The birth of the
Only-begotten Son from God is not a prolongation in space, but a
begetting; not an extension, but Light from Light. For the unity of light
with light is a unity of nature, not unbroken continuation.

13. And again, what a wonderful example of heretical ingenuity is this: —
"Nor as if He were previously in being, and afterwards born or created
afresh, to be a Son." God, since He was born from God, was assuredly not
born from nothing, nor from things non-existent. His birth was that of the
eternally living nature. Yet, though He is God, He is not identical with the
pre-existing God; God was born from God Who existed before Him; in,
and by, His birth He partook of the nature of His Source. If we are
speaking words of our own, all this is mere irreverence; but if, as we shall
prove, God Himself has taught us how to speak, then the necessity is laid
upon us of confessing the Divine birth in the sense revealed by God. And
it is this unity of nature in Father and in Son, this ineffable mystery of the
living birth, which the madness of heresy is struggling to banish from
belief, when it says, "Nor as if He were previously in being, and
afterwards born, or created afresh, to be a Son." Now who is senseless
enough to suppose that the Father ceased to be Himself; that the same
Person Who had previously existed was afterwards born, or created afresh,
to be the Son? That God disappeared, and that His disappearance was
followed by an emergence in birth, when, in fact, that birth is evidence of
the continuous existence of its Author? Or who is so insane as to suppose
that a Son can come into existence otherwise than through birth? Who so
void of reason as to say that the birth of God resulted in anything else than
in God being born? The abiding God was not born, but God was born from
the abiding God; the nature bestowed in that birth was the very nature of
the Begetter. And God by His birth, which was from God into God,
received, because His was a true birth, not things new-created but things
which were and are the permanent possession of God. Thus it is not the
pre-existent God that was born; yet God was born, and began to exist, out
of and with the properties of God. And thus we see how heresy,
throughout this long prelude, has been treacherously leading up to this
most blasphemous doctrine. Its object being to deny God the
Only-begotten, it starts with what purports to be a defense of truth, to go

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on to the assertion that Christ is born not from God but out of nothing,
and that His birth is due to the Divine counsel of creation from the
non-existent.

14. And then again, after an interval designed to prepare us for what is
coming, their heresy delivers this assault; — "While the Son, put forth
outside time, and created and established before the worlds, did not exist
before He was born." This "He did not exist before He was born" is a form
of words by which the heresy flatters itself that it gains two ends; support
for its blasphemy, and a screen for itself if its doctrine be arraigned. A
support for its blasphemy, because, if He did not exist before He was
born, He cannot be of one nature with His eternal Origin. He must have
His beginning out of nothing, if He have no powers but such as are coeval
with His birth. And a screen for its heresy, for if this statement be
condemned, it furnishes a ready answer. He that did exist, it will be said,
could not be born; being in existence already, He could not possibly come
into being by passing through the process of birth, for the very meaning of
birth is the entry into existence of the being that is born. Fool and
blasphemer! Who dreams of birth in the case of Him Who is the unborn
and eternal? How can we think of God, Who is, being born, when being
born implies the process of birth? It is the birth of God the Only -begotten
from God His Father that you are striving to disprove, and it was your
purpose to escape the confession of that truth by means of this "He did
not exist before He was born;" the confession that God, from Whom the
Son of God was born, did exist eternally, and that it is from His abiding
nature that God the Son draws His existence through birth. If, then, the
Son is born from God, you must confess that His is a birth of that abiding
nature; not a birth of the pre-existing God, but a birth of God from God
the pre-existent.

15. But the fiery zeal of this heresy is such that it cannot restrain itself
from passionate outbreak. In its effort to prove, in conformity with its
assertion that He did not exist before He was born, that the Son was born
from the non-existent, that is, that He was not born from God the Father
to be God the Son by a true and perfect birth, it winds up its confession
by rising in rage and hatred to the highest pitch of possible blasphemy: —
"As to such phrases as from Him, and from the womb, and I went out
front the Father and am come, if they be understood to denote that the

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Father extends a part, and, as it were, a development of that one substance,
then the Father will be of a compound nature and divisible and changeable
and corporeal, according to them; and thus, as far as their words go, the
incorporeal God will be subjected to the properties of matter." The
defense of the true faith against the falsehoods of heresy would indeed be a
task of toil and difficulty, if it were needful for us to follow the processes
of thought as far as they have plunged into the depths of godlessness.
Happily for our purpose it is shallowness of thought that has engendered
their eagerness to blaspheme. And hence, while it is easy to refute, the
folly, it is difficult to amend the fool, for he will neither think out right
conclusions for himself, nor accept them when offered by another. Yet I
trust that they who in pious ignorance, not in willful folly bred of
self-conceit, are enchained by error, will welcome correction. For our
demonstration of the truth will afford convincing proof that heresy is
nothing else than folly.

16. You said in your unreason, and you are still repeating to-day, ignorant
that your wisdom is a defiance of God, "As to such phrases as from Him,
and from the womb, and I went out from the Father and am come," I ask
you, Are these phrases, or are they not, words of God? They certainly are
His; and, since they are spoken by God about Himself, we are bound to
accept them exactly as they were spoken. Concerning the phrases
themselves, and the precise force of each, we shall speak in the proper
place. For the present I will only put this question to the intelligence of
every reader; When we see From Himself, are we to take it as equivalent to
"From sortie one else," or to "From nothing," or are we to accept it as the
truth? It is not "From some one else," for it is From Himself; that is, His
Godhead has no other source than God. It is not "From nothing," for it is
From Himself; a declaration of the nature from which His birth is. It is not
"Himself," but From Himself; a statement that They are related as Father
and Son. And next, when the revelation From the womb is made, I ask
whether we can possibly believe that He is born from nothing, when the
truth of His birth is clearly indicated in terms borrowed from bodily
functions. It is not because He has bodily members, that God records the
generation of the Son in the words, I bore Thee from the womb before the
morning star . He uses language which assists our understanding to assure
us that His Only-begotten Son was ineffably born of His own true

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Godhead. His purpose is to educate the faculties of men up to the
knowledge of the faith, by clothing Divine verities in words descriptive of
human circumstances. Thus, when He says, From the womb, He is
teaching us that His Only-begotten was, in the Divine sense, born, and did
not come into existence by means of creation out of nothing. And lastly,
when the Son said, I went forth from the Father and am come, did He leave
it doubtful whether His Divinity were, or were not, derived from the
Father? He went out from the Father; that is, He had a birth, and the
Father, and no other, gave Him that birth. He bears witness that He, from
Whom He declares that He came forth, is the Author of His being. The
proof and interpretation of all this shall be given hereafter.

17. But meanwhile let us see what ground these men have for the
confidence with which they forbid us to accept as true the utterances of
God concerning Himself; utterances, the authenticity of which they do not
deny. What more grievous insult could be flung by human folly and
insolence at God's self -revelation, than a condemnation of it, shewn in
correction? For not even doubt and Criticism will satisfy them. What more
grievous than this profane handling and disputing of the nature and power
of God? Than the presumption of saying that, if the Son is from God, then
God is changeable and corporeal, since He has extended or developed a
part of Himself to be His Son? Whence this anxiety to prove the
immutability of God? We confess the birth, we proclaim the
Only-begotten, for so God has taught us. You, in order to banish the birth
and the Only-begotten from the faith of the Church, confront us with an
unchangeable God, incapable, by His nature, of extension or development.
I could bring forward instances of birth, even in natures belonging to this
world, which would refute this wretched delusion that every birth must be
an extension. And I could save you from the error that a being can come
into existence only at the cost of loss to that which begets it, for there are
many examples of life transmitted, without bodily intercourse, from one
living creature to another. But it would be impious to deal in evidences,
when God has spoken; and the utmost excess of madness to deny His
authority to give us a faith, when our worship is a confession that He
alone can give us life. For if life comes through Him alone, must not He be
the Author of the faith which is the condition of that life? And if we hold

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Him an untrustworthy witness concerning Himself, how can we be sure of
the life which is His gift?

18. For you attribute, most godless of heretics, the birth of the Son to an
act of creative will; you say that He is not born from God, but that He was
created and came into existence by the choice of the Creator. And the unity
of the Godhead, as you interpret it, will not allow Him to be God, for,
since God remains One, the Son cannot retain His original nature in that
state into which He has been born. He has been endowed, through creation,
you say, with a substance different from the Divine, although, being in a
sense the Only -begotten, He is superior to God's other creatures and
works. You say that He was raised up, that He in His turn might perform
the task committed to Him of raising up the created world; but that His
birth did not confer upon Him the Divine nature. He was born, according
to you, in the sense that He came into existence out of nothing. You call
Him a Son, not because He was born from God, but because He was
created by God. For you call to mind that God has deemed even holy men
worthy of this title, and you consider that it is assigned to the Son in
exactly the same sense in which the words, I have said, Ye are Gods, and
all of you sons of the Most High , were spoken; that is, that He bears the
name through the Giver's condescension, and not by right of nature. Thus,
in your eyes, He is Son by adoption, God by gift of the title,
Only-begotten by favor, First-born in date, in every sense a creature, in no
sense God. For you hold that His generation was not a birth from God, in
the natural sense, but the beginning of the life of a created substance.

19. And now, Almighty God, I first must pray Thee to forgive my excess
of indignation, and permit me to address Thee; and next to grant me, dust
and ashes as I am, yet bound in loyal devotion to Thyself, freedom of
utterance in this debate. There was a time when I, poor wretch, was not;
before my life and consciousness and personality began to exist. It is to
Thy mercy that I owe my life; and I doubt not that Thou, in Thy
goodness, didst give me my birth for my good, for Thou, Who hast no
need of me, wouldst never have made the beginning of my life the
beginning of evil. And then, when Thou hadst breathed into me the breath
of life and endowed me with the power of thought, Thou didst instruct me
in the knowledge of Thyself, by means of the sacred volumes given us
through Thy servants Moses and the prophets. From them I learnt Thy

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revelation, that we must not worship Thee as a lonely God. For their
pages taught me of God, not different from Thee in nature but One with
Thee in mysterious unity of substance. I learnt that Thou art God in God,
by no mingling or confusion but by Thy very nature, since the Divinity
which is Thyself dwells in Him Who is from Thee. But the true doctrine of
the perfect birth revealed that Thou, the Indwelt, and Thou, the Indweller,
are not One Person, yet that Thou dost dwell in Him Who is from Thee.
And the voices of Evangelists and Apostles repeat the lesson, and the very
words which fell from the holy mouth of Thy Only -begotten are recorded,
telling how Thy Son, God the Only-begotten from Thee the Unbegotten
God, was born of the Virgin as man to fulfill the mystery of my salvation;
holy Thou dwellest in Him, by virtue of His true generation from Thyself,
and He in Thee, because of the nature given in His abiding birth from Thee.

20. What is this hopeless quagmire of error into which Thou hast plunged
me? For I have learnt all this and have come to believe it; this faith is so
ingrained into my mind that I have neither the power nor the wish to
change it. Why this deception of an unhappy man, this ruin of a poor
wretch in body and soul, by deluding him with falsehoods concerning
Thyself? After the Red Sea had been divided, the splendor on the face of
Moses, descending from the Mount, deceived me. He had gazed, in Thy
presence, upon all the mysteries of heaven, and I believed his words,
dictated by Thee, concerning Thyself. And David, the man that was found
after Thine own heart, has betrayed me to destruction, and Solomon, who
was thought worthy of the gift of Divine Wisdom, and Isaiah, who saw the
Lord of Sabaoth and prophesied, and Jeremiah consecrated in the womb,
before he was fashioned, to be the prophet of nations to be rooted out and
planted in, and Ezekiel, the witness of the mystery of the Resurrection,
and Daniel, the man beloved, who had knowledge of times, and all the
hallowed band of the Prophets; and Matthew also, chosen to proclaim the
whole mystery of the Gospel, first a publican, then an Apostle, and John,
the Lord's familiar friend, and therefore worthy to reveal the deepest
secrets of heaven, and blessed Simon, who after his confession of the
mystery was set to be the foundation-stone of the Church, and received
the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and all his companions who spoke by
the Holy Ghost, and Paul, the chosen vessel, changed from persecutor into
Apostle, who, as a living man abode under the deep sea and ascended into

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the third heaven, who was in Paradise before his martyrdom, whose
martyrdom was the perfect offering of a flawless faith; all have deceived
me.

21. These are the men who have taught me the doctrines which I hold, and
so deeply am I impregnated with their teaching that no antidote can release
me from their influence. Forgive me, O God Almighty, my powerlessness
to change, my willingness to die in this belief. These propagators of
blasphemy, for so they seem to me, are a product of these last times, too
modern to avail me. It is too late for them to correct the faith which I
received from Thee. Before I had ever heard their names, I had put my
trust in Thee had received regeneration from Thee and become Thine, as
still I am. I know that Thou art omnipotent; I look not that Thou shouldst
reveal to me the mystery of that ineffable birth which is secret between
Thyself and Thy Only-begotten. Nothing is impossible with Thee, and I
doubt not that in begetting Thy Son Thou didst exert Thy full
omnipotence. To doubt it would be to deny that Thou an omnipotent. For
my own birth teaches me that Thou art good, and therefore I am sure that
in the birth of Thine Only-begotten Thou didst grudge Him no good gift. I
believe that all that is Thine is His, and all that is His is Thine. The
creation of the world is sufficient evidence to me that Thou art wise; and I
am sure that Thy Wisdom, Who is like Thee, must have been begotten
from Thyself. And Thou art One God, in very truth, in my eyes; I will
never believe that in Him, Who is God from Thee, there is ought that is not
Thine. Judge me in Him, if it be sin in me that, through Thy Son, I have
trusted too well in Law and Prophets and Apostles.

22. But this wild talk must cease; the rhetoric of exposing heretical folly
must give place to the drudgery of framing arguments. So, I trust, those
among them who are capable of being saved will set their faces towards the
true faith taught by the Evangelists and Apostles, and recognize Him Who
is the true Son of God, not by adoption but by nature. For the plan of our
reply must be that of first proving that He is the Son of God, and therefore
fully endowed with that Divine nature in the possession of which His
Sonship consists. For the chief aim of the heresy, which we are
considering, is to deny that our Lord Jesus Christ is true God and truly the
Son of God. Many evidences assure us that our Lord Jesus Christ is, and
is revealed to be, God the Only-begotten, truly the Son of God. His Father

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bears witness to it, He Himself asserts it, the Apostles proclaim it, the
faithful believe it, devils confess it, Jews deny it, the heathen at His
passion recognized it. The name of God is given Him in the right of
absolute ownership, not because He has been admitted to joint use with
others of the title. Every work and word of Christ transcends the power of
those who bear the title of sons; the foremost lesson that we learn from all
that is most prominent in His life is that He is the Son of God, and that He
does not hold the name of Son as a title shared with a widespread
company of friends.

23. 1 will not weaken the evidence for this truth by intermixing words of
my own. Let us hear the Father, when the baptism of Jesus Christ was
accomplished, speaking, as often, concerning His Only-begotten, in order
to save us from being misled by His visible body into a failure to recognize
Him as the Son. His words are: — This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am
well pleased . Is the truth presented here with dim outlines? Is the
proclamation made in uncertain tones? The promise of the Virgin birth
brought by the angel from the Holy Ghost, the guiding star of the Magi,
the reverence paid Him in His cradle, the majesty, attested by the Baptist,
of Him Who condescended to be baptized; all these are deemed an
insufficient witness to His glory. The Father Himself speaks from heaven,
and His words are, This is My Son. What means this evidence, not of
titles, but of pronouns? Titles may be appended to names at will;
pronouns are a sure indication of the persons to whom they refer. And
here we have, in This and My, the clearest of indications. Mark the true
meaning aid the purpose of the words. You have read, I have begotten
sons, and have raised them up ; but you did not read there My sons, for
He had begotten Himself those sons by division among the Gentiles, and
from the people of His inheritance. And lest we should suppose that the
name Son was given as an additional title to God the Only-begotten, to
signify His share by adoption in some joint heritage, His true nature is
expressed by the pronoun which gives the indubitable sense of ownership.
I will allow you to interpret the word Son, if you will, as signifying that
Christ is one of a number, if you can furnish an instance where it is said of
another of that number, This is My Son. If, on the other hand, This is My
Son be His peculiar designation, why accuse the Father, when He asserts
His ownership, of making an unfounded claim? When He says This is My

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Son, may we not paraphrase His meaning thus: — "He has given to others
the title of sons, but He Himself is My own Son; I have given the name to
multitudes by adoption, but this Son is My very own. Seek not for
another lest you lose your faith that This is He. By gesture and by voice,
by This, and My, and Son, I declare Him to you." And now what
reasonable excuse remains for lack of faith? This, and nothing less than
this, it was that the Father's voice proclaimed. He willed that we should
not be left in ignorance of the nature of Him Who came to be baptized, that
He might fulfill all righteousness; that by the voice of God we might
recognize as the Son of God Him Who was visible as Man, to accomplish
the mystery of our salvation.

24. And again, because the life of believers was involved in the confession
of this faith, — for there is no other way to eternal life than the assurance
that Jesus Christ, God the Only-begotten, is the Son of God — the
Apostles heard once more the voice from heaven repeating the same
message, in order to strengthen this life-giving belief, in negation of which
is death. When the Lord, appareled in splendor, was standing upon the
Mountain, with Moses and Elias at His side, and the three Pillars of the
churches who had been chosen as witnesses to the truth of the vision and
the voice, the Father spoke thus from heaven:-This is My beloved Son in
Whom I am well pleased; hear Him . The glory which they saw was not
sufficient attestation of His majesty; the voice proclaims, This is My Son.
The Apostles cannot face the glory of God; mortal eyes grow dim in its
presence. The trust of Peter and James and John fails them, and they are
prostrate in fear. But this solemn declaration, spoken from the Father's
knowledge, comes to their relief; He is revealed as His Father's own true
Son. And over and above the witness of This and My to His true Sonship,
the words are uttered, Hear Him. It is the witness of the Father from
heaven, in confirmation of the witness borne by the Son on earth; for we
are bidden to hear Him. Though this recognition by the Father of the Son
removes all doubt, yet we are bidden also to accept the Son's
self -revelation. When the Father's voice commands us to shew our
obedience by hearing Him, we are ordered to repose an absolute confidence
in the words of the Son. Since, therefore, the Father has manifested His
will in this message to us to hear the Son, let us hear what it is that the Son
has told us concerning Himself.

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25. 1 can conceive of no man so destitute of ordinary-reason as to
recognize in each of the Gospels confessions by the Son of the humiliation
to which He has submitted in taking a body upon Him, — as for instance
His words, often repeated, Father, glorify Me , and Ye shall see the Son of
Man , and The Father is greater than I , and, more strongly, Now is My
soul troubled exceedingly , and even this, My God, My God, why hast
Thou forsaken me "? and many more, of which I shall speak in due time,
— and yet, in the face of these constant expressions of His humility, to
charge Him with presumption because He calls God His Father, as when
He says, Every plant, which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be
rooted up , or, Ye have made my Father's house an house of merchandise .
I can conceive of no one foolish enough to regard His assertion,
consistently made, that God is His Father, not as the simple truth
sincerely stated from certain knowledge, but as a bold and baseless claim.
We cannot denounce this constantly professed humility as an insolent
demand for the rights of another, a laying of hands on what is not His own,
an appropriation of powers which only God can wield. Nor, when He calls
Himself the Son, as in, For God sent not His Son into this world to
condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved , and
in, Dost thou believe on the Son of God ? can we accuse Him of what
would be an equal presumption with that of calling God His Father. But
what else is it than such an accusation, if we allow to Jesus Christ the
name of Son by adoption only? Do we not charge Him, when He calls God
His Father, with daring to make a baseless claim? The Father's voice from
heaven says Hear Him. I hear Him saying, Father I thank Thee , and Say
ye that I blasphemed, because 1 said, I am the Son of God ? If I may not
believe these names, and assume that they mean what they assert, how am
I to trust and to understand? No hint is given of an alternative meaning.
The Father bears witness from heaven, This is My Son; the Son on His
part speaks of My Father's house, and My Father. The confession of that
name gives salvation, when faith is demanded in the question, Dost thou
believe an the Son of God? The pronoun My indicates that the noun which
follows belongs to the speaker. What right, I demand, have you heretics to
suppose it otherwise? You contradict the Father's word the Son's
assertion; you empty language of its meaning, and distort the words of
God into a sense they cannot bear. On you alone rests the guilt of this
shameless blasphemy, that God has lied concerning Himself.

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26. And thus, although nothing but a sincere belief that these names are
truly significant, — that, when we read, This is My Son and My Father,
the words really indicate Persons of Whom, and to Whom, they were
spoken — can make them intelligible, yet, lest it be supposed that Son and
Father are titles the one merely of adoption, the other merely of dignity,
let us see what are the attributes attached, by the Son Himself, to His
name of Son. He says, All things are delivered Me of My Father, and no
one knoweth the Son but the Father, neither knoweth any the Father save
the Son, and he to Whom the Son will reveal Him . Are the words of which
we are speaking, This is My Son and My Father, consistent, or are they
not, with No one knoweth the Son but the Father, neither knoweth any the
Father save the Son? For it is only by witness mutually borne that the Son
can be known through the Father, and the Father through the Son. We hear
the voice from heaven; we hear also the words of the Son. We have as little
excuse for not knowing the Son, as we have for not knowing the Father.
All things are delivered unto Him; from this All there is no exception. If
They possess an equal might; if They share an equal mutual knowledge,
hidden from us; if these names of Father and Son express the relation
between Them, then, I demand, are They not in truth what They are in
name, wielders of the same omnipotence, shrouded in the same
impenetrable mystery? God does not speak in order to deceive. The
Fatherhood of the Father, the Sonship of the Son, are literal truths. And
now learn how facts bear out the verities which these names reveal.

27. The Son speaks thus: — For the works which the Father hath given
Me to finish, the same works which I do, bear witness of Me that the
Father hath sent Me; and the Father Himself which hath sent Me hath
borne witness of Me . God the Only-begotten proves His Sonship by an
appeal not only to the name, but to the power; the works which He does
are evidence that He has been sent by the Father. What, I ask, is the fact
which these works prove? That He was sent. That He was sent, is used as
a proof of His sonlike obedience and of His Father's authority: for the
works which He does could not possibly be done by any other than Him
Who is sent by the Father. Yet the evidence of His works fails to convince
the unbelieving that the Father sent Him. For He proceeds, And the Father
Himself which hath sent Me hath borne witness of Me; and ye have
neither heard His voice nor seen His shape . What was this witness of the

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Father concerning Him? Turn over the pages of the Gospels and review
their contents. Read us other of the attestations given by the Father beside
those which we have heard already; This is My beloved Son, in Whom I
am well pleased, and Than art My Son. John, who heard these words,
needed them not, for He knew the truth already. It was for our instruction
that the Father spoke. But this is not all. John in the wilderness was
honored with this revelation; the Apostles were not to be denied the same
assurance. It came to them in the very same words, but with an addition
which John did not receive. He had been a prophet from the womb, and
needed not the commandment, Hear Him. Yes; I will hear Him, and will
hear none but Him and His Apostle, who heard for my instruction. Even
though the books contained no further witness, borne by the Father to the
Son, than that He is the Son, I have, for confirmation of the truth, the
evidence of His Father's works which He does. What is this modern
slander that His name is a gift by adoption, His Godhead a lie, His titles a
pretense? We have the Father's witness to His Sonship; by works, equal
to the Father's, the Son bears witness to His own equality with the Father.
Why such blindness to His obvious possession of the true Sonship which
He both claims and displays. It is not through condescending kindness on
the part of God the Father that Christ bears the name of Son; not by
holiness that He has earned the title, as many have won it by enduring
hardness in confession of the faith. Such sonship is not of right; it is by a
favor, worthy of Himself, that God bestows the title. But that which is
indicated by This, and My, and Hear Him, is different in kind from the
other. It is the true and real and genuine Sonship.

28. And indeed the Son never makes for Himself a lower claim than is
contained in this designation, given Him by His Father. The Father's
words, This is My Son, reveal His nature; those which follow, Hear Him,
are a summons to us to listen to the mystery and the faith which He came
down from heaven to bring; to learn that, if we would be saved, our
confession must be a copy of His teaching. And in like manner the Son
Himself teaches us, in words of His own, that He was truly born and truly
came; — Ye neither know Me, nor know ye whence I am, for I am not
came of Myself, but He that sent Me is true, Whom ye know not, but I
know Him, for I am from Him, and He hath sent Me. No man knows the
Father; the Son often assures us of this. The reason why He says that

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none knows Him but Himself, is that He is from the Father. Is it, I ask, as
the result of an act of creation, or of a genuine birth, that He is from Him?
If it be an act of creation, then all created things are from God. How then is
it that none of them know the Father, when the Son says that the reason
why He has this knowledge is that He is from Him? If He be created, not
born, we shall observe in Him a resemblance to other beings who are from
God. Since all, on this supposition, are from God, why is He not as
ignorant of the Father as are the others? But if this knowledge of the
Father be peculiar to Him, Who is from the Father, must not this
circumstance also, that He is from the Father, be peculiar to Him? That is,
must He not be the true Son born from the nature of God? For the reason
why He alone knows God is that He alone is from God. You observe,
then, a knowledge, which is peculiar to Himself, resulting from a birth
which also is peculiar to Himself. You recognize that it is not by an act of
creative power, but through a true birth, that He is from the Father; and
that this is why He alone knows the Father, Who is unknown to all other
beings which are from Him.

29. But He immediately adds, For I am from Him, and He hath sent Me, to
debar heresy from the violent assumption that His being from God dates
from the time of His Advent. The Gospel revelation of the mystery
proceeds in a logical sequence; first He is born, then He is sent. Similarly,
in the previous declaration, we were told of ignorance , first as to Who He
is, and then as to whence He is. For the words, I am from Him, and He
hath sent Me, contain two separate statements, as also do the words, Ye
neither know Me, nor know ye whence I am. Every man is born in the
flesh; yet does not universal consciousness make every man spring from
God? How then can Christ assert that either He, or the source of His
being, is unknown? He can only do so by assigning His immediate
parentage to the ultimate Author of existence; and, when He has done this,
He can demonstrate their ignorance of God by their ignorance of the fact
that He is the Son of God. Let the victims of this wretched delusion reflect
upon the words, Ye neither know Me, nor know ye whence I am. All
things, they argue, are from nothing; they allow of no exception. They
even dare to misrepresent God the Only -begotten as sprung from nothing.
How can we explain this ignorance of Christ, and of the origin of Christ, on
the part of the blasphemers? The very fact that, as the Scripture says,

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they know not whence He is, is an indication of that unknowable origin
from which He springs. If we can say of a thing that it came into existence
out of nothing, then we are not ignorant of its origin; we know that it was
made out of nothing, and this is a piece of definite knowledge. Now He
Who came is not the Author of His own being; but He Who sent Him is
true, Whom the blasphemers know not. He it was Who sent Him; and they
know not that He was the Sender. Thus the Sent is from the Sender; from
Him Whom they know not as His Author. The reason why they know not
Who Christ is, is that they know not from Whom He is. None can confess
the Son who denies that He was born; none can understand that He was
born who has formed the opinion that He is from nothing. And indeed He
is so far from being made out of nothing, that the heretics cannot tell
whence He is.

30. They are blankly ignorant who separate the Divine name from the
Divine nature; ignorant, and content to be ignorant. But let them listen to
the reproof which the Son inflicts upon unbelievers for their want of this
knowledge, when the Jews said that God was their Father: — If God were
your Father, ye would surely love Me; for I went forth from God, and am
come; neither am I come of Myself, but He sent Me. The Son of God has
here no word of blame for the devout confidence of those who combine the
confession that He is true God, the Son of God, with their own claim to be
God' s sons. What He is blaming is the insolence of the Jews in daring to
claim God as their Father, when meanwhile they did not love Him, the
Son: — If God were your Father, ye would surely love Me; for I went
forth from God. All, who have God for their Father through faith, have
Him for Father through that same faith whereby we confess that Jesus
Christ is the Son of God. But to confess that He is the Son in a sense
which covers the whole company of saints; to say, in effect, that He is one
of the sons of God; — what faith is there in that? Are not all the rest,
feeble created beings though they be, in that sense sons? In what does the
eminence of a faith, which has confessed that Jesus Christ is the Son of
God, consist, if He, as one of a multitude of sons, have the name only, and
not the nature, of the Son? This unbelief has no love for Christ; it is a
mockery of the faith for these perverters of the truth to claim God as their
Father. If He were their Father, they would love Christ because He had
gone forth from God. And now I must enquire the meaning of this going

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forth from God. His going forth is obviously different from His coming,
for the two are mentioned side by side in this passage, I went forth from
God and am come. In order to elucidate the separate meanings of I went
forth from God and I am come, He immediately subjoins, Neither am I
come of Myself, but He sent Me. He tells us that He is not the source of
His own existence in the words, Neither am I come of Myself. In them He
tells us that He has proceeded forth a second time from God, and has been
sent by Him. But when He tells us that they who call God their Father
must love Himself because He has gone forth from God, He makes His
birth the reason for their love. Went forth carries back our thoughts to the
incorporeal birth, for it is by love of Christ, Who was born from Him, that
we must gain the right of devoutly claiming God for our Father. For when
the Son says, He that hateth Me hateth My Father also, this My is the
assertion of a relation to the Father which is shared by none. On the other
hand, He condemns the man who claims God as his Father, and loves not
the Son, as using a wrongful liberty with the Father's name; since he who
hates Him, the Son, must hate the Father also, and none can be devoted to
the Father save those who love the Son. For the one and only reason which
He gives for loving the Son is His origin from the Father. The Son,
therefore, is from the Father, not by His Advent, but by His birth; and
love for the Father is only possible to those who believe that the Son is
from Him.

31. To this the Lord's words bear witness; — I will not say unto you that
I will pray the Father for you, for the Father Himself loveth you, because
ye have loved Me, and believe that I went forth from God, and am come
from the Father into this world. A complete faith concerning the Son,
which accepts and loves the truth that He went forth from God, has access
to the Father without need of His intervention. The confession that the
Son was born and sent from God wins for it direct audience and love from
Him. Thus the narrative of His birth and coming must be taken in the
strictest and most literal sense. I went forth from God, He says, conveying
that His nature is exactly that which was given Him by His birth; for what
being but God could go forth from God, that is, could enter upon existence
by birth from Him? Then He continues, And am come from the Father into
this world. To assure us that this going forth from God means birth from
the Father, He tells us that He came from the Father into this world. The

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latter statement refers to His incarnation, the former to His nature. And
again, His putting on record first the fact of His going forth from God, and
then His coming from the Father, forbids us to identify the going with the
coming. Coming from the Father, and going forth from God, are not
synonymous; they might be paraphrased as 'Birth' and 'Presence,' and are
as different in meaning as these. It is one thing to have gone forth from
God, and entered by birth upon a substantial existence; another to have
come from the Father into this world to accomplish the mysteries of our
salvation.

32. In the order of our defense, as I have arranged it in my mind, this has
seemed the most convenient place for proving that, thirdly, the Apostles
believed our Lord Jesus Christ to be the Son of God, not merely in name
but in nature, not by adoption but by birth. It is true that there remain
unmentioned many and most weighty words of God the Only -begotten
concerning Himself, in which the truth of His Divine birth is set so clearly
forth as to silence any whisper of objection. Yet since it would be unwise
to burden the reader's mind with an accumulation of evidence, and ample
proof has been already given of the genuineness of His birth, I will hold
back the remainder of His utterances till later stages of our enquiry. For we
have so arranged I the course of our argument that now, after hearing the
Father's witness and the Son's self-revelation, we are to be instructed by
the Apostles' faith in the true and, as we must confess, the truly born Son
of God. We must see whether they could find in the words of the Lord, I
went forth from God, any other meaning than this, that there was in Him a
birth of the Divine nature.

33. After many dark sayings, spoken in parables by Him Whom they
already knew as the Christ foretold by Moses and the Prophets, Whom
Nathanael had confessed as the Son of God and King of Israel, Who had
Himself reproached Philip, in his question about the Father, for not
perceiving, by the works which He did, that the Father was in Him and He
in the Father; after He had already often taught them that He was sent
from the Father; still, it was not till they had heard Him assert that He had
gone forth from God that they confessed, in the words which immediately
follow in the Gospel; — His disciples say unto Him, Now speakest Thou
plainly, and speakest no proverb. Now therefore we are sure that Thou
knowest all things, and needest not that any man should ask Thee; by this

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we believe that Thou wentest forth from God. What was there so
marvelous in this form of words, Went forth from God, which He had
used? Had ye seen, O holy and blessed men, who for the reward of your
faith have received the keys of the kingdom of heaven and power to bind
and to loose in heaven and earth, works so great, so truly Divine, wrought
by our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God; and do ye yet profess that it
was not until He had first told you that He had gone forth from God that
ye attained the knowledge of the truth? And yet ye had seen water at the
marriage turned into the marriage wine; one nature becoming another
nature, whether it were by change, or by development, or by creation. And
your hands had broken up the five loaves into a meal for that great
multitude, and when all were satisfied ye had found that twelve baskets
were needed to contain the fragments of the loaves; a small quantity of
matter, in the process of relieving hunger, had multiplied into a great
quantity of matter of the same nature. And ye had seen withered hands
recover their suppleness, the tongues of dumb men loosened into speech,
the feet of the lame made swift to run, the eyes of the blind endowed with
vision, and life restored to the dead. Lazarus, who stank already, had risen
to his feet at a word. He was summoned from the tomb and instantly came
forth, without a pause between the word and its fulfillment. He was
standing before you, a living man, while yet the air was carrying the odor
of death to your nostrils. I speak not of other exertions of His mighty, His
Divine powers. And is it, in spite of all this, only after ye heard Him say, I
went forth from God, that ye understood Who He is that had been sent
from heaven? Is this the first time that the truth had been told you without
a proverb? The first time that the powers of His nature made it manifest to
you that He went forth from God? And this in spite of His silent scrutiny
of the purposes of your will, of His needing not to ask you concerning
anything as though He were ignorant, of His universal knowledge? For all
these things, done in the power and in the nature of God, are evidence that
He must have gone forth from God.

34. By this the holy Apostles did not understand that He had gone forth,
in the sense of having been sent, from God. For they had often heard Him
confess, in His earlier discourses, that He was sent; but what they hear
now is the express statement that He had gone forth from God. This opens
their eyes to perceive from His works His Divine nature. The fact that He

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had gone forth from God makes clear to them His true Divinity, and so
they say, Now therefore we are sure that Thou knowest all things, and
needest not that any man should ask Thee; by this we believe that Thou
wentest forth from God. The reason why they believe that He went forth
from God is that He both can, and does, perform the works of God. Their
perfect assurance of His Divine nature is the result of their knowledge, not
that He is come from God, but that He did go forth from God. Accordingly
we find that it is this truth, now heard for the first time, which clenches
their faith. The Lord had made two statements; I went forth from God, and
I am come from the Father into this world. One of these, I am come from
the Father into this world, they had often heard, and it awakens no
surprise. But their reply makes it manifest that they now believe and
understand the other, that is, I went forth from God. Their answer, By this
we believe that Thou wentest forth from God, is a response to it, and to it
only; they do not add, 'And art come from the Father into this world.' The
one statement is welcomed with a declaration of faith; the other is passed
over in silence. The confession was wrung from them by the sudden
presentation of a new truth, which convinced their reason and constrained
them to avow their certainty. They knew already that He, like God, could
do all things; but His birth, which accounted for that omnipotence, had not
been revealed. They knew that He had been sent from God, but they knew
not that He had gone forth from God. Now at last, taught by this utterance
to understand the ineffable and perfect birth of the Son, they confess that
He had spoken to them without a proverb.

35. For God is not born from God by the ordinary process of a human
childbirth; this is no case of one being issuing from another by the exertion
of natural forces. That birth is pure and perfect and stainless; indeed, we
must call it rather a proceeding forth than a birth. For it is One from One;
no partition, or withdrawing, or lessening, or efflux, or extension, or
suffering of change, but the birth of living nature from living nature. It is
God going forth from God, not a creature picked out to bear the name of
God. His existence did not take its beginning out of nothing, but went forth
from the Eternal; and this going forth is rightly entitled a birth, though it
would be false to call it a beginning. For the proceeding forth of God from
God is a thing entirely different from the coming into existence of a new
substance. And though our apprehension of this truth, which is ineffable,

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cannot be defined in words, yet the teaching of the Son, as He reveals to us
that He went forth from God, imparts to it the certainty of an assured
faith.

36. A belief that the Son of God is Son in name only and not in nature, is
not the faith of the Gospels and of the Apostles. If this be a mere title, to
which adoption is His only claim; if He be not the Son in virtue of having
proceeded forth from God, whence, I ask, was it that the blessed Simon
Bar-Jona confessed to Him, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God?
Because He shared with all mankind the power of being born as one of the
sons of God through the sacrament of regeneration? If Christ be the Son of
God only in this titular way, what was the revelation made to Peter, not
by flesh and blood, but by the Father in heaven? What praise could he
deserve for making a declaration which was universally applicable? What
credit was due to Him for stating a fact of general knowledge? If He be Son
by adoption, wherein lay the blessedness of Peter's confession, which
offered a tribute to the Son to which, in that case, He had no more title
than any member of the company of saints? The Apostle's faith
penetrates into a region closed to human reasoning. He had, no doubt,
often heard, He that receiveth you receiveth Me, and He that receiveth Me
receiveth Him that sent Me. Hence he knew well that Christ had been sent;
he had heard Him, Whom he knew to have been sent, making the
declaration, All things are delivered unto Me of the Father, and no one
knoweth the Son but the Father, neither knoweth any one tire Father save
the Son. What then is this truth, which the Father now reveals to Peter,
which receives the praise of a blessed confession? It cannot have been that
the names of 'Father' and 'Son' were novel to him; he had heard them
often. Yet he speaks words which the tongue of man had never framed
before: — Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. For though
Christ, while dwelling in the body, had avowed Himself to be the Son of
God, yet now for the first time the Apostle's faith had recognized in Him
the presence of the Divine nature. Peter is praised not merely for his
tribute of adoration, but for his recognition of the mysterious truth; for
confessing not Christ only, but Christ the Son of God. It would clearly
have sufficed for a payment of reverence, had he said, Thou art the Christ,
and nothing more. But it would have been a hollow confession, had Peter
only hailed Him as Christ, without confessing Him the Son of God. And

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so his words Thou art declare that what is asserted of Him is strictly and
exactly true to His nature. Next, the Father's utterance, This is My Son,
had revealed to Peter that he must confess Thou art the Son of God, for in
the words This is, God the Revealer points Him out, and the response,
Thou art, is the believer's welcome to the truth. And this is the rock of
confession whereon the Church is built. But the perceptive faculties of
flesh and blood cannot attain to the recognition and confession of this
truth. It is a mystery, Divinely revealed, that Christ must be not only
named, but believed, the Son of God. Was it only the Divine name; was it
not rather the Divine nature that was revealed to Peter? If it were the
name, he had heard it often from the Lord, proclaiming Himself the Son of
God. What honor, then, did he deserve for announcing the name? No; it
was not the name; it was the nature, for the name had been repeatedly
proclaimed.

37. This faith it is which is the foundation of the Church; through this faith
the gates of hell cannot prevail against her. This is the faith which has the
keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatsoever this faith shall have loosed or
bound on earth shall be loosed or bound in heaven. This faith is the
Father's gift by revelation; even the knowledge that we must not imagine a
false Christ, a creature made out of nothing, but must confess Him the Son
of God, truly possessed of the Divine nature. What blasphemous madness
and pitiful folly is it, that will not heed the venerable age and faith of that
blessed martyr, Peter himself, for whom the Father was prayed that his
faith might not fail in temptation; who twice repeated the declaration of
love for God that was demanded of him, and was grieved that he was
tested by a third renewal of the question, as though it were a doubtful and
wavering devotion, and then, because this third trial had cleansed him of
his infirmities, had the reward of hearing the Lord' s commission, Feed My
sheep, a third time repeated; who, when all the Apostles were silent, alone
recognized by the Father' s revelation the Son of God, and won the
pre-eminence of a glory beyond the reach of human frailty by his
confession of his blissful faith! What are the conclusions forced upon us
by the study of his words? He confessed that Christ is the Son of God;
you, lying bishop of the new apostolate, thrust upon us your modern
notion that Christ is a creature, made out of nothing. What violence is this,
that so distorts the glorious words? The very reason why he is blessed is

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that he confessed the Son of God. This is the Father's revelation, this the
foundation of the Church, this the assurance of her permanence. Hence has
she the keys of the kingdom of heaven, hence judgment in heaven and
judgment on earth. Through revelation Peter learnt the mystery hidden
from the beginning of the world, proclaimed the faith, published the Divine
nature, confessed the Son of God. He who would deny all this truth and
confess Christ a creature, must first deny the apostleship of Peter, his
faith, his blessedness, his episcopate, his martyrdom. And when he has
done all this, he must learn that he has severed himself from Christ; for it
was by confessing Him that Peter won these glories.

38. Do you think, wretched heretic of today, that Peter would have been
the more blessed now, if he had said, 'Thou art Christ, God's perfect
creature, His handiwork, though excelling all His other works. Thy
beginning was from nothing, and through the goodness of God, Who alone
is good, the name of Son has been given Thee by adoption, although in fact
Thou wast not born from God?' What answer, think you, would have been
given to such words as these, when this same Peter's reply to the
announcement of the Passion, Be it far from Thee, Lord; this shall not be,
was rebuked with, Get thee behind Me, Satan, thou art an offense unto
Me? Yet Peter could plead his human ignorance in extenuation of his guilt,
for as yet the Father had not revealed all the mystery of the Passion; still,
mere defect of faith was visited with this stern condemnation. Now, why
was it that the Father did not reveal to Peter your true confession, this
faith in an adopted creature? I fancy that God must have grudged him the
knowledge of the truth; that He wanted to postpone it to a later age, and
keep it as a novelty for your modern preachers. Yes; you may have a
change of faith, if the keys of heaven are changed. You may have a change
of faith, if there is a change in that Church against which the gates of hell
shall not prevail. You may have a change of faith, if there shall be a fresh
apostolate, binding and loosing in heaven what it has bound and loosed on
earth. You may have a change of faith, if another Christ the Son of God,
beside the true Christ, shall be preached. But if that faith which confesses
Christ as the Son of God, and that faith only, received in Peter's person
every accumulated blessing, then perforce the faith which proclaims Him a
creature, made out of nothing, holds not the keys of the Church and is a

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stranger to the apostolic faith and power. It is neither the Church's faith,
nor is it Christ's.

39. Let us therefore cite every example of a statement of the faith made by
an Apostle. All of them, when they confess the Son of God, confess Him
not as a nominal and adoptive Son, but as Son by possession of the Divine
nature. They never degrade Him to the level of a creature, but assign Him
the splendor of a true birth from God. Let John speak to us, while he is
waiting, just as he is, for the coming of the Lord; John, who was left
behind and appointed to a destiny hidden in the counsel of God, for he is
not told that he shall not die, but only that he shall tarry. Let him speak to
us in his own familiar voice: — No one hath seen God at any time, except
the Only-begotten Son, Which is in the bosom of the Father. It seemed to
him that the name of Son did not set forth with sufficient distinctness His
true Divinity, unless he gave an external support to the peculiar majesty of
Christ by indicating the difference between Him and all others. Hence he
not only calls Him the Son, but adds the further designation of the
Only-begotten, and so cuts away the last prop from under this imaginary
adoption. For the fact that He is Only-begotten is proof positive of His
right to the name of Son.

40. 1 defer the consideration of the words, which is in the bosom of the
Father, to a more appropriate place. My present enquiry is into the sense
of Only-begotten, and the claim upon us which that sense may make. And
first let us see whether the word mean, as you assert, a perfect creature of
God; Only-begotten being equivalent to perfect, and Son a synonym for
creature. But John described the Only-begotten Son as God, not as a
perfect creature. His words, Which is in the bosom of the Father, shew
that he anticipated these blasphemous designations; and, indeed, he had
heard his Lord say, For God so loved the world that He gave His
Only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but
have everlasting life. God, Who loved the world, gave His Only-begotten
Son as a manifest token of His love. If the evidence of His love be this,
that He bestowed a creature upon creatures, gave a worldly being on the
world's behalf, granted one raised up from nothing for the redemption of
objects equally raised up from nothing, this cheap and petty sacrifice is a
poor assurance of His favor towards us. Gifts of price are the evidence of
affection the greatness of the surrender of the greatness of the love. God,

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Who loved the world, gave not an adopted Son, but His own, His
Only-begotten. Here is personal interest, true Sonship, sincerity; not
creation, or adoption, or pretense. Herein is the proof of His love and
affection, that He gave His own, His Only-begotten Son.

41. 1 appeal not now to any of the titles which are given to the Son; there
is no loss in delay when it is the result of an embarrassing abundance of
choice. My present argument is that a successful result implies a sufficient
cause; some clear and cogent motive must underlie every effectual
performance. And so the Evangelist has been obliged to reveal his motive
in writing. Let us see what is the purpose which he confesses; — But
these things are written that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the
Son of God. The one reason which he alleges for writing his Gospel is that
all may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. If it be sufficient
for salvation to believe that He is the Christ, why does he add The Son of
God? But if the true faith be nothing less than the belief that Christ is not
merely Christ, but Christ the Son of God, then assuredly the name of Son
is not attached to Christ as a customary appendage due to adoption, seeing
that it is essential to salvation. If then salvation consists in the confession
of the name, must not the name express the truth? If the name express the
truth, by what authority can He be called a creature? It is not the
confession of a creature, but the confession of the Son, which shall give us
salvation.

42. To believe, therefore, that Jesus Christ is the Son of God is true
salvation, is the acceptable service of an unfeigned faith. For we have no
love within us towards God the Father except through faith in the Son. Let
us hear Him speaking to us in the words of the Epistle; — Every one that
loveth the Father loveth Him that is born from Him. What, I ask, is the
meaning of being born from Him? Can it mean, perchance, being created by
Him? Does the Evangelist lie in saying that He was born from God, while
the heretic more correctly teaches that He was created? Let us all listen to
the true character of this teacher of heresy. It is written, He is antichrist,
that denieth the Father and the Son. What will you do now, champion of
the creature, conjurer up of a novel Christ out of nothing? Hear the title
which awaits you, if you persist in your assertion. Or do you think that
perhaps you may still describe the Father and the Son as Creator and
Creature, and yet by an ingenious ambiguity of language escape being

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recognized as antichrist? If your confession embraces a Father in the true
sense, and a Son in the true sense, then I am a slanderer, assailing you with
a title of infamy which you have not deserved. But if in your confession all
Christ's attributes are spurious and nominal, and not His own, then learn
from the Apostle the right description of such a faith as yours; and hear
what is the true faith which believes in the Son. The words which follow
are these; — He that denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father: he that
confesseth the Son hath both the Son and the Father. He that denies the
Son is destitute of the Father; he that confesses and has the Son has the
Father also. What room is there here for adoptive names? Does not every
word tell of the Divine nature? Learn how completely that nature is
present.

43. John speaks thus; — For we know that the Son of God is came, and
was incarnate for us, and suffered, and rose again from tire dead and took
us for Himself, and gave us a good understanding that we may know Him
that is true, and may be in His true Son Jesus Christ. He is true and is life
eternal and our resurrection. Wisdom doomed to an evil end, void of the
Spirit of God, destined to possess the spirit and the name of Antichrist,
blind to the truth that the Son of God came to fulfill the mystery of our
salvation, and unworthy in that blindness to perceive the light of that
sovereign knowledge! For this wisdom asserts that Jesus Christ is no true
Son of God, but a creature of His, Who bears the Divine name by
adoption. In what dark oracle of hidden knowledge was the secret learnt?
To whose research do we owe this, the great discovery of the day? Were
you he that lay upon the bosom of the Lord? You he to whom in the
familiar intercourse of love He revealed the mystery? Was it you that alone
followed Him to the foot of the Cross? And while He was charging you to
receive Mary as your Mother, did He teach you this secret, as the token of
His peculiar love for yourself? Or did you run to the Sepulcher, and reach
it sooner even than Peter, and so gain this knowledge there? Or was it amid
the throngs of angels, and sealed books whose clasps none can open, and
manifold influences of the signs of heaven, and unknown songs of the
eternal choirs, that the Lamb, your Guide, revealed to you this godly
doctrine, that the Father is no Father, the Son no Son, nor nature, nor
truth? For you transform all these into lies. The Apostle, by that most
excellent knowledge that was granted him, speaks of the Son of God as

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true. You assert His creation, proclaim His adoption, deny His birth.
While the true Son of God is eternal life and resurrection to us, for him, in
whose eyes He is not true, there is neither eternal life nor resurrection.
And this is the lesson taught by John, the disciple beloved of the Lord.

44. And the persecutor, who was converted to be an Apostle and a chosen
vessel, delivers the very same message. What discourse is there of his
which does not presuppose the confession of the Son? What Epistle of his
that does not begin with a confession of that mysterious truth? When he
says, We were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, and, God sent
His Son to be the likeness of the flesh of sin, and again, God is faithful, by
Whom ye were called unto the fellowship of His Son, is any loophole left
for heretical misrepresentation? His Son, Son of God; so we read, but
nothing is said of His adoption, or of God's creature. The name expresses
the nature; He is God's Son, and therefore the Sonship is true. The
Apostle's confession asserts the genuineness of the relation. I see not how
the Divine nature of the Son could have been more completely stated. That
Chosen Vessel has proclaimed in no weak or wavering voice that Christ is
the Son of Him Who, as we believe, is the Father. The Teacher of the
Gentiles, the Apostle of Christ, has left us no uncertainty, no opening for
error in his presentation of the doctrine. He is quite clear upon the Subject
of children by adoption; of those who by faith attain so to be and so to be
named, in his own words, For as many as are led by tire Spirit of God,
they are the sons of God. For ye have not received the spirit of bondage
again unto fear, but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we
cry, Abba, Father. This is the name granted to us, who believe, through the
sacrament of regeneration; our confession of the faith wins us this
adoption. For our work done in obedience to the Spirit of God gives us the
title of sons of God. Abba, Father, is the cry which we raise, not the
expression of our essential nature. For that essential nature of ours is
untouched by that tribute of the voice. It is one thing for God to be
addressed as Father; another thing for Him to be the Father of His Son.

45. But now let us learn what is this faith concerning the Son of God,
which the Apostle holds. For though there is no single discourse, among
the many which he delivered concerning the Church's doctrine, in which he
mentions the Father without also making confession of the Son, yet, in
order to display the truth of the relation which that name conveys with the

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utmost definiteness of which human language is capable, he speaks thus:
— What then? If God be for us, who can be against us? Who spared not
His own Son, but delivered Him up for us. Can Son, by any remaining
possibility, be a title received through adoption, when He is expressly
called God's own Son? For the Apostle, wishing to make manifest the love
of God towards us, uses a kind of comparison, to enable us to estimate
how great that love is, when He says that it was His own Son Whom God
did not spare. He suggests the thought that this was no sacrifice of an
adopted Son, on behalf of those whom He purposed to adopt, of a creature
for creatures, but of His Son for strangers, His own Son for those to whom
He had willed to give a share in the name of sons. Seek out the full import
of the term, that you may understand the extent of the love. Consider the
meaning of own; mark the genuineness of the Sonship which it implies. For
the Apostle now describes Him as God's own Soil; previously he had
often spoken of Him as God's Son, or Son of God. And though many
manuscripts, through a want of apprehension on the part of the
translators, read in this passage His Son, instead of His own, Son, yet the
original Greek, the tongue in which the Apostle wrote, is more exactly
rendered by His own than by His. And though the casual reader may
discern no great difference between His own and His, yet the Apostle,
who in all his other statements had spoken of His Son, which is, in the
Greek, xbv eoruxo'o inov, in this passage uses the words oa ye %ov> iS'iot)
v\ox) ovk ecpeiGocTo, that is, Who spared not His own Son, expressly and
emphatically indicating His true Divine nature, Previously he had declared
that through the Spirit of adoption there are many sons; now his object is
to point to God's own Son, God the Only-begotten.

46. This is no universal and inevitable error; they who deny the Son cannot
lay the fault upon their ignorance, for ignorance of the truth which they
deny is impossible. They describe the Son of God as a creature who came
into being out of nothing. If the Father has never asserted this, nor the Son
confirmed it, nor the Apostles proclaimed it, then the dating which
prompts their allegation is bred not of ignorance, but of hatred for Christ.
When the Father says of His Son, This is, and the Son of Himself, It is He
that talketh with Thee, and when Peter confesses Thou art, and John
assures us, This is the true God, and Paul is never weary of proclaiming
Him as God's own Son, I can conceive of no other motive for this denial

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than hatred. The plea of want of familiarity with the subject cannot be
urged in extenuation of their guilt. It is the suggestion of that Evil One,
uttered now through these prophets and forerunners of his coming; he will
utter it himself hereafter when he comes as Antichrist. He is using this
novel engine of assault to shake us m our saving confession of the faith.
His first object is to pluck from our hearts the confident assurance of the
Divine nature of the Son; next, he would fill our minds with the notion of
Christ's adoption, and leave no room for the memory of His other claims.
For they who hold that Christ is but a creature, must regard Christ as
Antichrist, since a creature cannot be God's own Son, and therefore He
must lie in calling Himself the Son of God. Hence also they who deny that
Christ is the Son of God must have Antichrist for their Christ.

47. What is the hope of which this futile passion of yours is in pursuit?
What is the assurance of your salvation which emboldens you with
blasphemous license of tongue to maintain that Christ is a creature, and not
a Son? It was your duty to know this mystery, from the Gospels, and to
hold the knowledge fast. For though the Lord can do all things, yet He
resolved that every one who prays for His effectual help must earn it by a
true confession of Himself. Not, indeed, that the suppliant's confession
could augment the power of Him, Who is the Power of God; but the
earning was to be the reward of faith. So, when He asked Martha, who was
entreating Him for Lazarus, whether she believed that they who had
believed in Him should not die eternally, her answer expressed the trust of
her soul; — Yea, Lord, I believe that Than art the Christ, the Son of God,
Who art come into this world. This confession is eternal life; this faith has
immortality. Martha, praying for her brother's life, was asked whether she
believed this. She did so believe. What life does the denier expect, from
whom does he hope to receive it, when this belief, and this only, is eternal
life? For great is the mystery of this faith, and perfect the blessedness
which is the fruit of this confession.

48. The Lord had given sight to a man blind from his birth; the, Lord of
nature had removed a defect of nature. Because this blind man had been
born for the glory of God, that God's work might be made manifest in the
work of Christ, the Lord did not delay till the man had given evidence of
his faith by a confession of it. But though he knew not at the time Who it
was that had bestowed the great gift of eyesight, yet afterwards he earned

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a knowledge of the faith. For it was not the dispelling of his blindness that
won him eternal life. And so, when the man was already healed and had
suffered ejection from the synagogue, the Lord put to him the question,
Dost thou believe on the Son of God? This was to save him from the
thought of loss, in exclusion from the synagogue, by the certainty that
confession of the true faith had restored him to immortality. When the
man, his soul still unenlightened, made answer, Who is He, Lord, that I
may believe on Him? The Lord's reply was, Thou hast bath seen Him, and
it is He that talketh with thee. For He was minded to remove the ignorance
of the man whose sight he had restored, and whom He was now enriching
with the knowledge of so glorious a faith. Does the Lord demand from this
man, as from others, who prayed Him to heal them, a confession of faith
as the price of their recovery? Emphatically not. For the blind man could
already see when he was thus addressed. The Lord asked the question in
order to receive the answer, Lord, I believe. The faith which spoke in that
answer was to receive not sight, but life. And now let us examine carefully
the force of the words. The Lord asks of the man, Dost thou believe an the
Son of God? Surely, if a simple confession of Christ, leaving His nature in
obscurity, were a complete expression of the faith, the terms of the
question would have been, 'Dost thou believe in Christ?' But in days to
come almost every heretic was to make a parade of that name, confessing
Christ and yet denying that He is the Son; and therefore He demands, as
the condition of faith, that we should believe in what is peculiar to
Himself, that is, in His Divine Sonship. What is the profit of faith in the
Son of God, if it be faith in a creature, when He requires of us faith in
Christ, not the creature, but the Son, of God.

49. Did devils fail to understand the full meaning of this name of Son? For
we are valuing the heretics at their true worth if we refute them no longer
by the teaching of Apostles, but out of the mouth of devils. They cry, and
cry often, What have I to do with Thee, Jesus, Thou Son of God most
High? Truth wrung this confession from them against their will; their
reluctant obedience is a witness to the force of the Divine nature within
Him. When they fly from the bodies they have long possessed, it is His
might that conquers them; their confession of His nature is an act of
reverence. These transactions display Christ as the Son of God both in
power and in name. Can you hear, amid all these cries of devils confessing

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Him, Christ once styled a creature, or God's condescension in adopting
Him once named?

50. If you will not learn Who Christ is from those that know Him, learn it
at least from those that know Him not. So shall the confession, which their
ignorance is forced to make, rebuke your blasphemy. The Jews did not
recognize Christ, come in the body, though they knew that the true Christ
must be the Son of God. And so, when they were employing false
witnesses, without one word of truth in their testimony, against Him, their
priest asked Him, Art Thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed? They
knew not that in Him the mystery was fulfilled; they knew that the Divine
nature was the condition of its fulfillment. They did not ask whether
Christ be the Son of God; they asked whether He were Christ, the Son of
God. They were wrong as to the Person, not as to the Sonship, of Christ.
They did not doubt that Christ is the Son of God; and thus, while they
asked whether He were the Christ, they asked without denying that the
Christ is the Son of God. What, then, of your faith, which leads you to
deny what even they, in their blindness, confessed? The perfect knowledge
is this, to be assured that Christ, the Son of God, Who existed before the
worlds, was also born of the Virgin. Even they, who know nothing of His
birth from Mary, know that He is the Son of God. Mark the fellowship
with Jewish wickedness in which your denial of the Divine Sonship has
involved you! For they have put on record the reason of their
condemnation: — And by our Law He aught to die, because He made
Himself the Son of God. Is not this the same charge which you are
blasphemously bringing against Him, that, while you pronounce Him a
creature, He calls Himself the Son? He confesses Himself the Son, and
they declare Him guilty of death: you too deny that He is the Son of God.
What sentence do you pass upon Him? You have the same repugnance to
His claim as had the Jews. You agree with their verdict; I want to know
whether you will quarrel about the sentence. Your offense, in denying that
He is the Son of God, is exactly the same as theirs, though their guilt is
less, for they sinned in ignorance. They knew not that Christ was born of
Mary, yet they never doubted that Christ must be the Son of God. You
are perfectly aware of the fact that Christ was born of Mary, yet you
refuse Him the name of Son of God. If they come to the faith, there awaits
them an unimperilled salvation, because of their past ignorance. Every gate

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of safety is shut to you, because you persist in denying a truth which is
obvious to you. For you are not ignorant that He is the Son of God; you
know it so well that you allow Him the name as a title of adoption, and
feign that He is a creature adorned, like others, with the right to call
Himself a Son. You rob Him, as far as you can, of the Divine nature; if you
could, you would rob Him of the Divine name as well. But, because you
cannot, you divorce the name from the nature; He is called a Son, but He
shall not be the true Son of God.

51. The confession of the Apostles, for whom by a word of command the
raging wind and troubled sea were restored to calm, was an opportunity
for you. You might have confessed, as they did, that He is God's true Son;
you might have borrowed their very words, Of a truth, this is the Son of
God. But an evil spirit of madness is driving you on to shipwreck of your
life; your reason is distracted and overwhelmed, like the ocean tormented
by the fury of the storm.

52. If this witness of the voyagers seem inconclusive to you because they
were Apostles, — though to me it comes with the greater weight for the
same reason, though it surprises me the less, — accept at any rate a
corroboration given by the Gentiles. Hear how the soldier of the Roman
cohort, one of the stern guard around the Cross, was humbled to the faith.
The centurion sees the mighty workings of Christ's power; and this is the
witness borne by him: — Truly this was the Son of God. The truth was
forced upon him, after Christ had given up the ghost, by the torn veil of
the Temple, and the earth that shook, and the rocks that were rent, and the
sepulchers that were opened, and the dead that rose. And it was the
confession of an unbeliever. The deeds that were done convinced him that
Christ's nature was omnipotent; he names Him the Son of God, being
assured of His true Divinity. So cogent was the proof, so strong the man's
conviction, that the force of truth conquered his will, and even he who had
nailed Christ to the Cross was driven to confess that He is the Lord of
eternal glory, truly the Son of God.

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BOOK 7

1. This is the seventh book of our treatise against the wild extravagance of
modern heresy. In order of place it must follow its predecessors; in order
of importance, as an exposition of the mysteries of the right faith, it
precedes, and excels them all. I am well aware how hard and steep is the
path of evangelical instruction up which we are mounting. The fears
inspired by consciousness of my own incapacity are plucking me back, but
the warmth of faith urges me on; the assaults of heresy heat my blood, and
the dangers of the ignorant excite my compassion. I fear to speak, and yet I
cannot be silent. A double dread subdues my spirit; it may be that speech,
it may be that silence, will render me guilty of a desertion of the truth. For
this cunning heresy has hedged itself round with marvelous devices of
perverted ingenuity. First there is the semblance of devotion; then the
language carefully chosen to lull the suspicions of a candid listener; and
again, the accommodation of their views to secular philosophy; and finally,
their withdrawing of attention from manifest truth by a pretended
explanation of Divine methods. Their loud profession of the unity of God
is a fraudulent imitation of the faith; their assertion that Christ is the Son
of God a play upon words for the delusion of their hearers; their saying
that He did not exist before He was born a bid for the support of the
world's philosophers; their confession of God as incorporeal and
immutable leads, by a display of fallacious logic, up to a denial of the birth
of God from God. They turn our arguments against ourselves; the
Church's faith is made the engine of its own destruction. They have
contrived to involve us in the perplexing position of an equal danger,
whether we reason with them or whether we refrain. For they use the fact
that we allow certain of their assumptions to pass unchallenged as an
argument on behalf of those which we do contradict.

2. We call to mind that in the preceding books the reader has been urged to
study the whole of that blasphemous manifesto, and mark how it is
animated throughout by the one aim of propagating the belief that our Lord
Jesus Christ is neither God, nor Son of God. Its authors argue that He is

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permitted to use the names of God and of Son by virtue of a certain
adoption, though neither Godhead nor Sonship be His by nature. They use
the fact, true in itself, that God is immutable and incorporeal, as an
argument against the birth of the Son from Him. They value the truth, that
God the Father is One, only as a weapon against our faith in the Godhead
of Christ; pleading that an incorporeal nature cannot be rationally
conceived as generating another, and that our faith in One God is
inconsistent with the confession of God from God. But our earlier books
have already refuted and foiled this argument of theirs by an appeal to the
Law and the Prophets. Our defense has followed, step by step, the course
of their attack. We have set forth God from God, and at the same time
confessed One true God; shewing that this presentation of the faith neither
falls short of the truth by ascribing singleness of Person to the One true
God, nor adds to the faith by asserting the existence of a second Deity. For
we confess neither an isolated God, nor yet two Gods. Thus, neither
denying that God is One nor maintaining that He is alone, we hold the
straight road of truth. Each Divine Person is in the Unity, yet no Person is
the One God. Next, our purpose being to demonstrate the irrefragable truth
of this mystery by the evidence of the Evangelists and Apostles, our first
duty has been to make our readers acquainted with the nature, truly
subsisting and truly born, of the Son of God; to demonstrate that He has
no origin external to God, and was not created out of nothing, but is the
Son, born from God. This is a truth which the evidence adduced in the last
book has placed beyond all doubt. The assertion that He bears the name of
Son by virtue of adoption has been put to silence, and He stands forth as a
true Son by a true birth. Our present task is to prove from the Gospels
that, because He is true Son, He is true God also. For unless He be true
Son He cannot be true God, nor true God unless He be true Son.

3. Nothing is more harassing to human nature than the sense of impending
danger. If calamities unknown or unanticipated befall us, we may need
pity, yet we have been free from care; no load of anxiety has oppressed us.
But he whose mind is full of possibilities of trouble suffers already a
torment in his fear. I who now am venturing out to sea, am a mariner not
unused to shipwreck, a traveler who knows by experience holy brigands
lurk in the forests, an explorer of African deserts aware of the danger from
scorpions and asps and basilisks. I enjoy no instant of relief from the

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knowledge and fear of present danger. Every heretic is on the watch, noting
every word as it drops from my mouth. The whole progress of my
argument is infested with ambuscades and pitfalls and snares. It is not of
the road, of its hardness or steepness, that I complain; I am following in
the footsteps of the Apostles, not choosing my own path. My trouble is
the constant peril, the constant dread, of wandering into some ambush, of
stumbling into some pit, of being entangled in some net. My purpose is to
proclaim the unity of God, in the sense of the Law and Prophets and
Apostles. Sabellius is at hand, eager with cruel kindness to welcome me, on
the strength of this unity, and swallow me up in his own destruction. If I
withstand him, and deny that, in the Sabellian sense, God is One a fresh
heresy is ready to receive me, pointing out that I teach the existence of two
Gods. Again, if I undertake to tell holy the Son of God was born from
Mary, Photinus, the Ebion of our day, will be prompt to twist this
assertion of the truth into a confirmation of his lie. I need mention no other
heresies save one; all the world knows that they are alien from the Church.
It is one that has been often denounced, often rejected, yet it preys upon
our vitals still. Galatia has reared a large brood of godless assertors of the
unity of God. Alexandria has sown broadcast, over almost the whole
world, her denial, which is an affirmation, of the doctrine of two Gods.
Pannonia upholds her pestilent doctrine that the only birth of Jesus Christ
was from the Virgin. And the Church, distracted by these rival faiths, is in
danger of being led by means of truth into a rejection of truth. Doctrines
are being forced upon her for godless ends, which, according to the use that
is made of them, will either support or overthrow the faith. For instance,
we cannot, as true believers, assert that God is One, if we mean by it that
He is alone; for faith in a lonely God denies the Godhead of the Son. If, on
the other hand, we assert, as we truly can, that the Son is God, we are in
danger, so they fondly imagine, of deserting the truth that God is One. We
are in peril on either hand; we may deny the unity or we may maintain the
isolation. But it is a danger which has no terrors for the foolish things of
the word. Our adversaries are blind to the fact that His assertion that He is
not alone is consistent with unity; that though He is One He is not
solitary.

4. But I trust that the Church, by the light of her doctrine, will so enlighten
the world's vain wisdom, that, even though it accept not the mystery of

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the faith, it will recognize that in our conflict with heretics we, and not
they, are the true representatives of that mystery. For great is the force of
truth; not only is it its own sufficient witness, but the more it is assailed
the more evident it becomes; the daily shocks which it receives only
increase its inherent stability. It is the peculiar property of the Church that
when she is buffeted she is triumphant, when she is assaulted with
argument she proves herself in the right, when she is deserted by her
supporters she holds the field. It is her wish that all men should remain at
her side and in her bosom; if it lay with her, none would become unworthy
to abide under the shelter of that august mother, none would be cast out or
suffered to depart from her calm retreat. But when heretics desert her or
she expels them, the loss she endures, in that she cannot save them, is
compensated by an increased assurance that she alone can offer bliss. This
is a truth which the passionate zeal of rival heresies brings into the clearest
prominence. The Church, ordained by the Lord and established by His
Apostles, is one for all; but the frantic folly of discordant sects has severed
them from her. And it is obvious that these dissensions concerning the
faith result from a distorted mind, which twists the words of Scripture into
conformity with its opinion, instead of adjusting that opinion to the words
of Scripture. And thus, amid the clash of mutually destructive errors, the
Church stands revealed not only by her own teaching, but by that of her
rivals. They are ranged, all of them, against her; and the very fact that she
stands single and alone is her sufficient answer to their godless delusions.
The hosts of heresy assemble themselves against her; each of them can
defeat all the others, but not one can win a victory for itself. The only
victory is the triumph which the Church celebrates over them all. Each
heresy wields against its adversary some weapon already shattered, in
another instance, by the Church's condemnation. There is no point of
union between them, and the outcome of their internecine struggles is the
confirmation of the faith.

5. Sabellius sweeps away the birth of the Son, and then preaches the unity
of God; but he does not doubt that the mighty Nature, which acted in the
human Christ, was God. He shuts his eyes to the revealed mystery of the
Sonship; the works done seem to him so marvelous that he cannot believe
that He who performed them could undergo a true generation. When he
hears the words, He that hath, seen Me hath seen the Father also, he

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jumps to the blasphemous conclusion of an inseparable and
indistinguishable identity of nature in Father and Son, because he fails to
see that the revelation of the birth is the mode in which Their unity of
nature is manifested to. us. For the fact that the Father is seen in the Son is
a proof of the Son's Divinity, not a disproof of His birth. Thus our
knowledge of Each of Them is conditioned-by our knowledge of the Other,
for there is no difference of nature between them and, since in this respect
they are One, a reverent study of the character of Either will give us a true
insight into the nature of Both For, indeed, it is certain that He, Who was
in the form of God, must in His self-revelation present Himself to us in the
exact aspect of the form of God. Again, this perverse and insane delusion
derives a further encouragement from the words, I and the Father are One.
From the fact of unity in the same nature they have impiously deduced a
confusion of Persons; their interpretation, that the words signify a single
Power, contradicts the tenor of the passage. For I and the Father are One
does not indicate a solitary God. The use of the conjunction and shews
clearly that more than one Person is signified; and are requires a plurality
of subject. Moreover, the One is not incompatible with a birth. Its sense
is, that the Two Persons have the one nature in common. The One is
inconsistent with difference; the are with identity.

6. Set our modern heresy in array against the delusion, equally wild, of
Sabellius; let them make the best of their case. The new heretics will
advance the passage. The Father is greater than I. Neglecting the mystery
of the Divine birth, and the mystery of God's emptying Himself and
taking flesh, they will argue the inferiority of His nature from His assertion
that the Father is the greater. They will plead against Sabellius that Christ
is a Son, in so far as One can be a Son who is inferior to the Father and
needs to ask for restoration to His glory, and fears to die and indeed did
die. In reply Sabellius will adduce His deeds in evidence of His Divine
nature; and while our novel heresy, to escape the admission of Christ's
true Sonship, will heartily agree with him that God is One, Sabellius will
emphatically assert the same article of the faith, in the sense that no Son
exists. The one side lays stress upon the action of the Son; the other urges
that in that action God is manifest, the one will demonstrate the unity, the
other disprove the identity. Sabellius will defend his position thus: —
"The works that were done could have been done by no other nature than

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the Divine. Sins were remitted, the sick were healed, the lame ran, the blind
saw, the dead lived. God alone has power for this. The words I and the
Father are One could only have been spoken from self-knowledge; no
nature, outside the Father's, could have uttered them. Why then suggest a
second substance, and urge me to believe in a second God? These works
are peculiar to God; the One God wrought them." His adversaries,
animated by a hatred, equally venomous, for the faith, will argue that the
Son is unlike in nature to God the Father: — "You are ignorant of the
mystery of your salvation. You must believe in a Son through Whom the
worlds were made, through Whom man was fashioned, Who gave the Law
through Angels, Who was born of Mary, Who was sent by the Father, was
crucified, dead and buried, Who rose again from the dead and is at the right
hand of God, Who is the Judge of quick and dead. Unto Him we must use
again, we must confess Him, we must earn our place in His kingdom."
Each of the two enemies of the Church is fighting the Church's battle.
Sabellius displays Christ as God by the witness of the Divine nature
manifested in His works; Sabellius' antagonists confess Christ, on the
evidence of the revealed faith, to be the Son of God.

7. Again, how glorious a victory for our faith is that in which Ebionin other
words, Photinus — both wins the day and loses it! He castigates Sabellius
for denying that the Son of God is Man, and in his turn has to submit to
the reproaches of Arian fanatics for failing to see that this Man is the Son
of God. Against Sabellius he calls the Gospels to his aid, with their
evidence concerning the Son of Mary; Arius deprives him of this ally by
proving that the Gospels make Christ something more than the Son of
Mary. Sabellius denies that there is a Son of God; against him Photinus
elevates man to the place of Son. Photinus will hear nothing of a Son born
before the worlds; against him, Arius denies that the only birth of the Son
of God was His human birth. Let them defeat one another to their hearts'
content, for every victory which each of them wins is balanced by a defeat
Our present adversaries are ranted in the matter of the Divine nature of the
Son; Sabellius in the matter of the Son's revealed existence; Photinus is
convicted of ignorance, or else of falsehood, in his denial of the Son' s birth
before the worlds. Meanwhile the Church, whose faith is based upon the
teaching of Evangelists and Apostles, holds fast, against Sabellius, her
assertion that the Son exists; against Arius, that He is God by nature;

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against Photinus, that He created the universe. And she is the more
convinced of her faith, in that they cannot combine to contradict it. For
Sabellius points to the works of Christ in proof of the Divinity of Him
Who wrought them, though he knows not that the Son was their Author.
The Arians grant Him tile name of Son, though they confess not that the
true nature of God dwelt in Him. Photinus maintains His manhood, though
in maintaining it he forgets that Christ was born as God before the worlds.
Thus, in their several assertions and denials, there are points in which each
heresy is in the right in defense or attack; and the result of their conflicts is
that the truth of our confession is brought into clearer light.

8. 1 felt that I must spare a little space to point this out. It has been from
no love for amplification, but that it might serve as a warning. First, I
wished to expose the vague and confused character of this crowd of
heresies, whose mutual feuds turn, as we have seen, to our advantage.
Secondly, in my warfare against the blasphemous doctrines of modern
heresy; that is, in my task of proclaiming that both God the Father and
God the Son are God, — in other words, that Father and Son are One in
name, One in nature, One in the kind of Divinity which they possess, — I
wished to shield myself from any charge which might be brought against
me, either as an advocate of two Gods or of one lonely and isolated Deity.
For in God the Father and God the Son, as I have set them forth, no
confusion of Persons can be detected; nor in my exposition of Their
common nature can any difference between the Godhead of the One and of
the Other be discerned. In the preceding book I have sufficiently refuted,
by the witness of the Gospels, those who deny the subsistence of I God
the Son by a true birth from God; my present duty is to shew that He,
Who in the truth of His nature is Son of God, is also in the truth of His
nature God. But this proof must not degenerate into the fatal profession of
a solitary God, or of a second God. It shall manifest God as One yet not
alone; but in its care to avoid the error of making Him lonely it shall not
fall into the error of denying His unity.

9. Thus we have all these different assurances of the Divinity of our Lord
Jesus Christ: — His name, His birth, His nature, His power, His own
assertion. As to the name, I conceive that no doubt is possible. It is
written, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and
the Word was God. What reason can there be for suspecting that He is not

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what His name indicates? And does not this name clearly describe His
nature? If a statement be contradicted, it must be for some reason. What
reason, I demand, is there in this instance for denying that He is God? The
name is given Him, plainly and distinctly, and unqualified by any
incongruous addition which might raise a doubt. The Word, we read, which
was made flesh, was none other than God. Here is no loophole for any
such conjecture as that He has received this name as a favor or taken it
upon Himself, so possessing a titular Godhead which is not His by nature.

10. Consider the other recorded instances in which this name was given by
favor or assumed. To Moses it was said, I have made thee a God to
Pharaoh. Does not this addition, to Pharaoh, account for the title? Did God
impart to Moses the Divine nature? Did He not rather make Moses a God
in the sight of Pharaoh, who was to be smitten with terror when Moses'
serpent swallowed the magic serpents and returned into a rod, when he
drove back the venomous flies which he had called forth, when he stayed
the hail by the same power wherewith he had summoned it, and made the
locusts depart by the same might which had brought them; when in the
wonders that he wrought the magicians saw the finger of God? That was
the sense in which Moses was appointed to be God to Pharaoh; he was
feared and entreated, he chastised and healed. It is one thing to be
appointed a God; it is another thing to be God. He was made a God to
Pharaoh; he had not that nature and that name wherein God consists. I call
to mind another instance of the name being given as a title; that where it is
written, I have said, Ye are gods. But this is obviously the granting of a
favor. I have said proves that it is no definition, but only a description by
One Who chooses to speak thus, A definition gives us knowledge of the
object defined; a description depends on the arbitrary will of the speaker.
When a speaker is manifestly conferring a title, that title has its origin only
in the speaker's words, not in the thing itself. The title is not the name
which expresses its nature and kind.

11. But in this case the Word in very truth is God; the essence of the
Godhead exists in the Word, and that essence is expressed in the Word's
name. For the name Word is inherent in the Son of God as a consequence
of His mysterious birth, as are also the names Wisdom and Power. These,
together with the substance which is His by a true birth, were called into
existence to be the Son of God; yet, since they are the elements of God's

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nature, they are still immanent in Him in undiminished extent, although
they were born from Him to be His Son. For, as we have said so often, the
mystery which we preach is that of a Son Who owes His existence not to
division but to birth. He is not a segment cut off, and so incomplete, but an
Offspring born, and therefore perfect; for birth involves no diminution of
the Begetter, and has the possibility of perfection for the Begotten. And
therefore the titles of those substantive properties are applied to God the
Only-begotten, for when He came into existence by birth it was they
which constituted His perfection; and this although they did not thereby
desert the Father, in Whom, by the immutability of His nature, they are
eternally present. For instance, the Word is God the Only-begotten, and
yet the Unbegotten Father is never without His Word. Not that the nature
of the Son is that of a sound which is uttered. He is God from God,
subsisting through a true birth; God's own Son, born from the Father,
indistinguishable from Him in nature, and therefore inseparable. This is the
lesson which His title of the Word is meant to teach us. And in the same
way Christ is the Wisdom and the Power of God; not that He is, as He is
often regarded, the inward activity of the Father' s might or thought, but
that His nature, possessing through birth a true substantial existence, is
indicated by these names of inward forces. For an object, which has by
birth an existence of its own, cannot be regarded as a property; a property
is necessarily inherent in some being and can have no independent
existence. But it was to save us from concluding that the Son is alien from
the Divine nature of His Father that He, the Only -begotten from the
eternal God His Father, born as God into a substantial existence of His
own, has had Himself revealed to us under these names of properties, of
which the Father, out of Whom He came into existence, has suffered no
diminution. Thus He, being God, is nothing else than God. For when I hear
the words, And the Word was God, they do not merely tell me that the
Son was called God; they reveal to my understanding that He is God. In
those previous instances, where Moses was called God and others were
styled gods, there was the mere addition of a name by way of title. Here a
solid essential truth is stated; The Word was God. That was indicates no
accidental title, but an eternal reality, a permanent element of His
existence, an inherent character of His nature.

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12. And now let us See whether the confession of Thomas the Apostle,
when he cried, My Lord and My God, corresponds with this assertion of
the Evangelist. We see that he speaks of Him, Whom he confesses to be
God, as My God. Now Thomas was undoubtedly familiar with those
words of the Lord, Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God is One. How then
could the faith of an Apostle become so oblivious of that primary
command as to confess Christ as God, when life is conditional upon the
confession of the Divine unity? It was because, in the light of the
Resurrection, the whole mystery of the faith had become visible to the
Apostle. He had often heard such words as, I and the Father are One, and,
All things that the Father hath are Mine, and, I in the Father and the Father
in Me; and now he can confess that the name of God expresses the nature
of Christ, without peril to the faith. Without breach of loyalty to the One
God, the Father, his devotion could now regard the Son of God as God,
since he believed that everything contained in the nature of the Son was
truly of the same nature with the Father. No longer need he fear that such a
confession as his was the proclamation of a second God, a treason against
the unity of the Divine nature; for it was not a second God Whom that
perfect birth of the Godhead had brought into being. Thus it was with full
knowledge of the mystery of the Gospel that Thomas confessed his Lord
and his God. It was not a title of honor; it was a confession of nature. He
believed that Christ was God in substance and in power. And the Lord, in
turn, shews that this act of worship was the expression not of mere
reverence, but of faith, when He says, Because than hast seen, thou hast
believed; blessed are they which have not seen, and have believed. For
Thomas had seen before he believed. But, you ask, What was it that
Thomas believed? That, beyond a doubt, which is expressed in his words,
My Lord and my God. No nature but that of God could have risen by its
own might from death to life; and it is this fact, that Christ is God, which
was confessed by Thomas with the confidence of an assured faith. Shall
we, then, dream that His name of God is not a substantial reality, when
that name has been proclaimed by a faith based upon certain evidence?
Surely a Son devoted to His Father, One Who did not His own will but the
will of Him that sent Him, Who sought not His own glory but the glory of
Him from Whom He came, would have rejected the adoration involved in
such a name as destructive of that unity of God which had been the burden
of His teaching. Yet, in fact, He confirms this assertion of the mysterious

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truth, made by the believing Apostle; He accepts as His own the name
which belongs to the nature of the Father. And He teaches that they are
blessed who, though they have not seen Him rise from the dead, yet have
believed, on the assurance of the Resurrection, that He is God.

13. Thus the name which expresses His nature proves the truth of our
confession of the faith. For the name, which indicates any single substance,
points out also any other substance of the same kind; and, in this instance,
there are not two substances but one substance, of the one kind. For the
Son of God is God; this is the truth expressed in His name. The one name
does not embrace two Gods; for the one name God is the name of one
indivisible nature. For since the Father is God and the Son is God, and that
name which is peculiar to the Divine nature is inherent in Each, therefore
the Two are One. For the Son, though He subsists through a birth from the
Divine nature, yet preserves the unity in His name; and this birth of the
Son does not compel loyal believers to acknowledge two Gods, since our
confession declares that Father and Son are One, both in nature and in
name. Thus the Son of God has the Divine name as the result of His birth.
Now the second step in our demonstration was to be that of shewing that
it is by virtue of His birth that He is God. I have still to bring forward the
evidence of the Apostles that the Divine name is used of Him in an exact
sense; but for the present I purpose to continue our enquiry into the
language of the Gospels.

14. And first I ask what new element, destructive of His Godhead, can
have been imported by birth into the nature of the Son? Universal reason
rejects the supposition that a being can become different in nature, by the
process of birth, from the being to which its birth is due; although we
recognize the possibility that from parents, different in kind, an offspring
sharing the nature of both, yet diverse from either, may be propagated.
The fact is familiar in the case of beasts, both tame and wild. But even in
this case there is no real novelty; the new qualities already exist, concealed
in the two different parental natures, and are only developed by the
connection. The birth of their joint offspring is not the cause of that
offspring's difference from its parents. The difference is a gift from them
of various diversities, which are received and combined in one frame. When
this is the case as to the transmission and reception even of bodily
differences, is it not a form of madness to assert that the birth of God the

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Only -begotten was the birth from God of a nature inferior to Himself? For
the giving of birth is a function of the true nature of the transmitter of life;
and without the presence and action of that true nature there can be no
birth. The object of all this heat and passion is to prove that there was no
birth, but a creation, of the Son of God; that the Divine nature is not His
origin and that He does not possess that nature in His personal
subsistence, but draws, from what was non-existent, a nature different in
kind from the Divine. They are angry because He says, That which is barn
of the flesh is flesh, and that which is barn of the Spirit is Spirit. For, since
God is a Spirit, it is clear that in One born from Him there can be nothing
alien or different froth that Spirit from which He was born. Thus the birth
of God constitutes Him perfect God. And hence also it is clear that we
must not say that He began to exist, but only that He was born. For there
is a sense in which beginning is different from birth. A thing which begins
to exist either comes into existence out of nothing, or develops out of one
state into another, ceasing to be what it was before; so, for instance, gold is
formed out of earth, solids melt into liquids, cold changes to warmth, white
to red, water breeds moving creatures, lifeless objects torn into living. In
contrast to all this, the Son of God did not begin, out of nothing, to be
God, but was born as God; nor had He an existence of another kind before
the Divine. Thus He Who was born to be God had neither a beginning of
His Godhead, nor yet a development up to it. His birth retained for Him
that nature out of which He came into being; the Son of God, in His
distinct existence, is what God is, and is nothing else.

15. Again, any one who is in doubt concerning this matter may gain from
the Jews an accurate knowledge of Christ's nature; or rather learn that He
was truly born from the Gospel, where it is written, Therefore the Jews
sought the more to kill Him because He not only broke the Sabbath, but
said also that God was His own Father, making Himself equal with God.
This passage is unlike most others in not giving us the words spoken by
the Jews, but the Apostle's explanation of their motive in wishing to kill
the Lord. We see that no plea of misapprehension can excuse the
wickedness of these blasphemers; for we have the Apostle's evidence that
the true nature of Christ was fully revealed to them. They could speak of
His birth: — He said that God was His Father, making Himself equal with
God. Was not His clearly a birth of nature from nature, when He published

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the equality of His nature by speaking of God, by name, as His own
Father? Now it is manifest that equality consists in the absence of
difference between those who are equal. Is it not also manifest that the
result of birth must be a nature in which there is an absence of difference
between Son and Father? And this is the only possible origin of true
equality; birth can only bring into existence a nature equal to its origin. But
again, we can no more hold that there is equality where there is confusion,
than we can where there is difference. Thus equality, as of the image, is
incompatible with isolation and with diversity; for equality cannot dwell
with difference, nor yet in solitude.

16. And now, although we have found the sense of Scripture, as we
understand it, in harmony with the conclusions of ordinary reason, the two
agreeing that equality is incompatible either with diversity or with
isolation, yet we must seek a fresh support for Our contention from actual
words of our Lord. For only so can we check that license of arbitrary
interpretation whereby these bold traducers of the faith would even
venture to cavil at the Lord's solemn self- revelation. His answer to the
Jews was this: — The Son can do nothing of Himself but what He seeth
the Father do; for what things soever He doeth, these also doeth the Son
likewise. For the Father loveth the Son, and sheweth Him all things that
Himself doeth; and He will shew Him greater works than these, that ye
may marvel. For as the Father raiseth up the dead and quickeneth them,
even so the Son quickeneth whom He will. For the Father judgeth no man,
but hath given all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son even as
they honor the Father. He that honoreth not the Son honoreth not the
Father which hath sent Him. The course of our argument, as I had shaped
it in my mind, required that each several point of the debate should be
handled singly; that, since we had been taught that our Lord Jesus Christ,
the Son of God, is God in name, in birth, in nature, in power, in
self-revelation, our demonstration of the faith should establish each
successive point in that order. But His birth is a barrier to such a treatment
of the question; for a consideration of it includes a consideration of His
name and nature and power and self-revelation. For His birth involves all
these, and they are His by the fact that He is born. And thus our argument
concerning His birth has taken such a course that it is impossible for us to
keep these other matters back for separate discussion in their turn.

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17. The chief reason why the Jews wished to kill the Lord was that, in
calling God His Father, He had made Himself equal with God; and
therefore He put His answer, in which He reproved their evil passion, into
the form of an exposition of the whole mystery of our faith. For just
before this, when He had healed the paralytic and they had passed their
judgment upon Him that He was worthy of death for breaking the Sabbath,
He had said, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work. Their jealousy had
been inflamed to the utmost by the raising of Himself to the level of God
which was involved in this use of the name of Father. And now He wishes
to assert His birth and to reveal the powers of His nature, and so He says,
I say unto you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He seeth the
Father do. These opening words of His reply are aimed at that wicked zeal
of the Jews, which hurried them on even to the desire of slaying Him. It is
in reference to the charge of breaking the Sabbath that He says, My Father
worketh hitherto, and I work. He wished them to understand that His
practice was justified by Divine authority; and He taught them by the
same words that His work must be regarded as the work of the Father,
Who was working in Him all that He wrought. And again, it was to subdue
the jealousy awakened by His speaking of God as His Father that He
uttered those words, Verily, verily, I say unto you, the Son can do nothing
of Himself, but what He seeth the Father do. Lest this making of Himself
equal to God, as having the name and nature of God's Son, should
withdraw men's faith from the truth that He had been born, He says that
the Son can do nothing but what He sees the Father do. Next, in
confirmation of the saving harmony of truths in our confession of Father
and of Son, He displays this nature which is His by birth; a nature which
derives its power of action not from successive gifts of strength to do
particular deeds, but from knowledge. He shews that this knowledge is not
imparted by the Father's performance of any bodily work, as a pattern,
that the Son may imitate what the Father has previously done; but that, by
the action of the Divine nature, He had come to share the subsistence of
the Divine nature, or, in other words, had been born as Son from the
Father. He told them that, because the power and the nature of God dwelt
consciously within Him, it was impossible for Him to do anything which
He had not seen the Father doing; that, since it is in the might of the Father
that God the Only-begotten performs His works His liberty of action
coincides in its range with His knowledge of the powers of the nature of

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God the Father; a nature inseparable from Himself, and lawfully owned by
Him in virtue of His birth. For God sees not after a bodily fashion, but
possesses, by His nature, the vision of Omnipotence.

18. The next words are, For what things soever He — the Father — doeth,
these also doeth the Son likewise. This likewise is added to indicate His
birth; whatsoever and same to indicate the true Divinity of His nature.
Whatsoever and same make it impossible that there should be any actions
of His that are different from or outside, the actions of the Father. Thus
He, Whose nature has power to do all the same things as the Father, is
included in the same nature with the Father. But when, in contrast with
this, we read that all these same things are done by the Son likewise, the
fact that the works are like those of Another is fatal to the supposition
that He Who does them works in isolation. Thus the same things that the
Father does are all done likewise by the Son. Here we have clear proof of
His true birth, and at the same time a convincing attestation of the
Mystery of our faith, which, with its foundation in the Unity of the nature
of God, confesses that there resides in Father and Son an indivisible
Divinity. For the Son does the same things as the Father, and does them
likewise; while acting in like manner He does the same things. Two truths
are combined in one proposition; that His works are done likewise proves
His birth; that they are the same works proves His nature.

19. Thus the progressive revelation contained in our Lord's reply is at one
with the progressive statement of truth in the Church's confession of faith.
Neither of them divides the nature, and both declare the birth. For the next
words of Christ are, For the Father loveth the Son, and sheweth Him all
things that Himself doeth; and He will skew Him greater works than these,
that ye may marvel. For as the Rather raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth
them, even so the Son quickeneth whom He will. Can there be any other
purpose in this revelation of the manner in which God works, except that
of inculcating the true birth; the faith in a subsisting Son born from the
subsisting God, His Father? The only other explanation is that God the
Only-begotten was so ignorant that He needed the instruction conveyed in
this showing; but the reckless blasphemy of the suggestion makes this
alternative impossible. For He, knowing, as He does, everything that He is
taught, has no need of the teaching. And accordingly, after the words, The
Father loveth the Son, and sheweth Him all things that Himself doeth, we

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are next informed that all this skewing is for our instruction in the faith;
that the Father and the Son may have their equal share in our confession,
and we be saved, by this statement that the Father shews all that He does
to the Son, from the delusion that the Son's knowledge is imperfect. With
this object He goes on to say, And He will skew Him greater works than
these, that ye may marvel. For as the Father raiseth up the dead and
quickeneth them, even so the Son quickeneth whom He will. We see that
the Son has full knowledge of the future works which the Father will shew
Him hereafter. He knows that He will be shewn how, after His Father's
example, He is to give life to the dead. For He says that the Father will
shew to the Son things at which they shall marvel; and at once proceeds to
tell them what these things are for as the Father raiseth up the dead and
quickeneth them, even so the Son quickeneth whom He will. The power is
equal because the nature is one and the same. The skewing of the works is
an aid, not to ignorance in Him, but to faith in us. It conveys to the Son no
knowledge of things unknown, but it imparts to us the confidence to
proclaim His birth, by assuring us that the Father has shewn to Him all the
works that He Himself can do. The terms used in this Divine discourse
have been chosen with the utmost deliberation, lest any vagueness of
language should suggest a difference of nature between the Two. Christ
says that the Father' s works were shewn Him, instead of saying that, to
enable Him to perform them, a mighty nature was given Him. Hereby He
wishes to reveal to us that this shewing was a substantive part of the
process of His birth, since, simultaneously with that birth, there was
imparted to Him by the Father' s love a knowledge of the works which the
Father willed that He should do. And again, to save us from being led, by
this declaration of the shewing, to suppose that the Son's nature is
ignorant and therefore different from the Father' s, He makes it clear that
He already knows the things that are to be shewn Him. So far, indeed, is
He from needing the authority of precedent to enable Him to act, that He
is to give life to whom He will. To will implies a free nature, subsisting
with power to choose in the blissful exercise of omnipotence.

20. And next, lest it should seem that to give life to whom He will is not
within the power of One Who has been truly born, but is only the
prerogative of ingenerate Omnipotence, He hastens to add, For the Father
judgeth no man, but hath given all judgment to the Son. The statement that

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all judgment is given teaches both His birth and His Sonship; for only a
nature which is altogether one with the Father's could possess all things;
and a Son can possess nothing, except by gift. But all judgment has been
given Him for He quickens whom He will. Now we cannot suppose that
judgment is taken away from the Father, although He does not exercise it;
for the Son's whole power of judgment proceeds from the Father's, being a
gift from Him. And there is no concealment of the reason why judgment
has been given to the Son, for the words which follow are, But He hath
given all judgment to the Son, that all men may honor the Son even as they
honor the Father. He that honoreth not the Son honoreth not the Father
Which hath sent Him. What possible excuse remains for doubt, or for the
irreverence of denial? The reason for the gift of judgment is that the Son
may receive an honor equal to that which is paid to the Father; and thus he
who dishonors the Son is guilty of dishonoring the Father also. How, after
this proof, can we imagine that the nature given Him by birth is different
from the Father's, when He is the Father's equal in work, in power, in
honor, in the punishment awarded to gainsayers? Thus this whole Divine
reply is nothing else than an unfolding of the mystery of His birth. And
the only distinction that it is right or possible to make between Father and
Son is that the Latter was born; yet born in such a sense as to be One with
His Father.

21. Thus the Father works hitherto and the Son works. In Father and Son
you have the names which express Their nature in relation to Each other.
Note also that it is the Divine nature, that through which God works, that
is working here. And remember, lest you fall into the error of imagining
that the operation of two unlike natures is here described, how it was said
concerning the blind man, But that the works of God may be made
manifest in him, I must work the works of Him that sent Me. You see that
in his case the work wrought by the Son is the Father's work; and the
Son's work is God's work. The remainder of the discourse which we are
considering also deals with works; but my defense is at present only
concerned with assigning the whole work to Both, and pointing out that
They are at one in Their method of working, since the Son is employed
upon that work which the Father does hitherto. The sanction contained in
this fact that, by virtue of His Divine birth, the Father is working with
Him in all that He does, will save us from supposing that the Lord of the

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Sabbath was doing wrong in working on the Sabbath. His Sonship is not
affected, for there is no confusion of His Divinity with the Father's, and
no negation of it; His Godhead is not affected, for His Divine nature is
untouched. Their unity is not affected, for no difference is revealed to
sever Them; and Their unity is not presented in such a light as to
contradict Their distinct existence. First recognize the Sonship of the Son;
The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He seeth the Father do Here
His birth is manifest; because of i. He can do nothing of Himself till He
sees it bring done. He cannot be unbegotten, because He can do nothing of
Himself; He has no power of initiation, and therefore He must have been
born. But the fact that He can see the Father's works proves that He has
the comprehension which belongs to the conscious Possessor of Divinity.
Next, mark that He does possess this true Divine nature; — For what
things soever He doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise. And now that
we have seen Him endowed with the powers of that nature, note how this
results in unity, how one nature dwells in the Two; — That all men may
honor the Son, even as they honor the Father. And then, lest reflection on
this unity entangle you in the delusion of a solitary and self-contained
God, take to heart the mystery of the faith manifested in these words, He
that honoreth not the Son honoreth not the Father Which hath sent Him.
The rage and cunning of heresy may do their worst; our position is
impregnable. He is the Son, because He can do nothing of Himself; He is
God, because, whatever the Father does, He does the same; They Two are
One, because He is equal in honor to the Father and does the very same
works; He is not the Father, because He is sent. So great is the wealth of
mysterious truth contained in this one doctrine of the birth! It embraces
His name, His nature, His power, His self-revelation; for everything
conveyed to Him in His birth must be contained in that nature from which
His birth is derived. Into His nature no element of any substance different
in kind from that of His Author is introduced, for a nature which springs
from one nature only must be entirely one with that nature which is its
parent. An unity is that which, containing no discordant elements, is one in
kind with itself; an unity constituted through birth cannot be solitary; for
solitude can have but a single occupant, while an unity constituted through
birth implies the conjunction of Two.

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22. And furthermore, let His own Divine words bear witness to Himself.
He says, They that are of My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and
they follow Me; and I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never
perish, neither shall any man pluck them of My hand. That which My
Father hath given Me is greater than all, and no man shall be able to pluck
them out of My Father's hand. I and the Father are one. What lethargy can
blunt so utterly, the edge of our understanding as to render so precise a
statement for one moment obscure to us? What proud sophistry can play
such pranks with human docility as to persuade those, who have learnt
from these words the knowledge of what God is that they must not
recognize God in Him Whose Godhead was here revealed to them? Heresy
ought either to bring forward other Gospels in support of its doctrine; or
else, if our existing Gospels are the only documents which teach of God,
why do they not believe the lessons taught? If they are the only source of
knowledge, why not draw faith, as well as knowledge, from them? Yet
now we find that their faith is held in defiance of their knowledge; and
hence it is a faith rooted not in knowledge, but in sin; a faith of bold
irreverence, instead of reverent humility, towards the truth confessedly
known. God the Only-begotten, as we have seen, fully assured of His own
nature, reveals with the utmost precision of language the mystery of His
birth. He reveals it, ineffable though it is, in such wise that we can believe
and confess it; that we can understand that He was born and believe that
He has the nature of God and is One with the Father, and One with Him in
such a sense that God is not alone nor Son another name for Father, but
that in very truth He is the Son. For, firstly, He assures us of the powers
of His Divine nature, saying of His sheep, and no man shall pluck them
out of My hand. It is the utterance of conscious power, this confession of
free and irresistible energy, that will allow no man to pluck His sheep from
His hand. But more than this; not only has He the nature of God, but He
would have us know that nature is His by birth from God, and hence He
adds, That which the Father has given Me is greater than all. He makes no
secret of His birth from the Father, for what He received from the Father
He says is greater than all. And He Who received it, received it at His
birth, not after His birth, and yet it came to Him from Another, for He
received it. But He, Who received this gift from Another, forbids us to
suppose that He Himself is different in kind from That Other, and does
not eternally subsist with the same nature as that of Him Who gave the

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gift, by saying, No man shall be able to pluck them out of My, Father's
hand. None can pluck them out of His hand, for He has received from His
Father that which is greater than all things. What, then, means this
contradictory assertion that none can pluck them from His Father' s hand?
It is the Son's hand which received them from the Father, the Father's
hand which gave them to the Son: in what sense is it said that what cannot
be plucked from the Son's hand cannot be plucked from the Father's hand?
Hear, if you wish to know: — I and the Father are one. The Son's hand is
the Father's hand. For the Divine nature does not deteriorate or cease to be
the same in passing through birth: nor yet is this sameness a bar to our
faith in the birth, for in that birth no alien element was admitted into His
nature. And here He speaks of the Son's hand, which is the hand of the
Father, that by a bodily similitude you may learn the power of the one
Divine nature which is in Both; for the nature and the power of the Father
is in the Son. And lastly, that in this mysterious truth of the birth you
may discern the true and indistinguishable unity of the nature of God, the
words were spoken, I and the Father are One. They were spoken that in
this unity we might see neither difference nor solitude; for They are Two,
and yet no second nature came into being through that true birth and
generation.

23. There still remains, if I read them aright, the same desire in these
maddened souls, though their opportunity for fulfilling it is lost. Their
bitter hearts still cherish a longing for mischief which they can no longer
hope to satisfy. The Lord is on His throne in heaven, and the furious
hatred of heresy cannot drag Him, as the Jews did, to the Cross. But the
spirit of unbelief is the same, though now it takes the form of rejecting His
Godhead. They bid defiance to His words, though they cannot deny that
He spoke them. They vent their hatred in blasphemy; instead of stones
they shower abuse. If they could they would bring Him down from His
throne to a second crucifixion. When the Jews were moved to wrath by the
novelty of Christ's teaching we read, The Jews therefore took up stones to
stone Him. He answered them, Many good works have I shewed you from
the Father; far which of those works do ye stone Me? The Jews answered
Him, For a good work we stone Thee not, but for blasphemy; and because
Thou, being a man, makest Thyself God. I bid you, heretic, to recognize
herein your own deeds, your own words. Be sure that you are their

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partner, for you have made their unbelief your pattern. It was at the
words, I and the Father are One, that the Jews took up stones. Their
godless irritation at the revelation of that saving mystery hurried them on
even to an attempt to slay. There is no one whom you can stone; but is
your guilt in denying Him less than theirs? The will is the same, though it
is frustrated by His throne in heaven. Nay, it is you that are more impious
than the Jew. He lifted his stone against the Body, you lift yours against
the Spirit; he as he thought, against man, you against God; he against a
sojourner on earth, you against Him that sits upon the throne of majesty;
he against One Whom he knew not, you against Him Whom you confess;
he against the mortal Christ, you against the Judge of the universe. The
Jew says, Being Man; you say, 'Being a creature.' You and he join in the
cry, Makest Thyself God, with the same insolence of blasphemy. You
deny that He is God begotten of God; you deny that He is the Son by a
true birth; you deny that His words, I and the Father are One, contain the
assertion of one and the same nature in Both. You foist upon us in His
stead a modern, a strange, an alien God; you make Him God of another
kind from the Father, or else not God at all, as not subsisting by a birth
from God.

24. The mystery contained in those words, I and the Father are One,
moves you to wrath. The Jew answered, Thou, being a man makest
Thyself God; your blasphemy is a match for his: — 'Thou, being a
creature, makest Thyself God.' You say, in effect, 'Thou art not a Son by
birth, Thou art not God in truth; Thou art a creature, excelling all other
creatures. But Thou wast not born to be God, for I refuse to believe that
the incorporeal God gave birth to Thy nature. Thou and the Father are not
One. Nay more. Thou art not the Son, Thou art not like God, Thou art not
God.' The Lord had His answer for the Jews; an answer that meets the
case of your blasphemy even better than it met theirs: — Is it not written
in the Law, I said, Ye are gods? If, therefore, He called them gods, unto
whom the word of God came, and the Scripture cannot be broken, say ye
of Me, Whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into this world, that I
have blasphemed, because I said I am the Son of God? If I do not the
works of the Father, believe Me not; but if I do, and ye will not believe
Me, believe the works, that ye may know and be sure that the Father is in
Me, and I in Him. The matter of this reply was dictated by that of the

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blasphemous attack upon Him. The accusation was that He, being a man,
made Himself God. Their proof of this allegation was His own statement, I
and the Father are One. He therefore sets Himself to prove that the Divine
nature, which is His by birth, gives Him the right to assert that He and the
Father are One. He begins by exposing the absurdity, as well as the
insolence, of such a charge as that of making Himself God, though He was
a man. The Law had conferred the title upon holy men; the word of God,
from which there is no appeal, had given its sanction to the public use of
the name. What blasphemy, then, could there be in the assumption of the
title of Son of God by Him Whom the Father had sanctified and sent into
the world? The unalterable record of the Word of God has confirmed the
title to those to whom the Law assigned it. There is an end, therefore, of
the charge that He, being a man, makes Himself God, when the Law gives
the name of gods to those who are confessedly men. And further, if other
men may use this name without blasphemy, there can obviously be no
blasphemy in its use by the Man Whom the Father has sanctified, — and
note here that throughout this argument He calls Himself Man, for the Son
of God is also Son of Man — since He excels the rest, who yet are guilty
of no irreverence in styling themselves gods. He excels them, in that He has
been hallowed to be the Son, as the blessed Paul says, who teaches us of
this sanctification: — Which He had promised afore by His prophets in
the Holy Scriptures, concerning His Son, Which was made of the seal of
David according to the flesh, and was appointed to be the Son of God with
power, according to the spirit of sanctification. Thus the accusation of
blasphemy on His part, in making Himself God, falls to the ground. For
the Word of God has conferred this name upon many men; and He, Who
was sanctified and sent by the Father, did no more than proclaim Himself
the Son of God.

25. There remains, I conceive, no possibility of doubt but that the words, I
and the Father are One, were spoken with regard to the nature which is His
by birth. The Jews had rebuked Him because by these words He, being a
man, made Himself God. The coarse of His answer proves that, in this I
and the Father are One, He did profess Himself the Son of God, first in
name, then in nature, and lastly by birth. For I and Father are the names of
substantive Beings; One is a declaration of Their nature, namely, that it is
essentially the same in Both; are forbids us to confound Them together; are

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one, while forbidding confusion, teaches that the unity of the Two is the
result of a birth. Now all this truth is drawn out from that name, the Son of
God, which He being sanctified by the Father, bestows upon Himself; a
name, His right to which is confirmed by His assertion, I and the Father
are One. For birth cannot confer any nature upon the offspring other than
that of the parent from whom that offspring is born.

26. Once more, God the Only-begotten has summed up for us, in words
of His own, the whole revealed mystery of the faith. When He had given
His answer to the charge that He, being a man, made Himself God, He
determined to shew that His words, I and the Father are One, are a clear
and necessary conclusion; and therefore He thus pursued His argument; —
Ye say that I have blasphemed, because I said, I am the Son of God. If I do
not the works of the Father, believe Me not; but if I do, and ye will not
believe Me, believe the works, that ye may know and be sure that the
Father is in Me, and I in the Father. After this, heresy that still persists in
its course perpetrates a willful outrage in conscious despair; the assertion
of unbelief is deliberate shamelessness. They who make it take pride in
folly and are dead to the faith, for it is not ignorance, but madness, to
contradict this saying. The Lord had said, I and the Father are One; and the
mystery of His birth, which He revealed, was the unity in nature of Father
and Son. Again, when He was accused for claiming the Divine nature, He
justified His claim by advancing a reason; — If I do not the works of the
Father, believe Me not. We are not to believe His assertion that He is the
Son of God, unless He does His Father's works. Hence we see that His
birth has given Him no new or alien nature, for His doing of the Father's
works is to be the reason why we mast believe that He is the Son. What
room is there here for adoption, or for leave to use the name, or for denial
that He was born from the nature of God, when the proof that He is God's
Son is that He does the works which belong to the Father's nature? No
creature is equal or like to God, no nature external to His is comparable in
might to Him; it is only the Son, born from Himself, Whom we can
without blasphemy liken and equal to Him. Nothing outside Himself can
be compared to God without insult to His august majesty. If any being,
not born from God's sell, can be discovered that is like Him and equal to
Him in power, then God, in admitting a partner to share His throne,
forfeits His pre-eminence. No longer is God One, for a second,

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indistinguishable from Himself, has arisen. On the other hand, there is no
insult in making His own true Son His equal. For then that which is like
Him is His own; that which is compared with Him is born from Himself;
the Power that can do His own works is not external to Him. Nay more, it
is an actual heightening of His glory, that He has begotten Omnipotence,
and yet not severed that Omnipotent nature from Himself. The Son
performs the Father's works, and on that ground demands that we should
believe that He is God's Son. This is no claim of mere arrogance; for He
bases it upon His works, and bids us examine them. And He bears witness
that these works are not His own, but His Father's. He would not have
our thoughts distracted by the splendor of the deeds from the evidence for
His birth. And because the Jews could not penetrate the mystery of the
Body which He had taken, the Humanity born of Mary, and recognize the
Son of God, He appeals to His deeds for confirmation of His right to the
name; — But if I do them, and ye will not believe Me, believe the works.
First, He would not have them believe that He is the Son of God, except
on the evidence of God's works which He does. Next, if He does the
works, yet seems unworthy, in His bodily humility, to bear the Divine
name, He demands that they shall believe the works. Why should the
mystery of His human birth hinder our recognition of His birth as God,
when He that is Divinely born fulfills every Divine task by the agency of
that Manhood which He has assumed? If we believe not the Man, for the
works' sake, when He tells us that He is the Son of God, let us believe the
works when they, which are beyond a doubt the works of God, are
manifestly wrought by the Son of God. For the Son of God possesses, in
virtue of His birth, everything that is God's; and therefore the Son's work
is the Father' s work because His birth has not excluded Him from that
nature which is His source and wherein He abides, and because He has in
Himself that nature to which He owes it that He exists eternally.

27. And so the Son, Who does the Father's works and demands of us that,
if we believe not Him, at least we believe His works, is bound to tell us
what the point is as to which we are to believe the works. And He does
tell us in the words which follow: — But if I do, and ye will not believe
Me, believe the works, that ye may know and be sure that the Father is in
Me, and I in Him. It is the same truth as is contained in I am the Son of
God, and I and the Father are One. This is the nature which is His by

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birth; this the mystery of the saving faith, that we must not divide the
unity, nor separate the nature from the birth, but must confess that the
living God was in truth born from the living God. God, Who is Life, is not
a Being built up of various and lifeless portions; He is Power, and not
compact of feeble elements, Light, intermingled with no shades of
darkness, Spirit, that can harmonize with no incongruities. All that is
within Him is One; what is Spirit is Light and Power and Life, and what is
Life is Light and Power and Spirit. He Who says, I am, and I change not,
can suffer neither change in detail nor transformation in kind. For these
attributes, which I have named, are not attached to different portions of
Him, but meet and unite, entirely and perfectly, in the whole being of the
living God. He is the living God, the eternal Power of the living Divine
nature; and that which is born from Him, according to the mysterious truth
which He reveals, could not be other than living. For when He said, As the
living Father hath sent Me, and I live through the Father, He taught that it
is through the living Father that He has life in Himself. And, moreover,
when He said, For as the Father hath life in Himself, so hath He given to
the Son also to have life in Himself, He bore witness that life, to the fullest
extent, is His gift from the living God. Now if the living Son was born from
the living Father, that birth took place without a new nature coming into
existence. Nothing new comes into existence when the Living is begotten
by the Living; for life was not sought out from the non-existent to receive
birth; and Life, which receives its birth from Life, must needs, because of
that unity of nature and because of the mysterious event of that perfect
and ineffable birth, live always in Him that lives and have the life of the
Living in Himself.

28. 1 call to mind that, at the beginning of our treatises, I gave the warning
that human analogies correspond imperfectly to their Divine counterparts,
yet that our understanding receives a real, if incomplete, enlightenment by
comparing the latter with visible types. And now I appeal to human
experience in the matter of birth, whether the source of their children's
being remain not within the parents. For though the lifeless and ignoble
matter, which sets in motion the beginnings of life, pass from one parent
into the other, yet these retain their respective natural forces. They have
brought into existence a nature one with their own, and therefore the
begetter is bound up with the existence of the begotten; and the begotten,

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receiving birth through a force transmitted, yet not lost, by the begetter,
abides in that begetter. This may suffice as a statement of what happens in
a human birth. It is inadequate as a parallel to the perfect birth of God the
Only -begotten; for humanity is born in weakness and from the union of
two unlike natures, and maintained in life by a combination of lifeless
substances. Again, humanity does not enter at once into the exercise of its
appointed life, and never fully lives that life, being always encumbered
with a multitude of members which decay and are insensibly discarded. In
God, on the other hand, the Divine life is lived in the fullest sense, for God
is Life; and from Life nothing that is not truly living can be born. And His
birth is not by way of emanation but results from an act of power. Thus,
since God's life is perfect in its intensity, and since that which is born
from Him is perfect in power, God has the power of giving birth but not of
suffering change. His nature is capable of increase, not of diminution, for
He continues in, and shares the life of, that Son to Whom He gave in birth
a nature like to, and inseparable from, His own. And that Son, the Living
born from the Living, is not separated by the event of His birth from the
nature that begat Him.

29. Another analogy which casts some light upon the meaning of the faith
is that of fire as containing fire in itself and as abiding in fire. Fire contains
the brightness of light, the heat which is its essential nature, the property
of destroying by combustion the flickering inconstancy of flame. Yet all
the while it is fire, and in all these manifestations there is but one nature.
Its weakness is that it is dependent for its existence upon inflammable
matter, and that it perishes with the matter on which it has lived. A
comparison with fire gives us, in some measure, an insight into the
incomparable nature of God; it helps us to believe in the properties of God
that we find them, to a certain extent, present in an earthly element. I ask,
then, whether in fire derived from fire there is any division or separation.
When one flame is kindled from another, is the original nature cut off from
the derived, so as not to abide in it? Does it not rather follow on, and dwell
in the second flame by a kind of increase, as it were by birth? For no
portion has been cut off from the nature of the first flame, and yet there is
light from light. Does not the first flame live on in the second, which owes
its existence, though not by division, to the first? Does not the second still
dwell in the first, from which it was not cut off; from which it went forth,

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retaining its unity with the substance to which its nature belongs? Are not
the two one, when it is physically impossible to derive light from light by
division, and logically impossible to distinguish between them in nature.

30. These illustrations, I repeat, must only be used as aids to apprehension
of the faith, not as standards of comparison for the Divine majesty. Our
method is that of using bodily instances as a clue to the invisible.
Reverence land reason justify us in using such help, which we find used in
God's witness to Himself, while yet we do not aspire to find a parallel to
the nature of God. But the minds of simple believers have been distressed
by the mad heretical objection that it is wrong to accept a doctrine
concerning God which needs, in order to become intelligible, the help of
bodily analogies. And therefore, in accordance with that word of our Lord
which we have already cited, That which is born of the flesh is flesh, but
that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit, we have thought it expedient,
since God is Spirit, to give to these comparisons a certain place in our
argument. By so doing we shall avert from God the charge that He has
deceived us in using these analogies; shewing, as we have done, that such
illustrations from the nature of His creatures enable us to grasp the
meaning of God's self-revelation to us.

31. We see how the living Son of the living Father, He Who is God from
God, reveals the unity of the Divine nature, indissolubly One and the
same, and the mystery of His birth in these words, I and the Father are
One. Because the seeming arrogance of them engendered a prejudice against
Him, He made it more clear that He had spoken in the conscious
possession of Divinity by saying, Ye say that I have blasphemed because I
said, I am the Son of God; thus shewing that the oneness of His nature
with that of God was due to birth from God. And then, to clench their
faith in His birth by a positive assertion, and to guard them, at the same
time, from imagining that the birth involves a difference of nature, He
crowns His argument with the words, Believe the works, that the Father is
in Me, and I in the Father. Does His birth, as here revealed, display His
Divinity as not His by nature, as not His own by right? Each is in the
Other; the birth of the Son is from the Father only; no alien or unlike
nature has been raised to Godhead and subsists as God. God from God,
eternally abiding, owes His Godhead to none other than God. Import, if
you see your opportunity, two gods into the Church's faith; separate Son

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from Father as far as you can, consistently with the birth which you
admit; yet still the Father is in the Son, and the Son is in the Father, and
this by no interchange of emanations but by the perfect birth of the living
nature. Thus you cannot add together God the Father and God the Son,
and count Them as two Gods, for They Two are One God. You cannot
confuse Them together, for They Two are not One Person. And so the
Apostolic faith rejects two gods; for it knows nothing of two Fathers or
two Sons. In confessing the Father it confesses the Son; it believes in the
Son in believing in the Father. For the name of Father involves that of Son,
since without having a son none can be a father. Evidence of the existence
of a son is proof that there has been a father, for a son cannot exist except
from a father. When we confess that God is One we deny that He is single;
for the Son is the complement of the Father, and to the Father the Son's
existence is due. But birth works no change in the Divine nature; both in
Father and in Son that nature is true to its kind. And the right expression
for us of this unity of nature is the confession that They, being Two by
birth and generation, are One God, not one Person.

32. We will leave it to him to preach two Gods, who can preach One God
without confessing the unity; he shall proclaim that God is solitary, who
can deny that there are two Persons, Each dwelling in the Other by the
power of Their nature and the mystery of birth given and received. And
that man may assign a different nature to Each of the Two, who is ignorant
that the unity of Father and of Son is a revealed truth. Let the heretics blot
out this record of the Son's self- revelation I in the Father and the Father in
Me; then, and not till then, shall they assert that there are two Gods, or
one God in loneliness. There is no hint of more natures than one in what
we are told of Their possession of the one Divine nature. The truth that
God is from God does not multiply God by two; the birth destroys the
supposition of a lonely God. And again, because They are interdependent
They form an unity; and that They are interdependent is proved by Their
being One from One. For the One, in begetting the One, conferred upon
Him nothing that was not His own; and the One, in being begotten,
received from the One only what belongs to one. Thus the apostolic faith,
in proclaiming the Father, will proclaim Him as One God, and in
confessing the Son will confess Him as One God; since one and the same
Divine nature exists in Both, and because, the Father being God and the

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Son being God, and the one name of God expressing the nature of Both,
the term 'One God' signifies the Two. God from God, or God in God,
does not mean that there are two Gods, for God abides, One from One,
eternally with the one Divine nature and the one Divine name; nor does
God dwindle down to a single Person, for One and One can never be in
solitude.

33. The Lord has not left in doubt or obscurity the teaching conveyed in
this great mystery; He has not abandoned us to lose our way in dim
uncertainty. Listen to Him as He reveals the full knowledge of this faith to
His Apostles; — I am the Way and the Truth and the Life; no man cometh
unto the Father but through Me. If ye know Me, ye know My Father
also; and from henceforth ye shall know Him, and have seen Him. Philip
saith unto Him, Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us. Jesus saith
unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and ye have not known Me,
Philip? He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father also. How sayest thou,
Shew us the Rather? Dost than not believe Me, that I am in the Father, and
the Father is in Me? The words that I speak unto you I speak not of
Myself, but the Father that dwelleth in Me, He doeth His works. Believe
Me, that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me; or else believe for the
very works' sake. He Who is the Way leads us not into by-paths or
trackless wastes: He Who is the Truth mocks us not with lies; He Who is
the Life betrays us not into delusions which are death. He Himself has
chosen these winning names to indicate the methods which He has
appointed for our salvation. As the Way, He will guide us to the Truth;
the Truth will establish us in the Life. And therefore it is all-important for
us to know what is the mysterious mode, which He reveals, of attaining
this life. No man cometh to the Rather but through Me. The way to the
Father is through the Son. And now we must enquire whether this is to be
by a course of obedience to His teaching, or by faith in His Godhead. For
it is conceivable that our way to the Father may be through adherence to
the Son's teaching, rather than through believing that the Godhead of the
Father dwells in the Son. And therefore let us, in the next place, seek out
the true meaning of the instruction given us here. For it is not by cleaving
to a preconceived opinion, but by studying the force of the words, that we
shall enter into possession of this faith.

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34. The words which follow those last cited are, If ye know Me, ye know
My Father also. It is the Man, Jesus Christ, Whom they behold. How can
a knowledge of Him be a knowledge of the Father? For the Apostles see
Him wearing the aspect of that human nature which belongs to Him; but
God is not encumbered with body and flesh, and is incognizable by those
who dwell in our weak and fleshly body. The answer is given by the Lord,
Who asserts that under the flesh, which, in a mystery, He had taken, His
Father's nature dwells within Him. He sets the facts in their due order
thus; — If ye know Me, ye know My Father also; and from henceforth ye
shall know Him, and have seen Him. He makes a distinction between the
time of sight, and the time of knowledge. He says that from henceforth
they shall know Him Whom they had already seen; and so shall possess,
from the time of this revelation on-war I. the knowledge of that nature, on
which, in Him, they long had gazed.

35. But the novel sound of these words disturbed the Apostle Philip. A
Man is before their eyes; this Man avows Himself the Son of God, and
declares that when they have known Him they will know the Father. He
tells them that they have seen the Father, and that, because they have seen
Him, they shall know Him hereafter. This truth is too broad for the grasp
of weak humanity; their faith fails in the presence of these paradoxes.
Christ says that the Father has been seen already and shall now be known;
and this, although sight, is knowledge. He says that if the Son has been
known, the Father has been known also; and this though the Son has
imparted knowledge of Himself through the bodily senses of sight and
sound, while the Father' s nature, different altogether from that of the
visible Man, which they know, could not be learnt from their knowledge of
the nature of Him Whom they have seen. He has also often borne witness
that no man has seen the Father. And so Philip broke forth, with the
loyalty and confidence of an Apostle, with the request, Lord, shew us the
Father, and it sufficeth us. He was not tampering with the faith; it was but
a mistake made in ignorance. For the Lord had said that the Father had
been seen already and henceforth should be known but the Apostle had
not understood that He had been seen. Accordingly he did not deny that
the Father had been seen, but asked to see Him. He did not ask that the
Father should be unveiled to his bodily gaze, but that he might have such
an indication as should enlighten him concerning the Father Who had been

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seen. For he had seen the Son under the aspect of Man, but cannot
understand how he could thereby have seen the Father. His adding, And it
sufficeth us, to the prayer, Lard, shew us the Father, reveals clearly that it
was a mental, not a bodily vision of the Father which he desired. He did
not refuse faith to the Lord's words, but asked for such enlightenment to
his mind as should enable him to believe; for the fact that the Lord had
spoken was conclusive evidence to the Apostle that faith was his duty.
The consideration which moved him to ask that the Father might be
shewn, was that the Son had said that He had been seen, and should be
known because He had been seen. There was no presumption in this
prayer that He, Who had already been seen, should now be made manifest.

36. And therefore the Lord answered Philip thus; — Have I been so long
time with you, and ye have not known Me, Philip? He rebukes the
Apostle for defective knowledge of Himself; for previously He had said
that when He was known the Father was known also. But what is the
meaning of this complaint that for so long they had not known Him? It
means this; that if they had known Him, they must have recognized in
Him the Godhead which belongs to His Father's nature. For His works
were the peculiar works of God. He walked upon the waves, commanded
the winds, manifestly, though none could tell how, changed the water into
wine and multiplied the loaves, put devils to flight, healed diseases,
restored injured limbs and repaired the defects of nature, forgave sins and
raised the dead to life. And all this He did while wearing flesh; and He
accompanied the works with the assertion that He was the Son of God.
Hence it is that He justly complains that they did not recognize in His
mysterious human birth and life the action of the nature of God,
performing these deeds through the Manhood which He had assumed.

37. And therefore the Lord reproached them that they had not known
Him, though He had so long been doing these works, and answered their
prayer that He would shew them the Father by saying, He that hath seen
Me hath seen the Father also. He was not speaking of a bodily
manifestation, of perception by the eye of flesh, but by that eye of which
He had once spoken; — Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then
cometh harvest? Behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes and look an the
fields; for they are white to harvest. The season of the year, the fields
white to harvest are allusions equally incompatible with an earthly and

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visible prospect. He was bidding them lift the eyes of their understanding
to contemplate the bliss of the final harvest. And so it is with His present
words, He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father also. It was not the
carnal body, which He had received by birth from the Virgin, that could
manifest to them the image and likeness of God. The human aspect which
He wore could be no aid towards the mental vision of the incorporeal God.
But God was recognized in Christ, by such as recognized Christ as the Son
on the evidence of the powers of His Divine nature; and a recognition of
God the Son produces a recognition of God the Father. For the Son is in
such a sense the Image, as to be One in kind with the Father, and yet to
indicate that the Father is His Origin. Other images, made of metals or
colors or other materials by various arts, reproduce the appearance of the
objects which they represent. Yet can lifeless copies be put on a level with
their living originals? Painted or carved or molten effigies with the nature
which they imitate? The Son is not the Image of the Father after such a
fashion as this; He is the living Image of the Living. The Son that is born of
the Father has a nature in no wise different from His; and, because His
nature is not different, He possesses the power of that nature which is the
same as His own. The fact that He is the Image proves that God the Father
is the Author of the birth of the Only-begotten, Who is Himself revealed
as the Likeness and Image of the invisible God. And hence the likeness,
which is joined in union with the Divine nature, is indelibly His, because
the powers of that nature are inalienably His own.

38. Such is the meaning of this passage, Have I been so long time with you,
and ye have not known Me, Philip? He that hath seen Me hath seen the
Father also. How sayest thou, Shew us the Father? Dost thou not believe
Me, that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? It is only the Word
of God, of Whom we men are enabled, in our discourse concerning Divine
things, to reason. All else that belongs to the Godhead is dark and difficult,
dangerous and obscure. If any man propose to express what is known in
other words than those supplied by God, he must inevitably either display
his own ignorance, or else leave his readers' minds in utter perplexity. The
Lord, when He was asked to shew the Father, said, He that hath seen Me
hath seen the Father also. He that would alter this is an antichrist, he that
would deny it is a Jew, he that is ignorant a Pagan. If we find ourselves in
difficulty, let us lay the fault to our own reason; if God's declaration seem

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involved in obscurity, let us assume that our want of faith is the cause.
These words state with precision that God is not solitary, and yet that
there are no differences within the Divine nature. For the Father is seen in
the Son, and this could be the case neither if He were a lonely Being, nor
yet if He were unlike the Son. it is through the Son that the Father is seen:
and this mystery which the Son reveals is that They are One God, but not
one Person. What other meaning can you attach to this saying of the
Lord's, He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father also? This is no case of
identity; the use of the conjunction also shews that the Father is named in
addition to the Son. These words, The Father also, are incompatible with
the notion of an isolated and single Person. No conclusion is possible but
that the Father was made visible through the Son, because They are One
and are alike in nature. And, lest our faith in this regard should be left in
any doubt, the Lord proceeded, How safest thou, Shew us the Father? The
Father had been seen in the Son; how then could men be ignorant of the
Father? What need could there be for Him to be shewn?

39. Again, the unity of Begetter and Begotten, manifested in sameness of
nature and true oneness of kind, proves that the Father was seen in His
true nature. And this is shewn by the Lord's next words, Believe not that I
am in the Father, and the Father in Me? In no other words than these,
which the Son has used, can the fact be state that Father and Son, being
alike in nature, are inseparable. The Son, Who is the Way and the Truth
and the Life, is not deceiving us by some theatrical transformation of
names and aspects, when He, while wearing Manhood, styles Himself the
Son of God. He is not falsely concealing the fact that He is God the Father;
He is not a single Persons Who hides His features under a mask, that we
may imagine that Two are present. He is not a solitary Being, now posing
as His own Son, and again calling Himself the Father; tricking out one
unchanging nature with varying names. Far removed from this is the plain
honesty of the words. The Father is the Father, and the Son is the Son.
But these names, and the realities which they represent, contain no
innovation upon the Divine nature, nothing inconsistent, nothing alien. For
the Divine nature, being true to itself, persists in being itself; that which is
from God is God. The Divine birth imports neither diminution nor
difference into the Godhead, for the Son is born into, and subsists with, a
nature that is within the Divine nature and is like to it, and the Father

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sought out no alien element to be mingled in the nature of His
Only-begotten Son, but endowed Him with all things that are His own, and
this without loss to the Giver. And thus the Son is not destitute of the
Divine nature, for, being God, He is from God and from none other; and
He is not different from God, but is indeed nothing else than God, for that
which is begotten from God is the Son, and the Son only, and the Divine
nature, in receiving birth as a Son, has not forfeited its Divinity. Thus the
Father is in the Son, the Son is in the Father, God is in God. And this is
not by the combination of two harmonious, though different, kinds of
being, nor by the incorporating power of an ampler substance exercised
upon a lesser; for the properties of matter make it impossible that things
which enclose others should also be enclosed by them. It is by the birth of
living nature from living nature. The substance remains the same, birth
causes no deterioration in the Divine nature; God is not born from God to
be ought else than God. Herein is no innovation, no estrangement, no
division. It is sin to believe that Father and Son are two Gods, sacrilege to
assert that Father and Son are one solitary God, blasphemy to deny the
unity, consisting in sameness of kind, of God from God.

40. Lest they, whose faith conforms to the Gospel, should regard this
mystery as something vague and obscure, the Lord has expounded it in this
order; — Dost thou not believe Me, that I am in the Father, and the Father
is in Me? The words that I speak unto you I speak not of Myself, but the
Father that dwelleth in Me, He doeth His works. In what other words than
these could, or can, the possession of the Divine nature by Father and Son
be declared, consistently with prominence for the Son's birth? When He
says, The words that I speak unto you I speak not of Myself, He neither
suppresses His personality, nor denies His Sonship, nor conceals the
presence in Himself of His Father's Divine nature. While speaking of
Himself — and that He does so speak is proved by the pronoun I — He
speaks as abiding in the Divine substance; while speaking not of Himself,
He bears witness to the birth which took place in Him of God from God
His Father. And He is inseparable and indistinguishable in unity of nature
from the Father; for He speaks, though He speaks not of Himself. He Who
speaks, though He speak not of Himself, necessarily exists, inasmuch as
He speaks; and, inasmuch as He speaks not of Himself, He makes it
manifest that His words are not His own. For He has added, But the

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Father that dwelleth in Me, He doeth His works. That the Father dwells in
the Son proves that the Father is not isolated and alone; that the Father
works through the Son proves that the Son is not an alien or a stranger.
There cannot be one Person only, for He speaks not of Himself; and,
conversely, They cannot be separate and divided when the One speaks
through the voice of the Other. These words are the revelation of the
mystery of Their unity. And again, They Two are not different One from
the Other, seeing that by Their inherent nature Each is in the Other; and
They are One, seeing that He, Who speaks, speaks not of Himself, and He,
Who speaks not of Himself, yet does speak. And then, having taught that
the Father both spoke and wrought in Him, the Son establishes this perfect
unity as the rule of our faith; — But the Father that dwelleth in Me, He
doeth His works. Believe Me, that I am in the Father, and the Father in
Me; or else believe far the very works' sake. The Father works in the Son;
but the Son also works the works of His Father.

41. And so, lest we should believe and say that the Father works in the
Son through His own omnipotent energy, and not through the Son's
possession, as His birthright, of the Divine nature, Christ says, Believe
Me, that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me. What means this,
Believe Me? Clearly it refers back to the previous, Shew us the Father.
Their faith — that faith which had demanded that the Father should be
shewn — is confirmed by this command to believe. He was not satisfied
with saying, He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father also. He goes
further, and expands our knowledge, so that we can contemplate the Father
in the Son, remembering meanwhile that the Son is in the Father. Thus He
would save us from the error of imagining a reciprocal emanation of the
One into the Other, by teaching Their unity in the One nature through
birth given and received. The Lord would have us take Him at His word,
lest our hold upon the faith be shaken by His condescension in assuming
Humanity. If His flesh, His body, His passion seem to make His Godhead
doubtful, let us at least believe, on the evidence of the works, that God is
in God and God is flora God, and that They are One. For by the power of
Their nature Each is in the Other. The Father loses nothing that is His
because it is in the Son, and the Son receives His whole Sonship from the
Father. Bodily natures are not created after such a fashion that they
mutually contain each other, or possess the perfect unity of one abiding

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nature. In their case it would be impossible that an Onlybegotten Son
could exist eternally, inseparable from the true Divine nature of His Father.
Yet this is the peculiar property of God the Only-begotten, this the faith
revealed in the mystery of His true birth, this the work of the Spirit's
power, that to be, and to be in God, is for Christ the same thing; and that
this being in God is not the presence of one thing within another, as a body
inside another body, but that the life and subsistence of Christ is such that
He is within the subsisting God, and within Him, yet having a subsistence
of His own. For Each subsists in such wise as not to exist apart from the
Other, since They are Two through birth given and received, and therefore
only one Divine nature exists. This is the meaning of the words, I and the
Father are One, and He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father also, and I
in the Father and the Father in Me. They tell us that the Son Who is born
is not different or inferior to the Father; that His possession, by right of
birth, of the Divine nature as Son of God, and therefore nothing else than
God, is the supreme truth conveyed in the mysterious revelation of the
One Godhead in Father and Son. And therefore the doctrine of the
generation of the Only-begotten is guiltless of ditheism, for the Son of
God, in being born into the Godhead, manifested in Himself the nature of
God His Begetter.

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BOOK VIII

1. The Blessed Apostle Paul in laying down the form for appointing a
bishop and creating by his instructions an entirely new type of member of
the Church, has taught us in the following words the sum total of all the
virtues perfected in him: — Holding fast the word according to the
doctrine of faith that he may be able to exhort to sound doctrine and to
convict gainsavers. For there are many unruly men, vain talkers and
deceivers. For in this way he points out that the essentials of orderliness
and morals are only profitable for good service in the priesthood if at the
same time the qualities needful for knowing how to teach and preserve the
faith are not lacking, for a man is not straightway made a good and useful
priest by a merely innocent life or by a mere knowledge of preaching. For
an innocent minister is profitable to himself alone unless he be instructed
also; while he that is instructed has nothing to support his teaching unless
he be innocent. For the words of the Apostle do not merely fit a man for
his life in this world by precepts of honesty and uprightness, nor on the
other hand do they educate in expertness of teaching a mere Scribe of the
Synagogue for the expounding of the Law: but the Apostle is training a
leader of the Church, perfected by the perfect accomplishment of: the
greatest virtues, so that his life may be adorned by his teaching, and his
teaching by his life. Accordingly he has provided Titus, the person to
whom his words were addressed, with an injunction as to the perfect
practice of religion to this effect: — In all things shewing thyself an
ensample of good works, teaching with gravity sound words that cannot be
condemned, that the adversary may be ashamed, having nothing disgraceful
or evil to say of us. This teacher of the Gentiles and elect doctor of the
Church, from his consciousness of Christ who spoke and dwelt within
him, knew well that the infection of tainted speech would spread abroad,
and that the corruption of pestilent doctrine would furiously rage against
the sound form of faithful words, and infusing the poison of its own evil
tenets into the inmost soul, would creep on with deep-seated mischief. For
it is of these that he says, Whose word spreadeth like a cancer, tainting the
health of the mind, invaded by it with a secret and stealthy contagion. For
this reason, he wished that there should be in the bishop the teaching of

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sound words, a good conscience in the faith and expertness in exhortation
to withstand wicked and false and wild gainsayings. For there are many
who pretend to the faith, but are not subject to the faith, and rather set up
a faith for themselves than receive that which is given, being puffed up
with the thoughts of human vanity, knowing the things they wish to know
and unwilling to know the things that are true; since it is a mark of true
wisdom sometimes to know what we do not like. However, this
will- wisdom is followed by foolish preaching, for what is foolishly learnt
must needs be foolishly preached. Yet how great an evil to those who hear
is foolish preaching, when they are misled into foolish opinions by conceit
of wisdom! And for this cause the Apostle described them thus: There are
many unruly, vain talkers and deceivers. Hence we must utter our voice
against arrogant wickedness and boastful arrogance and seductive
boastfulness, — yes, we must speak against such things through the
soundness of our doctrine, the truth of our faith, the sincerity of our
preaching, so that we may have the purity of truth and the truth of sound
doctrine.

2. The reason why I have just mentioned this utterance of the Apostle is
this; men of crooked minds and false professions, void of hope and
venomous of speech, lay upon me the necessity of inveighing against them,
because under the guise of religion they instill deadly doctrines, infectious
thoughts and corrupt desires into the simple minds of their hearers. And
this they do with an utter disregard of the true sense of the apostolic
teaching, so that the Father is not a Father, nor the Son, Son, nor the Faith,
the Faith. In resisting their wild falsehoods, we have extended the course of
our reply so far, that after proving from the Law that God and God were
distinct and that very God was in very God, we then shewed from the
teaching of evangelists and apostles the perfect and true birth of the
Only-begotten God; and lastly, we pointed out in the due course of our
argument that the Son of God is very God, and of a nature identical with
the Father's, so that the faith of the Church should neither confess that
God is single nor that there are two Gods. For neither would the birth of
God allow God to be solitary, nor would a perfect birth allow different
natures to be ascribed to two Gods. Now in refuting their vain speaking we
have a twofold object, first that we may teach what is holy and perfect and
sound, and, that our discourse should not by straying through any

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by-paths and crooked ways, and straggling out of devious and winding
tunnels, seem rather to search for the truth than declare it. Our second
object is that we should reveal to the conviction of all men the folly and
absurdity of those crafty arguments of their vain and deceitful opinions
which are adapted to a plausible show of seductive truth. For it is not
enough for us to have pointed out what things are good, unless they are
understood to be absolutely good by our refutation of their opposites.

3. But as it is the nature and endeavor of the good and wise to prepare
themselves wholly for securing either the reality or the opportunity of
some precious hope lest their preparedness should in some respects fall
short of that which they look for, — so in like manner those who are filled
with the madness of heretical frenzy make it their chiefest. anxiety to labor
with all the ingenuity of their impiety against the truth of pious faith, in
order that against those who are religious they may establish their own
irreligion; that they may surpass the hope of our life in the hopelessness of
their own, and that they may spend more thought over false than we
spend over true teaching. For against the pious assertions of our faith they
have carefully devised such objections of their impious misbelief, as first
to ask whether we believe in one God, next, whether Christ also be God,
lastly, whether the Father is greater than the Son, in order that when they
hear us confess that God is one they may use our reply to shew that
Christ cannot be God. For they do not enquire concerning the Son whether
He be God; all they wish for in asking questions about Christ is to prove
that He is not a Son, that by entrapping men of simple faith they may
through the belief in one God divert them from the belief in Christ as God,
on the ground that God is no longer one if Christ also must be
acknowledged as God. Again with what subtlety of worldly wisdom do
they contend when they say, If God is one, whosoever that other shall be
shewn to be, he will not he God. For if there be another God He can no
longer be one, since nature does not permit that where there is another
there should be one only, or that where there is only one there should be
another. Afterwards, when by the crafty cunning of this insidious
argument they have misled those who are ready to believe and listen, they
then apply this proposition (as if they could now establish it by an easier
method), that Christ is God rather in name than in nature, because this
generic name in Him can destroy in none that only true belief in one God:

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and they contend that through this the Father is greater than the Son,
because, the natures being different, as there is but one God, the Father is
greater from the essential character of His nature; and that the Other is
only called Son while He is really a creature subsisting by the will of the
Father, because He is less than the Father; and also that He is not God,
because God being one does not admit of another God, since he who is less
must necessarily be of a nature alien from that of the person who is
greater. Again, how foolish they are in their attempts to lay down a law for
God when they maintain that no birth can take place from one single being,
because throughout the universe birth arises from the union of two;
moreover, that the unchangeable God cannot accord from Himself birth to
one who is born, because that which is changeless is incapable of addition,
nor can the nature of a solitary and single being contain within itself the
property of generation.

4. We, on the contrary, having by spiritual teaching arrived at the faith of
the evangelists and apostles, and following after the hope of eternal
blessedness by our confession of the Father and the Son, and having
proved out of the Law the mystery of God and God, without
overstepping the limits of our faith in one God, or failing to proclaim that
Christ is God, have adopted this method of reply from the Gospels, that
we declare the true nativity of Only-begotten God from God the Father,
because that through this He was both very God and not alien from the
nature of the One very God, and thus neither could His Godhead be denied
nor Himself be described as another God, because while the birth made
Him God, the nature within him of one God of God did not separate Him
off as another God. And although our human reason led us to this
conclusion, that the names of distinct natures could not meet together in
the same nature, and not be one, where the essence of each did not differ in
kind; nevertheless, it seemed good that we should prove this from the
express sayings of our Lord, Who after frequently making known that the
God of our faith and hope was One, in order to affirm the mystery of the
One God, while declaring and proving His own Godhead, said, I and the
Father are one; and, If ye had known Me, ye would have known My
Father also; and, He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father also; and,
Believe Me, that the Father is in Me, and I in the Father: or else believe for
the very works' sake . He has signified His own birth in the name Father,

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and declares that in the knowledge of Himself the Father is known. He
avows the unity of nature, when those who see Him see the Father. He
bears witness that He is indivisible from the Father, when He dwells in the
Father Who dwells in Him. He possesses the confidence of self-knowledge
when He demands credit for His words from the operations of His power.
And thus in this most blessed faith of the perfect birth, every error, as well
that of two Gods as of a single God, is abolished, since They Who are one
in essence are not one person, and He Who is not one person with Him
who Is , is yet so free from difference from Him that They Two are One
God.

5. Now seeing that heretics cannot deny these things because they are so
clearly stated and understood, they nevertheless pervert them by the most
foolish and wicked lies so as afterwards to deny them. For the words of
Christ, I and the Father are one, they endeavor to refer to a mere concord
of unanimity, so that there may be in them a unity of will not of nature,
that is, that they may be one not by essence of being, but by identity of
will. And they apply to the support of their case the passage in the Acts
of the Apostles, Now of the multitude of them that believed the heart and
soul were one, in order to prove that a diversity of souls and hearts may be
united into one heart and soul through a mere conformity of will. Or else
they cite those words to the Corinthians, Now he that planteth and he that
watereth are one, to shew that, since They are one in Their work for our
salvation, and in the revelation of one mystery, Their unity is an unity of
wills. Or again, they quote the prayer of our Lord for the salvation of the
nations who should believe in Him: Neither for these only do I pray, but
for them also that shall believe on Me through their Word; that they all
may be one; even as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also
may be in Us, to shew that since men cannot, so to speak, be fused back
into God or themselves coalesce into one undistinguished mass, this
oneness must arise from unity of will, while all perform actions pleasing to
God, and unite one with another in the harmonious accord of their
thoughts, and that thus it is not nature which makes them one, but will.

6. He clearly knows not wisdom who knows not God. And since Christ is
Wisdom he must needs be beyond the pale of wisdom who knows not
Christ or hates Him. As, for instance, they do who will have it that the
Lord of Glory, and King of the Universe, and Only-begotten God is a

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creature of God and not His Son, and in addition to such foolish lies shew
a still more foolish cleverness in the defense of their falsehood. For even
putting aside for a little that essential character of unity which exists in
God the Father and God the Son, they can be refuted out of the very
passages which they adduce.

7. For as to those whose soul and heart were one, I ask whether they were
one through faith in God? Yes, assuredly, through faith, for through this
the soul and heart of all were one. Again I ask, is the faith one or is there a
second faith? One undoubtedly, and that on the authority of the Apostle
himself, who proclaims one faith even as one Lord, and one baptism, and
one hope, and one God. If then it is through faith, that is, through the
nature of one faith, that all are one, how is it that thou dost not understand
a natural unity in the case of those who through the nature of one faith are
one? For all were born again to innocence, to immortality, to the
knowledge of God, to the faith of hope. And if these things cannot differ
within themselves because there is both one hope and one God, as also
there is one Lord and one baptism of regeneration; if these things are one
rather by agreement than by nature, ascribe a unity of will to those also
who have been born again into them. If, however, they have been begotten
again into the nature of one life and eternity, then, inasmuch as their soul
anti heart are one, the unity of will fails to account for their case who are
one by regeneration into the same nature.

8. These are not our own conjectures which we offer, nor do we falsely
put together any of these things in order to deceive the ears of our bearers
by perverting the meaning of words; but holding fast the form of sound
teaching we know and preach the things which are true. For the Apostle
shews that this unity of the faithful arises from the nature of the
sacraments when be writes to the Galatians. Fear as many of you as were
baptized into Christ did put on Christ. There is neither few nor Greek,
there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female; for ye are all
one in Christ Jesus. That these are one amid so great diversities of race,
condition, sex, — is it from an agreement of will or from the unity of the
sacrament, since these have one baptism and have all put on one Christ?
What, therefore, will a concord of minds avail here when they are one in
that they have put on one Christ through the nature of one baptism?

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9. Or, again, since he who plants and he who waters are one, are they not
one because, being themselves born again in one baptism they form a
ministry of one regenerating baptism? Do not they do the same thing? Are
they not one in One? So they who are one through the same thing are one
also by nature, not only by will, inasmuch as they themselves have been
made the same thing and are ministers of the same thing and the same
power.

10. Now the contradiction of fools always serves to prove their folly,
because with regard to the faults which they contrive by the devices of an
unwise or crooked understanding against the truth, while the latter remains
unshaken and immovable the things which are opposed to it must needs be
regarded as false and foolish. For heretics in their attempt to deceive others
by the words, I and the Father are ones, that there might not be
acknowledged in them the unity and like essence of deity, but only a
oneness arising from mutual love and an agreement of wills — these
heretics, I say, have brought forward an instance of that unity, as we have
shewn above, even from the words of our Lord, That they all may be one,
as Thou Father art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be in Us.
Every man is outside the promises of the Gospel who is outside the faith
in them, and by the guilt of an evil understanding has lost all simple hope.
For to know not what thou believest demands not so much excuse as a
reward, for the greatest service of faith is to hope for that which thou
knowest not. But it is the madness of most consummate wickedness either
not to believe things which are understood or to have corrupted the sense
in which one believes.

1 1 . But although the wickedness of man can pervert his intellectual
powers, nevertheless the words retain their meaning. Our Lord prays to
His Father that those who shall believe in Him may be one, and as He is in
the Father and the Father in Him, so all may be one in Them. Why dost
thou bring in here an identity of mind, why a unity of soul and heart
through agreement of will? For there would have been no lack of suitable
words for our Lord, if it were will that made them one, to have prayed in
this fashion, — Father, as We are one in will, so may they also be one in
will, that we may all be one through agreement. Or could it be that He Who
is the Word was unacquainted with the meaning of words? and that He
Who is Truth knew not how to speak the truth? and He Who is Wisdom

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went astray in foolish talk? and He Who is Power was compassed about
with such weakness that He could not speak what He wished to be
understood? He has clearly spoken the true and sincere mysteries of the
faith of the Gospel. And He has not only spoken that we may
comprehend, He has also taught that we may believe, saying, That they all
may be one, as Thou Father art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may
be in Us. For those first of all is the prayer of whom it is said, That they
all may be one. Then the promotion of unity is set forth by a pattern of
unity, when He says, as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they
also may be in Us, so that as the Father is in the Son and the Son in the
Father, so through the pattern of this unity all might be one in the Father
and the Son.

12. But because it is proper to the Father alone and the Son that They
should be one by nature because God is from God, and the Only-begotten
from the Unbegotten can subsist in no other nature than that of His origin;
so that He Who was begotten should exist in the substance of His birth,
and the birth should possess no other and different truth of deity than that
from which it issued; for our Lord has left us in no doubt as to our belief
by asserting throughout the whole of the discourse which follows the
nature of this complete unity. For the next words are these, That the world
may believe that Thou didst send Me. Thus the world is to believe that the
Son has been sent by the Father because all who shall believe in Him will
be one in the Father and the Son. And how they will be so we are soon
told, — And the glory which Than hast given Me I have given unto them.
Now I ask whether glory is identical with will, since will is an emotion of
the mind while glory is an ornament or embellishment of nature. So then it
is the glory received from the Father that the Son hath given to all who
shall believe in Him, and certainly not will. Had this been given, faith
would carry with it no required, for a necessity of will attached to us
would also impose faith upon us. However He has shewn what is effected
by the bestowal of the glory received, That they may be one, even as We
are one. It is then with this object that the received glory was bestowed,
that all might be one. So now all are one in glory, because the glory given is
none other than that which was received: nor has it been given for any
other cause than that all should be one. And since all are one through the
glory given to the Son and by the Son bestowed upon believers, I ask how

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can the Son be of a different glory from the Father's, since the glory of the
Son brings all that believe into the unity of the Father's glory. Now it may
be that the utterance of human hope in this case may be somewhat
immoderate, yet it will not be contrary to faith; for though to hope for this
were presumptuous, yet not to have believed it is sinful, for we have one
and the same Author both of our hope and of our faith. We will treat of
this matter more clearly and at greater length in its own place, as is fitting.
Yet in the meantime it is easily seen from our present argument that this
hope of ours is neither vain nor presumptuous. So then through the glory
received and given all are one. I hold the faith and recognize the cause of
the unity, but I do not yet understand how it is that the glory given makes
all one.

13. Now our Lord has not left the minds of His faithful followers in doubt,
but has explained the manner in which His nature operates, saying, That
they may be one, as We are one: I in them and Thou in Me, that they may
be perfected in one. Now I ask those who bring forward a unity of will
between Father and Son, whether Christ is in us to-day through verity of
nature or through agreement of will. For if in truth the Word has been made
flesh and we in very truth receive the Word made flesh as food from the
Lord, are we not bound to believe that He abides in us naturally, Who,
born as a man, has assumed the nature of our flesh now inseparable from
Himself, and has conjoined the nature of His own flesh to the nature of the
eternal Godhead in the sacrament by which His flesh is communicated to
us? For so are we all one, because the Father is in Christ and Christ in us.
Whosoever then shall deny that the Father is in Christ naturally must first
deny that either he is himself in Christ naturally, or Christ in him, because
the Father in Christ and Christ in us make us one in Them. Hence, if
indeed Christ has taken to Himself the flesh of our body, and that Man
Who was born froth Mary was induced Christ, and we indeed receive in a
mystery the flesh of His body — (and for this cause we shall be one,
because the Father is in Him and He in us), — how can a unity of will be
maintained, seeing that the special property of nature received through the
sacrament is the sacrament of a perfect unity?

14. The words in which we speak of the things of God must be used in no
mere human and worldly sense, nor must the perverseness of an alien and
impious interpretation be extorted from the soundness of heavenly words

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by any violent and headstrong preaching. Let us read what is written, let
us understand what we read, and then fulfill the demands of a perfect faith.
For as to what we say concerning the reality of Christ's nature within us,
unless we have been taught by Him, our words are foolish and impious.
For He says Himself, My flesh is meat indeed, and My blood is drink
indeed. He that eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood abideth in Me,
and I in him. As to the verity of the flesh and blood there is no room left
for doubt. For now both from the declaration of the Lord Himself and our
own faith, it is verily flesh and verily blood. And these when eaten and
drunk, bring it to pass that both we are in Christ and Christ in us. Is not
this true? Yet they who affirm that Christ Jesus is not truly God are
welcome to find it false. He therefore Himself is in us through the flesh and
we in Him, whilst together with Him our own selves are in God.

15. Now how it is that we are in Him through the sacrament of the flesh
and blood bestowed upon us, He Himself testifies, saying, And the world
will no longer see Me, but ye shall see Me; because I live ye shall live also;
because I am in My Father, and ye in Me, and I in you. If He wished to
indicate a mere unity of will, why did He set forth a kind of gradation and
sequence in the completion of the unity, unless it were that, since He was
in the Father through the nature of Deity, and we on the contrary in Him
through His birth in the body, He would have us believe that He is in us
through the mystery of the sacraments? and thus there might be taught a
perfect unity through a Mediator, whilst, we abiding in Him, He abode in
the Father, and as abiding in the Father abode also in us; and so we might
arrive at unity with tile Father, since in Him Who dwells naturally in the
Father by birth, we also dwell naturally, while He Himself abides naturally
in us also.

16. Again, how natural this unity is in us He has Himself testified on this
wise, — He who eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood abideth in Me,
and I in him. For no man shall dwell in Him, save him in whom He dwells
Himself, for the only flesh which He has taken to Himself is the flesh of
those who have taken His. Now He had already taught before the
sacrament of this perfect unity, saying, As the living Father sent Me, and I
live through the Father, so he that eateth My flesh shall himself also live
through Me. So then He lives through the Father, and as He lives through
the Father in like manner we live through His flesh. For all comparison is

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chosen to shape our understanding, so that we may grasp the subject of
which we treat by help of the analogy set before us. This is the cause of
our life that we have Christ dwelling within our carnal selves through the
flesh, and we shall live through Him in the same manner as He lives
through the Father, if, then, we live naturally through Him according to the
flesh, that is, have partaken of the nature of His flesh, must He not
naturally have the Father within Himself according to the Spirit since He
Himself lives through the Father? And He lives through the Father because
His birth has not implanted in Him an alien and different nature inasmuch
as His very being is from Him yet is not divided from Him by any barrier
of an unlikeness of nature, for within Himself He has the Father through
the birth in the power of the nature.

17. 1 have dwelt upon these facts because the heretics falsely maintain that
the union between Father and Son is one of will only, and make use of the
example of our own union with God, as though we were trailed to the Son
and through the Son to the Father by mere obedience and a devout will,
and none of the natural verity of communion were vouchsafed us through
the sacrament of the Body and Blood; although the glory of the Son
bestowed upon us through the Son abiding in us after the flesh, while we
are united in Him corporeally and inseparably, bids us preach the mystery
of the true and natural unity.

18. So we have made our reply to the folly of our violent opponents,
merely to prove the emptiness of their falsehoods and so prevent them
from misleading the unwary by the error of their vain and foolish
statements. But the faith of the Gospel did not of necessity require our
answer. The Lord prayed on our behalf for our union with God, but God
keeps His own unity and abides in it. It is not through any mysterious
appointment of God that they are one, but through a birth of nature, for
God loses nothing in begetting Him from Himself. They are one, for the
things which are not plucked out of His hand are not plucked out of the
hand of the Father, for, when He is known, the Father is known, for, when
He is seen, the Father is seen, for what He speaks the Father speaks as
abiding in Him, for in His works the Father works, for He is in the Father
and the Father in Him. This proceeds from no creation but from birth; it is
not brought about by will but by power; it is no agreement of mind that
speaks, it is nature; because to be created and to be born are not one and

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the same, any more than to will and to be able; neither is it the same thing
to agree and to abide

19. Thus we do not deny a unanimity between the Father and the Son, —
for heretics are accustomed to utter this falsehood, that since we do not
accept concord by itself as the bond of unity we declare Them to be at
variance. But let them listen how it is that we do not deny such a
unanimity. The Father and the Son are one in nature, honor, power, and
the same nature cannot will things that are contrary. Moreover, let them
listen to the testimony of the Son as touching the unity of nature between
Himself and the Father, for He says, When that advocate is come, Whom I
shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth Who proceedeth front
the Father, He shall testify of Me. The Advocate shall come and the Son
shall send Him from the Father, and He is the Spirit of truth Who
proceedeth from the Father. Let the whole following of heretics arouse the
keenest powers of their wit; let them now seek for what lies they can tell
to the unlearned, and declare what that is which the Son sends from the
Father. He Who sends manifests His power in that which He sends. But as
to that which He sends from the Father, how shall we regard it, as received
or sent forth or begotten? For His words that He will send from the Father
must imply one or other of these modes of sending. And He will send from
the Father that Spirit of truth which proceedeth from the Father; He
therefore cannot be the Recipient, since He is revealed as the Sender. It
only remains to make sure of our conviction on the point, whether we are
to believe an egress of a co-existent Being, or a procession of a Being
begotten.

20. For the present I forbear to expose their license of speculation, some of
them holding that the Paraclete Spirit comes from the Father or from the
Son. For our Lord has not left this in uncertainty, for after these same
words He spoke thus, — I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye
cannot bear them now. When He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He shall
guide you into all truth: for He shall not speak from Himself: but what
things soever He shall hear, these shall He speak; and He shall declare unto
you the things that are to come. He shall glorify Me: for He shall receive of
Mine and stroll declare it unto you. All things whatsoever the Father hath
are Mine: therefore said I, He shall receive of Mine and shall declare it unto
you. Accordingly He receives from the Son, Who is both sent by Him, and

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proceeds from the Father. Now I ask whether to receive from the Son is
the same thing as to proceed from the Father. But if one believes that there
is a difference between receiving from the Son and proceeding from the
Father, surely to receive from the Son and to receive from the Father will
be regarded as one and the same thing. For our Lord Himself says, Because
He shall receive of Mine and shall declare it unto you. All things
whatsoever the Father hath are Mine: therefore said I, He shall receive of
Mine and shall declare it unto you. That which He will receive, — whether
it will be power, or excellence, or teaching, — the Son has said must be
received from Him, and again He indicates that this same thing must be
received from the Father. For when tie says that all things whatsoever the
Father hath are His, and that for this cause He declared that it must be
received from His own, He teaches also that what is received from the
Father is yet received from Himself, because all things that the Father hath
are His. Such a unity admits no difference, nor does it make any difference
from whom that is received, which given by the Father is described as
given by the Son. Is a mere unity of will brought forward here also? All
things which the Father hath are the Son's, and all things which the Son
hath are the Father' s. For He Himself saith, And all Mine are Thine, and
Thine are Mine. It is not yet the place to shew wily He spoke thus, For
He shall receive of Mine: for this points to some subsequent time, when it
is revealed that He shall receive. Now at any rate He says that He will
receive of Himself, because all things that the Father had were His.
Dissever if thou canst the unity of the nature, and introduce some
necessary unlikeness through which the Son may not exist in unity of
nature. For the Spirit of truth proceedeth from the Father and is sent from
the Father by the Son. All things that the Father hath are the Son's; and for
this cause whatever He Who is to be sent shall receive, He shall receive
from the Son, because all things that the Father hath are the Son's. The
nature in all respects maintains its law, and because Both are One that
same Godhead is signified as existing in Both through generation and
nativity; since the Son affirms that that which the Spirit of truth shall
receive from the Father is to be given by Himself. So the frowardness of
heretics must not be allowed an unchecked license of impious beliefs, in
refusing to acknowledge that this saying of the Lord, — that because all
things which the Father hath are His, therefore the Spirit of truth shall
receive of Him, — is to be referred to unity of nature.

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21. Let us listen to that chosen vessel and teacher of the Gentiles, when he
had already commended the faith of the people of Rome because of their
understanding of the truth. For wishing to teach the unity of nature in the
case of the Father and the Son, he speaks thus, But ye are not in the flesh
but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God is in you. But if any have not
the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His. But if Christ is in you, the body
indeed is dead through sin, but the Spirit is life through righteousness. But
if the Spirit of Him Who raised up Christ from the dead dwelleth in you;
He Who raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal
bodies, because of His Spirit Who dwelleth in you. We are all spiritual if
the Spirit of God dwells in us. But this Spirit of God is also the Spirit of
Christ, and though the Spirit of Christ is in us, yet His Spirit is also in us
Who raised Christ from the dead, and He Who raised Christ from the dead
shall quicken our mortal bodies also on account of His Spirit that dwelleth
in us. We are quickened therefore on account of the Spirit of Christ that
dwelleth in us, through Him Who raised Christ from the dead. And since
the Spirit of Him Who raised Christ from the dead dwells in us, and yet
the Spirit of Christ is in us, nevertheless the Spirit Which is in us cannot
but be the Spirit of God. Separate, then, O heretic, the Spirit of Christ
from the Spirit of God, and the Spirit of Christ raised from the dead from
the Spirit of God Which raises Christ from the dead; when the Spirit of
Christ that dwelleth in us is the Spirit of God, and when the Spirit of
Christ Who was raised from the dead is yet the Spirit of God Who raises
Christ from the dead.

22. And now I ask whether thou thinkest that in the Spirit of God is
signified a nature or a property belonging to a nature. For a nature is not
identical with a thing belonging to it, just as neither is a man identical with
what belongs to a man, nor fire with what belongs to fire itself, and in like
manner God is not the same as that which belongs to God.

23. For I am aware that the Son of God is revealed under the title Spirit of
God in order that we may understand the presence of the Farther in Him,
and that the term Spirit of God may be employed to indicate Either, and
that this is shewn not only on the authority of prophets but of evangelists
also, when it is said, The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me; therefore He hath
anointed Me. And again, Behold My Servant Whom I have chosen, My
beloved in Whom My soul is well pleased, I will put My Spirit upon Him.

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And when the Lord Himself bears witness of Himself, But if I in the Spirit
of God cast out devils, then has the kingdom of God come upon you. For
the passages seem without any doubt to denote either Father or Son, while
they yet manifest the excellence of nature.

24. For I think that the expression 'Spirit of God' was used with respect
to Each, lest we should believe that the Son was present in the Father or
the Father in the Son in a merely corporeal manner, that is, lest God might
be thought to abide in one position and exist nowhere else apart from
Himself. For a man or any other thing like him, when he is in one place,
cannot be in another, because what is in one place is confined to the place
where it is: his nature cannot allow him to be everywhere when he exists in
some one position. But God is a living Force, of infinite power, present
everywhere and nowhere absent, and manifests His whole self through His
own, and signifies that His own are naught else than Himself, so that
where they are He may be understood to be Himself. Yet we must not
think that, after a corporeal fashion, when He is in one place He ceases to
be everywhere, for through His own things He is still present in all places,
while the things which are His are none other than His own self. Now
these things have been said to make us understand what is meant by
'nature.'

25. Now I think that it ought to be clearly understood that God the Father
is denoted by the Spirit of God, because our Lord Jesus Christ declared
that the Spirit of the Lord was upon Him since He anoints Him and sends
Him to preach the Gospel. For in Him is made manifest the excellence of
the Father's nature, disclosing that the Son partakes of His nature even
when born in the flesh through the mystery of this spiritual unction, since
after the birth ratified in. His baptism this intimation of His inherent
Sonship was heard as a voice bore witness from Heaven: — Thou art My
Son; this day have begotten Thee. For not even He Himself can be
understood as resting upon Himself or coming to Himself from Heaven, or
as bestowing on Himself the title of Son: but all this demonstration was for
our faith, in order that under the mystery of a complete and true birth we
should recognize that the unity of the nature dwells in the Son Who had
begun to be also man. We have thus found that in the Spirit of God the
Father is designated; but we understand that the Son is indicated in the
same way, when He says: But if I in the Spirit of God cast out devils, then

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has the kingdom of God come upon you. That is, He shews clearly that
He, by the power of His nature, casts out devils, which cannot be cast out
save by the Spirit of God. The phrase 'Spirit of God' denotes also the
Paraclete Spirit, and that not only on the testimony of prophets but also
of apostles, when it is said: — This is that which was spoken through the
Prophet, It shall come to pass on the last day, saith the Lord, I will pour
out of My Spirit upon all flesh, and their sans and their daughters shall
prophesy And we learn that all this prophecy was fulfilled in the case of
the Apostles, when, after the sending of the Holy Spirit, they all spoke
with the tongues of the Gentiles.

26. Now we have of necessity set these things forth with this object, that
in whatever direction the deception of heretics betakes itself, it might yet
be kept in check by the boundaries and limits of the gospel truth. For
Christ dwells in us, and where Christ dwells God dwells. And when the
Spirit of Christ dwells in us, this indwelling means not that any other
Spirit dwells in us than the Spirit of God. But if it is understood that
Christ dwells in us through the Holy Spirit, we must yet recognize this
Spirit of God as also the Spirit of Christ. And since the nature dwells in us
as the nature of one substantive Being, we must regard the nature of the
Son as identical with that of the Father, since the Holy Spirit Who is both
the Spirit of Christ and the Spirit of God is proved to be a Being of one
nature. I ask now, therefore, how can They fail to be one by nature? The
Spirit of Truth proceeds from the Father, He is sent by the Son and
receives from the Son. But all things that the Father hath are the Son's, and
for this cause He Who receives from Him is the Spirit of God but at the
same time the Spirit of Christ. The Spirit is a Being of the nature of the
Son but the same Being is of the nature of the Father. He is the Spirit of
Him Who raised Christ from the dead; but this is no other than the Spirit
of Christ Who was so raised. The nature of Christ and of God must differ
in some respect so as not to be the same, if it can be shewn that the Spirit
which is of God is not the Spirit of Christ also.

27. But you, heretic, as you wildly rave and are driven about by the Spirit
of your deadly doctrine the Apostle seizes and constrains, establishing
Christ for us as the foundation of our faith, being well aware also of that
saying of our Lord, If a man love Me, he will also keep My word; and My
Father will love him, and We will come unto him, and make Our abode

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with him. For by this He testified that while the Spirit of Christ abides in
us the Spirit of God abides in us, and that the Spirit of Him that was raised
from the dead differs not from the Spirit of Him that raised Him from the
dead. For they come and dwell in us: and I ask whether they will come as
alleges associated together and make Their abode, or in unity of nature?
Nay, the teacher of the Gentiles contends that it is not two Spirits — the
Spirits of God and of Christ — that are present in those who believe, but
the Spirit of Christ which is also the Spirit of God. This is no joint
indwelling, it is one indwelling: yet an indwelling under the mysterious
semblance of a joint indwelling, for it is not the case that two Spirits
indwell, nor is one that indwells different from the other. For there is in us
the Spirit of God and there is also in us the Spirit of Christ, and when the
Spirit of Christ is in us there is also in us the Spirit of God. And so since
what is of God is also of Christ, and what is of Christ is also of God,
Christ cannot be anything different from what God is. Christ, therefore, is
God, one Spirit with God.

28. Now the Apostle asserts that those words in the Gospel, I and the
Father are one, imply unity of nature and not a solitary single Being, as he
writes to the Corinthians, Wherefore I give you to understand, that no man
in the Spirit of God calleth Jesus anathema. Perceivest thou now, O
heretic, in what spirit thou callest Christ a creature? For since they are
under a curse who have served the creature more than the Creator — in
affirming Christ to be a creature, learn what thou art, since thou knowest
full well that the worship of the creature is accursed. And observe what
follows, And no one can call Jesus Lord, but in the Holy Spirit. Dost thou
perceive what is lacking to thee, when thou deniest Christ what is His
own? If thou holdest that Christ is Lord through His Divine nature, thou
hast the Holy Spirit. But if He be Lord merely by a name of adoption thou
lackest the Holy Spirit, and art animated by a spirit of error: because no
one can call Jesus Lord, but in the Holy Spirit. But when thou sayest that
He is a creature rather than God, although thou stylest Him Lord, still thou
dost not say that He is the Lord. For to thee He is Lord as one of a
common class and by a familiar name, rather than by nature. Yet learn from
Paul His nature.

29. For the Apostle goes on to say, Now there are diversities of gifts, but
there is the same Spirit; and there are diversities of ministrations but one

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and the same Lord; and there are diversities of workings but the same God,
Who worketh all things in all. But to each one is given the manifestation of
the Spirit for that which profiteth. In this passage before us we perceive a
fourfold statement: in the diversity of gifts it is the same Spirit, in the
diversity of ministrations it is the very same Lord, in the diversity of
workings it is the same God, and in the bestowal of that which is
profitable there is a manifestation of the Spirit. And in order that the
bestowal of what is profitable might be recognized in the manifestation of
the Spirit, he continues: To one indeed is given through the Spirit the word
of wisdom; and to another the word of knowledge according to the same
Spirit; to another faith in the same Spirit; to another the gift of healing in
the same Spirit; to another the working of miracles; to another prophecy;
to another discerning of spirits; to another kinds of tongues; to another the
interpretation of tongues.

30. And indeed that which we called the fourth statement, that is the
manifestation of the Spirit in the bestowal of what is profitable, has a clear
meaning. For the Apostle has enumerated the profitable gifts through
which this manifestation of the Spirit took place. Now in these diverse
activities that Gift is set forth in no uncertain light of which our Lord had
spoken to the apostles when He taught them not to depart from Jerusalem;
but wait, said He, for the promise of the Father which ye heard from My
lips: for John indeed baptized with water, but ye shall be baptized with
the Holy Ghost, which ye shall also receive not many days hence. And
again: But ye shall receive power when the Holy Ghost cometh upon you;
and ye shah be My witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in
Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth. He bids them wait for
the promise of the Father of which they had beard from His lips. We may
be sure that here we have a reference to the Father's same promise. Hence
it is by these miraculous workings that the manifestation of the Spirit
takes place. For the gift of the Spirit is manifest, where wisdom makes
utterance and the words of life are heard, and where there is the knowledge
that comes of God-given insight, lest after the fashion of beasts through
ignorance of God we should fail to know the Author of our life; or by faith
in God, lest by not believing the Gospel of God, we should be outside His
Gospel; or by the gift of healings, that by the cure of diseases we should
bear witness to His grace Who bestoweth these things; or by the working

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of miracles, that what we do may be understood to be the power of God,
or by prophesy, that through our understanding of doctrine we might be
known to be taught of God; or by discerning of spirits, that we should not
be unable to tell whether any one speaks with a holy or a perverted spirit;
or by kinds of tongues, that the speaking in tongues may be bestowed as a
sign of the gift of the Holy Spirit; or by the interpretation of tongues, that
the faith of those that hear may not be imperiled through ignorance, since
the interpreter of a tongue explains the tongue to those who are ignorant of
it. Thus in all these things distributed to each one to profit withal there is
the manifestation of the Spirit, the gift of the Spirit being apparent through
these marvelous advantages vestowed upon each.

31. Now the blessed Apostle Paul in revealing the secret of these heavenly
mysteries, most difficult to human comprehension, has preserved a clear
enunciation and a carefully worded caution in order to shew that these
diverse gifts are given through the Spirit and in the Spirit (for to be given
through the Spirit and in the Spirit is not the same thing), because the
granting of a gift which is exercised in the Spirit is yet bestowed through
the Spirit. But he sums up these diversities of gifts thus: Now all these
things worketh one and the same Spirit, dividing to each one as He will.
Now, therefore, I ask what Spirit works these things, dividing to each one
according as He wills: is it He by Whom or He in Whom there is this
distribution of gifts? But if any one shall dare to say that it is the same
Person which is indicated, the Apostle will refute so faulty an opinion, for
he says above, And there are diversities of workings, but the same God
Who worketh all things in all. So there is one Who distributes and another
in Whom the distribution is vouchsafed. Yet know that it is always God
Who worketh all these things, but in such a way that Christ works, and the
Son in His working performs the Father's work. And if in the Holy Spirit
thou confessest Jesus to be Lord, understand the force of that threefold
indication in the Apostle's letter; forasmuch as in the diversities of gifts, it
is the same Spirit, and in the diversities of ministrations it is the same
Lord, and in the diversities of workings it is the same God; and again, one
Spirit that worketh all things distributing to each according as He will. And
grasp the idea if thou canst that the Lord in the distribution of
ministrations, and God in the distribution of workings, are this one and the
same Spirit Who both works and distributes as He will; because in the

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distribution of gifts there is one Spirit, and the same Spirit works and
distributes.

32. But if this one Spirit of one Divinity, one in both God and Lord
through the mystery of the birth, does not please thee, then point out to
me what Spirit both works and distributes these diverse gifts to us, and in
what Spirit He does this. But, thou must shew me nothing but what
accords with our faith, because the Apostle shews us Who is to be
understood, saying, For as the body is one, and hath many members, and
all the members of the body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ.
He affirms that diversities of gifts come from one Lord Jesus Christ Who
is the body of all. Because after he had made known the Lord in
ministration, and made known also God in workings, he yet shews that
one Spirit both works and distributes all these things, distributing these
varieties of His gracious gifts for the perfecting of one body.

33. Unless perchance we think that the Apostle did not keep to the
principle of unity in that he said, And there are diversities of ministrations,
and the same Lord, and there are diversities of workings, but the same
God. So that because he referred ministrations to the Lord and workings to
God, be does not appear to have understood one and the same Being in
ministrations and operations. Learn how these members which minister are
also members which work, when he says, Ye are the body of Christ, and of
Him members indeed. For God hath set same in the Church, first apostles,
in whom is the word of wisdom; secondly prophets, in whom is the gift of
knowledge thirdly teachers, in whom is the doctrine of faith; next mighty
works, among which are the healing of diseases, the power to help,,
governments by the prophets, and gifts of either speaking or interpreting
divers kinds of tongues. Clearly these are the Church's agents of ministry
and work of whom the body of Christ consists; and God has ordained
them. But perhaps thou maintainest that they have not been ordained by
Christ, because it was God Who ordained them. But thou shall hear what
the Apostle says himself: Now to each one of us was the grace given
according to the measure of the gift of Christ. And again, He that
descended is the same also that ascended far above all the heavens that He
might fill all things. And he gave some to be apostles; and some, prophets;
and some, evangelists; and same, pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of

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the saints, for the work of ministering. Are not then the gifts of
ministration Christ' s, while they are also the gifts of God?

34. But if impiety has assumed to itself that because he says, The same
Lord and the same God, they are not in unity of nature, I will support this
interpretation with what you deem still stronger arguments. For the same
Apostle says, But for us there is one God, the Father, of Whom are all
things, and we in Him, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through Whom are all
things, and we through Him. And again, One Lord, one.faith, one baptism,
one God and Father of all, Who is both through all, and in us all. By these
words one God and one Lord it would seem that to God only is attributed,
as to one God, the property of being God; since the property of oneness
does not admit of partnership with another. Verily how rare and hard to
attain are such spiritual gifts! How truly is the manifestation of the Spirit
seen in the bestowal of such useful gifts! And with reason has this order in
the distribution of graces been appointed, that the foremost should be the
word of wisdom; for true it is, And no one can call Jesus Lord but in the
Holy Spirit, because but through this word of wisdom Christ could not be
understood to be Lord; that then there should follow next the word of
understanding, that we might speak with understanding what we know,
and might know the word of wisdom; and that the third gift should consist
of faith, seeing that those leading and higher graces would be unprofitable
gifts did we not believe that He is God. So that in the true sense of this
greatest and most noble utterance of the Apostle no heretics possess either
the word of wisdom or the word of knowledge or the faith of religion,
inasmuch as willful wickedness, being incapable of understanding, is void
of knowledge of the word and of genuineness of faith. For no one utters
what he does not know; nor can he believe that which he cannot utter; and
thus when the Apostle preached one God, a proselyte as He was from the
Law, and called to the gospel of Christ, he has attained to the confession of
a perfect faith. And lest the simplicity of a seemingly unguarded statement
might afford heretics any opportunity for denying through the preaching
of one God the birth of the Son, the Apostle has set forth one God while
indicating His peculiar attribute in these words, One God the Father, of
Whom are all thing, and we in Him, in order that He Who is God might
also be acknowledged as Father. Afterwards, inasmuch as this bare belief in
one God the Father would not suffice for salvation, he added, And one, our

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Lord Jesus Christ, through Whom are all things, and we through Him,
shewing that the purity of saving faith consists in the preaching of one
God and one Lord, so that we might believe in one God the Father and one
Lord Jesus Christ. For he knew full well how our Lord had said, For this is
the will of My Father, that every one that seeth the Son and believeth on
Him should have eternal life. But in fixing the order of the Church's faith,
and basing our faith upon the Father and the Son, he has uttered the
mystery of that indivisible and indissoluble unity and faith in the words
one God and one Lord.

35. First of all, then, O heretic that hast no part in the Spirit which spoke
by the Apostle, learn thy folly. If thou wrongly employest the confession
of one God to deny the Godhead of Christ, on the ground that where one
God exists He must be regarded as solitary, and that to be One is
characteristic and peculiar to Him Who is One, — what sense wilt thou
assign to the statement that Jesus Christ is one Lord? For if, as thou
assertest, the fact that the Father alone is God has not left to Christ the
possibility of Godhead, it must needs be also according to thee that the
fact of Christ being one Lord does not leave God the possibility of being
Lord, seeing that thou wilt have it that to be One must be the essential
property of Him Who is One. Hence if thou deniest that the one Lord
Christ is also God, thou must needs deny that the one God the Father is
also Lord. And what will the greatness of God amount to if He be not
Lord, and the power of the Lord if He be not God: since it(viz., the
greatness or power) causes that to be God which is Lord, and makes that
Lord which is God?

36. Now the Apostle, maintaining the true sense of the Lord's saying, I
and the Father are one, whilst He asserts that Both are One, signifies that
Both are One not after the manner of the soleness of a single being, but in
the unity of the Spirit; for one God the Father and one Christ the Lord,
since Each is both Lord and God, do not yet admit in our creed either two
Gods or two Lords. So then Each is one, and though one, neither is sole.
We shall not be able to express the mystery of the faith except in the
words of the Apostle. For there is one God and one Lord, and the fact that
there is one God and one Lord proves that there is at once Lordship in
God, and Godhead in the Lord. Thou canst not maintain a trojan of person,
so making God single; nor yet canst thou divide the Spirit, so preventing

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the Two from being One. Nor in the one God and one Lord wilt thou be
able to separate the power, so that He Who is Lord should not also be
God, and He Who is God should not also be Lord. For the Apostle in the
enunciation of the Names has taken care not to preach either two Gods or
two Lords. And for this reason he has employed such a method of teaching
as in the one Lord Christ to set forth also one God, and in the one God the
Father to set forth also one Lord. And, not to misguide us into the
blasphemy that God is solitary, which would destroy the birth of the
Only-begotten God, he has confessed both Father and Christ.

37. Unless perchance the frenzy of utter desperation will venture to rush
to such lengths that, inasmuch as the Apostle has called Christ Lord, no
one ought to acknowledge Him as aught else save Lord, and that because
He has the property of Lord He has not the true Godhead. But Paul
knows full well that Christ is God, for he says, Whose are the fathers, and
of whom is Christ, Who is Gad over all. It is no creature here who is
reckoned as God; nay, it is the God of things created Who is God over all.

38. Now that He Who is God over all is also Spirit inseparable from the
Father, learn also from that very utterance of the Apostle, of which we are
now speaking. For when he confessed one God the Father from Whom are
all things, and one Lord Jesus Christ through Whom are all things; what
difference, I ask, dirt he intend by saying that all things are from God and
that all things are through Christ? Can He possibly be regarded as of a
nature and spirit separable from Himself, He from Whom and through
Whom are all things? For all things have come into being through the Son
out of nothing, and the Apostle has referred them to God the Father, From
Whom are all things, but also to the Son, through Whom are all things. And
I find here no difference, since by Each is exercised the same power. For if
with regard to the subsistence of the universe it was an exact sufficient
statement that things created are from God, what need was there to state
that the things which are from God are through Christ, unless it be one and
the same thing to be through Christ and from God? But as it has been
ascribed to Each of Them that They are Lord and God in such wise that
each title belongs to Both, so too from Whom and through Whom is here
referred to Both; and this to shew the unity of Both, not to make known
God's singleness. The language of the Apostle affords no opening for
wicked error, nor is his faith too exalted for careful statement. For he has

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guarded himself by those specially appropriate words from being
understood to mean two Gods or a solitary God: for while he rejects
oneness of person he yet does not divide the unity of Godhead. For this
from Whom are all things and through Whom are all things, although it did
not posit a solitary Deity in the sole possession of majesty, must yet set
forth One not different in efficiency, since from Whom are all things and
through Whom are all things must signify an Author of the same nature
engaged in the same work. He affirms, moreover, that Each is properly of
the same nature. For after announcing the depth of the riches and wisdom
and knowledge of God, and after asserting the mystery of His inscrutable
judgments and avowing our ignorance of His ways past finding out, he has
yet made use of the exercise of human faith, and rendered this homage to
the depth of the unsearchable and inscrutable mysteries of heaven, for of
Him and through Him and in Him are all things: to Him be glory for ever.
Amen. He employs to indicate the one nature, that which cannot but be
the work of one nature.

39. For whereas he has specially ascribed to God that all things are from
Him, and he has assigned as a peculiar property to Christ, that all things
are through Him, and it is now the glory of God that from Him and
through Him and in Him are all things; and whereas the Spirit of God is the
same as the Spirit of Christ, or whereas in the ministration of the Lord and
in the working of God, one Spirit both works and divides, They cannot but
be one Whose properties are those of one; since in the same Lord the Son,
and in the same God the Father, one and the same Spirit distributing in the
same Holy Spirit accomplishes all things. How worthy is this saint of the
knowledge of exalted and heavenly mysteries, adopted and chosen to share
in the secret things of God, preserving a due silence over things which may
not be uttered, true apostle of Christ! How by the announcement of his
clear teaching has he restrained the imaginations of human willfulness,
confessing, as he does, one God the Father and one Lord Jesus Christ, so
that meanwhile no one can either preach two Gods or one solitary God;
although He Who is not one person cannot multiply into two Gods, nor on
the other hand can They Who are not two Gods be understood to be one
single person; while meantime the revelation of God as Father
demonstrates the true nativity of Christ.

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40. Thrust out now your quivering and hissing tongues, ye vipers of
heresy, whether it be thou Sabellius or thou Photinus, or ye who now
preach that the Only-begotten God is a creature. Whosoever denies the
Son shall hear of one God the Father, because inasmuch as a father
becomes a father only by having a son, this name Father necessarily
connotes the existence of the Son. And again, let him who takes away from
the Son the unity of an identical nature, acknowledge one Lord Jesus
Christ. For unless through unity of the Spirit He is one Lord room will not
be left for God the Father to be Lord. Again, let him who holds the Son to
have become Son in time and by His

Incarnation, learn that through Him are all things and we through Him, and
that His timeless Infinity was creating all things before time was. And
meanwhile let him read again that there is one hope of our calling, and one
baptism, and one faith; if, after that, he oppose himself to the preaching of
the Apostle, he, being accursed because he framed strange doctrines of his
own device, is neither called nor baptized nor believing; because in one
God the Father and in one Lord Jesus Christ there lies the one faith of one
hope and baptism. And no alien doctrine can boast that it has a place
among the truths which belong to one God and Lord and hope and baptism
and faith.

41. So then the one faith is, to confess the Father in the Son and the Son in
the Father through the unity of an indivisible nature, not confused but
inseparable, not intermingled but identical, not conjoined but coexisting,
not incomplete but perfect. For there is birth not separation, there is a Son
not an adoption; and He is God, not a creature. Neither is He a God of a
different kind, but the Father and Son are one: for the nature was not
altered by birth so as to be alien from the property of its original. So the
Apostle holds the faith of the Son abiding in the Father and the Father in
the Son when he proclaims that for him there is one God the Father and
one Lord Christ, since in Christ the Lord there was also God, and in God
the Father there was also Lord, and They Two are that unity which is
God, and They Two are also that unity which is the Lord, for reason
indicates that there must be something imperfect in God unless He be
Lord, and in the Lord unless He were God. And so since Both are one, and
Both are implied under either name, and neither exists apart from the
unity, the Apostle has not gone beyond the preaching of the Gospel in his

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teaching, nor does Christ when He speaks in Paul differ from the words
which He spoke while abiding in the world in bodily form.

42. For the Lord had said in the gospels, Work not for the meat which
perisheth, but for the meat which abideth unto life eternal, which the Son
of Man shall give unto you: for Him the Father, even God, hath sealed.
They said therefore unto Him, What must we do that we may work the
works of God? And He said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye
believe on Him Whom He hath sent. In setting forth the mystery of His
Incarnation and His Godhead our Lord has also uttered the teaching of our
faith and hope that we should work for food, not that which perisheth but
that which abideth for ever; that we should remember that this food of
eternity is given us by the Son of Man; that we should know the Son of
Man as sealed by God the Father; that we should know that this is the
work of God, even faith in Him Whom He has sent. And Who is it Whom
the Father has sent? Even He Whom the Father has sealed. And Who is He
Whom the Father has sealed? In truth, the Son of Man, even He who gives
the food of eternal life. And further who are they to whom He gives it?
They who shall work for the food that does not perish. Thus, then, the
work for this food is at the same time the work of God, namely, to believe
on Him Whom He has sent. But these words are uttered by the Son of
Man. And how shall the Son of Man give the food of life eternal? Why, he
knows not the mystery of his own salvation, who knows not that the Son
of Man, bestowing food unto life eternal, has been sealed by God the
Father. At this point I now ask in what sense are we to understand that
the Son of Man has been sealed by God the Father?

43. Now we ought to recognize first of all that God has spoken not for
Himself but for us, and that He has so far tempered the language of His
utterance as to enable the weakness of our nature to grasp and understand
it. For after being rebuked by the Jews for having made Himself the equal
of God by professing to be the Son of God, He had answered that He
Himself did all things that the Father did, and that He had received all
judgment from the Father; moreover that He must be honored even as the
Father. And in all these things having before declared Himself Son, He had
made Himself equal to the Father in honor, power and nature. Afterwards
He had said that as the Father had life in Himself, so He had given the Son
to have life in Himself, wherein He signified that by virtue of the mystery

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of the birth He possessed the unity of the same nature. For when He says
that He has what the Father has, He means that He has the Father's self.
For that God is not after human fashion of a composite being, so that in
Him there is a difference of kind between Possessor and Possessed; but all
that He is life, a nature, that is, complete, absolute and infinite, not
composed of dissimilar elements but with one life permeating the whole.
And since this life was in such wise given as it was possessed, although
the fact the it was given manifestly reveals the birth of the Recipient, it yet
does not involve a difference of kind since the life given was such as was
possessed.

44. Therefore after this manifold and precise revelation of the presence of
the Father' s nature in Himself, He goes on to say, For Him hath the Father
sealed, even God. It is the nature of a seal to exhibit the whole form of the
figure graven upon it, and that an impression taken from it reproduces it in
every respect; and since it receives the whole of that which is impressed, it
displays also in itself wholly whoever has been impressed upon it. Yet
this comparison is not adequate to exemplify the Divine birth, because in
seals there is a matter, difference of nature, and an act of impression,
whereby the likeness of stronger natures is impressed upon things of a
more yielding nature. But the Only-begotten God, Who was also through
the Mystery of our salvation the Son of Man, desiring to point out to us
the likeness of His Father's proper nature in Himself, said that He was
sealed by God; because the Son of Man was about to give the food of
eternal life, and that we thereby might perceive in Him the power of giving
food unto eternity, in that He possessed within Himself all the fullness of
His Father's form, even of the God Who sealed Him: so that what God
had sealed should display in itself none other than the form of the God
Who sealed it. These things indeed the Lord spoke to the Jews, who could
not receive His saying because of unbelief.

45. But in us the preacher of the Gospel by the Spirit of Christ Who
spoke through him, instills the knowledge of this His proper nature when
he says, Who, being in the form of God, thought it not a thing to grasp a
that He was equal with God, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a
servant. For He, Whom God had sealed, could be naught else than the form
of God, and that which has been sealed in the form of God must needs
present at the same time imaged forth within itself all that God possesses.

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And for this cause the Apostle taught that He Whom God sealed is God
abiding in the form of God. For when about to speak of the Mystery of
the batty assumed and born in Him, he says, He thought it not a thing to
grasp at that He was equal with God, but emptied Himself, taking the form
of a servant. As regards His being in the form of God, by virtue of God's
seal upon Him, he still remained God. But inasmuch as He was to take the
form of a servant and become obedient unto death, not grasping at His
equality with God, He emptied Himself through obedience to take the
form of a slave. And He emptied Himself of the form of God, that is, of
that wherein He was equal with God — not that He regarded His equality
with God as any encroachment, — although He was in the form of God
and equal with God and sealed by God as God.

46. At this point I ask whether He Who abides as God in the form of God
is a God of another kind, as we perceive in the case of seals in respect of
the likenesses which stamp and those which are stamped, since a steel die
impressed upon lead or a gem upon wax shapes the figure cut in it or
imprints that which stands in relief upon it. But if there be any one so
foolish and senseless as to think that that, pertaining to Himself, which
God fashions to be God, is aught but God, and that He Who is in the form
of God is in any respect anything else save God after the mystery of His
Incarnation and of His humility, made perfect through obedience even unto
the death of the cross, he shall hear, by the confession of things in heaven
and things on earth and things under the earth and of every tongue, that
Jesus is in the glory of God the Father. If then, when His form had become
that of a slave He abides in such glory, how, I ask, did He abide when in
the form of God? Must not Christ the Spirit have been in the nature of
Gods — for this is what is meant by 'in the glory of God' — when Christ
as Jesus, that is, born as man, exists in the glory of God the Father?

47. In all things the blessed Apostle preserves the unchangeable teaching of
the Gospel faith. The Lord Jesus Christ is proclaimed as God in such wise
that neither does the Apostle's faith, by calling Him a God of a different
order, fall away to the confession of two Gods, nor by making God the
Son inseparable from the Father does it leave an opening for the unholy
doctrine of a single and solitary God. For when he says, in the form of
God and in the glory of the Father the Apostle neither teaches that They
differ one from another, nor allows us to think of Him as not existing. For

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He Who is in the form of God neither ends by becoming another God nor
Himself loses His Godhead: for He cannot be severed from the form of
God since He exists in it, nor is He, Who is in the form of God, not God
Just as He Who is in the glory of God cannot be aught else than God, and,
since He is God in the glory of God, cannot be proclaimed as another God
and one different from the true God, seeing that by reason of the fact that
He is in the glory of God He possesses naturally from Him in Whose glory
He is, the property of divinity.

48. But there is no danger that the one faith will cease to be such through
diversity in its preaching. The Evangelist had taught that our Lord said, He
that hath seen Me, hath seen the Father also. But has Paul, the teacher of
the Gentiles, forgotten or kept back the meaning of the Lord's words,
when he says, Who is the image of the invisible God? I ask whether He is
the visible likeness of the invisible God, and whether the infinite God can
also be presented to view under the likeness of a finite form? For a likeness
must needs repeat the form of that of which it is the likeness. Let those,
however, who will have a nature of a different sort in the Son determine
what sort of likeness of the invisible God they wish the Son to be. Is it a
bodily likeness exposed to the gaze, and moving from place to place with
human gait and motion? Nay, but let them remember that according to the
Gospels and the Prophets both Christ is a Spirit and God is a Spirit. If
they confine this Christ the Spirit within the bounds of shape and body,
such a corporeal Christ will not be the likeness of the invisible God, nor
will a finite limitation represent that which is infinite.

49. But, as it is, neither did the Lord leave us in doubt: He who hath seen
Me, hath seen the Father also; nor was the Apostle silent as to His nature,
Who is the image of the invisible God. For the Lord had said, If I do not
the works of My Father, believe Me not, teaching them to see the Father
in Himself in that He did the works of the Father; that through perceiving
the power of His nature they might understand the nature of that power
which they perceived. Wherefore the Apostle proclaiming that this is the
image of God, says, Who is the image of the invisible God, the first-born
of all creation; for in Him were all things made in the heavens and upon the
earth, things visible and things invisible, whether thrones or dominions or
principalities or powers; all things have been created through Him and in
Him, and He is before all, and for Him all things consist. And He is the

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head of the body, the Church, Who is the beginning, the first-born from the
dead, that in all things He might have the pre-eminence. For it was the
good pleasure of the Father that in Him should all the fullness dwell, and
through Him all things should be reconciled to Him. So through the power
of these works He is the image of God. For assuredly the Creator of things
invisible is not compelled by any necessity inherent in His nature to be the
visible image of the invisible God. And lest He should be regarded as the
likeness of the form and not of the nature, He is styled the likeness of the
invisible God in order that we may understand by His exercise of the
powers (not the invisible attributes) of the Divine nature, that that nature
is in Him.

50. He is accordingly the first-born of every creature because in Him all
things were created. And lest any one should dare to refer to any other
than Him the creation of all things in Himself, he says, All things have
been created through Him and in Him, and He is before all, and far Him all
things consist. All things then consist for Him Who is before all things, and
in Whom are all things. Now this indeed describes the origin of created
things. But concerning the dispensation by which He assumed our body,
he adds, And He is the head of the body, the Church: Who is the
beginning, the first-born from the dead: that in all things He might have the
pre-eminence. For it was the good pleasure of the Father that in Him
should all the fullness dwell, and that through Him all things should be
reconciled to Him. The Apostle has assigned to the spiritual mysteries
their material effects. For He Who is the image of the invisible God is
Himself the head of His body, the Church, and He Who is the first-born of
every creature is at the same time the beginning, the first born from the
dead: that in all things He might have the pre-eminence, being for us the
Body, while He is also the image of God, since He, Who is the first-born
of created things, is at the same time the first-born for eternity; so that as
to Him things spiritual, being created in the First-born, owe it that they
abide, even so all things human also owe it to Him that in the First-born
from the dead they are born again into eternity. For He is Himself the
beginning, Who as Son is therefore the image, and because the image, is of
God. Further He is the first-born of every created thing, possessing in
Himself the origin of the universe: and again He is the head of His body,
the Church, and the first-born from the dead, so that in all things He has

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the pre-eminence. And because all things consist for Him, in Him the
fullness of the Godhead is pleased to dwell, for in Him all things are
reconciled through Him to Him, through Whom all things were created in
Himself.

51. Do you now perceive what it is to be the image of God? It means that
all things are created in Him through Him. Whereas all things are created in
Him, understand that He, Whose image He is, also creates all things in
Him. And since all things which are created in Him are also created through
Him, recognize that in Him Who is the image there is present the nature of
Him, Whose image He is. For through Himself He creates the things which
are created in Him, just as through Himself all things are reconciled in Him.
Inasmuch as they are reconciled in Him, recognize in Him the nature of the
Father's unity, reconciling all things to Himself in Him. Inasmuch as all
things are reconciled through Him, perceive Him reconciling to the Father
in Himself all things which He reconciled through Himself. For the same
Apostle says, But all things are from God, Who reconciled us to Himself
through Christ, and gave unto us the ministry of reconciliation: to wit, that
God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself. Compare with this
the whole mystery of the faith of the Gospel. For He Who is seen when
Jesus is seen, Who works in His works, and speaks in His words, also
reconciles in His reconciliation. And for this cause, in Him and through
Him there is reconciliation, because the Father abiding in Him through a
like nature restored the world to Himself by reconciliation through and in
Him.

52. Thus God out of regard for human weakness has not set forth the faith
in bare and uncertain statements. For although the authority of our Lord's
mere words of itself compelled their acceptance, He nevertheless has
informed our reason by a revelation which explains their meaning, that we
might learn to know His words, I and the Father are one, by means of that
which was itself the cause of the unity in question. For in saying that the
Father speaks in His words, and works through His working, and judges
through His judgment, and is seen in His manifestation, and reconciles
through His reconciliation, and abides in Him, while He in turn abides in
the Father, — what more fitting words, I ask, could He have employed in
His teaching to suit the faculties of our reason, that we might believe in
Their unity, than those by which, through the truth of the birth and the

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unity of the nature, it is declared that whatever the Son did and said, the
Father said and did in the Son? This says nothing of a nature foreign to
Himself, or added by creation to God, or born into Godhead by a partition
of God, but it betokens the divinity of One Who by a perfect birth is
begotten perfect God, Who has so confident an assurance of His nature
that He says, I in the Father and the Father in Me, and again, All things
whatsoever the Father hath are Mine. For nought of the Godhead is lacking
in Him, in Whose working and speaking and manifestation God works and
speaks and is beheld. They are not two Gods, Who in their working and
words and manifestation put on a semblance of unity. Neither is He a
solitary God. Who in the works and words and sight of God, Himself
worked and spoke and was seen as God. The Church understands this.
The Synagogue does not believe, philosophy does not know, that being
One of One, Whole of Whole, God and Son, He has neither by His birth
deprived the Father of His completeness, nor failed to possess the same
completeness in Himself by right of His birth. And whosoever is caught in
this folly of unbelief is a disciple either of the Jews or of the heathen.

53. Now that you may understand the saying of the Lord, when He said,
All things whatsoever the Father hath are Mine, learn the teaching and
faith of the Apostle who said, Take heed lest any lead you astray through
philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the elements of
the world and not after Christ; for in Him dwelleth the fullness of Godhead
bodily. That man is of the world and savors of the teaching of men and is
the victim of philosophy, who does not know Christ to be the true God,
who does not recognize in Him the fullness of Godhead. The mind of man
knows only that which it understands, and the world's powers of belief
are limited, since it judges according to the laws of the material elements
that that alone is possible which it can see or do. For the elements of the
world have come into being out of nothing, but Christ's continuity of
existence did not begin in the non-existent, nor did He ever begin to exist,
but He took from the beginning a beginning which is eternal. The elements
of the world are either without life, or have issued out of this stage into
life, but Christ is life, born to be living God from the living God. The
elements of the world have been established by God, but they are not God:
Christ as God of God is Himself wholly all that God is. The elements of
the world, since they are within it, cannot possibly rise out of their

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condition and cease to be within it, but Christ, while having God within
Himself through the Mystery, is Himself in God. The elements of the
universe, generating from themselves creatures with a life like their own, do
indeed through the exercise of their bodily functions bestow upon them
from their own bodies the beginnings of life, but they are not themselves
present as living beings in their offspring, whereas in Christ all the fullness
of the Godhead is present in bodily shape.

54. Now I ask, whose Godhead is it whereof the fullness dwells in Him? If
it be not that of the Father, what other God do you, misleading preacher of
one God, thrust upon me as Him Whose Godhead dwells fully in Christ?
But if it be that of the Father, inform me how this fullness dwells in Him
in bodily fashion. If you hold that the Father abides in the Son in bodily
fashion, the Father, while dwelling in the Son, will not exist in Himself. If
on the other hand, and this is more true, the Godhead abiding in Him in
bodily shape displays within Him the verity of the nature of God from
God, inasmuch as God is in Him, abiding neither through condescension
nor through will but by birth, true and wholly in bodily fullness according
as He is; and inasmuch as, in the whole compass of His being, He was born
by His divine birth to be God, and within the Godhead there is no
difference or dissimilarity, except that in Christ He dwells in bodily form,
and yet whatever dwells in Him bodily is according to the fullness of
Godhead; why follow after the doctrines of men? Why cleave to the
teaching of empty falsehoods? Why talk of 'agreement' or 'harmony of
will' or 'a creature?' The fullness of Godhead dwells in Christ bodily.

55. The Apostle has herein held fast to the canon of his faith, by teaching
that the fullness of the Godhead dwelt in Christ bodily; and this, in order
that the teaching of the faith might not degenerate into an unholy
profession of a oneness of Persons or sinful frenzy break forth into the
belief of two different natures. For the fullness of Godhead which dwells
in Christ in bodily fashion is neither solitary nor separable; for the fullness
in bodily form does not admit any partition from the other bodily fullness,
and the indwelling Godhead cannot be regarded as also the dwelling-place
of the Godhead. And Christ is so constituted that the fullness of Godhead
dwells in Him in bodily fashion, and that this fullness must be held one in
nature with Christ. Lay hands on every chance that offers for your
quibbles, sharpen the points of your blasphemous wit. Name, at least, the

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imaginary being whose fullness of Godhead it is which dwells in Christ in
bodily fashion. For He is Christ, and there is dwelling in Him in bodily
fashion the fullness of Godhead.

56. And if you would know what it is to 'dwell in bodily fashion,'
understand what it is to speak in one that speaks, to be seen in one who is
seen, to work in one who works, to be God in God, whole of whole, one of
one; and thus learn what is meant by the fullness of God in bodily shape.
Remember, too, that the Apostle does not keep silence on the question,
whose Godhead it is, which dwells fully in Christ in bodily fashion, for he
says, For the invisible things of Him since the creation of the world are
clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, even His
everlasting power and divinity. So it is His Godhead that dwells in Christ
in bodily fashion, not partially but wholly, not parcelwise but in fullness;
and so dwelling that the Two are one, and so one, that the One Who is
God does not differ from the Other Who is God: Both so equally divine, as
a perfect birth engendered perfect God. And the birth exists thus in its
perfection, because the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily in God born
of God.

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BOOK 9

1. In the last book we treated of the indistinguishable nature of God the
Father and God the Son, and demonstrated that the words, I and the Father
are One, go to prove not a solitary God, but a unity of the Godhead
unbroken by the birth of the Son: for God can be born only of God, and
He that is born God of God must be all that God is. We reviewed, although
not exhaustively, yet enough to make our meaning clear, the sayings of our
Lord and the Apostles, which teach the inseparable nature and power of
the Father and the Son; and we came to the passage in the teaching of the
Apostle, where he says, Take heed lest there shall be any one that leadeth
you astray through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men,
after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ; for in Him dwelleth
all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. We pointed out that here the words,
in Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, prove Him true and
perfect God of His Father's nature, neither severing Him from, nor
identifying Him with, the Father. On the one hand we are taught that, since
the incorporeal God dwelt in Him bodily, the Son as God begotten of God
is in natural unity with the Father: and on the other hand, if God dwelt in
Christ, this proves the birth of the personal Christ in Whom He dwell. We
have thus, it seems to me, more than answered the irreverence of those
who refer to a unity or agreement of will such words of the Lord as, He
that hath seen Me hath seen the Father, or, The Father is in Me and I in
the Father, or, I and the Father are One, or, All things whatsoever the
Father hath are Mine. Not daring to deny the words themselves, these
false teachers, in the mask of religion, corrupt the sense of the words. For
instance, it is true that where the unity of nature is proclaimed the
agreement of will cannot be denied; but in order to set aside that unity
which follows from the birth, they profess merely a relationship of mutual
harmony. But the blessed Apostle, after many indubitable statements of
the real truth, cuts short their rash and profane assertions, by saying, in
Christ dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, for by the bodily
indwelling of the incorporeal God in Christ is taught the strict unity of
Their nature. It is, therefore, not a matter of words, but a real truth that the

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Son was not alone, but the Father abode in Him: and not only abode, but
also worked and spoke: not only worked and spoke, but also manifested
Himself in Him. Through the Mystery of the birth the Son's power is the
power of the Father, His authority the Father's authority, His nature the
Father's nature. By His birth the Son possesses the nature of the Father:
as the Father' s image, He reproduces from the Father all that is in the
Father, because He is the reality as well as the image of the Father, for a
perfect birth produces a perfect image, and the fullness of the Godhead
dwelling bodily in Him indicates the truth of His nature.

2. All this is indeed as it is: He, Who is by nature God of God, must
possess the nature of His origin, which God possesses, and the
indistinguishable unity of a living nature cannot be divided by the birth of a
living nature. Yet nevertheless the heretics, under cover of the saving
confession of the Gospel faith, are stealing on to the subversion of the
truth: for by forcing their own interpretations on words uttered with other
meanings and intentions, they are robbing the Son of His natural unity.
Thus to deny the Son of God, they quote the authority of His own words,
Why callest than Me good? None is good, save one, God. These words,
they say, proclaim the Oneness of God: anything else, therefore, which
shares the name of God, cannot possess the nature of God, for God is
One. And from His words, This is life eternal, that they should know Thee
the only true God, they attempt to establish the theory that Christ is
called God by a mere title, not as being very God. Further, to exclude Him
from the proper nature of the true God, they quote, The Son can do
nothing of Himself except that which He hath seen the Father do. They
use also the text, The Father is greater than I Finally, when they repeat the
words, Of that day and that hour knoweth no one, neither the angels in
heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only, as though they were the absolute
renunciation of His claim to divinity, they boast that they have
overthrown the faith of the Church. The birth, they say, cannot raise to
equality the nature which the limitation of ignorance degrades. The
Father's omniscience and the Son's ignorance reveal unlikeness in the
Divinity, for God must be ignorant of nothing, and the ignorant cannot be
compared with the omniscient. All these passages they neither understand
rationally, nor distinguish as to their occasions, nor apprehend in the light
of the Gospel mysteries, nor realize in the strict meaning of the words and

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so they impugn the divine nature of Christ with crude and insensate
rashness, quoting single detached utterances to catch the ears of the
unwary, and keeping back either the sequel which explains or the incidents
which prompted them, though the meaning of words must be sought in the
context before or after them.

3. We will offer later an explanation of these texts in the words of the
Gospels and Epistles themselves. But first we hold it right to remind the
members of our common faith, that the knowledge of the Eternal is
presented in the same confession which gives eternal life. He does not, he
cannot know his own life, who is ignorant that Christ Jesus was very God,
as He was very man. It is equally perilous, whether we deny that Christ
Jesus was God the Spirit, or that He was flesh of our body: Every one
therefore who shall confess Me before men, him will I also confess before
My Father which is in Heaven. But whosoever shall deny Me before men,
him will I also deny before My Father which is in heaven. So said the
Word made flesh; so taught the man Jesus Christ, the Lord of majesty,
constituted Mediator in His own person for the salvation of the Church,
and being in that very mystery of Mediatorship between men and God,
Himself one Person, both man and God. For He, being of two natures
united for that Mediatorship, is the full reality of each nature; while
abiding in each, He is wanting in neither; He does not cease to be God
because He becomes man, nor fail to be mall because He remains for ever
God. This is the true faith for human blessedness, to preach at once the
Godhead and the manhood, to confess the Word and the flesh, neither
forgetting the God, because He is man, nor ignoring the flesh, because He is
the Word.

4. It is contrary to our experience of nature, that He should be born man
and still remain God; bill it accords with the tenor of our expectation, that
being born man, He still remained God, for when the higher nature is born
into the lower, it is credible that the lower should also be born into the
higher. And, indeed, according to the laws and habits of nature, the
working of our expectation even anticipates the divine mystery. For in
every tiling that is born, nature has the capacity for increase, but has no
power of decrease. Look at the trees, the crops, the cattle. Regard man
himself, the possessor of reason. He always expands by growth, he does
not contract by decrease; nor does he ever lose the self into which he has

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grown. He wastes indeed with age, or is cut off by death; he undergoes
change by lapse of time, or reaches the end allotted to the constitution of
life, yet it is not in his power to cease to be what he is; I mean that he
cannot make a new self by decrease from his old self, that is, become a
child again from an old man. So the necessity of perpetual increase, which
is imposed on our nature by natural law, leads us on good grounds to
expect its promotion into a higher nature, since its increase is according to,
and its decrease contrary to, nature. It was God alone Who could become
something other than before, and yet not cease to be what He had ever
been; Who could shrink within the limits of womb, cradle, anti infancy, yet
not depart from the power of God. This is a mystery, not for Himself, but
for us. The assumption of our nature was no advancement for God, but
His willingness to lower Himself is our promotion, for He did not resign
His divinity but conferred divinity on man.

5. The Only-begotten God, therefore, when He was born man of the
Virgin, and in the fullness of time was about in His own person to raise
humanity to divinity, always maintained this form of the Gospel teaching.
He taught, namely, to believe Him the Son of God, and exhorted to preach
Him the Son of Man; man saying and doing all that belongs to God; God
saying and doing all that belongs to man. Yet never did He speak without
signifying by the twofold aspect of these very utterances both His
manhood and His divinity. Though He proclaimed one God the Father, He
declared Himself to be in the nature of the one God, by the truth of His
generation. Yet in His office as Son and His condition as man, He subjected
Himself to God the Father, since everything that is born must refer itself
back to its author, and all flesh must confess itself weak before God. Here,
accordingly, the heretics find opportunity to deceive the simple and
ignorant. These words, uttered in His human character, they falsely refer
to the weakness of His divine nature; and because He was one and the
same Person in all His utterances, they claim that He spoke always of His
entire self.

6. We do not deny that all the sayings which are preserved of His, refer to
His nature. But, if Jesus Christ be man and God, neither God for the first
time, when He became man, nor then ceasing to be God, nor after He
became Man in God less than perfect man and perfect God, then the
mystery of His words must be one and the same with that of His nature.

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When according to the time indicated, we disconnect His divinity from
humanity, then let us also disconnect His language as God from the
language of man; when we confess Him God and man at the same time, let
us distinguish at the same time tits words as God and His words as man;
when after His manhood and Godhead, we recognize again the time when
His whole manhood is wholly God, let us refer to that time all that is
revealed concerning it. It is one thing, that He was God before He was
man, another, that He was man and God, and another, that after being man
and God, He was perfect man and perfect God. Do not then confuse the
times and natures in the mystery of the dispensation, for according to the
attributes of His different natures, He must speak of Himself in relation to
the mystery of His humanity, in one way before His birth, in another
while He was yet to die, and in another as eternal.

7. For our sake, therefore, Jesus Christ, retaining all these attributes, and
being born man in our body, spoke after the fashion of our nature without
concealing that divinity belonged to His own nature. In His birth, His
passion, and His death, He passed through all the circumstances of our
nature, but He bore them all by the power of His own. He was Himself the
cause of His birth, He willed to suffer what He could not suffer, He died
though He lives for ever. Yet God did all this not merely through man, for
He was born of Himself, He suffered of His own free will, and died of
Himself. He did it also as man, for He was really born, suffered and died.
These were the mysteries of the secret counsels of heaven, determined
before the world was made. The Only-begotten God was to become man
of His own will, and man was to abide eternally in God. God was to suffer
of His own will, that the malice of the devil, working in the weakness of
human infirmity, might not confirm the law of sin in us, since God had
assumed our weakness. God was to die of His own will, that no power,
after that the immortal God had constrained Himself within the law of
death, might raise up its head against Him, or put forth the natural strength
which He bad created in it. Thus God was born to take us into Himself,
suffered to justify us, and died to avenge us; for our manhood abides for
ever in Him, the weakness of our infirmity is united with His strength, and
the spiritual powers of iniquity and wickedness are subdued m the
triumph of our flesh, since God died through the flesh.

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8. The Apostle, who knew this mystery, and had received the knowledge
of the faith through the Lord Himself, was not unmindful, that neither the
world, nor mankind, nor philosophy could contain Him, for he writes,
Take heed, lest there shall be any one that leadeth you astray through
philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments
of the world, and not after Jesus Christ, for in Him dwelleth all the fullness
of the Godhead bodily, and in Him ye are made full, Who is the head of all
principalities and powers. After the announcement that in Christ dwelleth
all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, follows immediately the mystery of
our assumption, in the words, in Him ye are made full. As the fullness of
the Godhead is in Him, so we are made full in Him. The Apostle says not
merely ye are made full, but, in Him ye are made full; for all who are, or
shall be, regenerated through the hope of faith to life eternal, abide even
now in the body of Christ; and afterwards they shall be made full no longer
in Him, but in themselves, at the time of which the Apostle says, Who
shall fashion anew the body of our humiliation, that it may be conformed
to the body of His glory. Now, therefore, we are made full in Him, that is,
by the assumption of His flesh, for in Him dwelleth the fullness of the
Godhead bodily. Nor has this our hope a light authority in Him. Our
fullness in Him constitutes His headship and principality over all power,
as it is written, That in His name every knee should bow, of things in
heaven, and things on earth, and things below, and every tongue confess
that fester is Lord in the glory of God life Father. Jesus shall be confessed
in the glory of God the Father, born in man, yet now no longer abiding in
the infirmity of our body, but in the glory of God. Every tongue shall
confess this. But though all things in heaven and earth shall bow the knee
to Him, yet herein He is head of all principalities and powers, that to Him
the whole universe shall bow the knee in submission, in Whom we are
made full, Who through the fullness of the Godhead dwelling in Him
bodily, shall be confessed in the glory of God the Father.

9. But after the announcement of the mystery of Christ's nature, and our
assumption, that is, the fullness of Godhead abiding in Christ, and
ourselves made full in Him by His birth as man, the Apostle continues the
dispensation of human salvation in the words. In whom ye were also
circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands, in the stripping off
of the body of the flesh, but with the circumcision of Christ, having been

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buried with Him in baptism, wherein ye were also raised with Him through
faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. We are
circumcised not with a fleshly circumcision but with the circumcision of
Christ, that is, we are born again into a new man; for, being buried with
Him in His baptism, we must die to the old man, because the regeneration
of baptism has the force of resurrection. The circumcision of Christ does
not mean the putting off of foreskins, but to die entirely with Him, and by
that death to live henceforth entirely to Him. For we rise again in Him
through faith in God, Who raised Him from the dead; wherefore we must
believe in God, by Whose Working Christ was raised from the dead, for
our faith rises again in and with Christ.

10. Then is completed the entire mystery of the assumed manhood, And
you being dead through your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your
flesh, you I say, did He quicken together with Him, having, forgiven you
all your trespasses, blotting out the bond written in ordinances, that was
against us, which was contrary to us; and He hath taken it out of the way,
nailing a to the cross, and having put off from Himself His flesh, He hath
made a shew of powers, triumphing over them in Himself. The worldly
man cannot receive the faith of the Apostle, nor can any language but that
of the Apostle explain his meaning. God raised Christ from the dead;
Christ in Whom the fullness of the Godhead dwelt bodily. But He
quickened us also together with Him, forgiving us our sins, blotting out the
bond of the law of sin, which through the ordinances made aforetime was
against us, taking it out of the way, and fixing it to His cross, stripping
Himself of His flesh by the law of death, holding up the powers to shew,
and triumphing over them in Himself. Concerning the powers and how He
triumphed over them in Himself, and held them up to shew, and the bond
which he blotted out, and the life which He gave us, we have already
spoken. But who can understand or express this mystery? The working of
God raises Christ from the dead; the same working of God quickens us
together with Christ, forgives our sins, blots out the bond, and fixes it to
the cross; He puts off from Himself His flesh, holds up the powers to
shew, and triumphs over them in Himself. We have the working of God
raising Christ from the dead, and we have Christ working in Himself the
very things which God works in Him, for it was Christ who died,
stripping from Himself His flesh. Hold fast then to Christ the man, raised

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from the dead by God, and hold fast to Christ the God, working out our
salvation when He was yet to die. God works in Christ, but it is Christ
Who strips from Himself His flesh and dies. It was Christ who died, and
Christ Who worked with the power of God before His death, yet it was
the working of God which raised the dead Christ, and it was none other
who raised Christ from the dead but Christ Himself, Who worked before
His death, and put off His flesh to die.

11. Do you understand already the Mysteries of the Apostle's Faith? Do
you think to know Christ already? Tell me, then, Who is it Who strips
from Himself His flesh, and what is that flesh stripped off? I see two
thoughts expressed by the Apostle, the flesh stripped off, and Him Who
strips it off: and then I hear of Christ raised from the dead by the working
of God. If it is Christ Who is raised from the dead, and God Who raises
Him; Who, pray, strips from Himself the flesh? Who raises Christ from
the dead, and quickens us with Him? If the dead Christ be not the same as
the flesh stripped off, tell me the name of the flesh stripped off, and
expound me the nature of Him Who strips it off. I find that Christ the
God, Who was raised from the dead, is the same as He Who stripped from
Himself His flesh, and that flesh, the same as Christ Who was raised from
the dead; then I see Him holding principalities and powers up to shew, and
triumphing in Himself. Do you understand this triumphing in Himself? Do
you perceive that the flesh stripped off, and He Who strips it off, are not
different from one another? He triumphs in Himself, that is in that flesh
which He stripped from Himself. Do you see that thus are proclaimed His
humanity and His divinity, that death is attributed to the man, and the
quickening of the flesh to the God, though He Who dies and He Who raises
the dead to life are not two, but one Person? The flesh stripped off is the
dead Christ: He Who raises Christ from the dead is the same Christ Who
stripped from Himself the flesh. See His divine nature in the power to
raise again, and recognize in His death the dispensation of His manhood.
And though either function is performed by its proper nature, yet
remember that He Who died, and raised to life, was one, Christ Jesus.

12. 1 remember that the Apostle often refers to God the Father as raising
Christ from the dead; but he is not inconsistent with himself or at variance
with the Gospel faith, for the Lord Himself says: — Therefore doth the
Father love Me, because I lay down My life, that I may take it again. No

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one shall take it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay
it down, and I have power to take it again. This command have I received
from the Father: and again, when asked to shew a sign concerning Himself,
that they night believe in Him, He says of the Temple of His body,
Destroy this Temple, and in three days I will raise it up. By the power to
take His soul again and to raise the Temple up, He declares Himself God,
and the Resurrection His own work: yet He refers all to the authority of
His Father's command. This is not contrary to the meaning of the Apostle,
when He proclaims Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God,
thus referring all the magnificence of His work to the glory of the Father:
for whatever Christ does, the power and the wisdom of God does: and
whatever the power and the wisdom of God does, without doubt God
Himself does, Whose power and wisdom Christ is. So Christ was raised
from the dead by the working of God; for He Himself worked the works of
God the Father with a nature indistinguishable from God's. And our faith
in the Resurrection rests on the God Who raised Christ from the dead.

13. It is this preaching of the double aspect of Christ's Person which the
blessed Apostle emphasizes. He points out in Christ His human infirmity,
and His divine power and nature. Thus to the Corinthians he writes, For
though He was crucified through weakness, yet He liveth through the
power of God, attributing His death to human infirmity, but His life to
divine power: and again to the Romans, For the death, that He died unto
sin, He died once: but the life, that He liveth, He liveth unto God. Even so
reckon ye yourselves also to he dead unto sin, but alive unto God in Christ
Jesus, ascribing His death to sin, that is, to our body, but His life to God,
Whose nature it is to live We ought, therefore, he says, to die to our body,
that we may live to God in Christ Jesus, Who after the assumption of our
body of sin, lives now wholly unto God, uniting the nature He shared with
us with the participation of divine immortality.

14. 1 have been compelled to dwell briefly on this, lest we should forget
our Lord Jesus Christ is being treated of as a Person of two natures, since
He, Who was abiding in the form of God, took the form of a servant, in
which He was obedient even unto death. The obedience of death has
nothing to do with the form of God, just as the form of God is not inherent
in the form of a servant. Yet through the Mystery of the Gospel
Dispensation the I same Person is in the form of a servant and in the form

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of God, though it is not the same thing to take the form of a servant and to
be abiding in the form of God; nor could He Who was abiding in the form
of God, take the form of a servant without emptying Himself, since the
combination of the two forms would be incongruous. Yet it was not
another and a different Person Who emptied Himself and Who took the
form of a servant. To take anything cannot be predicated of some one who
is not, for he only can take who exists. The emptying of the form does not
then imply the abolition of the nature: He emptied Himself, but did not
lose His self: He took a new form, but remained what He was. Again,
whether emptying or taking, He was the same Person: there is, therefore, a
mystery, in that He emptied Himself, and took the form of a servant, but
He does not come to an end, so as to cease to exist in emptying Himself,
and to be non-existent when He took. The emptying availed to bring about
the taking of the servant' s form, but not to prevent Christ, Who was in the
form of God, from continuing to be Christ, for it was in very deed Christ
Who took the form of a servant. When He emptied Himself to become
Christ the man, while continuing to be Christ the Spirit, the changing of
His bodily fashion, and the assumption of another nature in His body, did
not put an end to the nature of His eternal divinity, for He was one and the
same Christ when He changed His fashion, and when He assumed our
nature.

15. We have now expounded the Dispensation of the Mysteries, through
which the heretics deceive certain of the unlearned into ascribing to
infirmity in the divinity, what Christ said and did through His assumed
human nature, and attributing to the form of God what is appropriate only
to the form of the servant. Let us pass on, then, to answer their statements
in detail. We can always safely distinguish the two kinds of utterances,
since the only true faith lies in the confession of Jesus Christ as Word and
flesh, that is, God and Man. The heretics consider it necessary to deny
that our Lord Jesus Christ by virtue of His nature was divine, because He
said, Why callest thou Me good? None is good save one, God. Now a
satisfactory answer must stand in direct relation to the matter of enquiry,
for only in that case will it furnish a reply to the question put. At the
outset, then, I would ask these misinterpreters, "Do you think that the
Lord resented being called good?" Would He rather have been called bad, as
seems to be signified by the words, Why callest thou Me good? I do not

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think any one is so unreasonable as to ascribe to Him a confession of
wickedness, when it was He Who said, Come unto Me, all ye that labor,
and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you. Take My yoke upon you, and
learn of Me: for I am meek and lowly of heart, and ye shall find rest unto
your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light. He says He is
meek and lowly: can we believe that He was angry because He was called
good? The two propositions are inconsistent. He Who witnesses to His
own goodness would not repudiate the name of Good. Plainly, then, He
was not angry because He was called good: and if we cannot believe that
He resented being called good, we must ask what was said of Him which
He did resent.

16. Let us see, then, how the questioner styled Him, beside calling Him
good. He said, Good Master, what good thing shall I do? adding to the title
of "good" that of master. If Christ then did not chide because He was
called good, it must have been because He was called "good Master."
Further the manner of His reproof shews that it was the disbelief of the
questioner, rather than the name of master, or of good, which He resented.
A youth, who provides himself upon the observance of the law, but did
not know the end of the law, which is Christ, who thought himself
justified by works, without perceiving that Christ came to the lost sheep
of the house of Israel, and to those who believe that the law cannot save
through the faith of justification, questioned the Lord of the law, tile
Only -begotten God, as though He were a teacher of the common precepts
and the writings of the law. But the Lord, abhorring this declaration of
irreverent unbelief, which addresses Him as a teacher of the law, answered,
Why callest thou Me good? and to shew how we may know, and call Him
good, He added, None is good, save one, God, not repudiating the name of
good, if it be given to Him as God.

17. Then, as a proof that He resents the name "good master," on the
ground of the unbelief, which addresses Him as a man, He replies to the
vain-glorious youth, and his boast that he had fulfilled the law, One thing
thou lackest; go, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou
shalt have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me. There is no shrinking
from the title of "good" in the promise of heavenly treasures, no reluctance
to be regarded as "master" in the offer to lead the way to perfect
blessedness. But there is reproof of the unbelief which draws an earthly

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opinion of Him from the teaching, that goodness belongs to God alone. To
signify that He is both good and God, He exercises the functions of
goodness, opening the heavenly treasures, and offering Himself as guide to
them. All the homage offered to Him as man He repudiates, but he does
not disown that which He paid to God; for at the moment when He
confesses that the one God is good, His words and actions are those of the
power and the goodness and the nature of the one God.

18. That He did not shrink from the title of good, or decline the office of
master, but resented the unbelief which perceived no more in Him than
body and flesh, may be proved from the difference of His language, when
the apostles confessed Him their Master, Ye call Me Master, and Lord,
and ye say well, for so I am; and on another occasion, Be yet not called
masters, far Christ is your Master. From the faithful, to whom He is
master, He accepts the title with words of praise, but here He rejects the
name "good master," when He is not acknowledged to be the Lord and the
Christ, and pronounces the one God alone good, but without distinguishing
Himself from God, for He calls Himself Lord, and Christ, and guide to the
heavenly treasures.

19. The Lord always maintained this definition of the faith of the Church,
which consists in teaching that there is one God the Father, but without
separating Himself from the mystery of the one God, for He declared
Himself, by the nature which is His by birth, neither a second God, nor the
sole God. Since the nature of the One God is in Him, He cannot be God of
a different kind from Him; His birth requires that, being Son, it should be
with a perfect Sonship. So He can neither be separated from God nor
merged in God. Hence He speaks in words deliberately chosen, so that
whatever He claims for the Father, He signifies in modest language to be
appropriate to Himself also. Take as an instance the command, Believe in
God, and believe also in Me. He is identified with God in honor; how,
pray, can He be separated from His nature? He says, Believe in Me also,
just as He said Believe in God. Do not the words in Me signify His
nature? Separate the two natures, but you must separate also the two
beliefs. If it be life, that we should believe in God without Christ, strip
Christ of the name and qualities of God. But if perfect life is given to those
who believe in God, only when they believe in Christ also, let the careful
reader ponder the meaning of the saying, Believe in God, and believe in Me

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also, for these words, uniting faith in Him with faith in God, unite His
nature to God's. He enjoins first of all the duty of belief in God, but adds
to it the command that we should believe in Himself also; which implies
that He is God, since they who believe in God must also believe in Him.
Yet He excludes the suggestion of a unity contrary to religion, for the
exhortation Believe in God, believe in Me also, forbids us to think of Him
as alone in solitude.

20. In many, nay almost all His discourses, He offers the explanation of
this mystery, never separating Himself from the divine unity, when He
confesses God the Father, and never characterizing God as single and
solitary, when He places Himself in unity with Him. But nowhere does He
more plainly teach the mystery of His unity and His birth than when He
says, But the witness which I have is greater than that of John, for the
works which the Father hath given Me to accomplish, the very works that
I do, bear witness of Me, that the Father hath sent Me, and the Father
which sent Me, He hath borne witness of Me. Ye have neither heard His
voice at any time nor seen His form. And ye have not His word abiding in
you, for Whom He sent, Him ye believe not How can the Father be truly
said to have borne witness of the Son, when neither He Himself was seen,
nor His voice heard? Yet I remember that a voice was heard from Heaven,
which said, This is My beloved Son, in Whom I have been well pleased;
hear ye Him. How can it be said that they did not hear the voice of God,
when the voice which they heard itself asserted that it was the Father's
voice? But perhaps the dwellers in Jerusalem had not heard what John had
heard in the solitude of the desert. We must ask, then, "How did the
Father bear witness in Jerusalem?" It is no longer the witness given to
John, who heard the voice from heaven, but a witness greater than that of
John. What that witness is He goes on to say, The works which the Father
hath given me to accomplish, the very works which I do, bear witness of
Me, that the Father hath sent Me. We must admit the authority of the
testimony, for no one, except the Son sent of the Father, could do such
works. His works are therefore His testimony. But what follows? And the
Father, which sent Me, He hath borne witness of Me. Ye have neither
heard His voice at any time, nor seen His form, and ye have not His word
abiding in you. Are they blameless, in that they did not know the
testimony of the Father, Who was never heard or seen amongst them, and

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Whose word was not abiding in them? No, for they cannot plead that His
testimony was hidden from them; as Christ says, the testimony of His
works is the testimony of the Father concerning Him. His works testify of
Him that He was sent of the Father; but the testimony of these works is
the Father's testimony; since, therefore, the working of the Son is the
Father's testimony, it follows of necessity that the same nature was
operative in Christ, by which the Father testifies of Him. So Christ, Who
works the works, and the Father Who testifies through them, are revealed
as possessing one inseparable nature through the birth, for the operation of
Christ is signified to be itself the testimony of God concerning Him.

21. They are not, therefore, acquitted of blame for not recognizing the
testimony; for the works of Christ are the Father's testimony concerning
Him. Nor can they plead ignorance of the testimony on the ground that
they had not heard the voice of the Testifier, nor seen His form, nor had
His word abiding in them. For immediately after the words, Ye have
neither heard His voice at any time, nor seen His form, and ye have not
His word abiding in you, He points out why the voice was not heard, nor
the form seen, and the word did not abide in them, though the Father had
testified concerning Him: For Whom He sent, Him ye believe not; that is,
if they had believed Him, they would have heard the voice of God, and
seen the form of God, and His word would have been in them, since
through the unity of Their nature the Father is heard and manifested and
possessed in the Son. Is He not also the expression of the Father, since He
was sent from Him? Does He distinguish Himself by any difference of
nature from the Father, when He says that the Father, testifying of Him,
was neither heard, nor seen, nor understood, because they did not believe
in Him, Whom the Father sent? The Only-begotten God does not,
therefore, separate Himself from God when He confesses God the Father;
but, proclaiming by the word "Father" His relationship to God. He
includes Himself in the honor due to God.

22. For, in this very same discourse in which He pronounces that His
works testify of Him that He was sent of the Father, and asserts that the
Father testifies of Him, that He was sent from Him, He says, The honor of
Him, Who alone is God, ye seek not. This is not, however, a bare
statement, without any previous preparation for the belief in His unity
with the Father. Hear what precedes it, Ye will not come to Me that ye

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may have life. I receive not glory from men. But I know you, that ye have
not the love of God in yourselves. I am come in My Father's name, and ye
receive Me not: if another shall come in His name, him ye will receive.
How can ye believe, which receive glory, from men, and the glory of Him,
Who alone is God, ye seek not He disdains the glory of men, for glory
should rather be sought of God. It is the mark of unbelievers to receive
glory of one another: for what glory can man give to man? He says He
knows that the love of God is not in them, and pronounces, as the cause,
that they do not receive Him coming in His Father's name. "Coming in His
Father's name:" what does that mean but "coming in the name of God?" Is
it not because they rejected Him Who came in the name of God, that the
love of God is not in them? Is it not implied that He has the nature of God,
when He says, Ye will not come to Me that ye may have life. Hear what
He said of Himself in the same discourse, Verily, verily, I say unto you,
the hour cometh, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son
of God; and they there hear shall live. He comes in the name of the Father:
that is, He is not Himself the Father, yet is in the same divine nature as the
Father: for as Son and God it is natural for Him to come in the name of the
Father. Then, another coming in the same name they will receive: but he is
one from whom men will expect glory, and to whom they will give glory in
return, though he will feign to have come in the name of the Father. By
this, doubtless, is signified the Antichrist, glorying in his false use of the
Father's name. Him they will glorify, and will be glorified of him: but the
glory of Him, Who alone is God, they will not seek.

23. They have not the love of God in them, He says, because they rejected
Him coming in the name of the Father, but accepted another, who came in
the same name, and received glory of one another, but neglected the glory
of Him, Who is the only true God. Is it possible to think that He separates
Himself from the glory of the only God, when He gives as the reason why
they seek not the glory of the only God, that they receive Antichrist, and
Himself they will not receive? To reject Him is to neglect the glory of the
only God; is not, then, His glory the glory of the only God, if to receive
Him steadfastly was to seek the glory of the only God? This very
discourse is our witness: for at its beginning we read, That all may honor
the Son, even as they honor the Father. He that honoreth not the Son,
honoreth not the Father which sent Him. It is only things of the same

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nature that are equal in honor; equality of honor denotes that there is no
separation between the honored. But with the revelation of the birth is
combined, the demand for equality of honor. Since the Son is to be honored
as the Father' , and since they seek not the honor of Him, Who is the only
God, He is not excluded from the honor of the only God, for His honor is
one and the same as that of God: just as He that honoreth not the Son,
honoreth not the Father also, so he who seeks not the honor of the only
God, seeks not the honor of Christ also. Accordingly the honor of Christ is
inseparable from the honor of God. By His words, when the news of
Lazarus' sickness was brought to Him, He illustrates the complete
identification of Father and Son in honor: This sickness is not unto death,
but far the glory of God, that the Son of Man may be glorified through him
Lazarus dies for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified
through him. Is there any doubt that the glory of the Son of God is the
glory of God, when the death of Lazarus, which is glorious to God,
glorifies the Son of God? Thus Christ is declared to be one in nature with
God the Father through His birth, since the sickness of Lazarus is for the
glory of God, and at the same time the Mystery of the faith is not
violated, for the Son of God is to be glorified through Lazarus. The Son of
God is to be regarded as God, yet He is none the less to be confessed also
Son of God: for by glorifying God through Lazarus, the Son of God is
glorified.

24. By the mystery of the divine nature we are forbidden to separate the
birth of the living Son from His living Father. The Son of God suffers no
such change of kind, that the truth of His Father' s nature does not abide in
Him. For even where, by the confession of one God only, He seems to
disclaim for Himself the nature of God by the term "only," nevertheless,
without destroying the belief in one God, He places Himself in the unity
of the Father's nature. Thus, when the Scribe asked Him, which is the
chief commandment of the law, He answered, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our
God is one Lord: thou shall love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and
with all thy soul, and with all thy spirit, and with all thy strength. This is
the first commandment. And the second is like unto it, Than shall love thy
neighbor as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.
They think that He severs Himself from the nature and worship of the
One God when He pronounces as the chief commandment, Hear, O Israel,

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the Land our God is one Lord, and does not even make Himself the object
of worship in the second commandment, since the law bids us to love our
neighbor, as it bids us to believe in one God. Nor must we pass over the
answer of the Scribe, Of a truth thou hast well said, that God is one, and
there is none other but He: and to love Him with all the heart, and all the
strength and all the soul, and to love his neighbor as himself, this is greater
than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices. The answer of the Scribe
seems to accord with the words of the Lord, for He too proclaims the
innermost and inmost love of one God, and professes the love of one's
neighbor as real as the love of self, and places love of God and love of
one's neighbor above all the burnt offerings of sacrifices. But let us see
what follows.

25. And when Jesus saw that he answered discreetly, He said unto him,
Thou art not far from the kingdom of Gads. What is the meaning of such
moderate praise? Believe in one God, and love Him with all thy soul, and
with all thy strength, and with all thy heart, and love thy neighbor as
thyself; if this be the faith which makes man perfect for the Kingdom of
God, why is not the Scribe already within, instead of not far from the
Kingdom of Heaven? It is in another strain that He grants the Kingdom of
Heaven to those who clothe the naked, feed the hungry, give drink to the
thirsty, and visit the sick and the prisoner, Come, ye blessed of My
Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the
world; or rewards the poor in spirit, Blessed are the poor in spirit: far
theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. Their gain is perfect, their possession
complete, their inheritance of the kingdom prepared for them is secured.
But was this young man's confession short of theirs? His ideal of duty
raises love of neighbor to the level of love of self; what more did he want
to attain to the perfection of good conduct? To be occasionally charitable,
and ready to help, is not perfect love; but perfect love has fulfilled the
whole duty of charity, when a man leaves no debt to his neighbor unpaid,
but gives him as much as he gives,himself . But the Scribe was debarred
from perfection, because he did not know the mystery which had been
accomplished. He received, indeed, the praise of the Lord for his
profession of faith, he heard the reply that he was not far from the
kingdom, but he was not put in actual possession of the blessed hope. His
course, though ignorant, was favorable; he put the love of God before all

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things, and charity towards his neighbor on a level with love of self. And
when he ranked the love of God even higher than charity towards his
neighbor, he broke through the law of burnt offerings and sacrifices; and
that was not far from the mystery of the Gospel.

26. We may perceive also, from the words of our Lord Himself, why He
said, Thou art not far from the Kingdom of Heaven, rather than, Thou shall
be in the Kingdom of Heaven. Then follows: And no man after that durst
ask Him any question. And Jesus answered and said, as He taught in the
Temple, How say the Scribes that the Christ is the Son of David? David
himself saith in the Holy Spirit, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit Thou an
My right hand, till I make Thine enemies the footstool of Thy feet (Ps. ex.
1). David himself calleth Him Lord, and whence is He his Son? The Scribe
is not far from the Kingdom of God when he confesses one God, Who is to
be loved above all things. But his own statement of the law is a reproach to
him that the mystery of the law has escaped him, that he does not know
Christ the Lord, the Son of God, by the nature of His birth to be included
in the confession of the one God. The confession of one God according to
the law seemed to leave no room for the Son of God in the mystery of the
one Lord; so He asks the Scribe, how he can call Christ the Son of David,
when David calls Him his Lord, since it is against the order of nature that
the son of so great a Patriarch should be also his Lord. He would bid the
Scribe, who regards Him only in respect of His flesh, and His birth from
Mary, the daughter of David, to remember that, in respect of His Spirit,
He is David's Lord rather than his son; that the words, Hear, O Israel, the
Lord our God is one Lord, do not sever Christ from the mystery of the
One Lord, since so great a Patriarch and Prophet calls Him his Lord, as the
Son begotten of the Lord before the morning star. He does not pass over
the law, or forget that none other is to be confessed Lord, but without
violating the faith of the law, He teaches that He is Lord, in that He had
His being by the mystery of a natural birth from the substance of the
incorporeal God. He is one, born of one, and the nature of the one Lord has
made Him by nature Lord.

27. What room is any longer left for doubt? The Lord Himself proclaiming
that the chief commandment of the law is to confess and love the one Lord,
proves Himself to be Lord not by words of His own, but by the Prophet's
testimony, always signifying, however, that He is Lord, because He is the

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Son of God. By virtue of His birth He abides in the mystery of the one
God, for the birth transmitting with it, as it did, the nature of God is not
the issuing forth of another God with a different nature; and, because the
generation is real, neither is the Father degraded from being Lord, nor is the
Son born less than Lord. The Father retains His authority, the Son obtains
His nature. God the Father is one Lord, but the Only -begotten God the
Lord is not separated from the One, since He derives His nature as Lord
from the one Lord. Thus by the law Christ teaches that there is one Lord;
by the witness of the prophets He proves Himself Lord also.

28. May the faith of the Gospel ever profit thus by the rash contentions
of the ungodly to defend itself with the weapons of their attack, and
conquering with the arms prepared for its destruction, prove that the
words of the one Spirit are the doctrine of the one faith! For Christ is none
other than. He is preached, namely the true God, and abiding in the glory
of the one true God. Just as He proclaims Himself Lord out of the law,
even when He seems to deny the fact, so in the Gospels He proves
Himself the true God, even when He appears to confess the opposite. To
escape the acknowledgment that He is the true God, the heretics plead that
He said, And this is life eternal, that they should know Thee, the only true
God. and Him Whom Thou didst send, even Jesus Christ. When He says,
Thee, the only true God, they think He excludes Himself from the reality
of God by the restriction of solitariness; for the only true God cannot be
understood except as a solitary God. It is true the Apostolic faith does not
suffer us to believe in two true Gods, for nothing which is foreign to the
nature of the one God can be put on equality with the truth of that nature;
and there is more than one God in the reality of the one God, if there exists
outside the nature of the only true God a true God of another kind, not
possessing by virtue of His birth the same nature with Him.

29. But by these very words He proclaims Himself plainly to be true God
in the nature of the only true God. To understand this, let our answer
proceed from statements which He made previously, though the
connection is unbroken right down to these words. We can then establish
the faith step by step, and let the confidence of our freedom rest at last on
the summit of our argument, the true Godhead of Christ. There comes first
the mystery of His words, He that hath seen Me, hath seen tire Father;
and, Do ye not believe Me that! am in tire Father and the Father in Me?

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The words that I say unto you, I speak not front Myself; but the Father
abiding in Me, Himself doeth His works. Believe Me that I and in the
Father and the Father in Me: or else believe Me for the very works' sake.
At the close of this discourse, teeming with deep mysteries, follows the
reply of the disciples, Now know we that Thou knowest all things, and
needest not that any man should ask thee: by this we believe that Thou
earnest forth front God. They perceived in Him the nature of God 1 by the
divine powers which He exercised; for to know all things, and to read the
thoughts of the heart belongs to the Son, not to the mere messenger of
God. They confessed, therefore, that He was come from God, because the
power of the divine nature was in Him.

30. The Lord praised their understanding, and answered not that He was
sent from, but that He was come out from, God, signifying by the words
"come out from" the great fact of His birth from the incorporeal God. He
had already proclaimed the birth in the same language, when He said, Ye
love Me, and believe that I came out from the Father, and came from the
Father into this world. He had come from the Father into this world,
because He had come out from God. To shew that He signifies His birth
by the coming out, He adds that He has come from the Father; and since
He had come out from God, because He had come from the Father, that
"coming out," followed, as it is, by the confession of the Father's name, is
simply and solely the birth. To the Apostles, then, as understanding this
mystery of His coming out, He continues, Ye believe now, Behold the
hour cometh, yea is come, that ye shall be scattered, every man to his own,
and shall leave Me alone: yet I am not alone, because the Father is with
Me. He would shew that the "coming out" is not a separation from God
the Father, but a birth, which by His being born continues in Him the
nature of God the Father, and therefore He adds that He is not alone, but
the Father is with Him; in power, that is, and unity of nature, for the
Father was abiding in Him, speaking in His words, and working in His
works. Lastly to shew the reason of this whole discourse, He adds, These
things I have spoken to you, that in Me ye may have peace. In this world
ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer, for I have overcame the
worlds. He has spoken these things unto them, that in Him they may abide
in peace, not torn asunder by the passion of dissension over debates about
the faith. He was left alone, but was not alone, for He had come out from

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God, and there abode still in Him the God, from Whom He had come out.
Therefore he bade them, when they were harassed in the world, to wait for
His promises, for since He had come out from God, and God was still in
Him, He had conquered the world.

31. Then, finally, to express in words the whole Mystery, He raised His
eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come: glorify Thy Son, that
Thy Son may glorify Thee. Even as Thou gavest Him authority over all
flesh, that, whatsoever Thou hast given Him, to them He should give
eternal life. Do you call Him weak because He asks to be glorified? So be
it, if He does not ask to be glorified in order that He may Himself glorify
Him by Whom He is glorified. Of the receiving and giving of glory we have
spoken in another book, and it would be superfluous to go over the
question again. But of this at least we are certain, that He prays for glory
in order that the Father may be glorified by granting it. But perhaps He is
weak in that He receives power over all flesh. And indeed the receiving of
power might be a sign of weakness if He were not able to give to those
whom He receives life eternal. Yet the very fact of receiving is used to
prove inferiority of nature. It might, if Christ were not true God by birth
as truly as is the Unbegotten. But if the receiving of power signifies neither
more nor less than the Birth, by which He received all that He has, that gift
does not degrade the Begotten, because it makes Him perfectly and
entirely what God is. God Unbegotten brought God Only-begotten to a
perfect birth of divine blessedness: it is, then, the mystery of the Father to
be the Author of the Birth, but it is no degradation to the Son to be made
the perfect image of His Author by a real birth. 'The giving of power over
all flesh, and this, in order that to all flesh might be given eternal life,
postulates the Fatherhood of the Giver and the Divinity of the Receiver:
for by giving is signified that the One is the Father, and in receiving the
power to give eternal life, the Other remains God the Son. All power is
therefore natural and congenital to the Son of God; and though it is given,
that does not separate Him from His Author, for that which is given is the
property of His Author, power to bestow eternal life, to change the
corruptible into the incorruptible. The Father gave all, the Son received all;
as is plain from His words, All things, whatsoever the Father hath, are
Mine. He is not speaking here of species of created things, and processes
of material change, but He unfolds to us the glory of the blessed and

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perfect Divinity, and teaches us that God is here manifested as the sum of
His attributes, His power, His eternity. His providence, His authority; not
that we should think that He possesses these as something extraneous to
Himself, but that by these His qualities He Himself has been expressed in
terms partly comprehensible by our sense. The Only-be-gotten, therefore,
taught that He had all that the Father has, and that the Holy Spirit should
receive of Him: as He says, All things, whatsoever the Father hath, are
Mine; therefore I said, He shall take of Mine. All that the Father hath are
His, delivered and received: but these gifts do not degrade His divinity,
since they give Him the same attributes as the Father.

32. These are the steps by which He advances the knowledge of Himself.
He teaches that He is come out from the Father, pro-, claims that the
Father is with Him, and testifies that He has conquered the world. He is to
be glorified of the Father, and will glorify Him: He will use the power He
has received, to give to all flesh eternal life. Then hear the crowning point,
which concludes the whole series„And this is life eternal, that they should
know Thee, the only true God, and Him Whom Thou didst send, even
Jesus Christ. Learn, heretic, to confess, if you cannot believe, the faith
which gives eternal life. Separate, if you can, Christ from God, the Son
from the Father, God over all from the true God, the One from the Only:
if, as you say, eternal life is to believe in one only true God without Jesus
Christ. But if there is no eternal life in a confession of the only true God,
which separates Christ from Him, how, pray, can Christ be separated from
the true God for our faith, when He is not separable for our salvation?

33. 1 know that labored solutions of difficult questions do not find favor
with the reader, but it will perhaps be to the advantage of the faith if I
permit myself to postpone for a time the exposition of the full truth, and
wrestle against the heretics with these wonts of the Gospel. You hear the
statement of the Lord, This is life eternal, that they should know Thee, the
only true God, and Him Whom Thou didst send, even Jesus Christ. What
is it, pray, which suggests to you that Christ is not the true God? No
further indication is given to shew you what you should think of Christ.
There is nothing but Jesus Christ: not Son of Man, as He generally called
Himself: not San of God, as He often declared Himself: not the living bread
which cometh down from Heaven, as He repeated to the scandal of many.
He says, Thee, the only true God, and Him Whom Thou didst send, even

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Jesus Christ, omitting all His usual names and titles, natural and assumed.
Hence, if the confession of the only true God, and at Jesus Christ, gives us
eternal life, without doubt the name Jesus Christ has here the full sense of
that of God.

34. But perhaps by saying, Thee the only, Christ severs Himself from
communion and unity with God. Yes, but after the words, Thee the only
true God, does He not immediately continue, and Him Whom Thou didst
send, even Jesus Christ? I appeal to the sense of the reader: what must we
believe Christ to be, when we are commanded to believe in Him also, as
well as the Father the only true God? Or, perhaps, if the Father is the only
true God, there is no room for Christ to be God. It might be so, if, because
there is one God the Father, Christ were not the one Lord. The fact that
God the Father is one, leaves Christ none the less the one Lord: and
similarly the Father's one true Godhead makes Christ none the less true
God: for we can only obtain eternal life if we believe in Christ, as well as in
the only true God

35. Come, heretic, what will your fatuous doctrine instruct us to believe of
Christ; Christ, Who dispenses eternal life, Who is glorified of, and glorifies,
the Father, Who overcame the world, Who, deserted, is not alone, but has
the Father with Him, Who came out from God, and came from the Father?
He is born with such divine powers; what of the nature and reality of God
will you allow Him? It is in vain that we believe in the only true God the
Father, unless we believe also in Him, Whom He sent, even Jesus Christ.
Why do you hesitate? Tell us, what is Christ to be confessed? You deny
what has been written: what is left, but to believe what has not been
written? O unhappy willfulness! O falsehood striving against the truth!
Christ is united in belief and confession with the only true God the Father:
what faith is it, pray, to deny Him to be true God, and to call Him a
creature, when it is no faith to believe in the only true God without Christ?
But you are narrow, heretic, and unable to receive the Holy Spirit. The
sense of the heavenly words escapes you; stung with the asp's poison of
error, you forget that Christ is to be confessed true God in the faith of the
only true God, if we would obtain eternal life.

36. But the faith of the Church, while confessing the only true God the
Father, confesses Christ also. It does not confess Christ true God without

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the Father the only true God; nor the Father the only true God without
Christ. It confesses Christ true God, because it confesses the Father the
only true God. Thus the fact that God the Father is the only true God
constitutes Christ also true God. The Only-begotten God suffered no
change of nature by His natural birth: and He Who, according to the nature
of His divine origin was born God from the living God, is, by the truth of
that nature, inalienable from the only true God. Thus there follows from
the true divine nature its necessary result, that the outcome of true divinity
must be a true birth, and that the one God could not produce from Himself
a God of a second kind. The mystery of God consists neither in
simplicity, nor in multiplicity: for neither is there another God, Who
springs from God with qualities of His own nature, nor does God remain
as a single Person, for the true birth of the Son teaches us to confess Him
as Father. The begotten God did not, therefore, lose the qualities of His
nature: He possesses the natural power of Him, Whose nature He retains
in Himself by a natural birth. The divinity in Him is not changed, or
degenerate, for if His birth had brought with it any defect, it would more
justly cast upon the Nature, through which He came into being, the
reflection of having failed to implant in its offspring the properties of
itself. The change would not degrade the Son, Who had passed into a new
substance by birth, but the Father, Who had been unable to maintain the
constancy of His nature in the birth of the Son, and had brought forth
something external and foreign to Himself.

37. But, as we have often said, the inadequacy of human ideas has no
corresponding inadequacy in the unity of God the Father and God the Son:
as though there were extension, or series, or flux, like a spring pouring
forth its stream from the source, or a tree supporting its branch on the
stem, or fire giving out its heat into space. In these cases we have
expansion without any separation: the parts are bound together and do not
exist of themselves, but the heat is in the fire, the branch in the tree, the
stream in the spring. So the thing itself alone has an independent existence;
the one does not pass into the other, for the tree and the branch are one
and the same, as also the fire and the heat, the spring and the stream. But
the Only-begotten God is God, subsisting by virtue of a perfect and
ineffable birth, true Scion of the Unbegotten God, incorporeal offspring of
an incorporeal nature, living and true God of living and true God, God of a

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nature inseparable from God. The fact of birth does not make Him God
with a different nature, nor did the generation, which produced His
substance, change its nature in kind.

38. Put in the dispensation of the flesh which He assumed, and through the
obedience whereby He emptied Himself of the form of God, Christ, born
man, took to Himself a new nature, not by loss of virtue or nature but by
change of fashion. He emptied Himself of the form of God and took the
form of a servant, when He was born. But the Fathers nature, with which
He was in natural unity, was not affected by this assumption of flesh;
while Christ, though abiding in the virtue of His nature, yet in respect of
the humanity assumed in this temporal change, lost together with the form
of God the unity with the divine nature also. But the Incarnation is
summed up in this, that the whole Son, that is, His manhood as well as His
divinity, was permitted by the Father's gracious favor to continue in the
unity of the Father' s nature, and retained not only the powers of the
divine nature, but also that nature's self. For the object to be gained was
that man might become God. But the assumed manhood could not in any
wise abide in the unity of God, unless, through unity with God, it attained
to unity with the nature of God. Then, since God the Word was in the
nature of God, the Word made flesh would in its turn also be in the nature
of God. Thus, if the flesh were united to the glory of the Word, the man
Jesus Christ could abide in the glory of God the Father, and the Word
made flesh could be restored to the unity of the Father' s nature, even as
regards His manhood, since the assumed flesh had obtained the glory of the
Word. Therefore the Father must reinstate the Word in His unity, that the
offspring of His nature might again return to be glorified in Himself: for the
unity had been infringed by the new dispensation, and could only be
restored perfect as before if the Father glorified with Himself the flesh
assumed by the Son.

39. For this reason, having already so well prepared their minds for the
understanding of this belief, the Lord follows up the words, And this is
eternal life, that they should know Thee, the only true God, and Him
Whom Thou didst send, even Jesus Christ, with a reference to the
obedience displayed in His incarnation I have glorified Thee on the earth, I
have accomplished the work which Thou gavest Me to do. And then, that
we might know the reward of His obedience, and the secret purpose of the

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whole divine plan, He continued, And now, O Father, glorify Thou slate
with Thine own self, with the glory which I had with Thee before the
world was. Does any one deny that Christ remained in the nature of God
or believe Him separable and distinct from the only true God? Let him tell
us what is the meaning of this prayer. And now, Father, glorify Thou
Me with Thine own self. For what purpose should the Father glorify Him
with His own self? What is the signification of these words? What follows
from their signification? The Father neither stood in need of glory, nor had
He emptied Himself of the form of His glory. How should He glorify the
Son with His own self, and with that glory which He had with Him before
the world was made? And what is the sense of which He had with Him?
Christ does not say, "The glory which I had before the world was made,
when I was with Thee," but, The glory which I had with Thee. When I
was with Thee would signify, "when I dwelt by Thy side:" but which I
had with Thee teaches the Mystery of His nature. Further, Glorify Me
with Thyself is not the same as "Glorify Me." He does not ask merely
that He may be glorified, that He may have some special glory of His own,
but prays that He may be glorified of the Father with Himself. The Father
was to glorify Him with Himself, that He might abide in unity with Him as
before, since the unity with the Father's glory had left Him through the
obedience of the Incarnation. And this means that the glorifying should
reinstate Him in that nature, with which He was united by the Mystery of
His divine birth; that He might be glorified of the Father with Himself; that
He should resume all that He had had with the Father before; that the
assumption of the servant's form should not estrange from Him the nature
of the form of God, but that God should glorify in Himself the form of the
servant, that it might become for ever the form of God, since He, Who had
before abode in the form of God, was now in the form of a servant, land
since the form of a servant was to be glorified in the form of God, it was to
be glorified in Him in Whose form the fashion of the servant's form was to
be honored.

40. But these words of the Lord are not new, or attested now for the first
time in the teaching of the Gospels, for He testified to this very mystery
of God the Father glorifying the Son with Himself by the noble joy at the
fulfillment of His hope, with which He rejoiced at the very moment when
Judas went forth to betray Him. Filled with joy that His purpose was now

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to be fully accomplished. He said, Now is the Son of Man glorified and
God is glorified in Him. If God is glorified in Him, He hath glorified Him in
Himself, and straightway hath He glorified Him. How can we whose souls
are burdened with bodies of clay, whose minds are polluted and stained
with foul consciousness of sin, be so puffed up as to judge of His divine
claim? How can we set up ourselves to criticize His heavenly nature,
rebelling against God with our unhallowed and blasphemous disputations?
The Lord enunciated the faith of the Gospel in the simplest words that
could be found, and fitted His discourses to our understanding, so far as
the weakness of our nature allowed Him, without saying anything
unworthy of the majesty of His own nature. The signification of His
opening words cannot, I think, be doubted, Now is the Son of Man
glorified; that is, all the glory which He obtains is not for the Word but for
His flesh: not for the birth of His Godhead, but for the dispensation of His
manhood born into the world. What then, may I ask, is the meaning of
what follows, And God is glorified in Him? I hear that God is glorified in
Him; but what that can be according to your interpretation, heretic, I do
not know. God is glorified in Him, in the Son of Man, that is: tell me, then,
is the Son of Man the same as the Son of God? And since the Son of Man
is not one and the Son of God another, but He Who is Son of God is
Himself also Son of Man, Who, pray, is the God Who is glorified in this
Son of Man, Who is also Son of God?

41. So God is glorified in the Son of Man, Who is also Son of God. Let us
see, then, what is this third clause which is added, If God is glorified in
Him, God hath also glorified Him in Himself. What, pray, is this secret
mystery? God, in the glorified Son of Man, glorifies a glorified God in
Himself The glory of God is in the Son of Man, and the glory of God is in
the glory of the Son of Man. God glorifies in Himself, but man is not
glorified through himself. Again the God Who is glorified in the man,
though He receives the glory, yet is Himself none other than God. But
since in the glorifying of the Son of Man. the God, Who glorifies, glorifies
God in Himself, I recognize that the glory of Christ' s nature is taken into
the glory of that nature which glorifies His nature. God does not glorify
Himself; but He glorifies in Himself God glorified in man. And this
"glorifies in Himself," though it is not a glorifying of Himself, yet means
that He took the nature, which He glorified, into the glory of His own

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nature Since the God, Who glorifies the God glorified in man, glorifies Him
in Himself, He proves that the God Whom He glorifies is in Himself, for
He glorifies Him in Himself. Come, heretic, whoever you be, produce the
inextricable objections of your tortuous doctrine; though they bind
themselves in their own tangles, yet, marshal them as you will, we shall
not be in danger of sticking in their snares. The Son of Man is glorified;
God is glorified in Him; God glorifies in Himself Him, Who is glorified in
the man. It is not the same that the Son of Man is glorified, as that God is
glorified in the Son of Man, or that God glorifies in Himself Him, Who is
glorified in the man. Express in the terms of your unholy belief, what you
mean by God being glorified in the Son of Man. It must certainly be either
Christ Who is glorified in the flesh, or the Father Who is glorified in Christ.
If it is Christ is manifestly God, Who is glorified in the flesh. If it is the
Father, we are face to face with the mystery of the unity, since the Father
is glorified in the Son. Thus, if you allow it to be Christ, despite yourself
you confess Him God; if you understand it of God the Father, you cannot
deny the nature of God the Father in Christ. Let this be enough concerning
the glorified Son of Man and God glorified in Him. But when we consider
that God glorifies in Himself God, Who is glorified in the Son of Man, by
what loophole, pray, can your profane doctrine escape from the
confession that Christ is very God according to the verity of His nature?
God glorifies in Himself Christ, Who was born a man; is Christ then
outside Him, when He glorifies Him in Himself? He restores to Christ in
Himself the glory which He had with Himself, and now that the servant's
form, which He assumed, is in turn assumed into the form of God, God
Who is glorified in man is glorified in Himself; He was in God's self before
the dispensation, by which He emptied Himself, and now He is united
with God's self, both in the form of the servant, and in the nature
belonging to His birth. For His birth did not make Him God of a new and
foreign nature, but by generation He was made natural Son of a natural
Father. After His human birth, when He is glorified in His manhood, He
shines again with the glory of His own nature; the Father glorifies Him in
Himself, when He is assumed into the glory of His Father's nature, of
which He had emptied Himself in the dispensation.

42. The words of the Apostle's faith are a barrier against your reckless and
frenzied profanity, which forbids you to turn the freedom of speculation

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into license, and wander into error. Every tongue, he says, shall confess
that Jesus is Lord in the glory of God the Father. The Father has glorified
Him in Himself, therefore He must be confessed in the glory of the Father.
And if He is to be confessed in the Father's glory, and the Father has
glorified Him in Himself, is He not plainly all that His Father is, since the
Father has glorified Him in Himself and He is to be confessed in the
Father' s glory? He is now not merely in the glory of God, but in the glory
of God the Father. The Father glorifies Him. not with a glory from
without, but in Himself. By taking Him back into that glory, which
belongs to Himself, and which He had with Him before, the Father glorifies
Him with Himself and in Himself. Therefore this confession is inseparable
from Christ even in the humiliation of His manhood, as He says, And this
is eternal life, that they should know Thee, the only true God, Him, Whom
Thou didst send, even Jesus Christ; for firstly there is no life eternal in the
confession of God the Father without Jesus Christ, and secondly Christ is
glorified in the Father. Eternal life is precisely this, to know the only true
God and Him, Whom He sent, even Jesus Christ; deny that Christ is true
God, if you can have life by believing in God without Him. As for the
truth that God the Father is the only true God let this be untrue of the
God Christ, unless Christ's glory is wholly in the only true God the
Father. For if the Father glorifies Him in Himself, and the Father is the
only true God, Christ is not outside the only true God, since the Father,
Who is the only true God, glorifies in Himself Christ, Who is raised into
the glory of God. And in that He is glorified by the only true God in
Himself, He is not estranged from the only true God, for He is glorified by
the true God in Himself, the only God.

43. But perhaps the godless unbeliever meets the pious believer with the
assertion that we cannot understand of the true God a confession of
powerlessness, such as, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do
nothing of Himself, but what He hath seen the Father doing. If the twofold
angers of the Jews had not demanded a twofold answer, it would indeed
have been a confession of weakness, that the Son could do nothing of
Himself, except what He had seen the Father doing. But Christ was
answering in the same sentence the double charge of the Jews, who accused
Him of violating the Sabbath, and of making Himself equal with God by
calling God His Father. Do you think, then, that by fixing attention upon

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the form of His reply you can withdraw it for the substance? We have
already treated of this passage in another book; yet as the exposition of the
faith gains rather than loses by repetition, let us ponder once more on the
words, since the occasion demands it of us.

44. Hear how the necessity for the reply arose: — And for this cause did
the Jews persecute Jesus, and sought to kill Him, because He did these
things on the Sabbath. Their anger was so kindled against Him, that they
desired to kill Him, because He did His works on the Sabbath. But let us
see also what the Lord answered, My Father worketh even until now, and
I work. Tell us, heretic, what is that work of the Father; since through the
Son, and in the Son, are all things, visible and invisible? You, who are wise
beyond the Gospels, have doubtless obtained from some other secret
source of learning the knowledge of the Father's work, to reveal Him to us.
But the Father works in the Son, as the Son Himself says, The words that
I say unto you, I speak not from Myself, but the Father who abideth in
Me, He doeth His works. Do you grasp the meaning of the words, My
Father worketh even until now? He speaks that we may recognize in Him
the power of the Father's nature employing the nature, which has that
power, to work on the Sabbath. The Father works in Him while He works;
without doubt, then, He works along with the working of the Father, and
therefore He says, My Father worketh even until now, that this present
work of His words and actions may be regarded as the working of the
Father's nature in Himself. This worketh even until now identifies the time
with the moment of speaking, and therefore we must regard Him as
referring to that very work of the Father's which He was then doing, for it
implies the working of the Father at the very time of His words. And lest
the Faith, being restricted to a knowledge of the Father only, should fair of
the hope of eternal life, He adds at once, And I work; that is, what the
Father worketh even until now, the Son also worketh. Thus He expounds
the whole of the faith; for the work which is now, belongs to the present
time; and if the Father works, and the Son works, no union exists between
them, which merges them into a single Person. But the wrath of the
bystanders is now redoubled. Hear what follows, For this cause, therefore,
the Jews sought the more to kill Him, because He not only broke the
Sabbath, but because He called God His own Father, making Himself equal
with God. Allow me here to repeat that, by the judgment of the Evangelist

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and by common consent of mankind, the Son is in equality with the
Father's nature; and that equality cannot exist except by identity of nature.
The begotten cannot derive what it is save from its source and the thing
generated cannot be foreign to that which generates it, since from that alone
has it come to be what it is. Let us see, then, what the Lord replied to this
double outburst of wrath, Verily, verily, I say unto you, the Son can do
nothing of Himself, but what He hath seen the Father doing: for what
things soever He doeth, these the Son also doeth in like manner.

45. Unless we regard these words as an integral part of His statement, we
do them violence by forcing upon them an arbitrary and unbelieving
interpretation. But if His answer refers to the grounds of their anger, our
faith expresses rightly what He meant to teach, and the perversity of the
ungodly is left without support for its profane delusion. Let us see then
whether this reply is suitable to an accusation of working on the Sabbath.
The Son can do nothing, of Himself, but what He hath seen the Father
doing. He has said just above, My Father worketh even until now, and I
work. If by virtue of the authority of the Father's nature within Him, all
that He works, He works with the Father in Him, and the Father works
even until now on the Sabbath, then the Son, Who pleads the authority of
the Father's working, is acquitted of blame. For the words, can do nothing,
refer not to strength hut to authority; He can do nothing of Himself, except
what He has seen. Now, to have seen does not confer the power to do, and
therefore He is not weak, if He can do nothing without having seen, but
His authority is shewn to depend on seeing. Again the words, unless He
hath seen, signify the consciousness derived from seeing, as when He says
to the Apostles, Behold I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the
fields, that they are while already unto harvest. With the consciousness
that the Father' s nature is abiding in Him, and working in Him when He
works, to forestall the idea that the Lord of the Sabbath has violated the
Sabbath, He pronounces that, The Son can do nothing of Himself, but
what He hath seen the Father doing. And thus He demonstrates that His
every action springs from His consciousness of the nature working within
Him; when He works on the Sabbath, the Father worketh even until now
on the Sabbath. In what follows, however, He refers to the second cause of
their indignation, For what things soever He doeth, the Son doeth in like
manner. Is it false that, what things soever the Father doeth, the Son doeth

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in like manner? Does the Son of God admit a distinction between the
Father's power and working and His own? Does He shrink from claiming
the equality of homage befitting an equal in power and nature? If He does,
disdain His weakness, and degrade Him from equality of nature with the
Father But He Himself says only a little later, That all may honor the Son,
even as they honor the Father, He that honoreth not the Son, honoreth not
the Father which sent Him. Discover, if you can, the inferiority, when
Both are equal in honor; make out the weakness, when Both work with the
same power.

46. Why do you misrepresent the occasion of the reply in order to detract
from His divinity? To the working on the Sabbath He answers that He can
do nothing of Himself, but what He hath seen the Father doing: to
demonstrate His equality, He professes to do what things soever the
Father doeth. Enforce your charge of weakness, by His answer concerning
the Sabbath, if you can disprove that what things soever the Father doeth,
the Son doeth in like manner. But if what things soever includes all things
without exception; in what is He found weak, when there is nothing that
the Father doeth, which He cannot also do? Where is His claim to equality
refuted by any episode of weakness, when one and the same honor is
demanded for Him and for the Father? If Both have the same power in
operation, and both claim the same reverence in worship, I cannot
understand what dishonor of inferiority can exist, since Father and Son
possess the same power of operation, and equality of honor.

47. Although we have treated this passage as the facts themselves explain
it, yet to prove that the Lord's words, The Son can do nothing of Himself,
but what He hath seen the Father doing, so far from supporting this
unholy degradation of His nature, testify to His conscious possession of
the nature of the Father, by Whose authority He worked on the Sabbath,
let us shew them that we can produce another saying of the Lord, which
bears upon the question, I do nothing of Myself, but as the Father taught
Me, I speak these things. And He that sent Me is with Me: He hath not
left Me alone, for I do always the things that are pleasing to Him. Do you
feel what is implied in the words, The San can do nothing, but what He
hath seen the Father doing? Or what a mystery is contained in the saying, I
can do nothing of myself, and He hath not left me alone, far I do always
the things that are pleasing to Him? He does nothing of Himself, because

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the Father abides in Him; can you reconcile with this the fact that the
Father does not leave Him, because He does the things which are pleasing
to Him? Your interpretation, heretic, sets up a contradiction between these
two statements, that He does nothing of Himself, unless taught of the
Father abiding in Him, and that the Father abides in Him, because He does
always the things which are pleasing to Him. For if the Father's abiding in
Him means that He does nothing of Himself, how could He have deserved
that the Father should abide in Him, by doing always the things which are
pleasing to the Father. It is no merit, not to do of oneself what one does.
Conversely, how are the Son's deeds pleasing to the Father, if the Father
Himself, abiding in the Son, be their Author? Impiety, thou art in a sore
strait; the well-armed piety of the faith hath hemmed thee in. The Son is
either an Agent, or He is not. If He is not an Agent, how does He please
by his acts? If He is an Agent, in what sense are deeds, done not of
Himself, His own? On the one hand, He must have done the things which
are pleasing; on the other, it is no merit to have done, yet not of oneself,
what one does.

48. But, my opponent, the unity of Their nature is such, that the several
action of Each implies the conjoint action of Both, and Their joint activity
a several activity of Each. Conceive the Son acting, and the Father acting
through Him. He acts not of Himself, for we have to explain how the
Father abides in Him. He acts in His own Person, for in accordance with
His birth as the Son, He does Himself what is pleasing. His acting not of
Himself would prove Him weak, were it not the case that He so acts that
what He does is pleasing to the Father. But He would not be in the unity
of the divine nature, if the deeds which He does, and wherein He pleases,
were not His own, and He were merely prompted to action by the Father
abiding in Him. The Father then in abiding in Him, teaches Him, and the
Son in acting, acts not of Himself; while, on the other hand, the Son,
though not acting of Himself, acts Himself, for what He does is pleasing.
Thus is the unity of Their nature retained in Their action, for the One,
though He acts Himself, does not act of Himself, while the Other, Who has
abstained from action, is yet active.

49. Connect with this that saying, which you lay hold of to support the
imputation of infirmity, All that the Father giveth Me shall come unto Me,
and him that cometh to Me I will in no wise east out; for I am come down

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from heaven not to do Mine own will, but the will of the Father that sent
Me. But, perhaps you say, the Son has no freedom of will: the weakness
of His nature subjects Him to necessity, and He is denied free-will, and
subjected to necessity that He may not reject those who are given to Him
and come from the Father. Nor was the Lord content to demonstrate the
mystery of the Unity by His action in not rejecting those who are given to
Him, nor seeking to do His own will instead of the will of him that sent
Him, but when the Jews, after the repetition of the words, Him that sent
Me, began to murmur, He confirms our interpretation by saying, Every
one who heareth from the Father and learneth, cometh unto Me. Not that
any man hath seen the Father, save He which is from God, He hath seen
the Father. Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth in Me hath
eternal life. Now, tell me first, where has the Father been heard, and where
has He taught His hearers? No one hath seen the Father, save Him Who is
from God: has any one ever heard Him Whom no one has ever seen? He
that has heard from the Father, comes to the Son: and he that has heard the
teaching of the Son, has heard the teaching of the Father's nature, for its
properties are revealed in the Son. When, therefore, we hear the Son
teaching, we must understand that we are hearing the teaching of the
Father. No one hath seen the Father, yet he who comes to the Son, hears
and learns from the Father to come: it is manifest, therefore, that the
Father teaches through the words of the Son, and, though seen of none,
speaks to us in the manifestation of the Son, because the Son, by virtue of
His perfect birth, possesses all the properties of His Father's nature. The
Only-begotten God desiring, therefore, to testify of the Father's authority,
yet inculcating His own unity with tile Father's nature, does not cast out
those who are given to Him of the Father, or work His own will instead of
the will of Him that sent Him: not that the does not will what He does, or
is not Himself heard when He teaches; but in order that He may reveal
Him Who sent Him, and Himself the Sent, under the aspect of one
indistinguishable nature, He shews all that He wills, and says, and does, to
be the will and works of the Father.

50. But He proves abundantly that His will is free by the words, As the
Father raiseth the dead and quickeneth them, even so the Son also
quickeneth whom He will. When the equality of Father and Son in power
and honor is indicated, then the freedom of the Son's will is made manifest:

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when Their unity is demonstrated, His conformity to the Father' s will is
signified, for what the Father wills, the Son does. But to do is something
more than to obey a will: the latter would imply external necessity, while
to do another's will requires unity with him, being an act of volition. In
doing the will of the Father the Son teaches that through the identity of
Their nature His will is the same in nature with the Father's, since all that
He does is the Father' s will. The Son plainly wills all that the Father wills,
for wills of the same nature cannot dissent from one another. It is the will
of the Father which is revealed in the words, For this is the will of My
Father, that every one that beholdeth the Son and believeth in Him, should
have eternal life, and that I should raise Him up at the last day. Hear now,
whether the will of the Son is discordant with the Father's, when He says,
Father, those whom Thou hast given Me, I will that where I am they also
may be with Me. Here is no doubt that the Son wills: for while the Father
wills that those who believe in the Son should have eternal life, the Son
wills that the believer should be where He is. For is it not eternal life to
dwell together with Christ? And does He not grant to the believer in Him
all perfection of blessing when He says, No one hath known the Son save
the Father, neither hath any known the Father save the Son, and he to
whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal Him? Has He not freedom of will,
when He wills to impart to us the knowledge of the Father's mystery? Is
not His will so free that He can bestow on whom He will the knowledge of
Himself and His Father? Thus Father anti Son are manifestly joint
Possessors of a nature common to Both through birth and common
through unity: for the Son is free of will, hut what He does willingly is an
act of the Father' s will.

51. He who has not grasped the manifest truths of the faith, obviously
cannot have an understanding of its mysteries; because he has not the
doctrine of the Gospel he is an alien to the hope of the Gospel. We must
confess the Father to be in the Son and the Son in the Father, by unity of
nature, by might of power, as equal in honor as Begetter and Begotten.
But. perhaps you say, the witness of our Lord Himself is contrary to this
declaration, for He says, The Father is greater than I. Is this, heretic, the
weapon of your profanity? Are these the arms of your frenzy? Has it
escaped you, that the Church does not admit two Unbegotten, or confess
two Fathers? Have you forgotten the Incarnation of the Mediator, with the

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birth, the cradle, the child hood, the passion, the cross and the death
belonging to it? When you were born again, did you not confess the Son of
God, born of Mary? If the Son of God, of Whom these things are true,
says, The Father is greater than I, can you be ignorant that the Incarnation
for your salvation was an emptying of the form of God, and that the
Father, unaffected by this assumption of human conditions, abode in the
blessed eternity of His own incorrupt nature without taking our flesh? We
confess that the Only-begotten God, while He abode in the form of God,
abode in the nature of God, but we do not at once reabsorb into the
substance of the divine unity His unity bearing the form of a servant. Nor
do we teach that the Father is in the Son, as if He entered into Him bodily;
but that the nature which was begotten by the Father of the same kind as
His own, possessed by nature the nature which begot it: and that this
nature, abiding in the form of the nature which begot it, took the form of
human nature and weakness. Christ possessed all that was proper to His
nature: but the form of God had departed from Him, for by emptying
Himself of it. He had taken the form of a servant. The divine nature had
not ceased to be, but still abiding in Him, it had taken upon itself the
humility of earthly birth, and was exercising its proper power in the
fashion of the humility it assumed. So God, born of God, being found as
man in the form of a servant, but acting as God in His miracles, was at
once God as His deeds proved, and yet man, for He was found in the
fashion of man

52. Therefore, in the discourse we have expounded above, He had borne
witness to the unity of His nature with the Father's: He that hath seen
Me, hath seen the Father also: The Father is in Me, and I in the Father.
These two passages perfectly agree, since Both Persons are of equal
nature; to behold the Son is the same as to behold the Father; that the One
abides in the One shows that They are inseparable And. lest they should
misunderstand Him, as though when they beheld His body, they beheld
the Father in Him, He had added, Believe Me, that I am in the Father and
the Father in Me: or else believe Me for the very works' sake. His power
belonged to His nature, and His working was the exercise of that power; in
the exercise of that power, then, they might recognize in Him the unity
with the Father's nature. In proportion as any one recognized Him to be
God in the power of His nature, he would come to know God the Father,

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present in that mighty nature. The Son, Who is equal with the Father,
shewed by His works that the Father could be seen in Him: in order that
we, perceiving in the Son a nature like the Father' s in its power, might
know that in Father and Son there is no distinction of nature.

53. So the Only -begotten God, just before He finished His work in the
flesh, and completed the mystery of taking the servant's form, in order to
establish our faith, thus speaks, Ye heard how I said unto you, I go away,
and I came unto you. If ye loved Me, ye would rejoice, because I go unto
the Father; for the Father is greater than I. He has already, in an earlier part
of this very discourse unfolded in all its aspects the teaching of His divine
nature: can we, then, on the strength of this confession deprive the Son of
that equality, which His true birth has perfected in Him? Or is it an
indignity to the Only-begotten God, that the Unbegotten God is His
Father, seeing that His Only-begotten birth from the Unbegotten gives
Him the Only-begotten nature? He is not the source of His own being, nor
did He, being Himself non-existent, bring to pass His own birth out of
nothing; but, existing as a living nature and from a living nature, He
possesses the power of that nature, and declares the authority of that
nature, by bearing witness to His honor, and in His honor to the grace
belonging to the birth He received. He pays to the Father the tribute of
obedience to the will of Him Who sent Him, but the obedience of humility
does not dissolve the unity of His nature: He becomes obedient unto
death, but, after death, He is above every name.

54. But if His equality is doubted because the Name is given Him after He
put off the form of God, we dishonor Him by ignoring the mystery of the
humility which He assumed. The birth of His humanity brought to Him a
new nature, and His form was changed in His humility, by the assumption
of a servant' s form, but now the giving of the Name restores to Him
equality of form. Ask yourself what it is, which is given. If the gift be
something pertaining to God, the grant to the receiving nature does not
impair the divinity of the giving nature. Again, the words, And gave Him
the Name, involve a mystery in the giving, but the giving of the Name does
not make it another name. To Jesus is given, that to Him, Every knee shall
bow of things in heaven, and things on earth, and things under the earth,
and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord in the glory of God the Father.
The honor is given Him that He should be confessed in the glory of God

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the Father. Do you hear Him say, The Father is greater than I? Know Him
also, of Whom it is said in reward of His obedience, And gave unto Him
the Name which is above every name; hear Him Who said, I and the Father
are one; He that hath seen Me, hath seen the Father also; I am in the
Father, and the Father in Me. Consider the honor of the confession which
is granted Him, that Jesus is Lord in the glory of God the Father. When,
then, is the Father greater than the Son? Surely, when He gives Him the
Name above every name. And on the other hand, when is it that the Son
and the Father are one? Surely, when every tongue confesses that Jesus is
Lord in the glory of God the Father. If, then, the Father is greater through
His authority to give, is the Son less through the confession of receiving?
The Giver is greater: but the Receiver is not less, for to Him it is given to
be one with the Giver. If it is not given to Jesus to be confessed in the
glory of God the Father, He is less than the Father. But if it is given Him
to be in that glory, in which the Father is, we see in the prerogative of
giving, that the Giver is greater, and in the confession of the gift, that the
Two are One. The Father is, therefore, greater than the Son: for manifestly
the is greater, Who makes another to be all that He Himself is, Who
imparts to the Son by the mystery of the birth the image of His own
unbegotten nature, Who begets Him from Himself into His own form, and
restores Him again from the form of a servant to the form of God, Whose
work it is that Christ, born God according to the Spirit in the glory of the
Father, but now Jesus Christ dead in the flesh, should be once more God in
the glory of the Father. When, therefore, Christ says that He is going to
the Father, He reveals the reason why they should rejoice if they loved
Him, because the Father is greater than He.

55. After the explanation that love is the source of this joy, because love
rejoices that Jesus is to be confessed in the glory of God the Father, He
next expresses His claim to receive back that glory, in the words, For the
prince of this world cometh, and he hath nothing in Me. The prince of this
world hath nothing in Him: for being found in fashion as a man, He dwelt
in the likeness of the flesh of sin, yet apart from the sin of the flesh, and in
the flesh condemned sin by sin. Then, giving obedience to the Father' s
command as His only motive, He adds, But that the world may know that
I love the Father, even as the Father gave Me commandment, so I do.
Arise, let us go hence. In His zeal to do the Father's commandment, He

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rises and hastens to complete the mystery of His bodily passion. But the
next moment He unfolds the mystery of His assumption of flesh. Through
this assumption we are in Him, as the branches in the vinestock; and
unless He had become the Vine, we could have borne no good fruit. He
exhorts us to abide in Himself, through faith in His assumed body, that,
since the Word has been made flesh, we may be in the nature of His flesh,
as the branches are in the Vine. He separates the form of the Father's
majesty from the humiliation of the assumed flesh by calling Himself the
Vine, the source of unity for all the branches, and the Father the careful
Husbandman, Who prunes away its useless and barren branches to be
burnt in the fire. In the words, He that hath seen Me, hath seen the Father
also, and The words that I say unto you, I speak not of Myself, but the
Father abiding in Me, He do the His works, and Believe Me, that I am in
the Father, and the Father in Me, He reveals the truth of His birth and the
mystery of His Incarnation. He then continues the thread of His discourse,
until He comes to the saying, The Father is greater than I; and after this, to
complete the meaning of these words, He hastens to add the illustration of
the husbandman, the vine, and the branches, which directs our notice to
His submission to bodily humiliation. He says that, because the Father is
greater than Himself, He is going to the Father, and that love should
rejoice, that He is going to the Father, that is, to receive back His glory
from the Father: with Him, and in Him, to be glorified not with a
brand-new honor, but with the old, not with some strange honor but with
that which He had with Him before. If then Christ shall not enter into Him
with glory, to abide in the glory of God, you may disparage His nature:
but if the glory which He receives is the proof of His Godhead, recognize
that it as Giver of this proof that the Father is the greater.

56. Why do you distort the Incarnation into a blasphemy? Why pervert
the mystery of salvation into a weapon of destruction? The Father, Who
glorifies the Son, is greater: The Son, Who is glorified in the Father, is not
less. How can He be less, when He is in the glory of God the Father? And
how can the Father not be greater? The Father therefore is greater, because
He is Father: but the Son, because He is Son, is not less. By the birth of
the Son the Father is constituted greater: the nature that is His by birth,
does not suffer the Son to be less. The Father is greater, for the Son prays
Him to render glory to manhood He has assumed. The Son is not less, for

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He receives back His glory with the Father. Thus are consummated at once
the mystery of the Birth, and the dispensation of the Incarnation. The
Father, as Father, and as glorifying Him Who now is Son of Man, is
greater: Father and Son are one, in that the Son, born of the Father, after
assuming an earthly body is taken back to the glory of the Father.

57. The birth, therefore, does not constitute His nature inferior, for He is
in the form of God, as being born of God. And though by their very
signification, 'Unbegotten' and 'Begotten' seem to be opposed, yet the
Begotten cannot be excluded from the nature of the Unbegotten, for there
is none other from whom He could derive His substance. He does not
indeed share in the supreme majesty of being unbegotten: but He has
received from the Unbegotten God the nature of divinity. Thus faith
confesses the eternity of the Only-begotten God, though it can give no
meaning to begetting or beginning in His case. His nature forbids us to say
that He ever began to be, for His birth lies beyond the beginnings of time.
But while we confess Him existent before all ages, we do not hesitate to
pronounce Him born in timeless eternity, for we believe His birth, though
we know it never had a beginning.

58 Seeking to disparage His nature, the heretics lay hold of such sayings
as, The Father is greater than I, or, But of that day and hour knoweth no
one, not even the angels in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father only. It
is turned to a reproach against the Only-begotten God that He did not
know the day and the hour: that, though God, born of God, He is not in
the perfection of divine nature, since He is subjected to the limitation of
ignorance; that is, an external force stronger than Himself, triumphing, as it
were, over His weakness, makes Him captive to this infirmity. And,
indeed, it is with an apparent right to claim that this confession is
inevitable, that the heretics, in their frenzy, would drive us to such a
blasphemous interpretation. The words are those of the Lord Himself, and
what, it may be asked, could be more unholy than to corrupt His express
assertion by our attempt to explain it away.

59. But, before we investigate the meaning and occasion of these words, let
us first appear to the judgment of common sense. Is it credible, that He,
Who stands to all things as the Author of their present and future, should
not know all things? If all things are through and in Christ, and in such a

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way through Christ that they are also in Him, must not that, which is both
in Him and through Him, be also in His knowledge, when that knowledge,
by virtue of a nature which cannot be nescient, habitually apprehends
what is neither in, nor through Him? But that which derives from Him
alone its origin, and has in Him alone the efficient cause of its present state
and future development, can that be beyond the ken of His nature, through
which is effected, and in which is contained, all that it is and shall be?
Jesus Christ knows the thoughts of the mind, as it is now, stirred by
present motives, and as it will be to-morrow, aroused by the impulse of
future desires. Hear the witness of the Evangelist, For Jesus knew from the
beginning who they were that believed not, and who it was that should
betray Him. By its virtue His nature could perceive the unborn future, and
foresee the awakening of passions yet dormant in the mind: do you believe
that it did not know what is through itself, and within itself? He is Lord of
all that belongs to others, is He not Lord of His own? Remember what is
written of Him, All things have been created through Him, and in Him: and
He is before all things: or again, For it was the good pleasure of the Father,
that in Him should all the fullness dwell, and through Him to reconcile all
things unto Himself, all fullness is in Him, all things were made through
Him, and are reconciled in Him, and for that day of reconciliation we wait
expectant; did He not, then, know it, when its time was in His bands, and
fixed by His mystery, for it is the day of His coming, of which the
Apostle wrote, When Christ, Who is your life, shall be manifested, then
shall ye also with Him be manifested in glory. No one is ignorant of that
which is through himself and Within himself: shall Christ come, and does
He not know the day of His coming? It is His day, for the same Apostle
says, The day of the Lord shall come as a thief in the night: can we believe,
then, that He did not know it? Human natures, so far as in them lies,
foresee what they determine to do: knowledge of the end desired
accompanies the desire to act: does not He Who is born God, know what
is in, and through, Himself? The times are through Him, the day is in His
hand, for the future is constituted through Him, and the Dispensation of
His coming is in His power: is His understanding so dull, that the sense of
His torpid nature does not tell Him what He has Himself determined? Is
He like the brute and the beast, which, animated by no reason or foresight,
not even conscious of acting but driven to and fro by the impulse of
irrational desire, proceed to their end with fortuitous and uncertain course?

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60. But, again, how can we believe that the Lord of glory, because He was
able not to know the day of His own coming, was of a discordant and
imperfect nature, subject to the necessity of coming, but ignorant of the
day of His coming? This would make God weaker than the power of
ignorance, which took from Him the prerogative of knowledge. Then, too,
how we redouble occasions of blasphemy, if we impute not only infirmity
to Christ, but also defect to God the Father, saying that He defrauded of
foreknowledge of this day the Only-begotten God, the Son of His love,
and in malice denied Him certainty concerning the future consummation:
suffered Him to know the day and hour of His passion, but withheld from
Him the day of His power, and the hour of His glory among His Saints:
took from Him the knowledge of His blessedness, while He granted Him
prescience of His death? The trembling conscience of man dare not
presume to think thus of God, or ascribe to Him such taint of human
fickleness, that the Father should deny anything to the Son, or the Son,
Who was born as God, should possess an imperfect knowledge.

61. But God can never be anything but love, or anything but the Father:
and He, Who loves, does not envy; He Who is Father, is wholly and
entirely Father. This name admits of no compromise: no one can be partly
father, and partly not. A father is father in respect of his whole
personality; all that he is present in the child, for paternity by piecemeal is
impossible: not that paternity extends to self-generation, but that a father
is altogether father in all his qualities, to the offsprings born of him.
According to the constitution of human bodies, which are made of
dissimilar elements, and composed of various parts, the father must be
father of the whole, since a perfect birth hands on to the child all the
different elements and parts, which are in the father. The father is,
therefore, father of all that is his; the birth proceeds froth the whole of
himself, and constitutes the whole of the child. God, however, has no
body, but simple essence: no parts, but an all-embracing whole: nothing
quickened, but everything living. God is therefore all life, and all one, not
compounded of parts, but perfect in His simplicity, and, as the Father,
must be Father to His begotten in all that He Himself is, for the perfect
birth of the Son makes Him perfect Father in all that He has. So, if He is
proper Father to the Son the Son must possess all the properties of the
Father. Yet how can this be, if the Son has not the quality of prescience, if

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there is anything from His Author, which is wanting in His birth? To say
that there is one of God's properties which He has not, is almost
equivalent to saying that He has none of them. And what is proper to
God, if not the knowledge of the future, a vision, which embraces the
invisible and unborn world, and has within its scope that which is not yet,
hut is to be?

62. Moreover Paul, the teacher of the Gentiles, forestalls the impious
falsehood, that the Only-begotten God was partially nescient. Listen to his
words, Being instructed in love, unto all riches of the fullness of
understanding, unto knowledge of the mystery of God, even Christ, in
Whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden. God, even
Christ, is the mystery, and all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are
hidden in Him. But a portion is one thing, the whole another: a part is not
the same as all, nor can all be called a part. If the Son does not know the
day, all the treasures of knowledge are not in Him; but He has all the
treasures of knowledge in Him, therefore He is not ignorant of the day. But
we must remember that those treasures of knowledge were hidden in Him,
though not, because hidden, therefore wanting. As in God, they are in Him:
as in the mystery, they are hidden. But Christ, the mystery of God, in
Whom are all the treasures of knowledge hidden, is not Himself hidden
from our eyes and minds. Since then He is Himself the mystery, let us see
whether He is ignorant when He does not know. If elsewhere His
profession of ignorance does not imply that He does not know, here also it
will be wrong to call Him ignorant, if He does not know. In Him are hidden
all the treasures of knowledge, and so His ignorance is an economy rather
than ignorance. Thus we can assign a reason for His ignorance, without the
assumption that He did not know.

63. Whenever God says that He does not know, He professes ignorance
indeed, but is not under the defect of ignorance. It is not because of the
infirmity of ignorance that He does not know, but because it is not yet the
time to speak, or the divine Plan to act. Thus He says to Abraham, The
cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is full, and their sin is very grievous.
Therefore I will go down now, and see if they have done altogether
according to the cry of it: and if not, I will know. Here we perceive God
not knowing that which notwithstanding He knows. He knows that their
sins are very grievous, but He comes down again to see whether they have

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done altogether, and to know if they have not. We observe, then, that He is
not ignorant, although He does not know, but that, when the time comes
for action, He knows. This knowledge is not, therefore, a change from
ignorance, but the coming of the fullness of time. He waits still to know,
but we cannot suppose that He does not know: therefore His not knowing
what He knows, and His knowing what He does not know, is nothing else
than a divine economy in word and deed.

64. We cannot, then, doubt that the knowledge of God depends on the
occasion and not on any change on His part: by the occasion being meant
the occasion, not of obtaining but of declaring knowledge, as we learn from
His words to Abraham, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou
anything unto hint, far now I know that thou fearest thy God, and hast not
withheld thy beloved son, for My sake. God knows now, but that now I
know is a profession of previous ignorance: yet it is not true, that until
now God did not know the faith of Abraham, for it is written, Abraham
believed in God, and it was counted to him for righteousness, and therefore
this now I know marks the time when Abraham received this testimony,
not when God began to know. Abraham had proved, by the sacrifice of his
son, the love he bore to God, and God knew it at the time He spoke: but as
we cannot suppose that He did not know before, we must for this reason
suppose that He took knowledge of it then because He spoke.

By way of example, we have chosen, for our consideration this passage
out of many in the Old Testament, which treat of, the knowledge of God,
in order to skew that when God does not know, the cause lies, not in His
ignorance, but in the occasion.

65. We find our Lord in the Gospels knowing, yet not knowing, many
things. Thus He does not know the workers of iniquity, who glory in their
mighty works and in His name, for He says to them, Then will swear, I
never knew you; depart from all ye that work iniquity. He declares with an
oath even, that He does not know them, but nevertheless He knows them
to be workers of iniquity. He does not know them, not because He does
not know, but because by the iniquity of their deeds they are unworthy of
His knowledge, and He even confirms His denial with the sanctity of an
oath. By the virtue of His nature He could not be ignorant, by the mystery
of His will He refused to know. Again the Unbegotten God does not know

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the foolish virgins; He is ignorant of those who were too careless to have
their oil ready, when He entered the chamber of His glorious coming. They
come and implore, and so far from not knowing them, He cries, Verily, I
say unto you, I know you not. Their coming and their prayer compel Him
to recognize them, but His profession of ignorance refers to His will, not
to His nature they are unworthy to be known of Him to Whom nothing is
unknown. Hence, in order that we should not impute His ignorance to
infirmity, He says immediately to the Apostles, Watch therefore, for ye
know not the day north the hour. When He bids them watch, for they
know not the day or the hour, He points out that He knew not the virgins,
because through sleep and neglect they had no oil, and therefore were
unworthy to enter into His is chamber.

66. The Lord Jesus Christ, then, Who searcheth the heart and the reins, has
no weakness in His nature, that He should not know, for, as we perceive,
even the fact of His ignorance proceeds from the omniscience of His
nature. Yet if any there be, who impute to Him ignorance, let them
tremble, lest He Who knows their thoughts should say to them, Wherefore
think ye evil in your hearts? The All-knowing, though not ignorant of
thoughts and deeds, sometimes enquires as if He were, as for instance
when He asks the woman who it was that touched the hem of His garment,
or the Apostles, why they quarreled among themselves, or the mourners,
where the sepulcher of Lazarus was: but His ignorance was not ignorance,
except in words. It is against reason that He should know from afar the
death and burial of Lazarus, but not the place of his sepulcher: that He
should read the thoughts of the mind, and not recognize the faith of the
woman: that He should not need to ask concerning anything, yet be
ignorant of the dissension of the Apostles. But He, Who knows all things,
sometimes by a practice of economy professes ignorance, even though He
is not ignorant. Thus, in the case of Abraham, God concealed His
knowledge for a time: in that of the foolish virgins and the workers of
iniquity, He refused to recognize the unworthy: in the mystery of the Son
of Man, His asking, as if ignorant, expressed His humanity. He
accommodated Himself to the reality of His birth in the flesh in everything
to which the weakness of our nature is subject, not in such wise that He
became weak in His divine nature, but that God, born man, assumed the
weaknesses of humanity, yet without thereby reducing His unchangeable

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nature to a weak nature, for the unchangeable nature was that wherein He
mysteriously assumed flesh. He, Who was God is man, but, being man,
has not ceased to remain God. Conducting Himself then as one born man,
and proving Himself such, though remaining God the Word, He often uses
the language of man (though God, speaking as God, makes frequent use of
human terms), and does not know that which it is not yet time to declare,
or which is not deserving of His recognition.

67. We can now understand why He said that He knew not the day. If we
believe Him to have been really ignorant, we contradict the Apostle, who
says, In Whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden.
There is knowledge which is hidden in Him, and because it has to be
hidden, it must sometimes for this purpose be professed as ignorance, for
once declared, it will no longer he secret. In order, therefore, that the
knowledge may remain hidden, He declares that He does not know. But if
He does not know, in order that the knowledge may remain hidden, this
ignorance is not due to His nature, which is omniscient, for He is ignorant
solely in order that it may be hidden. Nor is it hard to see why the
knowledge of the day is hidden. He exhorts us to watch continually with
unrelaxing faith, and withholds from us the security of certain knowledge,
that our minds may be kept on the stretch by the uncertainty of suspense,
and while they hasten towards and continually look for the day of His
coming, may always watch in hope; and that, though we know the time
must come, its very uncertainty may make us careful and vigilant. Thus
the Lord says, Therefore be ye also ready, for ye know not what hour the
Son of Man shall comes; and again, Blessed is that servant whom His
Lord, when He cometh, shall find so doing. The ignorance is, therefore, a
means not to delude, but to encourage in perseverance. It is no loss to be
denied a knowledge which it is an advantage not to have, for the security of
knowledge might breed negligence of the faith, which now is concealed,
while the uncertainty of expectation keeps us continually prepared, even
as the master of the house, with the fear of loss before his eyes, watches
and guards against the dreaded coming of the thief, who chooses the time
of sleep for his work.

68. Manifestly, therefore, the ignorance of God is not ignorance but a
mystery: in the economy of His actions and words and manifestations, He
does not know and at the same time He knows, or knows and at the same

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time does not know. But we must ask, whether it may not be through the
Son's infirmity that He knows not what the Father knows. He could
perhaps read the thoughts of the human heart, because His stronger nature
can unite itself with a weaker in all its movement' s, and by the force of its
power, as it were, pass through and through the feeble nature. But a
weaker nature is powerless to penetrate a stronger: light things may be
penetrated by heavy, rare by dense, liquid by solid, but the heavy are
impenetrable to the light, the dense to the rare, and the solid to the liquid:
the strong are not exposed to the weak, but the weak are penetrated by the
strong. Therefore, the heretics say, the Son knew not the thoughts of the
Father, because, being Himself weak, He could not approach tire more
powerful and enter into Him, or pass through Him.

69. Should any one presume, not merely to speak thus of the
Only-begotten God in the rashness of his tongue, but even to think so in
the wickedness of his heart, let him hear what the Apostle thought of the
Holy Ghost, from the words he wrote to the Corinthians, But unto us God
revealed them through the Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea the
deep things of God. For who among men knoweth the things of a man,
which are in him, save the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so the
things which are in God, none knoweth, save the Spirit of God. But let us
cast aside these empty illustrations of material things, and measure God
born of God, Spirit of Spirit, by His own powers and not by earthly
conditions. Let us measure Him not by our own senses, but by His divine
claims. Let us believe Him Who said, He that hath seen Me hath seen the
Father also. Let us not forget that He said, Believe, if only by My works,
that the Father is in Me, and I in the Father, and again, I and the Father are
one. If the names which correspond to realities, when intelligibly used,
impart to us any true information, then He Who is seen in Another by the
eye of understanding is not different in nature from that Other; not
different in kind, since He abides in the Father, and the Father in Him; not
separate, since Both are One. Perceive their unity in the indivisibility of
their nature, and apprehend the mystery of that indivisible nature by
regarding the One as the mirror of the Other. But remember that He is the
mirror, not as the image reflected by the splendor of a nature outside
Himself, but as being a living nature, indistinguishable from the Father's
living nature, derived wholly from the whole of His Father's, having the

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Father's in Him because He is the Only begotten, and abiding in the
Father, because He is God.

70. The heretics cannot deny that the Lord used these words to signify the
mystery His birth, but they attempt to escape from them by referring
them to a harmony of will. They make the unity of God the Father and
God the Son not one of divinity, but merely of will: as if the divine
teaching were poor in expression and the Lord could not have said, I and
the Father are one in will; or as if those words could have the same
meaning as I and the Father are one; or as if He meant, He that hath seen
My will, hath seen the will of My Father also, but, being unskilled
statement, tried to express that idea in the words, He that hath seen Me
hath seen the Father also: or as if the divine vocabulary did not contain the
terms, The will of My Father is in Me, and My will is in the Father, but
this thought could be expressed by I the Father and the Father in Me. All
this is nauseous and irreverent nonsense; common sense condemns the
judgment of such silly fancies, as that the Lord could not say what He
wanted, or did not say what He said. True, we find Him speaking in
parables and allegories, but it is a different thing to strengthen one's words
with illustrations, or satisfy the dignity of the subject with the help of
suggestive proverbs, or adapt one's language to the needs of the moment.
But this passage concerning the unity, of which we are speaking, does not
allow us to look for the meaning outside the plain sound of the words. If
Father and Son are one, in the sense that They are one in will, and if
separable natures cannot be one in will, because their diversity of kind and
nature must draw them into diversities of will and judgment, how call
They be one in will, not being one in knowledge? There can be no unity of
will between ignorance and knowledge. Omniscience and nescience are
opposites, and opposites cannot be of the same will.

71. But perhaps it may be held to confirm the Son in His confession of
ignorance that He says the Father alone knows. But unless He had plainly
said that the Father alone knows, it would have been a matter of the
greatest danger for our understanding, since we might have thought that He
Himself did not know. For, since His ignorance is due to the economy of
hidden knowledge, and not to a nature capable of ignorance, now that He
says the Father alone knows, we cannot believe that He does not know;
for, as we said above, God's knowledge is not the discovery of what He

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did not know, but its declaration. The fact that the Father alone knows, is
no proof that the Son ignorant: He says that He does not know, that
others may not know: that the Father alone knows, to shew that He
Himself also knows. If we say that God came to know the love of
Abraham, when He ceased to conceal His knowledge, it follows that only
because He did not conceal it from the Son, can the Father be said to know
the day, for God does not learn by sudden perception, but declares His
knowledge with the occasion. If, then, the Son according to the mystery
does not know the day, that He may not reveal it: on the other hand, only
by the fact that He has revealed it can the Father be proved to know the
day.

72. Far be it from us to imagine vicissitudes of bodily change in the Father
and Son, as though the Father sometimes spoke to the Son, and sometimes
was silent. We remember, indeed, that a voice was sometimes uttered from
heaven for us, that the power of the Father's words might confirm for us
the mystery of the Son, as the Lord says, This voice hath not come from
Heaven for My sake but for your sakes. But the divine nature can
dispense with the various combinations necessary for human functions,
the motion of the tongue, the adjustment of the mouth, the forcing of the
breath, and the vibration of the air. God is a simple Being: we must
understand Him by devotion, and confess Him by reverence. He is to be
worshipped, not pursued by our senses, for a conditioned and weak nature
cannot grasp with the guesses of its imagination the mystery of an infinite
and omnipotent nature. In God is no variability, no parts, as of a
composite divinity, that in Him will should follow inaction, speech silence,
or work rest, or that He should not will, without passing from some other
mental state to volition, or speak, without breaking the silence with His
voice, or act, without going forth to labor. He is not subject to the laws of
nature, for nature has received its law from Him: He never suffers
weakness or change when He acts, for His power is boundless, as the Lord
said, Father, all things are possible unto Thee. He can do more than human
sense can conceive. The Lord does not deprive even Himself of the quality
of omnipotence, for He says, What things soever the Father doest, these
the Son also doeth in like manner. Nothing is difficult, when there is no
weakness; for only a power which is weak to effect, knows the need of

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effort. The cause of difficulty is the weakness of the motive force; a force
of limitless power rises above the conditions of impotence.

73. We have established this point to exclude the idea that after silence
God spoke to the Son, or after ignorance the Son began to know. To reach
our intelligence terms must be used applicable to our own nature: thus we
do not understand communication except by word of mouth, or
comprehend the opposite of nescience except as knowledge. Thus the Son
does not know the day for the reason that He does not reveal it: the
Father, He says, alone knows it for the reason that He reveals it to the Son
alone. But, as we have said, Christ is conscious of no such natural
impediments as an ignorance which must be removed before He can come
to know, or a knowledge which is not His before the Father begins to
speak. He declares the unity of His nature, as the only-begotten, with the
Father, by the unmistakable words, All things whatsoever the Father hath,
are Mine. There is no mention here of coming into possession: it is one
tiring, to be the Possessor of things external to Him; another, to be
self-contained and self-existent. The former is to possess heaven and earth
and the universe, the latter to be able to describe Himself by His own
properties, which are His, not as something external and subject, but as
something of which He Himself subsists. When He says, therefore, that all
things which the Father has, are His, He alludes to the divine nature, and
not to a joint ownership of gifts bestowed. For referring to His words that
the Holy Spirit should take of His, He says, All things whatsoever the
Father hath are Mine, therefore said I, He shall take of Mine: that is, the
Holy Spirit takes of His, but takes also of the Father's: and if He receives
of the Father's, He receives also of His. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of
God, and does not receive of a creature, but teaches us that He receives all
these gifts, because they are all God's. All things that belong to the Father
are the Spirit's; but we must not think that whatever He received of the
Son, He did not receive of the Father also; for all that the Father hath
belongs equally to the Son.

74. So the nature of Christ needed no change, or question, or answer, that
it should advance from ignorance to knowledge, or ask of One Who had
continued in silence, and wait to receive His answer: but, abiding perfectly
in mysterious unity with Him, it received of God its whole being as it
derived from Him its origin. And, further, it received all that belonged to

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the whole being of God, namely, His knowledge and His will. What the
Father knows, the Son does not learn by question and answer; what the
Father wills, the Son does not will by command. Since all that the Father
has, is His, it is the property of His nature to will and know, exactly as the
Father wills and knows. But to prove His birth He often expounds the
doctrine of His Person, as when He says, I came not to do Mine own will,
but, the will of Him that sent Me. He does the Father's will, not His own,
and by the will of Him that sent Me, He means His Father. But that He
Himself wills the same, is unmistakably declared in the words, Father,
those whom Thou hast given Me, I will, that, where also may be with Me.
The Father wills that we should be with Christ, in Whom, according to the
Apostle, He chose us before the foundation of the world, and the Son wills
the same, namely that we should be with Him. His will is, therefore, the
same in nature as the Father' s will, though to make plain the fact of the
birth it is distinguished from the Father' s.

75. The Son is ignorant, then, of nothing which the Father knows, nor does
it follow because the Father alone knows, that the Son does not know.
Father and Son abide in unity of nature, and the ignorance of the Son
belongs to the divine Plan of silence seeing that in Him are hidden all the
treasures of wisdom and knowledge. This the Lord Himself testified, when
He answered the question of the Apostles concerning the times, It is not
yours to know times or moments, which the Father hath set within His
own authority. The knowledge is denied them, and not only that, but the
anxiety to learn is forbidden, because it is not theirs to know these times.
Yet now that He is risen, they ask again, though their question on the
former occasion had been met with the reply, that not even the Son knew.
They cannot possibly have understood literally that the Son did not know,
for they ask Him again as though He did know. They perceived in the
mystery of His ignorance a divine Plan of silence, and now, after His
resurrection, they renew the question, thinking that the time has come to
speak. And the Son no longer denies that He knows, but tells them that it
is not theirs to know, because the Father has set it within His own
authority. If then, the Apostles attributed it to the divine Plan, and not to
weakness, that the Son did not know the day, shall we say that the Son
knew not the day for the simple reason that He was not God? Remember,
God the Father set the day within His authority, that it might not come to

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the knowledge of man, and the Son, when asked before, replied that He did
not know, but now, no longer denying His knowledge, replies that it is
theirs not to know, for the Father has set the times not in His own
knowledge, but in His own authority. The day and the moment are
included in the word 'times': can it be, then, that He, Who was to restore
Israel to its kingdom, did not Himself know the day and the moment of
that restoration? He instructs us to see an evidence of His birth in this
exclusive prerogative of the Father, yet He does not deny that He knows:
and while He proclaims that the possession of this knowledge is withheld
from ourselves, He asserts that it belongs to the mystery of the Father's
authority.

We must not therefore think, because He said He did not know the day
and the moment, that the Son did not know. As man He wept, and slept,
and sorrowed, but God is incapable of tears, or fear, or sleep. According to
the weakness of His flesh He shed tears, slept, hungered, thirsted, was
weary, and feared, yet without impairing the reality of His Only-begotten
nature; equally so must we refer to His human nature, the words that He
knew not the day or the hour.

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BOOK 10

1. It is manifest that there is nothing which men have ever said which is
not liable to opposition. Where the will dissents the mind also dissents:
under the bias of opposing judgment it joins battle, and denies the
assertions to which it objects. Though every word we say be
incontrovertible if gauged by the standard of truth, yet so long as men
think or feel differently, the truth is always exposed, to the cavils of
opponents, because they attack, under the delusion of error or prejudice,
the truth they misunderstand or dislike. For decisions once formed cling
with excessive obstinacy: and the passion of controversy cannot be driven
from the course it has taken, when the will is not subject to the reason.
Enquiry after truth gives way to the search for proofs of what we wish to
believe; desire is paramount over truth. Then the theories we concoct build
themselves on names rather than things the logic of truth gives place to the
logic of prejudice: a logic which the will adjusts to defend its fancies, not
one which stimulates the will through the understanding of truth by the
reason. From these defects of partisan spirit arise all controversies
between opposing theories. Then follows an obstinate battle between truth
asserting itself, and prejudice defending itself: truth maintains its ground
and prejudice resists. But if desire had not forestalled reason: if the
understanding of the truth had moved us to desire what was true: instead
of trying to set up our desires as doctrines, we should let our doctrines
dictate our desires; there would be no contradiction of the truth, for every
one would begin by desiring what was true, not by defending the truth of
that which he desired.

2. Not unmindful of this sin of willfulness, the Apostle, writing to
Timothy, after many injunctions to bear witness to the faith and to preach
the word, adds, For the time will come when they will not endure sound
doctrine, but having itching ears will heap up teachers to themselves after
their own lusts, and will turn away their ears from the truth, and turn aside
unto fables. For when their unhallowed zeal shall drive them beyond the
endurance of sound doctrine, they will heap up teachers for their lusts,

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that is, construct schemes of doctrine to suit their own desires, not wishing
to be taught, hut getting together teachers who will tell them what they
wish: that the crowd of teachers whom they have ferreted out and gathered
together, may satisfy them with the doctrines of their own tumultuous
desires. And if these madmen in their godless folly do not know with what
spirit they reject the sound, and yearn after the corrupt doctrine, let them
hear the words of the same Apostle to the same Timothy, But the Spirit
saith expressly that in the last days some shall away from the faith, giving
heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils through the hypocrisy of
lying talk. What advancement of doctrine is it to discover what one fancies,
and not what one ought to learn? Or what piety in doctrine is it not to
desire what one ought to learn, but to heap up doctrine after our desires?
But this is what the promptings of seducing spirits supply. They confirm
the falsehoods of pretended godliness, for a canting hypocrisy always
succeeds to defection from the faith: so that at least in word the reverence
is retained, which the conscience has lost. Even that pretended piety they
make impious by all manner of lies, violating by schemes of false doctrine
the sacredness of the faith: for they pile up doctrines to suit their desires,
and not according to the faith of the Gospel. They delight, with an
uncontrollable pleasure, to have their itching ears tickled by the novelty of
their favorite preaching; they estrange themselves utterly from the hearing
of the truth, and surrender themselves entirely to fables: so that their
incapacity for either speaking or understanding the truth invests their
discourse with what is, to them, a semblance of truth.

3. We have clearly fallen on the evil times prophesied by the Apostle; for
nowadays teachers are sought after who preach not God but a creature.
And men are more zealous for what they themselves desire, than for what
the sound faith teaches. So far have their itching ears stirred them to listen
to what they desire, that for the moment that preaching alone rules among
their crowd of doctors which estranges the Only-begotten God from the
power and nature of God the Father, and makes Him in our faith either a
God of the second order, or not a God at all; in either case a damning
profession of impiety, whether one profess two Gods by making different
grades of divinity; or else deny divinity altogether to Him Who drew His
nature by birth from God. Such doctrines please those whose ears are
estranged from the hearing of the truth and turned to fables, while the

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hearing of this our sound faith is not endured, and is driven bodily into
exile with its preachers.

4. But though many may heap up teachers according to their desires, and
banish sound doctrine, yet from the company of the Saints the preaching
of truth can never be exiled. From our exile we shall speak by these our
writings, and the Word of God which cannot be bound will run unhindered,
warning us of this time which the Apostle prophesied. For when men
shew themselves impatient of the' true message, and heap up teachers
according to their own human desires, we can no longer doubt about the
times, but know that while the preachers of sound doctrine are banished
truth is banished too. We do not complain of the times: we rejoice rather,
that iniquity has revealed itself in this our exile, when, unable to endure the
truth, it banishes the preachers of sound doctrine, that it may heap up for
itself teachers after its own desires. We glory in our exile, and rejoice in the
Lord that in our person the Apostle's prophecy should be fulfilled.

5. In the earlier books, then, while maintaining the profession of a faith, I
trust, sincere, and a truth uncorrupted, we arranged the method of our
answer throughout, so that (though such are our limitations, that human
language can never be safe from exception) no one could contradict us
without an open profession of godlessness. For so completely have we
demonstrated the true meaning of those texts which they cunningly filch
from the Gospels and appropriate for their own teaching, that if any one
denies it, he cannot escape on the plea of ignorance, but is condemned out
of his own mouth of godlessness. Further, we have, according to the gift of
the Holy Ghost, so cautiously proceeded throughout in our proof of the
faith, that no charge could possibly be trumped up against us. For it is
their way to fill the ears of the unwary with declarations that we deny the
birth of Christ, when we preach the unity of the Godhead; and they say
that by the text, I and the Father are one, we confess that God is solitary:
thus, according to them, we say that the Unbegotten God descended into
the Virgin, and was born man, and that He refers the opening word T to
the dispensation of His flesh, but adds to it the proof of His divinity, And
the Father, as being the Father of Himself as man; and further, that,
consisting of two Persons, human and divine, He said of Himself, We are
one.

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6. But we have always maintained the birth existing out of time: we have
taught that God the Son is God of the same nature with God the Father,
not co-equal with the Unbegotten, for He was not Himself Unbegotten,
but, as the Only-begotten, not unequal because begotten; that the Two are
One, not by the giving of a double name to one Person, but by a true
begetting and being begotten; that neither are there two Gods, different in
kind, in our faith, nor is God solitary because He is one, in the sense in
which we confess the mystery of the Only-begotten God: but that the Son
is both indicated in the name of, and exists in, the Father, Whose name and
Whose nature are in Him, while the Father by His name implies, and
abides in, the Son, since a son cannot be spoken of, or exist, except as born
of a father. Further, we say that He is the living copy of the living nature,
the impression of the divine seal upon the divine nature, so
undistinguished from God in power and kind, that neither His works nor
His words nor His form are other than the Father's: but that, since the
image by nature possesses the nature of its author, the Author also has
worked and spoken and appeared through His natural image.

7. But by the side of this timeless and ineffable generation of the
Only-begotten, which transcends the perception of human understanding,
we taught as well the mystery of God born to be man from the womb of
the Virgin, shewing how according to the plan of the Incarnation, when He
emptied Himself of the form of God and took the form of a servant, the
weakness of the assumed humanity did not weaken the divine nature, but
that Divine power was imparted to humanity without the virtue of
divinity being lost in the human form. For when God was born to be man
the purpose was not that the Godhead should be lost, but that, the
Godhead remaining, man should be born to be God. Thus Emmanuel is His
name, which is God with us, that God might not be lowered to the level of
man, but man raised to that of God. Nor, when He asks that lie may be
glorified, is it in any way a glorifying of His divine nature, but of the lower
nature He assumed: for He asks for that glory which He had with God
before the world was made.

8. As we are answering all, even their most insensate statements, we come
now to the discussion of the unknown hour. Now, I even if, as they say,
the Son had not known it, this could give no ground for an attack upon His
Godhead as the Only-begotten. It was not in the nature of things that His

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birth should avail to put His beginning back, until it was equivalent to the
existence which is unbegotten, and had no beginning; and the Farther
reserves as His prerogative, to demonstrate His authority as the
Unbegotten, the fixing of this still undetermined day. Nor may we
conclude that in His Person there is any defect in that nature which
contained by right of birth all the fullness of that nature which a perfect
birth could impart. Nor again could the ignorance of day and hour be
imputed in the Only-begotten God to a lower degree of Divinity. It is to
demonstrate against the Sabellian heretics that the Father's authority is
without birth or beginning, that this prerogative of unbegotten authority is
not granted to the Son. But if, as we have maintained, when He said that
He knew not the day, He kept silence not from ignorance, but in
accordance with the Divine Plan, all occasion for irreverent declarations
must be removed, and the blasphemous teachings of heresy thwarted, that
the truth of the Gospel may be illustrated by the very words which seem
to obscure it.

9. Thus the greater number of them will not allow Him to have the
impossible nature of God because He feared His Passion and shewed
Himself weak by submitting to suffering. They assert that He Who feared
and felt pain could not enjoy that confidence of power which is above fear,
or that incorruption of spirit which is not conscious of suffering: but, being
of a nature lower than God the Father, He trembled with fear at human
suffering, and groaned before the violence of bodily pain. These impious
assertions are based on the words, My soul is sorrowful event unto death,
and Father if it be possible let this cup pass away from He, and also, My
God, My God, why hast Than forsaken He? to which they also add,
Father into Thy hands I commend My Spirit. All these words of our holy
faith they appropriate to the use of their unholy blasphemy: that He
feared, Who was sorrowful, and even prayed that the cup might be taken
away from Him; that He felt pain, because He complained that God had
deserted Him in His suffering; that He was infirm, because He commended
His Spirit to the Father. His doubts and anxieties preclude us, they say,
from assigning to Him that likeness to God which would belong to a nature
equal to God as being born His Only-begotten. He proclaims His own
weakness and inferiority by the prayer to remove the cup, by the
complaint of desertion and the commending of His Spirit.

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10. Now first of all, before we shew from these very texts, that He was
subject to no infirmity of fear or sorrow on His own account, let us ask,
"What can we find for Him to fear, that the dread of an unendurable pain
should have seized Him?" The objects of His fear, which they allege, are, I
suppose, suffering and death. Now I ask those who are of this opinion,
"Can we reasonably suppose that He feared death, Who drove away the
terrors of death from His Apostles, exhorting them to the glory of
martyrdom with the words, He that doth not take his crass and follow
after Me is not worth of Me; and, He that findeth his life shall lose it, and
he that hath last his life far My sake shall find it? If to die for Him is life,
what pain can we think He had to suffer in the mystery of death, Who
rewards with life those who die for Him? Could death make Him fear what
could be done to the body, when He exhorted the disciples, Pear not those
which kill the body?

1 1 . Further, what terror had the pain of death for Him, to Whom death
was an act of His own free will? In the human race death is brought on
either by an attack upon the body of an external enemy, such as fever
wound, accident or fall: or our bodily nature is overcome by age, and yields
to death. But the Only-begotten God, Who had the power of laying down
His life, and of taking it up again, after the drought of vinegar, having borne
witness that His work of human suffering was finished, in order to
accomplish in Himself the mystery of death, bowed His head and gave up
His Spirit. If it has been granted to our mortal nature of its own will to
breathe its last breath, and seek rest in death; if the buffeted soul may
depart, without the breaking up of the body, and the spirit burst forth and
flee away, without being as it were violated in its own home by the
breaking and piercing and crushing of limbs; then fear of death might seize
the Lord of life; if, that is, when He gave up the ghost and died, His death
were not an exercise of His own free will. But if He died of His own will,
and through His own will gave back His Spirit, death had no terror;
because it was in His own power.

12. But perchance with the fearfulness of human ignorance, He feared the
very power of death, which He possessed; so, though He died of His own
accord, He feared because He was to die. If any think so, let them ask "To
which was death terrible, to His Spirit or to His body?" If to His body, are
they ignorant that the Holy One should not see corruption, that within

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three days He was to revive the temple of His body? But if death was
terrible to H s Spirit, should Christ fear the abyss of hell, while Lazarus
was rejoicing in Abraham's bosom? It is foolish and absurd, that He should
fear death, Who could lay down His soul, and take it up again, Who, to
fulfill the mystery of human life, was about to die of His own free will. He
cannot fear death Whose power and purpose in dying is to die but for a
moment: fear is incompatible with willingness to die, and the power to live
again, for both of these rob death of his terrors.

13. But was it perhaps the physical pain of hanging on the cross, or the
rough cords with which He was bound, or the cruel wounds, where the
nails were driven in, that dismayed Him? Let us see of what body the Man
Jesus was, that pain should dwell in His crucified, bound, and pierced
body.

14. The nature of our bodies is such, that when endued with life and feeling
by conjunction with a sentient soul, they become something more than
inert, insensate matter. They feel when touched, suffer when pricked,
shiver with cold, feet pleasure in warmth, waste with hunger, and grow fat
with food. By a certain transfusion of the soul, which supports and
penetrates them, they feel pleasure or pain according to the surrounding
circumstances. When the body is pricked or pierced, it is the sold which
pervades it that is conscious, and suffers pain. For instance a flesh-wound
is felt even to the bone, while the fingers feel nothing when we cut the nails
which protrude from the flesh. And if through some disease a limb
becomes withered, it loses the feeling of living flesh: it can be cut or burnt,
it feels no pain whatever, because the soul is no longer mingled with it.
Also when through some grave necessity part of the body must be cut
away, the soul can be lulled to sleep by drugs, which overcome the pain,
and produce in the mind a death-like forgetfulness of its power of sense.
Then limbs can be cut off without pain: the flesh is dead to all feeling, and
does not heed the deep thrust of the knife, because the soul within it is
asleep. It is, therefore, because the body lives by admixture with a weak
soul, that it is subject to the weakness of pain.

15. If the Man Jesus Christ began His bodily life with the same beginning
as our body and soul, if He were not, as God, the immediate Author of His
own body and soul alike, when He was fashioned in the likeness and form

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of man, and born as man, then we may suppose that He felt the pain of
our body; since by His beginning, a conception like ours, He had a body
animated with a soul like our own. But if through His own act He took to
Himself flesh from the Virgin, and likewise by His own act joined a soul to
the body thus conceived, then the nature of His suffering must have
corresponded with the nature of His body and soul. For when He emptied
Himself of the form of God and received the form of a servant when the
Son of God was born also Son of Man, without losing His own self and
power, God the Word formed the perfect living Man. For how was the
Son of God born Son of Man, how did He receive the form of a servant,
still remaining in the forth of God, unless (God the Word being able of
Himself to take flesh from the Virgin and to give that flesh a soul, for the
redemption of our soul and body), the Man Christ Jesus was born perfect,
and made in the form of a servant by the assumption of the body, which
the Virgin conceived? For the Virgin conceived, what she conceived, from
the Holy Ghost alone, and though for His birth in the flesh she supplied
from herself that element, which women always contribute to the seed
planted in them, still Jesus Christ was not formed by an ordinary human
conception. In His birth, the cause of which was transmitted solely by the
Holy Ghost, His mother performed the same part as in all human
conceptions: but by virtue of His origin He never ceased to be God.

16. This deep and beautiful mystery of His assumption of manhood the
Lord Himself reveals in the words, No man hath ascended into heaven, but
He that descended from heaven, even the Son of Man which is in heaven.
'Descended from heaven' refers to His origin from the Spirit: for though
Mary contributed to His growth in the womb and birth all that is natural
to her sex, His body did not owe to her its origin. The 'Son of Man' refers
to the birth of the flesh conceived in the Virgin; 'Who is in heaven' implies
the power of His eternal nature: an infinite nature, which could not restrict
itself to the limits of the body, of which it was itself the source and base.
By the virtue of the Spirit and the power of God the Word, though He
abode in the form of a servant, He was ever present as Lord of all, within
and beyond the circle of heaven and earth. So He descended from heaven
and is the Son of Man, yet is in heaven: for the Word made flesh did not
cease to be the Word. As the Word, He is in heaven, as flesh He is the Son
of Man. As Word made flesh, He is at once from heaven, and Son of Man,

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and in heaven, for the power of the Word, abiding eternally without body,
was present still in the heaven He had left: to Him and to none other the
flesh owed its origin. So the Word made flesh, though He was flesh, yet
never ceased to be the Word.

17. The blessed Apostle also perfectly describes this mystery of the
ineffable birth of Christ's body in the words, The first man was from the
soil of the ground, the second man from heaven. Calling Him 'Man' he
expresses His birth from the Virgin, who in the exercise of her office as
mother, performed the duties of her sex in the conception and birth of man.
And when he says, The second man from heaven he testifies His origin
from the Holy Ghost, Who came upon the Virgin. As He is then man, and
from heaven, this Man was born of the Virgin, and conceived of the Holy
Ghost. So speaks the Apostle.

18. Again the Lord Himself revealing this mystery of His birth, speaks
thus: I am the living bread Who have descended from Heaven: if any one
shall eat of My bread he shall live far ever: calling Himself the Bread since
He is the origin of His own body. Further, that it may not be thought the
Word left His own virtue and nature for the flesh, He says again that it is
His bread; since He is the bread which descends from heaven, His body
cannot be regarded as sprung from human conception, because it is shewn
to be from heaven. And His language concerning His bread is an assertion
that the Word took a body, for He adds, Unless ye eat the flesh of the Son
of Man and drink His blood, ye have not life in you. Hence, inasmuch as
the Being Who is Son of Man descended also as bread from heaven, by the
'Bread descending from heaven' and by the 'Flesh and Blood of the Son of
Man' must be understood His assumption of the flesh, conceived by the
Holy Ghost, and born of the Virgin.

19. Being, then, Man with this body, Jesus Christ is both the Son of God
and Son of Man, Who emptied Himself of the form of God, and received
the form of a servant. There is not one Son of Man and another Son of
God; nor one in the form of God, and another born perfect man in the form
of a servant: so that, as by the nature determined for us by God, the
Author of our being, man is born with body and soul, so likewise Jesus
Christ, by His own power, is God and Man with flesh and soul,

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possessing in Himself whole and perfect manhood, and whole and perfect
Godhead.

20. Yet many, with the art by which they seek to prove their heresy, are
wont to delude the ears of the unlearned with the error, that as the body
and soul of Adam both sinned, so the Lord must have taken the soul and
body of Adam from the Virgin, and that it was not the whole Man that she
conceived from the Holy Ghost. If they had understood the mystery of
the Incarnation, these men would have understood at the same time the
mystery that the Son of Man is also Son of God. As if in receiving so
much from the Virgin, He received from her His soul also; whereas though
flesh is always born of flesh, every soul is the direct work of God.

21. With a view to deprive of substantive divinity the Only-begotten God,
Who was God the Word with God in the beginning, they make Him merely
the utterance of the voice of God. The Son is related to God His Father,
they say, as the words to the speaker. They are trying to creep into the
position, that it was not God the eternal Word, abiding in the form of God,
Who was born as Christ the Man, Whose life therefore springs from a
human origin, not from the mystery of a spiritual conception; that He was
not God the Word, making Himself man by birth from the Virgin, but the
Word of God dwelling in Jesus as the spirit of prophecy dwelt in the
prophets. They accuse us of saying that Christ was born man with body
and soul different from ours. But we preach the Word made flesh Christ
emptying Himself of the form of God and taking the form of a servant,
perfect according to the fashion of human form, born a man after the
likeness of ourselves: that being true Son of God, He is indeed true Son of
Man, neither the less Man because born of God, nor the less God because
Man born of God.

22. But as He by His own act assumed a body from the Virgin, so He
assumed from Himself a soul; though even in ordinary human birth the
soul is never derived from the parents. If, then, the Virgin received from
God alone the flesh which she conceived, far more certain is it that the soul
of that body can have come from God alone. If, too, the same Christ be the
Son of Man, Who is also the Son of God (for the whole Son of Man is the
whole Son of God), how ridiculous is it to preach besides the Son of God,
the Word made flesh, another I know not whom, inspired, like a prophet,

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by God the Word; whereas our Lord Jesus Christ is both Son of Man and
Son of God. Yet because His soul was sorrowful unto death, and because
He had the power to lay down His soul and the power to take it up again,
they want to derive it from some alien source, and not from tire Holy
Ghost, the Author of His body's conception: for God the Word became
man without departing from the mystery of His own nature. He was born
also not to be at one time two separate beings, but that it might be made
plain, that He Who was God before He was Man, now that He has taken
humanity, is God and Man. How could Jesus Christ, the Son of God, have
been born of Mary, except by the Word becoming flesh: that is by the Son
of God, though in the form of God, taking the form of a slave? When He
Who was in the form of God took the form of a slave, two contraries were
brought together. Thus it was just as true, that He received the form of a
slave, as that He remained in the form of God. The use of the one word
'form' to describe both natures compels us to recognize that He truly
possessed both. He is in the form of a servant, Who is also in the form of
God. And though He is the latter by His eternal nature, and the former in
accordance with the divine Plan of Grace, the word has its true significance
equally in both cases, because He is both: as truly in the form of God as in
the form of Man. Just as to take the form of a servant is none other than to
be born a man, so to be in the form of God is none other than to be God:
and we confess Him as one and the same Person, not by loss of the
Godhead, but by assumption of the manhood: in tire form of God through
His divine nature, in the form of man from His conception by the Holy
Ghost, being found in fashion as a man. That is why alter His birth as
Jesus Christ, His suffering, death, and burial, He also rose again. We
cannot separate Him from Himself in all these diverse mysteries, so that
He should be no longer Christ; for Christ, Who took the form of a servant,
was none other than He Who was in the form of God: He Who died was
the same as He Who was born: He Who rose again as He Who died; He
Who is in heaven as He Who rose again; lastly, He Who is in heaven as He
Who before descended from heaven.

23. So the Man Jesus Christ, Only-begotten God, as flesh and as Word at
the same time Son of Man and Son of God, without ceasing to be Himself,
that is, God, took true humanity after the likeness of our humanity. But
when, in this humanity, He was struck with blows, or smitten with

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wounds, or bound with ropes, or lifted on high, He felt the force of
suffering, but without its pain. Thus a dart passing through water, or
piercing a flame, or wounding the air, inflicts all that it is its nature to do: it
passes through, it pierces, it wounds; but all this is without effect on the
thing it strikes; since it is against the order of nature to make a hole in
water, or pierce flame, or wound the air, though it is the nature of a dart to
make holes, to pierce and to wound. So our Lord Jesus Christ suffered
blows, hanging, crucifixion and death: but the suffering which attacked the
body of the Lord, without ceasing to be suffering, had not the natural
effect of suffering. It exercised its function of punishment with all its
violence; but the body of Christ by its virtue suffered the violence of the
punishment, without its consciousness. True, the body of the Lord would
have been capable of feeling pain like our natures, if our bodies possessed
the power of treading on the waters, and walking over the waves without
weighing them down by our tread or forcing them apart by the pressure of
our steps, if we could pass through solid substances, and the barred doors
were no obstacle to us. But, as only the body of our Lord could be borne
up by the power of His soul in the waters, could walk upon the waves,
and pass through walls, how can we judge of the flesh conceived of the
Holy Ghost on the analogy of a human body? That flesh, that is, that
Bread, is from Heaven; that humanity is from God. He had a body to
suffer, and He suffered: but He had not a nature which could feel pain. For
His body possessed a unique nature of its own; it was transformed into
heavenly glory on the Mount, it put fevers to flight by its touch, it gave
new eyesight by its spittle.

24. It may perhaps be said, 'We find Him giving way to weeping, to
hunger and thirst: must we not suppose Him liable to all the other
affections of human nature?' But if we do not understand the mystery of
His tears, hunger, and thirst, let us remember that He Who wept also
raised the dead to life: that He did not weep for the death of Lazarus, but
rejoiced; that He Who thirsted, gave from Himself rivers of living water.
He could not be parched with thirst, if He was able to give the thirsty
drink. Again, He Who hungered could condemn the tree which offered no
fruit for His hunger: but how could His nature be overcome by hunger if
He could strike the green tree barren by His word? And if, beside the
mystery of weeping, hunger and thirst, the flesh He assumed, that is His

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entire manhood, was exposed to our weaknesses: even then it was not left
to suffer from their indignities. His weeping was not for Himself; His
thirst needed no water to quench it; His hunger no food to stay it. It is
never said that the Lord ate or drank or wept when He was hungry, or
thirsty, or sorrowful. He conformed to the habits of the body to prove the
reality of His own body, to satisfy the custom of human bodies by doing
as our nature does. When He ate and drank, it was a concession, not to His
own necessities, but to our habits.

25. For Christ had indeed a body, but unique, as befitted His origin. He did
not come into existence through the passions incident to human
conception: He came into the form of our body by an act of His own
power. He bore our collective humanity in the form of a servant, but He
was free from the sins and imperfections of the human body: that we
might be in Him, because He was born of the Virgin, and yet our faults
might not be in Him, because He is the source of His own humanity, born
as man but not born under the defects of human conception. It is this
mystery of His birth which the Apostle upholds and demonstrates, when
he says, He humbled Himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in
the likeness of a man and being formed in fashion as a man: that is, in that
He took the form of a servant, He was born in the form of a man: in that
He was made in the likeness of a man, and formed in fashion as a man, the
appearance and reality of His body testified His humanity, yet, though He
was formed in fashion as a man, He knew not what sin was. For His
conception was in the likeness of our nature, not in the possession of our
faults. For lest the words, He took the form of a servant, might be
understood of a natural birth, the Apostle adds, made in the likeness of a
man, and formed in fashion as a man. The truth of His birth is thus
prevented from suggesting the defects incident to our weak natures, since
the form of a servant implies the reality of His birth, and found in fashion
as a man, the likeness of our nature. He was of Himself born man through
the Virgin, and found in the likeness of our degenerate body of sin: as the
Apostle testifies in his letter to the Romans, For what the law could not
do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His Son in the
likeness of flesh of sin, condemned sin of sin. He was not found in the
fashion of a man: but found in fashion as a man: nor was His flesh the flesh
of sin, but the likeness of the flesh of sin. Thus the fashion of flesh implies

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the truth of His birth, and the likeness of the flesh of sin removes Him
from the imperfections of human weakness. So the Man Jesus Christ as
man was truly born, as Christ had no sin in His nature: for, on His human
side, He was born, and could not but be a man; on His divine side, He
could never cease to be Christ. Since then Jesus Christ was man, He
submitted as man to a human birth: yet as Christ He was free from the
infirmity of our degenerate race.

26. The Apostles' belief prepares us for the understanding of this
mystery; when it testifies that Jesus Christ was found in fashion as a man
and was sent in the likeness of the flesh of sin. For being fashioned as a
man, He is in the form of a servant, but not in the imperfections of a
servant's nature; and being in the likeness of the flesh of sin, the Word is
indeed flesh, but is in the likeness of the flesh of sin and not the flesh of
sin itself. In like manner Jesus Christ being man is indeed human, but even
thus cannot be aught else but Christ, born as man by the birth of His body,
but not human in defects, as He was not human in origin. The Word made
flesh could not but be the flesh that He was made; yet He remained always
the Word, though He was made flesh. As the Word made flesh could not
vacate the nature of His Source, so by virtue of the origin of His nature He
could not but remain the Word: but at the same time we must believe that
the Word is that flesh which He was made; always, however, with the
reserve, that when He dwelt among us, the flesh was not the Word, but
was the flesh of the Word dwelling in the flesh.

Though we have proved this, still we will see whether in the whole range
of suffering, which He endured, we can anywhere detect in our Lord the
weakness of bodily pain. We will put off for a time the discussion of the
passages on the strength of which heresy has attributed fear to our Lord;
now let us turn to the facts themselves: for His words cannot signify fear
if His actions display confidence.

27. Do you suppose, heretic, that the Lord of glory feared to suffer? Why,
when Peter made this error through ignorance, did He not call him 'Satan'
and a 'stumbling-block? Thus was Peter, who deprecated the mystery of
the Passion, established in the faith by so sharp a rebuke from the lips of
the gentle Christ, Whom not flesh and blood, but the Father in Heaven had
revealed to him.

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What phantom hope are you chasing when you deny that Christ is God,
and attribute to Him fear of suffering? He afraid, Who went forth to meet
the armed bands of His captors? Weakness in His body, at Whose
approach the pursuers reeled and broke their ranks and fell prone, unable
to endure His Majesty as He offered Himself to their chains? What
weakness could enthrall His body, Whose nature had such power?

28. But perhaps He feared the pain of wounds. Say then, What terror had
the thrust of the nail for Him Who merely by His touch restored the ear
that was cut off? You who assert the weakness of the Lord, explain this
work of power at the moment when His flesh was weak and suffering.
Peter drew his sword and smote: the High Priest's servant stood there,
lopped of his ear. How was the flesh of the ear restored from the bare
wound by the touch of Christ? Amidst the flowing blood, and the wound
left by the cleaving sword, when the body was so maimed, whence sprang
forth an ear which was not there? Whence came that which did not exist
before? Whence was restored that which was wanting? Did the hand,
which created an ear, feel the pain of the nails? He prevented another from
feeling the pain of a wound: did He feel it Himself? His touch could restore
the flesh that was cut off; was He sorrowful because He feared the piercing
of His own flesh? And if the body of Christ had this virtue, dare we allege
infirmity in that nature, whose natural force could counteract all the natural
infirmities of man?

29. But, perhaps, in their misguided and impious perversity, they infer His
weakness from the fact that His soul was sorrowful unto death. It is not
yet the time to blame you, heretic, for misunderstanding the passage. For
the present I will only ask you, Why do you forget that when Judas went
forth to betray Him, He said, Now is the Son of Man glorified? If suffering
was to glorify Him, how could the fear of it have made Him sorrowful?
How, unless He was so void of reason, that He feared to suffer when
suffering was to glorify Him?

30. But perhaps He may be thought to have feared to the extent that He
prayed that the cup might be removed from Him: Abba, Father, all things
are possible unto Thee: remove this cup from Me. To take the narrowest
ground of argument, might you not have refuted for yourself this dull
impiety by your own reading of the words, Put up thy sword into its

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sheath: the cup which My Father hath given Me, shall I not drink it?
Could fear induce Him to pray for the removal from Him of that which, in
His zeal for the Divine Plan, He was hastening to fulfill? To say He shrank
from the suffering He desired is not consistent. You allow that He suffered
willingly: would it not be more reverent to confess that you had
misunderstood this passage, than to rush with blasphemous and headlong
folly to the assertion that He prayed to escape suffering, though you allow
that He suffered willingly?

31. Yet, I suppose, you will arm yourself also for your godless contention
with these words of the Lord, My God, My God, why hast Thou
forsaken Me? Perhaps you think that after the disgrace of the cross, the
favor of His Father's help departed from Him, and hence His cry that He
was left alone in His weakness. But if you regard the contempt, the
weakness, the cross of Christ as a disgrace, you should remember His
words, Verily I say unto you, From henceforth ye shall see the Son of
Man sitting at the right hand of power, and coming with the clouds of
Heaven.

32. Where, pray, can you see fear in His Passion? Where weakness? Or
pain? Or dishonor? Do the godless say He feared? But He proclaimed with
His own lips His willingness to suffer. Do they maintain that He was
weak? He revealed His power, when His pursuers were stricken with
panic and dared not face Him. Do they contend that He felt the pain of the
wounds in His flesh? But He shewed, when He restored the wounded flesh
of the ear, that, though He was flesh, He did not feel the pain of fleshly
wounds. The hand which touched the wounded ear belonged to His body:
yet that hand created an ear out of a wound: how then can that be the hand
of a body which was subject to weakness?

33. But, they say, the cross was a dishonor to Him; yet it is because of the
cross that we can now see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of
power, that He Who was born man of the womb of the Virgin has returned
in His Majesty with the clouds of heaven. Your irreverence blinds you to
the natural relations of cause and event: not only does the spirit of
godlessness and error, with which you are filled, hide from your
understanding the mystery of faith, but the obtuseness of heresy drags
you below the level of ordinary human intelligence. For it stands to reason

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that whatever we fear, we avoid: that a weak nature is a prey to terror by
its very feebleness: that whatever feels pain possesses a nature always
liable to pain: that whatever dishonors is always a degradation. On what
reasonable principle, then, do you hold that our Lord Jesus Christ feared
that towards which He pressed: or awed the brave, yet trembled Himself
with weakness: or stopped the pain of wounds, yet felt the pain of His
own: or was dishonored by the degradation of the cross, yet through the
cross sat down by God on high, and returned to His Kingdom?

34. But perhaps you think your impiety has still an opportunity left to
see in the words, Father, into Thy hands I commend My Spirits, a proof
that He feared the descent into the lower world, and even the necessity of
death. But when you read these words and could not understand them,
would it not have been better to say nothing, or to pray devoutly to be
shewn their meaning, than to go astray with such barefaced assertions, too
mad with your own folly to perceive the truth? Could you believe that He
feared the depths of the abyss, the scorching flames, or the pit of avenging
punishment, when you listen to His words to the thief on the cross,
Verily, I say unto thee, To-day shall thou be with Me in Paradise? Such a
nature with such power could not be shut up within the confines of the
nether world, nor even subjected to fear of it. When He descended to
Hades, He was never absent from Paradise (just as He was always in
Heaven when He was preaching on earth as the Son of Man), but promised
His martyr a home there, and held out to him the transports of perfect
happiness. Bodily fear cannot touch Him Who reaches indeed down as far
as Hades, but by the power of His nature is present in all things
everywhere. As little can the abyss s of Hell and the terrors of death lay
hold upon the nature which rules the world, boundless in the freedom of
its spiritual power, confident of the raptures of Paradise; for the Lord Who
was to descend to Hades, was also to dwell in Paradise. Separate, if you
can, from His indivisible nature a part which could fear punishment: send
the one part of Christ to Hades to suffer pain, the other, you must leave in
Paradise to reign: for the thief says, Remember me when Thou comest in
Thy Kingdom. It was the groan he heard, I suppose, when the nails
pierced the hands of our Lord, which provoked in him this blessed
confession of faith: he learnt the Kingdom of Christ from His weakened
and stricken body! He begs that Christ will remember him when He comes

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in His Kingdom: you say that Christ feared as He hung dying upon the
cross. The Lord promises him, To-day, shalt thou be with Me in Paradise;
you would subject Christ to Hades and fear of punishment. Your faith has
the opposite expectation. The thief confessed Christ in His Kingdom as
He hung on the cross, and was rewarded with Paradise from the cross: you
who impute to Christ the pain of punishment and the fear of death, will
fail of Paradise and His Kingdom.

35. We have now seen the power that lay in the acts and words of Christ.
We have incontestably proved that His body did not share the infirmity of
a natural body, because its power could expel the infirmities of the body
that when He suffered, suffering laid hold of His body, but did not inflict
upon it the nature of pain: and this because, though the form of our body
was in the Lord, yet He by virtue of His origin was not in the body of our
weakness and imperfection. He was conceived of the Holy Ghost and born
of the Virgin, who performed the office of her sex, but did not receive the
seed of His conception from man. She brought forth a body, but one
conceived of the Holy Ghost; a body possessing inherent reality, but with
no infirmity in its nature. That body was truly and indeed body, because it
was born of the Virgin: but it was above the weakness of our body,
because it had its beginning in a spiritual conception.

36. But even now that we have proved what was the faith of the Apostle,
the heretics think to meet it by the text, My soul is sorrowful even, unto
death. These words, they say, prove the consciousness of natural infirmity
which made Christ begin to be sorrowful. Now, first, I appeal to common
intelligence: what do we mean by sorrowful unto death? It cannot signify
the same as 'to be sorrowful because of death:' for where there is sorrow
because of death, it is the death that is the cause of the sadness. But a
sadness even to death implies that death is the finish, not the cause, of the
sadness. If then He was sorrowful even to death, not because of death, we
must enquire, whence came His sadness? He was sorrowful, not for a
certain time, or for a period which human ignorance could not determine,
but even unto death. So far from His sadness being caused by His death, it
was removed by it.

37. That we may understand what was the cause of His sadness, let us see
what precedes and follows this confession of sadness: for in the Passover

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supper our Lord completely signified the whole mystery of His Passion
and our faith. After He had said that they should all be offended in Him,
but promised that He would go before them into Galilee, Peter protested
that though all the rest should be offended, he would remain faithful and
not be offended. But the Lord knowing by His Divine Nature what should
come to pass, answered that Peter would deny Him thrice: that we might
know from Peter how the others were offended, since even he lapsed into
so great peril to his faith by the triple denial. After that, He took Peter,
James and John, chosen, the first two to be His martyrs, John to be
strengthened for the proclamation of the Gospel, and declared that He was
sorrowful unto death. Then He went before, and prayed, saying, My
Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet, not as I will, but as
Thou wilt. He prays that the cup may pass from Him, when it was
certainly already before Him: for even then was being fulfilled that pouting
forth of His blood of the New Testament for the sins of many. He does
not pray that it may not be with Him; but that it may pass away from
Him. Then He prays that His wilt may not be done, and wills that what
He wishes to be effected, may not be granted Him. For He says, Yet not as
I will, but as Thou wilt: signifying by His spontaneous prayer for the
cup's removal His fellowship with human anxiety, yet associating Himself
with the decree of the Will which He shares inseparably with the Father.
To shew, moreover, that He does not pray for Himself, and that He seeks
only a conditional fulfillment of what He desires and prays for, He
prefaces the whole of this request with the words, My Father, if it is
possible. Is there anything for the Father the possibility of which is
uncertain? But if nothing is impossible to the Father, we can see on what
depends this condition, if it is possible: for this prayer is immediately
followed by the words, And He came to His disciples and findeth sleeping,
and saith to Peter, Could ye not watch one hour with Me? Watch and pray
that ye enter not into temptation: for the spirit indeed is willing, but the
fresh is weak. Is the cause of this sadness and this prayer any longer
doubtful? He bids them watch and pray with Him for this purpose, that
they may not enter into temptation; for the spirit indeed is willing, but the
flesh is weak. They were under the promise made in the constancy of
faithful souls not to be offended, yet, through weakness of the flesh, they
were to be offended It is not, therefore, for Himself that He is sorrowful
and prays: it is for those whom He exhorts to watchfulness and prayer,

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lest He cup of suffering should be their lot: lest that cup which He prays
may pass away from Him, should abide with them.

38. And the reason He prayed that the cup might be removed from Him, if
that were possible, was that, though with God nothing is impossible, as
Christ Himself says, Father, all things are possible to Thee, yet for man it
is. impossible to withstand the fear of suffering, and only by trial can faith
be proved. Wherefore, as Man He prays for men that the cup may pass
away, but as God from God, His will is in unison with the Father' s
effectual will. He teaches what He meant by If it is possible, in His words
to Peter Lo, Satan hath sought you that He might sift you as wheat: but f
have prayed for thee that thy faith may not fail. The cup of the Lord's
Passion was to be a trial for there all, and He prays the Father for Peter
that his faith may not fail: that when he denied through weakness, at least
he might not fail t of penitential sorrow, for repentance would mean that
faith survived.

39. The Lord was sorrowful then unto death s because in presence of the
death, the earthquake, the darkened day, the rent veil, the opened graves,
and the resurrection of the dead, the faith of the disciples would need to be
established which had been so shaken by the terror of tile night arrest, the
scourging, the striking, the spitting upon, the crown of thorns, the bearing
of the cross, and all the insults of the Passion, but most of all by the
condemnation to the accursed cross. Knowing that all this would be at an
end after His Passion, He was sad unto death. He knew, too, that the cup
could not pass away unless He drank it, for He said, My Father, this cup
cannot pass from Me unless I drink it: Thy will be done: that is, with the
completion of His Passion, the fear of the cup would pass away which
could not pass away unless He drank it: the end of that fear would follow
only when His Passion was completed and terror destroyed, because after
His death, the stumbling-block of the disciples' weakness would be
removed by the glory of His power.

40. Although by His words, Thy will be done, He surrendered the
Apostles to the decision of His Father's will, in regard to the offense of
the cup, that is, of His Passion, still He repeated His prayer a second and a
third time. After that He said, Sleep on now, and take your rest. It is not
without the consciousness of some secret reason that He Who had

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reproached them for their sleep, now bade them sleep on, add take their
rest. Luke is thought to have given us the meaning of this command. After
He had told us how Satan had sought to sift the Apostles as it were wheat,
and how the Lord had been entreated that the faith of Peter might not fails,
he adds that the Lord prayed earnestly, and then that an angel stood by
Him comforting Him, and as the angel stood by Him, He prayed the more
earnestly, so that the sweat poured from His hotly in drops of blood. The
Angel was sent, then, to watch over the Apostles, and when the Lord was
comforted by him, so that He no longer sorrowed for them, He said,
without fear of sadness, Sleep on now, and take your rest. Matthew and
Mark are silent about the angel, and the request of the devil: but after the
sorrowfulness of His soul, the reproach of the sleepers, and the prayer
that the cup may be taken away, there must be some good reason for the
command to the sleepers which follows; unless we assume that He Who
was about to leave them, and Himself had received comfort from the Angel
sent to Him, meant to abandon them to their sleep, soon to be arrested and
kept in durance.

41. We must not indeed pass over the fact hat in many manuscripts, both
Latin and Greek, nothing is said of the angel's coming or the Bloody
Sweat. But while we suspend judgment, whether this is an omission,
where it is wanting, or an interpolation, where it is found (for the
discordance of the copies leaves the question uncertain), let not the
heretics encourage themselves that herein lies a confirmation of His
weakness, that He needed the help and comfort of an angel. Let them
remember the Creator of the angels needs not the support of His creatures.
Moreover His comforting must be explained in the same way as His
sorrow. He was sorrowful for us, that is, on our account; He must also
have been comforted for us, that is, on our account. If He sorrowed
concerning us, He was comforted concerning us. The object of His comfort
is the saint as that of His sadness. Nor let any one dare to impute the
Sweat to a weakness, for it is contrary to nature to sweat blood. It was no
infirmity, for His power reversed the law of nature. The bloody sweat
does not for one moment support the heresy of weakness, while it
establishes against the heresy which invents an apparent body, the reality
all His body. Since, then, His fear was concerning us, and His prayer on

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our behalf, we are forced to the conclusion that all this happened on our
account, for whom He feared, and for whom He prayed.

42. Again the Gospels fill up what is lacking in one another: we learn some
things from one, some from another, and so on, because all are the
proclamation of the same spirit. Thus John, who especially brings out the
working of spiritual causes in the Gospel, preserves this prayer of the
Lord for the Apostles, which all the others passed over: how He prayed,
namely, Holy Father, keep them in Thy Name.... while I was them I kept
them in Thy Name: those whom Thou gavest Me I have kept. That prayer
was not for Himself but for His Apostles; nor was He sorrowful for
Himself, since He bids them pray that they be not tempted; nor is the
angel sent to Him, for He could summon down from Heaven, if He would,
twelve thousand angels; nor did He fear because of death when He was
troubled unto death. Again, He does not pray that the cup may pass over
Himself, but that it may pass away from Himself, though before it could
pass away He must have drunk it. But, further, 'to pass away' does not
mean merely 'to leave the place,' but 'not to exist any more at all:' which
is shewn in the language of the Gospels and Epistles: for example, Heaven
and earth shall pass away, but My word shall not perish: also the Apostle
says, Behold the old things are passed away; they are become new. And
again, The fashion of this world shall pass away. The cup, therefore, of
which He prays to the Father, cannot pass away unless it be drunk; and
when He prays, He prays for those whom He preserved, so long as He
was with them, whom He now hands over to the Father to preserve. Now
that He is about to accomplish the mystery of death He begs the Father to
guard them. The presence of the angel who was sent to Him (if this
explanation be true) is not of doubtful significance. Jesus shewed His
certainty that the prayer was answered when, at its close, He bade the
disciples sleep on. The effect of this prayer and the security which
prompted the command, 'sleep on,' is noticed by the Evangelist in the
course of the Passion, when he says of the Apostles just before they
escaped from the hands of the pursuers, That the word might be fulfilled
which He had spoken, Of those whom Thou hast given Me I lost not one
of them. He fulfills Himself the petition of His prayer, and they are all
safe; but He asks that those whom He has preserved the Father will now

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preserve in His own Name. And they are preserved: the faith of Peter does
not fail: it cowered, but repentance followed immediately.

43. Combine the Lord's prayer in John, the request of the devil in Luke,
the sorrowfulness unto death, and the protest against sleep, followed by
the command, Sleep on, in Matthew and Mark, and all difficulty
disappears. The prayer in John, in which He commends the Apostles to
His Father, explains the cause of His sorrowfulness, and the prayer that
the cup may pass away. It is not from Himself that the Lord prays the
suffering may be taken away. He beseeches the Father to preserve the
disciples during His coming passion. In the same way, the prayer against
Satan in St. Luke explains the confidence with which He permitted the
sleep He had just forbidden.

44. There was, then, no place for human anxiety and trepidation in that
nature, which was more than human. It was superior to the ills of earthly
flesh; a body not sprung from earthly elements, although His origin as Son
of Man was due to the mystery of the conception by the Holy Ghost. The
power of the Most High imparted its power to the booty which the Virgin
bare from the conception of the Holy Ghost. The animated body derives
its conscious existence from association with a soul, which is diffused
throughout it, and quickens it to perceive pains inflicted from without.
Thus the soul, warned by the happy glow of its own heavenly faith and
hope, soars above its own origin in the beginnings of an earthly body, and
raises that body to union with itself in thought and spirit, so that it ceases
to feel the suffering of that which, all the while, it suffers. Why need we
then say more about the nature of the Lord's body, that of the Son of Man
Who came down from heaven? Even earthly bodies can sometimes be made
indifferent to the natural necessities of pain and fear.

45. Did the Jewish children fear the flames blazing up with the fuel cast
upon them in the fiery furnace at Babylon? Did the terror of that terrible
fire prevail over their nature, conceived though it was like ours? Did they
feel pain, when the flames surrounded them? Perhaps, however, you may
say they felt no pain, because they were not burnt: the flames were
deprived of their burning nature. To be sure it is natural to the body to fear
burning, and to be burnt by fire. But through the spirit of faith their
earthly bodies (that is, bodies which had their origin according to the

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principles of natural birth) could neither be burnt nor made afraid. What,
therefore, in the case of men was a violation of the order of nature,
produced by faith in God, cannot be judged in God's case natural, but as
an activity of the Spirit commencing with His earthly origin. The children
were bound in the midst of the fire; they had no fear as they mounted the
blazing pile: they felt not the flame as they prayed: though in the midst of
the furnace, they could not be burnt. Both the fire and their bodies lost
their proper natures; the one did not burn, the others were not burnt. Yet
in all other respects, both fire and bodies retained their natures: for the
bystanders were consumed, and the ministers of punishment were
themselves punished. Impious heretic you will have it that Christ suffered
pain from the piercing of the nails, that He felt the bitterness of the
wound, when they were driven through His hands: why, pray, did not the
children fear the flames? Why did they suffer no pain? What was the
nature in their bodies, which overcame that of fire? In the zeal of their faith
and the glory of a blessed martyrdom they forgot to fear the terrible;
should Christ be sorrowful from fear of the cross, Christ, Who even if He
had been conceived with our sinful origin, would have been still God upon
the cross, Who was to judge the world and reign for ever and ever? Could
He forget such a reward, and tremble with the anxiety of dishonorable fear?

46. Daniel, whose meat was the scanty portion of a prophet, did not fear
the lions' den. The Apostles rejoiced in suffering and death for the Name
of Christ. To Paul his sacrifice was the crown of righteousness. The
Martyrs sang hymns as they offered their necks to the executioner, and
climbed with psalms the blazing logs piled for them. The consciousness of
faith takes away the weakness of nature, transforms the bodily senses that
they feel no pain, and so the body is strengthened by the fixed purpose of
the soul, and feels nothing except the impulse of its enthusiasm. The
suffering which the mind despises in its desire of glory, the body does not
feel, so long as the soul invigorates it. It is, then, a natural effect in man,
that the zeal of the soul glowing for glory should make him unconscious of
suffering, heedless of wounds, and regardless of death. But Jesus Christ
the Lord of glory, the hem of Whose garment can heal, Whose spittle and
word can create; for the than with the withered hand at His command
stretched it forth whole, he who was born blind felt no more the defect of
his birth, and the smitten ear was made sound as the other; dare we think

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of His pierced body in that pain and weakness, from which the spirit of
faith in Him rescued the glorious and blessed Martyrs?

47. The Only-begotten God, then, suffered in His person the attacks of all
the infirmities to which we are subject; but He suffered them in the power
of His own nature, just as He was born in the power of His own nature,
for at His birth He did not lose His omnipotent nature by being born.
Though born under human conditions, He was not so conceived: His birth
was surrounded by human circumstances, but His origin went beyond
them. He suffered then in His body alter the manner of our infirm body,
yet bore the sufferings of our body in the power of His own body. To this
article of our faith the prophet bears witness when he says, He beareth our
sins and grieveth for us: and we esteemed Him stricken, smitten, and
afflicted: He was wounded for our transgressions and made weak for our
sins. It is then a mistaken opinion of human judgment, which thinks He
felt pain because He suffered. He bore our sins, that is, He assumed our
body of sin, but was Himself sinless. He was sent in the likeness of the
flesh of sin, bearing sin indeed in His flesh but our sin. So too He felt pain
for us, but not with our senses; He was found in fashion as a man, with a
body which could feel pain, but His nature could not feel pain; for, though
His fashion was that of a man, His origin was not human, but He was born
by conception of the Holy Ghost.

For the reasons mentioned, He was esteemed 'stricken, smitten and
afflicted.' He took the form of a servant: and 'man born of a Virgin'
conveys to us the idea of One Whose nature felt pain when He suffered.
But though He was wounded it was 'for our transgressions.' The wound
was not the wound of His own transgressions: the suffering not a suffering
for Himself. He was not born man for His own sake, nor did He transgress
in His own action. The Apostle explains the principle of the Divine Plan
when he says, We beseech you through Christ to be reconciled to God.
Him, Who knew no sin, He made to be sin on our behalf. To condemn sin
through sin in the flesh, He Who knew no sin was Himself made sin; that
is, by means of the flesh to condemn sin in the flesh, He became flesh on
our behalf but knew not flesh: and therefore was wounded because of our
transgressions.

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48. Again, the Apostle knows nothing in Christ about fear of pain. When
He wishes to speak of the dispensation of the Passion, He includes it in
the mystery of Christ's Divinity. Forgiving us all our trespasses, blotting
out the band written in ordinances, that was against us, which was
contrary to us: taking it away, and nailing it to the cross; stripping off
from Himself His flesh, He made a shew of principalities and towers
openly triumphing over them in Himself. Was that the power, think you,
to yield to the wound of the nail, to wince under the piercing blow, to
convert itself into a nature that can feel pain? Yet the Apostle, who speaks
as the mouthpiece of Christ, relating the work of our salvation through the
Lord, describes the death of Christ as 'stripping off from Himself His
flesh, boldly putting to shame the powers and triumphing over them in
Himself.' If His passion was a necessity of nature and not the free gift of
your salvation: if the cross was merely the suffering of wounds, and not
the fixing upon Himself of the decree of death made out against you: if His
dying was a violence done by death, and not the stripping off of the flesh
by the power of God: lastly, if His death itself was anything but a
dishonoring of powers, an act of boldness, a triumph: then ascribe to Him
infirmity, because He was therein subject to necessity and nature, to force,
to If ear and disgrace. But if it is the exact opposite in the mystery of the
Passion, as it was preached to us, who, pray, can be so senseless as to
repudiate the faith taught by the Apostles, to reverse all feelings of
religion, to distort into the dishonorable charge of natural weakness, what
was an act of free-will, a mystery, a display of power and boldness, a
triumph? And what a triumph it was, when He offered Himself to those
who sought to crucify Him, and they could not endure His presence: when
He stood under sentence of death, Who shortly was to sit on the right
hand of power: when He prayed for His persecutors while the nails were
driven through Him: when He completed the mystery as He drained the
draught of vinegar; when He was numbered among the transgressors and
meanwhile granted Paradise: that when He was lifted on the tree, the earth
quaked: when He hung on the cross, sun and day were put to flight: that
He left His own body, yet cubed life back to the bodies of others: was
buffed a corpse and rose again God: as man suffered all weaknesses for our
sakes, as God triumphed in them all.

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49. There is still, the heretics say, another serious and far reaching
confession of weakness, all the more so because it is in the mouth of the
Lord Himself, My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? They
construe this into the expression of a bitter complaint, that He was
deserted and given over to weakness. But what a violent interpretation of
an irreligious mind! how repugnant to the whole tenor of our Lord's
words! He hastened to the death, which was to glorify Him, and after
which He was to sit on the right hand of power; with all those blessed
expectations could He fear death, and therefore complain that His God had
betrayed Him to its necessity, when it was the entrance to eternal
blessedness?

50. Further their heretical ingenuity presses on in the path prepared by
their own godlessness, even to the entire absorption of God the Word into
the human soul, and consequent denial that Jesus Christ, the Son of Man,
was the same as the Son of God. So either God the Word ceased to be
Himself while He performed the function of a soul in giving life to a body,
or the man who was born was not the Christ at all, but the Word dwelt in
him, as the Spirit dwelt in the prophets. These absurd and perverse errors
have grown in boldness and godlessness till they assert that Jesus Christ
was not Christ until He was born of Mary. He Who was born was not a
pre-existent Being, but began at that moment to exist.

Hence follows also the error that God the Word, as it were some part of
the Divine power extending itself in unbroken continuation, dwelt within
that man who received from Mary the beginning of his being, and endowed
him with the power of Divine working: though that man lived and moved
by the nature of his own soul.

5 1 . Through this subtle and mischievous doctrine they are drawn into the
error that God the Word became soul to the body, His nature by
self-humiliation working the change upon itself, and thus the Word ceased
to be God; or else, that the Man Jesus, in the poverty and remoteness
from God of His nature, was animated only by the life and motion of His
own human soul, wherein the Word of God, that is, as it were, the might of
His uttered voice, resided. Thus the way is opened for all manner of
irreverent theorizing: the sum of which is, either that God the Word was
merged in the soul and ceased to be God: or that Christ had no existence

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before His birth from Mary, since Jesus Christ, a mere man of ordinary
body and soul, began to exist only at His human birth anti was raised to
the level of the Power, which worked within Him, by the extraneous force
of the Divine Word extending itself into Him. Then when God the Word,
after this extension, was withdrawn, He cried, My God, My God, why
hast Thou forsaken Me? or at least when the divine nature of the Word
once more gave place within Him to a human soul, He Who had hitherto
relied on His Father's help, now separated from it, and abandoned to
death, bemoaned His solitude and chide His deserter. Thus in every way
arises a deadly danger of error in belief, whether it be thought that the cry
of complaint denotes a weakness of nature in God the Word, or that God
the Word was not pre-existent because the birth of Jesus Christ from
Mary was the beginning of His being.

52. Amid these irreverent and ill-grounded theories the faith of the Church,
inspired by the teaching of the Apostles, has recognized a birth of Christ,
but no beginning. It knows of the dispensation, but of no division: it
refuses to make a separation in Jesus Christ; whereby Jesus is one and
Christ another; nor does it distinguish the Son of Man from the Son of
God, lest perhaps the Son of God be not regarded as Son of Man also. It
does not absorb the Son of God in the Son of Man; nor does it by a
tripartite belief tear asunder Christ, Whose coat woven from the top
throughout was not parted, dividing Jesus Christ into the Word, a body
and a soul; nor, on the other hand, does it absorb the Word in body and
soul. To it He is perfectly God the Word, and perfectly Christ the Man.
To this alone we hold fast in the mystery of our confession, namely, the
faith that Christ is none other than Jesus, and the doctrine that Jesus is
none other than Christ.

53. 1 am not ignorant how much the grandeur of the divine mystery baffles
our weak understanding, so that language can scarcely express it, or reason
define it, or thought even embrace it. The Apostle, knowing that the most
difficult task for an earthly nature is to apprehend, unaided, God's mode
of action (for then our judgment were keener to discern than God is mighty
to effect), writes to his true son according to the faith, who had received
the Holy Scripture from his childhood, As I exhorted thee to tarry at
Ephesus, when I was going into Macedonia, that thou mightest charge
certain men not to teach a different doctrine, neither to give heed to fables

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and endless genealogies, the which minister questionings, rattler than the
edification of God which is in faith. He bids him forbear to handle wordy
genealogies and fables, which minister endless questionings. The edification
of God, he says, is in faith: he limits human reverence to the faithful
worship of the Almighty, and does not suffer our weakness to strain itself
in the attempt to see what only dazzles the eye. If we look at the
brightness of the sun, the sight is strained and weakened: and sometimes
when we scrutinize with too curious gaze the source of the shining light,
the eyes lose their natural power, and the sense of sight is even destroyed.
Thus it happens that through trying to see too much we see nothing at all.
What must we then expect in the case of God, the Sun of Righteousness?
Will not foolishness be their reward, who would be over wise? Will not
dull and brainless stupor usurp the place of the burning light of
intelligence? A lower nature cannot understand the principle of a higher:
nor can Heaven's mode of thought be revealed to human conception, for
whatever is within the range of a limited consciousness, is itself limited.
The divine power exceeds therefore the capacity of the human mind. If the
limited strains itself to reach so far, it becomes even feebler than before. It
loses what certainty it had: instead of seeing heavenly things it is only
blinded by them. No mind can fully comprehend the divine: it punishes the
obstinacy of the curious by depriving them of their power. Would we look
at the sun we must remove as much of his brilliancy as we need, in order to
see him: if not, by expecting too much, we fall short of the possible. In the
same way we can only hope to understand the purposes of Heaven, so far
as is permitted. We must expect only what He grants to our apprehension:
if we attempt to go beyond the limit of His indulgence, it is withdrawn
altogether. There is that in God which we can perceive: it is visible to all if
we are content with the possible. Just as with the sun we can see
something, if we are content to see what can be seen, but if we strain
beyond the possible we lose all: so is it with the nature of God. There is
that which we can understand if we are content with understanding what
we can: but aim beyond your powers and you will lose even the power of
attaining what was within your reach.

54. The mystery of that other timeless birth I will not yet touch upon: its
treatment demands an ampler space than this. For the present I will speak
of the Incarnation only. Tell me, I pray, ye who pry into secrets of

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Heaven, the mystery of Christ born of a Virgin and His nature; whence
will you explain that He was conceived and born of a Virgin? What was the
physical cause of His origin according to your disputations? How was He
formed within His mother's womb? Whence His body and His humanity?
And lastly, what does it mean that the Son of Man descended from heaven
Who remained in heaven? It is not possible by the laws of bodies for the
same object to remain and to descend: the one is the change of downward
motion; the other the stillness of being at rest. The Infant wails but is in
Heaven: the Boy grows but remains ever the immeasurable God. By what
perception of human understanding can we comprehend that He ascended
where He was before, and He descended Who remained in heaven? The
Lord says, What if ye should behold the Son of Man ascending thither
where He was before? The Son of Man ascends where He was before: can
sense apprehend this? The Son of Man descends from heaven, Who is in
heaven: can reason cope with this? The Word was made flesh: can words
express this? The Word becomes flesh, that is, God becomes Man: the
Man is in heaven: the God is from heaven. He ascends Who descended: but
He descends and yet does not descend. He is as He ever was, yet He was
not ever what He is. We pass in review the causes, but we cannot explain
the manner: we perceive the manner, and we cannot understand the causes.
Yet if we understand Christ Jesus even thus, we shall know Him: if we
seek to understand Him further we shall not know Him at all.

55. Again, how great a mystery of word and act it is that Christ wept, that
His eyes filled with tears from the anguish of His mind. Whence came this
defect in His soul that sorrow should wring tears from His body? What
bitter fate, what unendurable pain, could move to a flood of tears the Son
of Man Who descended from heaven? Again, what was it in Him which
wept? God the Word? or His human soul? For though weeping is a bodily
function, the body is but a servant; tears are, as it were, the sweat of the
agonized soul. Again, what was the cause of His weeping? Did He owe to
Jerusalem the debt of His tears, Jerusalem, the godless parricide, whom no
suffering could requite for the slaughter of Apostles and Prophets, and the
murder of her Lord Himself? He might weep for the disasters and death
which befall mankind: but could He grieve for the fall of that doomed and
desperate race? What, I ask, was this mystery of weeping? His soul wept
for sorrow; was not it the soul which sent forth the Prophets? Which

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would so often have gathered the chickens together under the shadow of
His wings? But God the Word cannot grieve, nor can the Spirit weep: nor
could His soul possibly do anything before the body existed. Yet we
cannot doubt that Jesus Christ truly wept.

56. No less real were the tears He shed for Lazarus. The first question here
is, What was there to weep for in the case of Lazarus? Not his death, for
that was not unto death, but for the glory of God: for the Lord says, That
sickness is not unto death, but far the glory of God, that the Son of God
may be honored through him. The death which was the cause of God's
being glorified could not bring sorrow and tears. Nor was there any
occasion for tears in His absence from Lazarus at the time of his death. He
says plainly, Lazarus is dead, and I rejoice for your sakes that I was not
there, to the intent that ye may believe. His absence then, which aided the
Apostles' belief, was not the cause of His sorrow: for with the knowledge
of Divine omniscience, He declared the death of the sick man from afar. We
can find, then, no necessity for tears, yet He wept. And again I ask, To
whom must we ascribe the weeping? To God, or the soul, or the body?
The body, of itself, has no tears except those it sheds at the command of
the sorrowing soul. Far less can God have wept, for He was to be glorified
in Lazarus. Nor is it reason to say His soul recalled Lazarus from the
tomb: can a soul linked to a body, by the power of its command, call
another soul back to the dead hotly from which it has departed? Can He
grieve Who is about to be glorified? Can He weep Who is about to restore
the dead to life? Tears are not for Him Who is about to give life, or grief for
Him Who is about to receive glory. Yet He Who wept and grieved was also
the Giver of life.

57. If there are many points which we treat scantily it is not because we
have nothing to say, or do not know what has already been said; our
purpose is, by abstaining from too laborious a process of argument, to
render the results as attractive as possible to the reader. We know the
deeds and words of our Lord, yet we know them not: we are not ignorant
of them, yet they cannot be understood. The facts are real, but the power
behind them is a mystery. We will prove this from His own words, For
thus reason doth the Father love Me, because I lay down My life that I
may take it up again. No one taketh it from Me, but 1 lay it down of
Myself. I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it up again.

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This commandment received I from the Father. He lays down His life of
Himself, but I ask who lays it down? We confess without hesitation, that
Christ is God the Word: but on the other hand, we know that the Son of
Man was composed of a soul and a body: compare the angel's words to
Joseph, Arise and take the child and His mother, and go into the land of
Israel; for they are dead who sought the soul of the child. Whose soul is it?
His body's, or God's? If His body's, what power has the body to lay
down the soul, when it is only by the working of the soul that it is
quickened into life? Again, how could the body, which apart from the soul
is inert and dead, receive a command from the Father? But if, on the other
hand, any man suppose that God the Word laid aside His soul, that He
might take it up again, he must prove that God the Word died, that is,
remained without life and feeling like a dead body, and took up His soul
again to be quickened once more into life by it.

58. But, further, no one who is endued with reason can impute to God a
soul; though it is written in many places that the soul of God hates
Sabbaths and new moons: and also that it delights in certain things. But
this is merely a conventional expression to be understood in the same way
as when God is spoken of as possessing body, with hands, and eyes, and
fingers, and arms, and heart. As the Lord said, A Spirit hath not flesh and
bones: He then Who is, and changeth not, cannot have the limbs and parts
of a tangible body. He is a simple and blessed nature, a single, complete,
all-embracing Whole. God is therefore not quickened into life, like bodies,
by the action of an indwelling soul, but is Himself His own life.

59. How does He then lay down His soul, or take it up again? What is the
meaning of this command He received? God could not lay it down that is,
die, or take it up again, that is, come to life. But neither did the body
receive the command to take it up again; it could not do so of itself, for He
said of the Temple of His body, Destroy this temple and after three days I
will raise it up. Thus it is God Who raises up the temple of His body. And
Who lays down His soul to take it again? The body does not take it up
again of itself: it is raised up by God. That which is raised up again must
have been dead, and that which is living does not lay down its soul. God
then was neither dead nor buried: and yet He said, In that she has poured
this ointment upon My body she did it for My burial. In that it was
poured upon His body it was done for His burial: but the His is not the

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same as Him. It is quite another use of the pronoun when we say, 'it was
done for the burial of Him,' and when we say, 'His body was anointed:'
nor is the sense the same in 'His body was buried,' and 'He was buried.'

60. To grasp this divine mystery we must see the God in Him without
ignoring the Man; and the Man without ignoring the God. We must not
divide Jesus Christ, for the Word was made flesh: yet we must not call
Him buried, though we know He raised Himself again: must not doubt His
resurrection, though we dare not deny He was buried. Jesus Christ was
buried, for He died: He died, and even cried out at the moment of death,
My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? Yet He, Who uttered
these words, said also: Verily I say unto thee, This day shalt thou be with
Me in Paradise, and He Who promised Paradise to the thief cried aloud,
Father, into Thy hands I commend My Spirit; and having said this He gave
up the Ghost.

61. Ye who trisect Christ into the Word, the soul and the body, or degrade
the whole Christ, even God the Word, into a single member of our race,
unfold to us this mystery of great godliness which was manifested in the
flesh. What Spirit did Christ give up? Who commended His Spirit into the
hands of His Father? Who was to be in Paradise that same day? Who
complained that He was deserted of God? The cry of the deserted
betokens the weakness of the dying: the promise of Paradise the sovereign
power of the living God. To commend His Spirit denoted confidence: to
give up His Spirit implied His departure by death. Who then, I demand,
was it Who died? Surely He Who gave up His Spirit? but Who gave up His
Spirit? Certainly He Who commended it to His Father. And if He Who
commended His Spirit is the same as He Who gave it up and died, was it
the body which commended its soul, or God Who commended the body's
soul? I say 'soul,' because there is no doubt it is frequently synonymous
with 'spirit,' as might be gathered merely from the language here: Jesus
gave up His 'Spirit' when He was on the point of death. If, therefore, you
hold the conviction that the body commended the soul, that the perishable
commended the living, the corruptible the eternal, that which was to be
raised again, that which abides unchanged, then, since He Who commended
His Spirit to the Father was also to be in Paradise with the thief that same
day, I would fain know if, while the sepulcher received Him, He was

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abiding in heaven, or if He was abiding in heaven, when He cried out that
God had deserted Him.

62. It is one and the same Lord Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, Who
expresses Himself in all these utterances, Who is man when He says He is
abandoned to death: yet while man still rules in Paradise as God, and
though reigning in Paradise, as Son of God commends His Spirit to His
Father, as Son of Man gives up to death the Spirit He commended to the
Father. Why do we then view as a disgrace that which is a mystery? We
see Him complaining that He is left to die, because He is Man: we see
Him, as He dies, declaring that He reigned in Paradise, because He is God.
Why should we harp, to support our irreverence, on what He said to make
us understand His death, and keep back what He proclaimed to
demonstrate His immortality? The words and the voice are equally His,
when He complains of desertion, and when He declares His rule: by what
method of heretical logic do we split up our belief and deny that He Who
died was at the same time He Who rules? Did He not testify both equally
of Himself, when He commended His Spirit, and when He gave it up? But
if He is the same, Who commended His Spirit, and gave it up, if He dies
when ruling and rides when dead: then the mystery of the Son of God and
Son of Man means that He is One, Who dying reigns, and reigning dies.

63. Stand aside then, all godless unbelievers, for whom the divine mystery
is too great, who do not know that Christ wept not for Himself but for us,
to prove the reality of His assumed manhood by yielding to the emotion
common to humanity: who do not perceive that Christ died not for
Himself, but for our life, to renew human life by the death of the deathless
God: who cannot reconcile the complaint of the deserted with the
confidence of the Ruler: who would teach us that because He reigns as God
and complains that He is dying, we have here a dead man and the reigning
God. For He Who dies is none other than He Who reigns, He Who
commends His spirit than He Who gives it up: He Who was buried, rose
again: ascending or descending He is altogether one.

64. Listen to the teaching of the Apostle and see in it a faith instructed not
by the understanding of the flesh but by the gift of the Spirit. The Greeks
seek after wisdom, he says, and the Jews ask for a sign; but we preach
Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block, and unto Gentiles

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foolishness; but unto them that are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ
Jesus, the power of God, and the wisdom of God. Is Christ divided here so
that Jesus the crucified is one, and Christ, the power and wisdom of God,
another? This is to the Jews a stumbling-block and unto the Gentiles
foolishness; but to us Christ Jesus is the power of God, and the wisdom of
God: wisdom, however, not known of the world, nor understood by a
secular philosophy. Hear the same blessed Apostle when he declares that
it has not been understood, We speak the wisdom of God, which hath been
hidden in a mystery, which God foreordained before the world for our
glory: which none of the rulers of this world has known: for had they
known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory. Does not the
Apostle know that this wisdom of God is hidden in a mystery, and cannot
be known of the rulers of this world? Does he divide Christ into a Lord of
Glory and a crucified Jesus? Nay, rather, he contradicts this most foolish
and impious idea with the words, For I determined to know nothing among
you, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.

65. The Apostle knew nothing else, and he determined to know nothing
else: we men of feebler wit, and feebler faith, split up, divide and double
Jesus Christ, constituting ourselves judges of the unknown, and
blaspheming the hidden mystery. For us Christ crucified is one, Christ the
wisdom of God another: Christ Who was buried different from Christ Who
descended from Heaven: the Son of Man not at the same time also Son of
God. We teach that which we do not understand: we seek to refute that
which we cannot grasp. We men improve upon the revelation of God: we
are not content to say with the Apostle, Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth, who is he that condemneth?
It is Christ Jesus, that died, yea, rather, that was raised front the dead,
Who is at the right hand of God, Who also maketh intercession far us. Is
He Who intercedes for us other than He Who is at the right hand of God?
Is not He Who is at the right hand of God the very same Who rose again?
Is He Who rose again other than He Who died? He Who died than He Who
condemns us? Lastly, is not He Who condemns us also God Who justifies
us? Distinguish, if you can, Christ our accuser from God our defender,
Christ Who died from Christ Who condemns, Christ sitting at the right
hand of God and praying for us from Christ Who died. Whether, therefore,
dead or buried, descended into Hades or ascended into Heaven, all is one

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and the same Christ: as the Apostle says, Now this 'He ascended' what is
it, but that He also descended to the lower parts of the earth? He that
descended is the same also that ascended far above all heavens, that He
may fill all things. How far then shall we push our babbling ignorance and
blasphemy, professing to explain what is hidden in the mystery of God?
He that descended is the same also that ascended. Can we longer doubt
that the Man Christ Jesus rose from the dead, ascended above the heavens
and is at the right hand of God? We cannot say His body descended into
Hades, which lay in the grave. If then He Who descended is one with Him,
Who ascended; if His body did not go down into Hades, yet really arose
from the dead, and ascended into heaven, what remains, except to believe
in the secret mystery, which is hidden from the world and the rulers of this
age, and to confess that, ascending or descending, He is but One, one Jesus
Christ for us, Son of God and Son of Man, God the Word and Man in the
flesh, Who suffered, died, was buried, rose again, was received into heaven,
and sitteth at the right hand of God: Who possesses in His one single self,
according to the Divine Plan and nature, in the form of God and in the form
of a servant, the Human and Divine without separation or division.

66. So the Apostle molding our ignorant and haphazard ideas into
conformity with truth says of this mystery of the faith, For He was
crucified through weakness but He liveth through the power of God.
Preaching the Son of Man and Son of God, Man through the Divine Plan,
God through His eternal nature, he says, that He Who was crucified
through weakness is He Who lives through the power of God. His
weakness arises from the form of a servant, His nature remains because of
the form of God. He took the form of a servant, though He was in form of
God: therefore there can be no doubt as to the mystery according to which
He both suffered and lived. There existed in Him both weakness to suffer,
and power of God to give life: and hence He Who suffered and lived cannot
be more than One, or other than Himself.

67. The Only-begotten God suffered indeed all that men can suffer: but let
us express ourselves in the words anti faith of the Apostle. He says, For I
delivered unto you first of all how that Christ died for our sins, according
to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third
day according to the Scriptures. This is no unsupported statement of his
own, which might lead to error, but a warning to us to confess that Christ

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died and rose after a real manner, not a nominal, since the tact is certified
by the full weight of Scripture authority; and that we must understand His
death in that exact sense in which Scripture declares it. In his regard for the
perplexities and scruples of the weak and sensitive believer, he adds these
solemn concluding words, according to the Scriptures, to his proclamation
of the death and the resurrection. He would not have us grow weaker,
driven about by every wind of vain doctrine, or vexed by empty subtleties
and false doubts: he would summon faith to return, before it were
shipwrecked, to the haven of piety, believing and confessing the death and
resurrection of Jesus Christ, Son of Man and Son of God, according to the
Scriptures, this being the safeguard of reverence against the attack of the
adversary, so to understand the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, as
it was written of Him. There is no danger in faith: the reverent confession
of the hidden mystery of God is always safe. Christ was born of the
Virgin, but conceived of the Holy Ghost according to the Scriptures. Christ
wept, but according to the Scriptures: that which made Him weep was also
a cause of joy. Christ hungered; but according to the Scriptures, He used
His power as God against the tree which bore no fruit, when He had no
loath Christ suffered: but according to the Scriptures, He was about to sit
at the right hand of Power. He complained that He was abandoned to die:
but according to the Scriptures, at the same moment He received in His
kingdom in Paradise the thief who confessed Him. He died: but according
to the Scriptures, He rose again and sits at the right hand of God. In the
belief of this mystery there is life: this confession resists all attack.

68. The Apostle is careful to leave no room for doubt: we cannot say,
"Christ was born, suffered, was dead and buried, and rose again but how,
by what power, by what division of parts of Himself? Who wept? Who
rejoiced? Who complained? Who descended? and Who ascended?" He rests
the merits of faith entirely on the confession of unquestioning reverence.
The righteousness, he says, which is of faith saith thus, Say not in thy
heart, Who hath ascended into heaven, that is, to bring Christ down: or
Who hath descended into the abyss: that is, to bring Christ up from the
dead? But what saith the Scripture? Thy word is nigh, in thy mouth, and
in thy heart; that is, the word of faith which we preach: because if thou
shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord, and shalt believe in thy heart,
that God hath raised Him up from the dead, thou shalt be saved. Faith

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perfects the righteous man: as it is written, Abraham believed God and it
was reckoned unto him for righteousness. Did Abraham impugn the word
of God, when he was promised the inheritance of the Gentiles, and an
abiding posterity as many as the sand or the stars for multitude? To the
reverent faith, which trusts implicitly on the omnipotence of God, the
limits of human weakness are no barrier. Despising all that is feeble and
earthly in itself, it believes the divine promise, even though it exceeds the
possibilities of human nature. It knows that the laws which govern man are
no hindrance to the power of God, Who is as bountiful in the performance
as He is gracious in the promise. Nothing is more righteous than Faith. For
as in human conduct it is equity and self-restraint that receive our
approval, so in the case of God, what is more righteous for man than to
ascribe omnipotence to Him, Whose Power He perceives to be without
limits?

69. The Apostle then looking in us for the righteousness which is of Faith,
cuts at the root of incredulous doubt and godless unbelief. He forbids us to
admit into our hearts the cares of anxious thought, and points to the
authority of the Prophet's words, Say not in thy heart, Who hath
ascended into heaven? Then He completes the thought of the Prophet's
words with the addition, That is to bring Christ down. The perception of
the human mind cannot attain to the knowledge of the divine: but neither
can a reverent faith doubt the works of God. Christ needed no human help,
that any one should ascend into heaven to bring Him down from His
blessed Home to His earthly body. It was no external force which drove
Him down to the earth. We must believe that He came, even as He did
come: it is true religion to confess Jesus Christ not brought down, but
descending. The mystery both of the time and the method of His coming,
belongs to Him alone. We may not think because He came but recently,
that therefore He must have been brought down, nor that His coming in
time depended upon another, who brought Him down.

Nor does the Apostle give room for unbelief in the other direction. He
quotes at once the words of the Prophet, Or Who hath descended into the
abyss, and adds immediately the explanation, That is to bring Christ back
from the dead. He is free to return into heaven, Who was free to descend to
the earth. All hesitation and doubt is then removed. Faith reveals what

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omnipotence plans: history relates the effect, God Almighty was the
cause.

70. But there is demanded from us an unwavering certainty. The Apostle
expounding the whole secret of the Scripture passes on, Thy word is nigh,
in thy mouth and in thy heart. The words of our confession must not be
tardy or deliberately vague: there must be no interval between heart and
lips, lest what ought to be the confession of true reverence become a
subterfuge of infidelity. The word must be near us, and within us; no delay
between the heart and the lips; a faith of conviction as well as of words.
Heart and lips must be in harmony, and reveal in thought and utterance a
religion which does not waver. Here too, as before, the Apostle adds the
explanation of the Prophet's words, That is the word of Faith, which we
preach; because if thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord, and
shalt believe in thy heart that God hath raised Him up from the dead, thou
shalt be saved. Piety consists in rejecting doubt, righteousness in believing,
salvation in confessing. Trifle not with ambiguities, be not stirred up to
vain babblings, do not debate in any way the powers of God, or impose
limits upon His might, cease searching again and again for the causes of
unsearchable mysteries: confess rather that Jesus is the Lord, and believe
that God raised Him from the dead; herein is salvation. What folly is it to
depreciate the nature and character of Christ, when this alone is salvation,
to know that He is the Lord. Again, what an error of human vanity to
quarrel about His resurrection, when it is enough for eternal life to believe
that God raised Him up. In simplicity then is faith, in faith righteousness,
and in confession true godliness. For God does not call us to the blessed
life through arduous investigations. He does not tempt us with the varied
arts of rhetoric. The way to eternally is plain and easy; believe that Jesus
was raised from the dead by God and confess that He is the Lord. Let no
one therefore wrest into an occasion for impiety, what was said because of
our ignorance. It had to be proved to us, that Jesus Christ died, that we
might live in Him.

71. If then He said, My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me, and
Father, into Thy hands I commend My Spirit, that we might be sure that
He did die, was not this, in His care for our faith, rather a scattering of our
doubts, than a confession of His weakness? When He was about to restore
Lazarus, He prayed to the Father: but what need had He of prayer, Who

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said, Father, I thank Thee, that Thou hast heard Me; and I know that Thou
hearest Me always, but because of the multitude I said it, that they may
believe that Thou didst send Me? He prayed then for us, that we may
know Him to be the Son; the words of prayer availed Him nothing, but He
said them for the advancement of our faith. He was not in want of help,
but we of teaching. Again He prayed to be glorified; and immediately was
heard from heaven the voice of God the Father glorifying Him: but when
they wondered at the voice, He said, This voice hath not come for My
sake, but for your sakes. The Father is besought for us, He speaks for us:
may all this lead us to believe and confess! The answer of the Glorifier is
granted not to the prayer for glory, but to the ignorance of the bystanders:
must we not then regard the complaint of suffering, when He found His
greatest joy in suffering, as intended for the building up of our faith? Christ
prayed for His persecutors, because they knew not what they did. He
promised Paradise from the cross, because He is God the King. He rejoiced
upon the cross, that all was finished when He drank the vinegar, because
He had fulfilled all prophecy before He died. He was born for us, suffered
for us, died for us, rose again for us. This alone is necessary for our
salvation, to confess the Son of God risen from the dead: why then should
we die in this state of godless unbelief? If Christ, ever secure of His
divinity, made clear to us His death, Himself indifferent to death, yet
dying to assure that it was true humanity that He had assumed: why
should we use this very confession of the Son of God that for us He
became Son of Man and died as the chief weapon to deny His divinity?

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BOOK 11

1. The Apostle in his letter to the Ephesians, reviewing in its manifold
aspects the full and perfect mystery of the Gospel, mingles with other
instructions in the knowledge of God the following: As ye also were called
in one hope of your calling; One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and
Father of all, and through all, and in us all. He does not leave us in the
vague and misleading paths of an indefinite teaching, or abandon us to the
shifting fancies of imagination, but limits the unimpeded license of intellect
and desire by the appointment of restraining barriers. He gives us no
opportunity to be wise beyond what he preached, but defines in exact and
precise language the faith fixed for all time, that there may be no excuse for
instability of belief. He declares one faith, as he preaches one Lord, and
pronounces one baptism, as he declares one faith of one Lord, that as there
is one faith of one Lord, so there may be one baptism of one faith in one
Lord. And since the whole mystery of the baptism and the faith is not
only in one Lord, but also in one God, he completes the consummation of
our hope by the confession of one God. The one baptism and the one faith
are of one God, as they are of one Lord. Lord and God are each one, not by
union of person but by distinction of properties: for, on the one hand, it is
the property of Each to be one, whether of the Father in His Fatherhood,
or of the Son in His Sonship, and on the other hand, that property of
individuality, which Each possesses, constitutes for Each the mystery of
His union with the Other. Thus the one Lord Christ cannot take away
from God the Father His Lordship, or the one God the Father deny to the
one Lord Christ His Godhead. If, because God is one, Christ is not also by
nature divine, then we cannot allow that the one God is Lord, because
there is one Lord Christ: that is, on the supposition that by their 'oneness'
is signified not the mystery, but an exclusive unity. So there is one
baptism and one faith of one Lord, as of one God.

2. But how can it be any longer one faith, if it does not steadfastly and
sincerely confess one Lord and one God the Father: and how can the faith
which is not one faith confess one Lord and one God the Father? Further,

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how can the faith be one, when its preachers are so at variance? One comes
teaching that the Lord Jesus Christ, being in the weakness of our nature,
groaned with anguish when the nails pierced His hands, that He lost the
virtue of His own power and nature, and shrank shuddering from the death
which threatened Him. Another even denies the cardinal doctrine of the
Generation and pronounces Him a creature. Another will call Him, but not
think Him, God on the ground that religion allows us to speak of more
Gods than One, but He, Whom we recognize as God, must be conscious of
sharing the divine nature. Again, how can Christ the Lord be one, when
some say that as God He feels no pain, others make Him weak and fearful:
to some He is God in name, to others God in nature: to some the Son by
Generation, to others the Son by appellation? And if this is so, how can
God the Father be one in the faith, when to some He is Father by His
authority, to others Father by generation, in the sense that God is Father
of the universe?

And yet, who will deny that whatever is not the one faith, is not faith at
all? For in the one faith there is one Lord Christ, and God the Father is
one. But the one Lord Jesus Christ is not one in the truth of the
confession, as well as in name, unless He is Son, unless He is God, unless
He is unchangeable, unless His Sonship and His Godhead have been
eternally present in Him. He who preaches Christ other than He is, that is,
other than Son and God, preaches another Christ. Nor is he in the one faith
of the one baptism, for in the teaching of the Apostle the one faith is the
faith of that one baptism, in which the one Lord is Christ, the Son of God
Who is also God.

3. Yet it cannot be denied that Christ was Christ. It cannot be that He was
incognizable to mankind. The books of the prophets have set their seal
upon Him: the fullness of the times, which waxes daily, witnesses of Him:
by the working of wonders the tombs of Apostles and Martyrs proclaim
Him: the power of His name reveals Him: the unclean spirits confess Him,
and the devils howling in their torment call aloud His name. In all we see
the dispensation of His power. But our faith must preach Him as He is,
namely, one Lord not in name but in confession, in one faith of one
baptism: for on our faith in one Lord Christ depends our confession of one
God the Father.

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4. But these teachers of a new Christ, who deny to Him all that is His,
preach another Lord Christ as well as another God the Father. The One is
not the Begetter but the Creator, the Other not begotten, but created.
Christ is therefore not very God, because He is not God by birth, and faith
cannot recognize a Father in God, because there is no generation to
constitute Him Father. They glorify God the Father indeed, as is His right
and due, when they predicate of Him a nature unapproachable, invisible,
inviolable, ineffable, and infinite, endued with omniscience and
omnipotence, instinct with love, moving in all and permeating all,
immanent and transcendent, sentient in all sentient existence. But when
they proceed to ascribe to Him the unique glory of being alone good, alone
omnipotent, alone immortal, who does not feel that this pious praise aims
to exclude the Lord Jesus Christ froth the blessedness, which by the
reservation 'alone' is restricted to the glory of God? Does it not leave
Christ in sinfulness and weakness and death, while the Father reigns in
solitary perfection? Does it not deny in Christ a natural origin from God
the Father, in the fear lest He should be thought to inherit by a birth,
which bestows upon the Begotten the same virtue of nature as the
Begetter, a blessedness natural to God the Father alone?

5. Unlearned in the teaching of the Gospels and Apostles, they extol the
glory of God the Father, not, however, with the sincerity of a devout
believer, but with the cunning of impiety, to wrest from it an argument for
their wicked heresy. Nothing, they say, can be compared with His nature:
therefore the Only-begotten God is excluded from the comparison, because
He possesses a lower and weaker nature. And this they say of God, the
living image of the living God, the perfect form of His blessed nature, the
only-begotten offspring of His unbegotten substance; Who is not truly the
image of God unless He possesses the perfect glory of the Father's
blessedness: and reproduces in its exactitude the likeness of His whole
nature. But if the Only-begotten God is the image of the Unbegotten God,
the verity of that perfect and supreme nature resides in Him and makes
Him the image of the very God. Is the Father omnipotent? The weak Son
is not the image of omnipotence. Is He good? The Son, Whose divinity is
of a lower stamp, does not reflect in His sinful nature the image of
goodness. Is He incorporeal? The Son, Whose very spirit is confined to the
limits of a body, is not in the forth of the Incorporeal. Is He ineffable? The

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Son, Whom language can define, Whose nature the tongue can describe, is
not the image of the Ineffable. Is He the true God? The Son possesses only
a fictitious divinity, and the false cannot be the image of the True. The
Apostle, however, does not ascribe to Christ a portion of the image, or a
part of the form, but pronounces Him unreservedly the image of the
invisible God and the form of God. And how could He declare more
expressly the divine nature of the Son of God, than by saying that Christ
is the image of the invisible God even in respect of His invisibility: for if
the substance of Christ were discernible how could He be the image of an
invisible nature?

6. But, as we pointed out in the former books, they seize the Dispensation
of the assumed manhood as a pretext to dishonor His divinity, and distort
the Mystery of our salvation into an occasion of blasphemy. Had they
held fast the faith of the Apostle, they would neither have forgotten that
He, Who was in the form of God, took the form of a servant, nor made use
of the servant's forth to dishonor the form of God (for the form of God
includes the fullness of divinity), but they would have noted, reasonably
and reverently, the distinction of occasions s and mysteries, without
dishonoring the divinity, or being misled by the Incarnation of Christ. But
now, when we have, I am convinced, proved everything to the utmost, and
pointed out the power of the divine nature underlying the birth of the
assumed body, there is no longer room for doubt. He Who was at once
man and the Only-begotten God performed all things by the power of
God, and in the power of God accomplished all things through a true
human nature. As begotten of God He possessed the nature of divine
omnipotence, as born of the Virgin He had a perfect and entire humanity.
Though He had a real body, He subsisted in the nature of God, and though
He subsisted in the nature of God, He abode in a real body.

7. In our reply we have followed Him to the moment of His glorious death,
and taking one by one the statements of their unhallowed doctrine, we
have refuted them from the teaching of the Gospels and the Apostle. But
even after His glorious resurrection there are certain things which they
have made bold to construe as proofs of the weakness of a lower nature,
and to these we must now reply. Let us adopt once more our usual method
of drawing out from the words themselves their true signification, that so
we may discover the truth precisely where they think to overthrow it. For

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the Lord spoke in simple words for our instruction in the faith, and His
words cannot need support or comment from foreign and irrelevant
sayings.

8. Among their other sins the heretics often employ as an argument the
words of the Lord, I ascend unto My Father and your Father, and My
God and your God. His Father is also their Father, His God their God;
therefore He is not in the nature of God, for He pronounces God the
Father of others as of Himself, and His unique Sonship ceases when He
shares with others the nature and the origin which make Him Son and God.
But let them add further the words of the Apostle, But when He saith All
things are put in subjection, He is excepted Who did subject all things unto
Him. And when all things have been subjected unto Him, then shall He
Himself be subjected unto Him that did subject all things unto Himself,
that God may be all in all, whereby, since they regard that subjection as a
proof of weakness, they may dispossess Him of the virtue of His Father's
nature, because His natural infirmity subjected Him to the dominion of a
stronger nature. And after that, let them adopt their very strongest
position and their impregnable defense, before which the truth of the
Divine birth is to he demolished; namely, that if He is subjected, He is not
God; if His God and Father is ours also, He shares all in common with
creatures, and therefore is Himself also a creature: created of God and not
begotten, since the creature has its substance out of nothing, but the
begotten possesses the nature of its author.

9. Falsehood is always infamous, for the liar throwing off the bridle of
shame dares to gainsay the truth, or else at times he hides behind some veil
of pretext, that he may appear to defend with modesty what is shameless
in intention. But in this case, when they sacrilegiously use the Scriptures
to degrade the dignity of our Lord, there is no room for the blush or the
false excuse; for there are occasions when even pardon accorded to
ignorance is refused, and willful misconstruction is exposed in its naked
profanity. Let us postpone for a moment the exposition of this passage in
the Gospel, and ask them first whether they have forgotten the preaching
of the Apostle, who said, Without controversy great is the mystery of
godliness, which was manifested in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of
angels, preached among the nations, believed on in the world, received up
in glory. Who is so dull that he cannot comprehend that the mystery of

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godliness is simply the Dispensation of the flesh assumed by the Lord? At
the outset then, he who does not agree in this confession is not in the faith
of God. For the Apostle leaves no doubt that all must confess that the
hidden secret of our salvation is not the dishonor of God, but the mystery
of great godliness, and a mystery no longer kept from our eyes, but
manifested in the flesh; no longer weak through the nature of flesh, but
justified in the Spirit. And so by the justification of the Spirit is removed
from our faith the idea of fleshly weakness; through the manifestation of
the flesh is revealed that which was secret, and in the unknown cause of
that which was secret is contained the only confession, the confession of
the mystery of great godliness. This is the whole system of the faith set
forth by the Apostle in its proper order. From godliness proceeds the
mystery, from the mystery the manifestation in the flesh, from the
manifestation in the flesh the justification in the Spirit: for the mystery of
godliness which was manifested in the flesh, to be truly a mystery, was
manifested in the flesh through the justification of the Spirit. Again, we
must not forget what manner of justification in the Spirit is this
manifestation in the flesh: for the mystery which was manifested in the
flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached among the nations,
and believed on in this world, this same mystery was received up in glory.
Thus is it in every way a mystery of great godliness, when it is manifested
in the flesh, when it is justified in the Spirit, when it is seen of angels,
when it is preached among the nations, when it is believed on in the world,
and when it is received up in glory. The preaching follows the seeing, and
the believing the preaching, and the consummation of all is the receiving up
in glory: for the assumption into glory is the mystery of great godliness,
and by faith in the Dispensation we are prepared to be received up, and to
be conformed to the glory of the Lord. The assumption of flesh is
therefore also the mystery of great godliness, for through the assumption
of flesh the mystery was manifested in the flesh. But we mast believe that
the manifestation in the flesh also is this same mystery of great godliness,
for His manifestation in the flesh is His justification in the Spirit, and His
assumption into glory. And now what room does our faith leave for any to
think that the secret of the Dispensation of godliness is the enfeebling of
the divinity, when through the assumption of glory is to be confessed the
mystery of great godliness? What was 'infirmity' is now the 'mystery:'
what was 'necessity' becomes 'godliness.' And now let us turn to the

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meaning of the Evangelist's words, that the secret of our salvation and our
glory may not be converted into an occasion of blasphemy.

10. You credit with the weight of irresistible authority, heretic, that saying
of the Lord, I ascend to My Father and your Father, and My God and
your God. The same Father, you say, is His Father and ours, the same
God His God and ours. He partakes, therefore, of our weakness, for in the
possession of the same Father we are not inferior as sons, and in the
service of the same God we are equal as servants. Since, then, we are of
created origin and a servant' s nature, but have a common Father and God
with Him, He is in common with our nature a creature and a servant. So
runs this infatuated and unhallowed teaching. It produces also the words of
the Prophet, Thy God hath anointed Thee, O God, to prove that Christ
does not partake of that glorious nature which belongs to God, since the
God Who anoints Him is preferred before Him as His God.

11. We do not know Christ the God unless we know God the Begotten.
But to be born God is to belong to the nature of God, for the name
Begotten signifies indeed the manner of His origin, but does not make Him
different in kind from the Begetter. And if so, the Begotten owes indeed to
His Author the source of His being, but is not dispossessed of the nature
of that Author, for the birth of God can arise but from one origin, and have
but one nature. If its origin is not from God, it is not a birth; if it is
anything but a birth, Christ is not God. But He is God of God, and
therefore God the Father stands to God the Son as God of His birth and
Father of His nature, for the birth of God is from God, and in the specific
nature of God.

12. See in all that He said, how carefully the Lord tempers the pious
acknowledgment of His debt, so that neither the confession of the birth
could be held to reflect upon His divinity, nor His reverent obedience to
infringe upon His sovereign nature. He does not withhold the homage due
from Him as the Begotten, Who owed to His Author His very existence,
but He manifests by His confident bearing the consciousness of
participation in that nature, which belongs to Him by virtue of the origin
whereby He was born as God. Take, for instance, the words, He that hath
seen Me, hath seen the Father also, and, The wards that I say, I speak not
from Myself. He does not speak from Himself: therefore He receives from

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His Author that which He says. But if any have seen Him, they have seen
the Father also: they are conscious, by this evidence, given to shew that
God is in Him, that a nature, one in kind with that of God, was born from
God to subsist as God. Take again the words, That which the Father hath
given unto Me, is greater than all, and, I and the Father are one. To say
that the Father gave, is a confession that He received His origin: but the
unity of Himself with the Father is a property of His nature derived from
that origin. Take another instance, He hath given all judgment unto the Son,
that all may honor the Son even as they honor the Father. He
acknowledges that the judgment is given to Him, and therefore He does not
put His birth in the background: but He claims equal honor with the
Father, and therefore He does not resign His nature. Yet another example, I
am in the Father, and the Father is in Me, and, The Father is greater than I.
The One is in the Other: recognize, then, the divinity of God, the Begotten
of God: the Father is greater than He: perceive, then, His acknowledgment
of the Father's authority. In the same way He says, The Son can do
nothing of Himself but what He hath seen the Father doing: for what
things soever He doeth, these the Son also doeth in like manner. He doeth
nothing of Himself: that is, in accordance with His birth the Father
prompts His actions: yet what things soever the Father doeth, these the
Son also doeth in like manner; that is, He subsists as nothing less than
God, and by the Father's omnipotent nature residing in Him, can do all
that God the Father does. All is uttered in agreement with His unity of
Spirit with the Father, and the properties of that nature, which He
possesses by virtue of His birth. That birth, which brought Him into
being, constituted Him divine, and His being reveals the consciousness of
that divine nature. God the Son confesses God His Father, because He was
born of Him; but also, because He was barn, He inherits the whole nature
of God.

13. So the Dispensation of the great and godly mystery makes Him, Who
was already Father of the divine Son, also His Lord in the created form
which He assumed, for He, Who was in the form of God, was found also
in the form of a servant. Yet He was not a servant, for according to the
Spirit He was God the Son of God. Every one will agree also that there is
no servant where there is no Lord. God is indeed Father in the Generation
of the Only-begotten God, but only in the case that the Other is a servant

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can we call Him Lord as well as Father. The Son was not at the first a
servant by nature, but afterwards began to be by nature something which
He was not before. Thus the Father is Lord on the same grounds as the
Son is servant. By the Dispensation of His nature the Son had a Lord,
when He made Himself a servant by the assumption of manhood.

14. Being, then, in the form of a servant, Jesus Christ, Who before was in
the form of God, said as a man, I ascend to My Father and your Father,
and My God and your God. He was speaking as a servant to servants:
how can we then dissociate the words from Christ the servant, and transfer
them to that nature, which had nothing of the servant in it? For He Who
abode in the form of God took upon Him the form of a servant, this form
being the indispensable condition of His fellowship as a servant with
servants. It is in this sense that God is His Father and the Father of men,
His God and the God of servants. Jesus Christ was speaking as a man in
the form of a servant to men anti servants; what difficulty is there then in
the idea, that in His human aspect the Father is His Father as ours, in His
servant's nature God is His God as all men's?

15. These, then, are the words with which He prefaces the message, Go
unto My brethren, and say to them, I ascend unto My Father and your
Father, and My God and your God. I ask, Are they to be understood as
His brethren with reference to the form of God or to the form of a servant?
And has our flesh kinship with Him in regard to the fullness of the
Godhead dwelling in Him, that we should be reckoned His brothers in
respect of His divinity? No, for the Spirit of prophecy recognizes clearly
in what respect we are the brethren of the Only-begotten God. It is as a
warm and no man that He says, I will declare Thy name unto My
brethren. As a worm, which is born without the ordinary process of
conception, or else comes up into the world, already living, from the
depths of the earth, He speaks here in manifestation of the fact that He
had assumed flesh and also brought it up, living, from Hades. Throughout
the Psalm He is foretelling by the Spirit of prophecy the mysteries of His
Passion: it is therefore in respect of the Dispensation, in which He
suffered, that He has brethren. The Apostle also recognizes the mystery of
this brotherhood, for he calls Him not only the firstborn from the dead, but
also the firstborn among many brethren. Christ is the Firstborn among
many brethren in the same sense in which He is Firstborn from the dead:

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and as the mystery of death concerns His body, so the mystery of
brotherhood also refers to His flesh. Thus God has brethren according to
His flesh, for the Word became flesh and dwelt amongst us: but the
Only-begotten Son, unique as the Only-begotten, has no brethren.

16. By assuming flesh, however, He acquired our nature in our totality,
and became all that we are, but did not lose that which He was before.
Both before by His heavenly origin, and now by His earthly constitution,
God is His Father. By His earthly constitution God is His Father, since all
things are from God the Father, and God is Father to all things, since from
Him and in Him are all things. But to the Only-begotten God, God is
Father, not only because the Word became flesh; His Fatherhood extends
also to Him Who was, as God the Word, with God in the beginning. Thus,
when the Word became flesh, God was His Father both by the birth of
God the Word, and by the constitution of His flesh: for God is the Father
of all flesh, though not in the same way that He is Father to God the
Word. But God the Word, though He did not cease to be God, really did
become flesh: and while He thus dwelt He was still truly the Word, just as
when the Word became flesh He was still truly God as well as man. For to
'dwell' can only be said of one who abides in something: and to become
flesh' of one who is born. He dwelt among us; that is, He assumed our
flesh. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us; that is, He was God in
the reality of our body. If Christ Jesus, the man according to the flesh,
robbed God the Word of the divine nature, or was not according to the
mystery of godliness also God the Word, then it reduces His nature to our
level that God is His Father, and our Father, His God and our God. But if
God the Word, when He became the man Christ Jesus, did not cease to be
God the Word, then God is at the same time His Father and ours, His God
and ours, only in respect of that nature, by which the Word is our brother,
and the message to His brethren, I ascend unto My Father and your
Father, and My God and your God, is not that of the Only-begotten God
the Word, but of the Word made flesh.

17. The Apostle here speaks in carefully guarded words, which by their
definiteness can give no occasion to the ungodly. We have seen that the
Evangelist makes the Lord use the word 'Brethren' in the preface to the
message, thus signifying that the whole message, being addressed to His
brethren, refers to His fellowship in that nature which makes Him their

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brother. Thus he makes manifest that the mystery of godliness, which is
here proclaimed, is no degradation of His divinity. The community with
Him, by which God is our Father and His, our God and His, exists in
regard to the Dispensation of the flesh: we are counted His brethren,
because He was born into the body. No one disputes that God the Father
is also the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, but this reverent confession
offers no occasion for irreverence. God is His God but not as possessing a
different order of divinity from His. He was begotten God of the Father,
and born a servant by the Dispensation: and so God is His Father because
He is God of God, and God is His God, because He is flesh of the Virgin.
All this the Apostle confirms in one short and decisive sentence, Making
mention of you in my prayers that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the
Father of glory, may give unto you a spirit of wisdom and revelation.
When he speaks of Him as Jesus Christ, he mentions His God: when his
theme is the glory of Christ, he calls God His Father. To Christ, as having
glory, God is Father: to Christ, as being Jesus, God is God. For the angel,
when speaking of Christ the Lord, Who should be born of Mary, calls Him
by the name 'Jesus:' but to the prophets Christ the Lord is 'Spirit.' The
Apostle's words in this passage seem to many, on account of the Latin,
somewhat obscure, for Latin has no articles, which the beautiful and logical
usage of Greek employs. The Greek runs, 6 0eo<; tov Rupioi) f|jxcov
rnGO-u XpiGTO-u, 6 Ttocxrip xf|<; S6^r|c;, which we might translate into
Latin, if the usage of the article were permitted, Tile Deus illius Domini
nostri Jesu Christi, ille pater illius claritatis' (The God of the Lord [of us]
Jesus Christ, the Father of the glory). In this form 'The God of the Jesus
Christ,' and 'the Father of the glory,' the sentence expresses, so far as we
can comprehend them, certain truths of His nature. Where the glory of
Christ is concerned, God is His Father; where Christ is Jesus, there the
Father is His God. In the Dispensation by which He is a servant, He has
as God Him Whom, in the glory by which He is God, He has as Father.

18. Time and the lapse of ages make no difference to a Spirit. Christ is one
and the same Christ, whether in the body, or abiding by the Spirit in the
prophets. Speaking through the mouth of the holy Patriarch David, He
says, Thy God, O God, hath anointed Thee with the oil of gladness above
Thy fellows, which refers to no less a mystery than the Dispensation of
His assumption of flesh. He, Who now sends the message to His brethren

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that their Father is His Father, and their God His God, announced Himself
then as anointed by His God above His fellows. No one is fellow to the
Only -begotten Christ, God the Word: but we know that we are His
fellows by the assumption which made Him flesh. That anointing did not
exalt the blessed and incorruptible Begotten Who abides in the nature of
God, but it established the mystery of His body, and sanctified the
manhood which He assumed. To this the Apostle Peter witnesses, Of a
truth in this city were they gathered together against Thy holy Son Jesus,
Whom Thou didst anoint: and on another occasion, Ye know that the
saying was published through all Judaea, beginning from Galilee, after the
baptism which John preached: even Jesus of Nazareth, how that God
anointed Him with the Holy Ghost and with power. Jesus was anointed,
therefore, that the mystery of the regeneration of flesh might be
accomplished. Nor are we left in doubt how He was thus anointed with the
Spirit of God and with power, when we listen to the Father's voice, as it
spoke when He came up out of the Jordan, Thou art My Son, this day
have I begotten Thee. Thus is testified the sanctification of His flesh, and
in this testimony we must recognize His anointing with the power of the
Spirit.

19. But the Word was God, and with God in the beginning, and therefore
the anointing could neither be related nor explained, if it referred to that
nature, of which we are told nothing, except that it was in the beginning.
And in fact He Who was God had no need to anoint Himself with the
Spirit and power of God, when He was Himself the Spirit and power of
God. So He, being God, was anointed by His God above His fellows. And,
although there were many Christs (i.e. anointed persons) according to the
Law before the Dispensation of the flesh, yet Christ, Who was anointed
above His fellows, came after them, for He was preferred above His
anointed fellows. Accordingly, the words of the prophecy bring out the
fact that the anointing took place in time, and comparatively late in time.
Thou hast loved righteousness and hated iniquity: therefore Thy God, O
God, hath anointed Thee with the oil of gladness above Thy fellows. Now,
a fact which follows later upon other facts, cannot be dated before them.
That a reward be deserved postulates as a prior condition the existence of
one who can deserve it, for merit earned implies that there has been one
capable of acquiring it. If, therefore, we attribute the birth of the

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Only-begotten God to this anointing, which is His reward for loving
righteousness and hating iniquity, we shall be regarding Him not as born,
but as promoted by unction, to be the Only-begotten God. But then we
imply that He advanced with gradual progress and promotion to perfect
divinity, and that He was not born God, but afterwards for His merit
anointed God. Thus we shall make Christ as God Himself conditioned,
whereas He is the final cause of all conditions; and what becomes then of
the Apostle's words, All things are through Him and in Him, and He is
before all, and in Him all things consist? The Lord Jesus Christ was not
deified because of anything, or by means of anything, but was born God:
God by origin, not promoted to divinity for any cause after His birth, but
as the Son; and one in kind with God because begotten of Him. His
anointing then, though it is the result of a cause, did not enhance that in
Him, which could not be made more perfect. It concerned that part of Him
which was to be made perfect through the perfection of the Mystery: that
is, our manhood was sanctified in Christ by unction. If then the prophet
here also teaches us the dispensation of the servant, for which Christ is
anointed by His God above His fellows, and that because He loved
righteousness and hated iniquity, then surely the words of the prophet
must refer to that nature in Christ, by which He has fellows through His
assumption of flesh. Can we doubt this when we note how carefully the
Spirit of prophecy chooses His words? God is anointed by His God; that
is, in His own nature He is God, but in the dispensation of the anointing
God is His God. God is anointed: but tell me, is that Word anointed, Who
was God in the beginning? Manifestly not, for the anointing comes after
His divine birth. It was then not the begotten Word, God with God in the
beginning, Who was anointed, but that nature in God which came to Him
through the dispensation later than His divinity: and when His God
anointed Him, He anointed in Him the whole nature of the servant, which
He assumed in the mystery of His flesh.

20. Let no one then defile with his godless interpretations the mystery of
great godliness which was manifested in the flesh, or reckon himself equal
to the Only-begotten in respect of His divine substance. Let Him be our
brother and our fellow, inasmuch as the Word made flesh dwelt among us,
inasmuch as the man Jesus Christ is Mediator between God and man. Let
Him, after the manner of servants, have a common Father and a common

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God with us, and as anointed above His fellows, let Him be of the same
nature as His anointed fellows, though His be an unction of special
privilege. In the mystery of the Mediatorship let Him be at once very man
and very God, Himself God of God, but having a common Father and God
with us in that community by which He is our brother.

21. But perhaps that subjection, that delivering of the kingdom, and lastly
that end betoken the dissolution of His nature, or the loss of His power, or
the enfeebling of His divinity. Many argue thus: Christ is included in the
common subjection of all to God, and by the condition of subjection loses
His divinity: He surrenders His Kingdom, therefore He is no longer King:
the end which overtakes Him entails as its consequence the loss of His
power.

22. It will not be out of place here if we review the full meaning of the
Apostle's teaching upon this subject. Let us take, then, each single
sentence and expound it, that we may grasp the entire Mystery by
comprehending it in its fullness. The words of the Apostle are, For since
by man came death by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as
in Adam all die, so also in Christ are all made alive. But each in his own
order: Christ the firstfruits, then they that are Christ's at His coming.
Then cometh the end, when He shall have delivered the Kingdom to God,
even the Father, when He shall have emptied all authority and all power.
For He must reign until He put all enemies under His feet. The last enemy
that shall be conquered is death. But when He saith, All things are put in
subjection, He is excepted Who did subject all things unto Him. But when
all things have been subjected to Him, then shall He also Himself be
subjected to Him, that did subject all things unto Him, that God may be all
in all.

23. The Apostle who was chosen not of then nor through man, but
through Jesus Christ, to be the teacher of the Gentiles, expounds in
language as express as he can command the secrets of the heavenly
Dispensations. He who had been caught up into the third heaven and had
heard unspeakable words, reveals to the perception of human
understanding as much as human nature can receive. But he does not forget
that there are things which cannot be understood in the moment of hearing.
The infirmity of man needs time to review before the true and perfect

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tribunal of the mind, that which is poured indiscriminately into the ears.
Comprehension follows the spoken words more slowly than hearing, for it
is the ear which hears, but the reason which understands, though it is God
Who reveals the inner meaning to those who seek it. We learn this from the
words written among many other exhortations to Timothy, the disciple
instructed from a babe in the Holy Scriptures by the glorious faith of his
grandmother and mother: Understand what I say, for the Lord shall give
thee understanding in all things. The exhortation to understand is
prompted by the difficulty of understanding. But God's gift of
understanding is the reward of faith, for through faith the infirmity of
sense is recompensed with the gift of revelation. Timothy, that 'man of
God' as the Apostle witnesses of him, Paul's true child in the faith, is
exhorted to understand because the Lord will give him understanding in all
things: let us, therefore, knowing that the Lord will grant us understanding
in all things, remember that the Apostle exhorts us also to understand.

24. And if, by an error incident to human nature, we be clinging to some
preconception of our own, let us not reject the advance in knowledge
through the gift of revelation. If we have hitherto used only our own
judgment, let that not make us ashamed to change its decisions for the
better. Guiding this advance wisely and carefully, the same blessed
Apostle writes to the Philippians, Let us therefore as many as be perfect,
be thus minded: and if in anything ye are otherwise minded, this also shall
Gad reveal unto you. Only, wherein we have hastened, in that same let us
walk. Reason cannot anticipate with preconceptions the revelation of God.
For the Apostle has here shewn us wherein consists the wisdom of those
who have the perfect wisdom, and for those who are otherwise minded, he
awaits the revelation of God, that they may obtain the perfect wisdom. If
any, then, have otherwise conceived this profound dispensation of the
hidden knowledge, anti if that which we offer them is in any respect more
right or better approved, let them not be ashamed to receive the perfect
wisdom, as the Apostle advises, through the revelation of God, and if they
hate to abide in untruth let them not love ignorance more. If to them, who
had another wisdom, God has revealed this also, the Apostle exhorts them
to hasten on the road in which they have started, to cast aside the notions
of their former ignorance, and obtain the revelation of perfect
understanding by the path into which they have eagerly entered. Let us,

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therefore, keep on in the path along which we have hastened: or, if the
error of our wandering steps has delayed our eager haste, let us,
notwithstanding, start again through the revelation of God towards the goal
of our desire, and not turn our feet from the path. We have hastened
towards Christ Jesus the Lord of Glory, the King of the eternal ages, in
Whom are restored all things in Heaven and in earth, by Whom all things
consist, in Whom and with Whom we shall abide for ever. So long as we
walk in this path we have the perfect wisdom: and if we have another
wisdom, God will reveal to us what is the perfect wisdom. Let us, then,
examine in the light of the Apostle's faith the mystery of the words before
us: and let our treatment be, as it always has been, a refutation from the
actual truth of the Apostle's confession of every interpretation, which
they would profanely foist upon his words.

25. Three assertions are here disputed, which, in the order in which the
Apostle makes them, are first the end, then the delivering, and lastly the
subjection. The object is to prove that Christ ceases to exist at the end,
that He loses His kingdom, when He delivers it up, that He strips Himself
of the divine nature, when He is subjected to God.

26. At the outset take note that this is not the order of the Apostle's
teaching, for in that order the surrender of the Kingdom is first, then the
subjection, and lastly the end. But every cause is itself the result of its
particular cause, so that, in every chain of causation, each cause, itself
producing a result, has inevitably its underlying antecedent. Thus the end
will come, but when He has delivered the Kingdom to God. He will deliver
the Kingdom, but when He has abolished all authority and power. He will
abolish all authority and power, because He must reign. He will reign until
He has put all enemies under His feet. He will put all enemies under His
feet, because God has subjected everything under His feet. God has so
subjected them as to make death the last enemy to be conquered by Him.
Then, when all things are subjected unto God. except Him Who subjected
all things unto Him, He too will be subjected unto Him, Who subjects all
to Himself. But the cause of the subjection is none other than that God
may be all in all; and therefore the end is that God is all in all.

27. Before going any further we must now enquire whether the end is a
dissolution, or the delivering a forfeiture, or the subjection an enfeebling of

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Christ. And if we find that these are contraries, which cannot be connected
as causes and effects, we shall be able to understand the words in the true
sense in which they were spoken.

28. Christ is the end of the law; but, tell me, is He come to destroy it or to
fulfill it? And if Christ, the end of the law, does not destroy it, but fulfills
it (as He says, I am come not to destroy the law but fulfill it), is not the
end of the law, so far from being its dissolution, the very opposite, namely
its final perfection? All things are advancing towards an end, but that end
is a condition of rest in the perfection, which is the goal of their advance,
and not their abolition. Further, all things exist for the sake of the end, but
the end itself is not the means to anything beyond: it is an ultimate,
all-embracing whole, which rests in itself. And because it is self-contained,
and works for no other time or object than itself, the goal is always that to
which our hopes are directed. Therefore the Lord exhorts us to wait with
patient and reverent faith until the end comes: Blessed is He that endureth
to the end. It is not a blessed dissolution, which awaits us, nor is
non-existence the fruit, and annihilation the appointed reward of faith: but
the end is the final attainment of the promised blessedness, and they are
blessed who endure until the goal of perfect happiness is reached, when
the expectation of faithful hope has no object beyond. Their end is to abide
with unbroken rest in that condition, towards which they are pressing.
Similarly, as a deterrent, the Apostle warns us of the end of the wicked,
Whose end is perdition,0 but our expectation is in heaven. Suppose then
we interpret the end as a dissolution, we are forced to acknowledge that,
since there is an end for the blessed and for the wicked, the issue levels the
godly with the ungodly, for the appointed end of both is a common
annihilation. What of our expectation in heaven, if for us as well as for the
wicked the end is a cessation of being? But even if there remains for the
saints an expectation, whereas for the wicked there waits the end they
have deserved, we cannot conceive that end as a final dissolution. What
punishment would it be for the wicked to be beyond the feeling of
avenging torments, because the capability of suffering has been removed
by dissolution? The end is, therefore, a culminating and irrevocable
condition which awaits us, reserved for the blessed and prepared for the
wicked.

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29. We can therefore no longer doubt that by the end is meant an ultimate
and final condition and not a dissolution. We shall have something more to
say upon this subject, when we come to the explanation of this passage,
but for the present this is enough to make our meaning clear. Let us,
therefore, turn now to the delivering of the Kingdom, and see whether it
means a surrender of rule, whether the Son by delivering ceases to possess
that which He delivers to the Father. If this is what the wicked contend in
their unreasoning infatuation, they must allow that the Father, by
delivering, lost all, when He delivered all to the Son, if delivery implies the
surrender of that which is delivered. For the Lord said, All things have
been delivered unto Me of My Father, and again, All authority hath been
given unto Me in heaven and earth. If, therefore, to deliver is to yield
possession, the Father no longer possessed that which He delivered. But if
the Father did not cease to possess that which He delivered, neither does
the Son surrender that which He delivers. Therefore, if He did not lose by
the delivering that which He delivered, we must recognize that only the
Dispensation explains how the Father still possesses what He delivered,
and the Son does not forfeit what He gave.

30. As to the subjection, there are other facts which come to the help of
our faith, and prevent us from putting an indignity on Christ upon this
score, but above all this passage contains its own defense. First, however, I
appeal to common reason: is the subjection still to be understood as the
subordination of servitude to lordship, weakness to power, meanness to
honor, qualities the opposite of one another? Is the Son in this manner
subjected to the Father by the distinction of a different nature? If, indeed,
we would think so, we shall find in the Apostle's words a preventive for
such errors of the imagination. When all things are subjected to Him, says
He, then must He be subjected to Him, Who subjects all things to Himself;
and by this 'then' he means to denote the temporal Dispensation. For if
we put any other construction on the subjection, Christ, though then to be
subjected, is not subjected now, and thus we make Him an insolent and
impious rebel, whom the necessity of time, breaking as it were and
subduing His profane and overweening pride, will reduce to a tardy
obedience. But what does He Himself say? I am not come to do Mine own
will, but the will of Him that sent Me: and again, Therefore hath the Father
loved Me because I do all things that are pleasing unto Him: and, Father,

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Thy will be done. Or hear the Apostle, He humbled Himself, becoming
obedient even unto death. Although He humbled Himself, His nature knew
no humiliation: though He was obedient, it was a voluntary obedience, for
He became obedient by humbling Himself. The Only-begotten God
humbled Himself, and obeyed His Father even to the death of the Cross:
but as what, as man or as God, is He to be subjected to the Father, when
all things have been subjected to Him? Of a truth this subjection is no sign
of a fresh obedience, but the Dispensation of the Mystery, for the
allegiance is eternal, the subjection an event within time. The subjection is
then in its signification simply a demonstration of the Mystery.

3 1 . What that is must be understood in view of this same hope of our
faith. We cannot be ignorant that the Lord Jesus Christ rose again from the
dead, and sits at the right hand of God, for we have also the witness of the
Apostle, According to the working of the strength of His might, which He
wrought in Christ, when tie raised Him from the dead, and made Him to sit
at tits right hand in the heavenly places above all rule and authority and
power and dominion, and every name that is named not only in this world
but also in that which is to came, and put all things in subjection under His
feet. The language of the Apostle, as befits the power of God, speaks of
the future as already past: for that which is to be wrought by the
completion of time already exists in Christ, in Whom is all fullness, and
'future' refers only to the temporal order of the Dispensation, not to a
new development. Thus, God has put all things under His feet, though
they are still to be subjected. By their subjection, conceived as already
past, is expressed the immutable power of Christ: by their subjection, as
future, is signified their consummation at the end of the ages as the result
of the fullness of time.

32. The meaning of the abolishing of every power which is against Him is
not obscure The prince of the air, the power of spiritual wickedness, shall
be delivered to eternal destruction, as Christ says, Depart from Me, ye
cursed, into the eternal fire which My Father hath prepared far the devil
and his angels. The abolishing is not the same as the subjecting. To abolish
the power of the enemy is to sweep away for ever his prerogative of
power, so that by the abolition of his power is brought to an end the rule
of his kingdom. Of this the Lord testifies when He says, My kingdom is
not of this world: as He had once before testified that the ruler of that

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kingdom is the prince of the world, whose power shall be destroyed by the
abolition of the rule of His kingdom. A subjection, on the other hand,
which implies obedience and allegiance, is a proof of submission and
mutability.

33. So when their authority is abolished, His enemies shall be subjected:
and so subjected, that He shall subject them to Himself. Moreover He shall
so subject them to Himself, that God shall subject them to Him. Was the
Apostle ignorant, think you, of the force of these words in the Gospel, No
one cometh to Me, except the Father draw Him to Me which stand side by
side with those other words, No one cometh unto the Father but by Me:
just as in this Epistle Christ subjects His enemies to Himself, yet God
subjects them to Him, and He witnesses throughout this, his work of
subjection, that God is working in Him? Except through Him there is no
approach to the Father, but there is also no approach to Him, unless the
Father draw us. Understanding Him to be the Son of God, we recognize in
Him the true nature of the Father. Hence, when we learn to know the Son,
God the Father calls us: when we believe the Son, God the Father receives
us; for our recognition and knowledge of the Father is in the Son, Who
shews us in Himself God the Father, Who draws us, if we be devout, by
His fatherly love into a mutual bond with His Son. So then the Father
draws us, when, as the first condition, He is acknowledged Father: but no
one comes to the Father except through the Son, because we cannot know
the Father, unless faith in the Son is active in us, since we cannot approach
the Father in worship, unless we first adore the Son, while if we know the
Son, the Father draws us to eternal life and receives us. But each result is
the work of the Son, for by the preaching of the Father, Whom the Son
preaches, the Father brings us to the Son, and the Son leads us to the
Father. The statement of this Mystery was necessary for the more perfect
understanding of the present passage, to shew that through the Son the
Father draws us and receives us; that we might understand the two
aspects, the Son subjecting all to Himself, and the Father subjecting all to
Him. Through the birth the nature of God is abiding in the Son, and does
that which He Himself does. What He does God does, but what God does
in Him, He Himself does: in the sense that where He acts Himself we must
believe the Son of God acts; and where God acts, we must perceive the
properties of the Father's nature existing in Him as the Son.

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34. When authorities and powers are abolished, His enemies shall be
subjected under His feet. The same Apostle tells who are these enemies,
As touching the Gospel they are enemies for your sakes, but as touching
the election they are beloved far the fathers' sake. We remember that they
are enemies of the cross of Christ; let us remember also that, because they
are beloved for the fathers' sake, they are reserved for the subjection, as
the Apostle says, I would not, brethren, have you ignorant of this
mystery, lest ye be wise in your own conceits, that a hardening in part
hath befallen Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in, and so all
Israel shall be saved, even as it is written, There shall come out of Sion a
Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: and this is the
covenant firm Me to them, when I have taken away their sins. So His
enemies shall be subjected under His feet.

35. But we must not forget what follows the subjection, namely, Last of
all is death conquered by Him. This victory over death is nothing else than
the resurrection from the dead: for when the corruption of death is stayed,
the quickened and now heavenly nature is made eternal, as it is written,
For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on
immortality. But when this mortal shall have put on immortality, then
shall come to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in
strife. O death, where is thy sting? O death, where is thy strife? In the
subjection of His enemies death is Conquered; and, death conquered, life
immortal follows. The Apostle tells us also of the special reward attained
by this subjection which is made perfect by the subjection of belief: Who
shall fashion anew the body of our humiliation, that it may be conformed
to the body of His glory, according to the works of His power, whereby
He is able to subject all things to Himself. There is then another subjection,
which consists in a transition from one nature to another, for our nature
ceases, so far as its present character is concerned, and is subjected to Him,
into Whose form it passes. But by 'ceasing' is implied not an end of being,
but a promotion into something higher. Thus our nature by being merged
into the image of the other nature which it receives, becomes subjected
through the imposition of a new form.

36. Hence the Apostle, to make his explanation of this Mystery complete,
after saying that death is the last enemy to be conquered, adds: But when
He saith, rill things are put in subjection except Him, Who did subject all

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things to Him, then must He be subjected to Him, that did subject all
things to Him, that God may be all in all. The first step of the Mystery is
that all things are subjected to Him: then He is subjected to Him, Who
subjects all things to Himself. As we are subjected to the glory of the rule
of His body, so He also, reigning in the glory of His body, is by the same
Mystery in turn subjected to Him, Who subjects all things to Himself.
And we are subjected to the glory of His body, that we may share that
splendor with which He reigns in the body, since we shall be conformed to
His body.

37. Nor are the Gospels silent concerning the glory of His present reigning
body. It is written that the Lord said, Verily, I say unto you, there be same
of them that stand here, which shall not taste of death till they see the Son
of Man coming in His Kingdom. And it came to pass, after six days Jesus
taketh with Him Peter and James and John His brother, and bringeth them
up into a high mountain apart. And Jesus was transfigured before them,
and His face did shine as the sun, and His garments became as snow Thus
was shewn to the Apostles the glory of the body of Christ coming into
His Kingdom: for in the fashion of His glorious Transfiguration, the Lord
stood revealed in the splendor of His reigning body.

38. He promised also to the Apostles the participation in this His glory.
So shall it be in the end of the world. The Son of Man shall send forth His
angels, and they shall gather together out of His Kingdom all things that
cause stumbling, and them that do iniquity, and He shall send them into
the furnace of fire: there shall be the weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then
shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the Kingdom of their Father.
He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. Were their natural and bodily ears
closed to the hearing of the words, that the Lord should need to admonish
them to hear? Yet the Lord, hinting at the knowledge of the Mystery,
commands them to listen to the doctrine of the faith. In the end of the
world all things that cause stumbling shall be removed from His Kingdom.
We see the Lord then reigning in the splendor of His body, until the things
that cause stumbling are removed. And we see ourselves, in consequence,
conformed to the glory of His body in the Kingdom of the Father, shining
as with the splendor of the sun, the splendor in which He shewed the
fashion of His Kingdom to the Apostles, when He was transfigured on the
mountain.

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39. He shall deliver the Kingdom to God the Father, not in the sense that
He resigns His power by the delivering, but that we, being conformed to
the glory of His body, shall form the Kingdom of God. It is not said, He
shall deliver up His Kingdom, but, He shall deliver up the Kingdom, that
is, deliver up to God us who have been made the Kingdom by the
glorifying of His body. He shall deliver us into the Kingdom, as it is said in
the Gospel, Came, re blessed of My Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared
for you from the foundation of the world. The just shall shine like the sun
in the Kingdom of their Father, and the Son shall deliver to the Father, as
His Kingdom, those whom He has called into His Kingdom, to whom also
He has promised the blessedness of this Mystery, Blessed are the pure in
heart, for they shah see God. While He reigns, He shall remove all things
that cause stumbling, and then the just shall shine as the sun in the
Kingdom of the Father. Afterwards He shall deliver the Kingdom to the
Father, and those whom He has handed to the Father, as the Kingdom,
shall see God. He Himself witnesses to the Apostles what manner of
Kingdom this is: The Kingdom of God is within you. Thus it is as King
that He shall deliver up the Kingdom, and if any ask Who it is that delivers
up the Kingdom, let him hear, Christ is risen from the dead, the firstfruits
of them that sleep; since by man came death, by man came also the
resurrection of the dead. All that is said on the point before us concerns
the Mystery of the body, since Christ is the firstfruits of the dead. Let us
gather also from the words of the Apostle by what Mystery Christ rose
from the dead: Remember that Christ hath risen from the dead, of the seed
of David. Here he teaches that the death and resurrection are due only to
the Dispensation by which Christ was flesh.

40. In His body, the game body though now made glorious, He reigns until
the authorities are abolished, death conquered, and His enemies subdued.
This distinction is carefully preserved by the Apostle: the authorities and
powers are abolished, the enemies are subjected. Then, when they are
subjected, He, that is the Lord, shall be subjected to Him that subjecteth all
things to Himself, that God may be all in all, the nature of the Father's
divinity imposing itself upon the nature of our body which was assumed.
It is thus that God shall be all in all: according to the Dispensation He
becomes by His Godhead and His manhood the Mediator between men
and God, and so by the Dispensation He acquires the nature of flesh, and

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by the subjection shall obtain the nature of God in all things, so as to be
God not in part, but wholly and entirely. The end of the subjection is then
simply that God may be all in all, that no trace of the nature of His earthly
body may remain in Him. Although before this time the two were
combined within Him, He must now become God only; not, however, by
casting off the body, but by translating it through subjection; not by losing
it through dissolutions, but by transfiguring it in glory: adding humanity to
His divinity, not divesting Himself of divinity by His humanity. And He
is subjected, not that He may cease to be, but that God may be all in all,
having, in the mystery of the subjection, to continue to be that which He
no longer is, not having by dissolution to be robbed of Himself, that is, to
be deprived of His being.

41. We have a sufficient and sacred guarantee for this belief in the
authority of the Apostle. Through the Dispensation, and within time, the
Lord Jesus Christ, the firstfruits of them that sleep, is to be subjected, that
God may be all in all, and this subjection is not the debasement of His
divinity, but the promotion of His assumed nature, for He Who is God and
Man is now altogether God. But some may think that, when we say He
was both glorified in the body whilst reigning in the body, and is hereafter
to be subjected that God may be all in all, our belief finds no support for
itself in the Gospels nor yet in the Epistles. We will, therefore, produce
testimony of our faith, not only from the words of the Apostle, but also
from our Lord's mouth. We will shew that Christ said first with His own
lips what He afterwards said by the mouth of Paul.

42. Does He not reveal to His Apostles the Dispensation of this glory by
the express signification of the words, Now is the Son of Man glorified,
and God is glorified in Him. If God hath been glorified in Him, Gad hath
glorified Him in Himself, and straightway hath He glorified Him. In the
words, Now is the Son of Man honored, and God is honored in Him, we
have first the glory of the Son of Man, then the glory of God in the Son of
Man. So there is first signified the glory of the body, which it borrows
from its association with the divine nature: and then follows the promotion
to a fuller glory derived from an addition to the glory of the body. If God
hath been honored in Him, God hath honored Him in Himself, and
straightway hath God honored Him. God has glorified Him in Himself,
because He has already been glorified in Him. God was glorified in Him:

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this refers to the glory of the body, for by this glory is expressed in a
human body the glory of God, in the glory of the Son of Man is seen the
divine glory. God was glorified in Him, and therefore hath God glorified
Him in Himself: that is, by His promotion to the Godhead, whose glory
was increased in Him, God has glorified Him in Himself. Already before
this He was reigning in the glory which springs from the divine glory: from
henceforth, however, He is Himself to pass into the divine glory. God hath
glorified Him in Himself: that is, in that nature by which God is what He
is. That God may be all in all: that His whole being, leaving behind the
Dispensation by which He is man, may be eternally transformed into
divinity. Nor is the time of this hidden from us: And God hath glorified
Him in Himself, and straightway hath He glorified Him. At the moment
when Judas arose to betray Him, He signified as present the glory which
He would obtain after His Passion through the Resurrection, but assigned
to the future the glory with which God would glorify Him with Himself.
The glory of God is seen in Him in the power of the Resurrection, but He
Himself, out of the Dispensation of subjection, will be taken eternally into
the glory of God, that is, into God, the all in all.

43. But what absurd folly is it of the heretics to regard as unattainable for
God that goal to which man hopes to attain, to imply that He is powerless
to effect in Himself that which He is mighty to effect in us. It is not the
language of reason or common sense to say that God is bound by some
necessity of His nature to consult our happiness, but cannot bestow the
like blessings upon Himself. God does not, indeed, need any further
blessedness, for His nature and power stand fast in their eternal perfection.
But although in the Dispensation, that mystery of great godliness, He Who
is God became man, He is not powerless to make Himself again entirely
God, for without doubt He will transform us also into that which as yet
we are not. The final sequel of man's life and death is the resurrection: the
assured reward of our warfare is immortality and incorruption, not the
ceaseless persistence of everlasting punishment, but the unbroken
enjoyment anti happiness of eternal glory. These bodies of earthly origin
shall be exalted to the fashion of a higher nature, and conformed to the
glory of the Lord's body. But what then of God found in the form of a
servant? Though already, while still in the form of a servant, glorified in
the body, shall He not be also conformed to God? Shall He bestow upon

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us the form of His glorified body, and yet be able to do for His own body
nothing more than He does for Himself in common with us? For the most
part the heretics interpret the words, Then shall He be subjected to Him
that did subject all things to Himself, that God may be all in all, as if they
meant that the Son is to be subjected to God the Father, in order that by
the subjection of the Son, God the Father may be all in all. But is there still
lacking in God some perfection which He is to obtain by the subjection of
the Son? Can they believe that God does not already possess that final
accession of blessed divinity, because it is said that by the coming of the
fullness of time He shall be made all in all?

44. To me, who hold that God cannot be known except by devotion, even
to answer such objections seems no less unholy than to support them.
What presumption to suppose that words can adequately describe His
nature, when thought is often too deep for words, and His nature
transcends even the conceptions of thought! What blasphemy even to
discuss whether anything is lacking in God, whether He is Himself full, or
it remains for Him to be fuller than His fullness! If God, Who is Himself
the source of His own eternal divinity, were capable of progress, that He
should be greater to-day than yesterday, He could never reach the time
when nothing would be wanting to Him, for the nature to which advance is
still possible must always in its progress leave some ground ahead still
untrodden: if it be subject to the law of progress, though always
progressing it must always be susceptible of further progress. But to Him,
Who abides in perfect fullness, Who for ever is, there is no fullness left by
which He can be made more full, for perfect fullness cannot receive an
accession of further fullness. And this is the attitude of thought in which
reverence contemplates God, namely, that nothing is wanting to Him, that
He is full.

45. But the Apostle does not neglect to say with what manner of
confession we should bear witness of God. O the depth of the riches both
of the wisdom and of the knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His
judgments, and His ways past tracing out! Far who hath known the mind
of the Lord? Or who hath been His counselor? Or who hath first given to
Him, and it shall be recompensed unto him? For of Him, and through Him,
and in Him are all things. To Him be the glory for ever and ever. No
earthly mind can define God, no understanding can penetrate with its

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perception to sound the depth of His wisdom. His judgments defy the
searching scrutiny of His creatures: the trackless paths of His knowledge
baffle the zeal of all pursuers. His ways are plunged in the depths of
incomprehensibility: nothing can be fathomed or traced to the end in the
things of God. No one has ever been taught to know His mind, no one
besides Himself ever permitted to share His counsel. But all this applies to
us men only, and not to Him, through Whom are all things, the Angel of
mighty Counsel, Who said, Not one knoweth the Son save the Father:
neither doth arty one know the Father save the Son, and him to whom the
Son hath willed to reveal Him. It is to curb our own feeble intellect, when
it strains itself to fathom the depth of the divine nature with its
descriptions and definitions, that we must re-echo the language of the
Apostle's exclamation, lest we should attempt by rash conjecture to
snatch from God more than He has been pleased to reveal to us.

46. It is a recognized axiom of natural philosophy, that nothing falls within
the scope of the senses unless it is subjected to their observation, as for
instance an object placed before the eyes, or an event posterior to the birth
of human sense and intelligence. The former we can see and handle, and
therefore the mind is qualified to pass a verdict upon it, since it can be
examined by the senses of touch and sight. The latter, which is an event in
time, produced or constituted since the origin of man, falls within the
limits in which the discerning sense may claim to pass judgment, since it is
not prior in time to our perception and reason. For our sight cannot
perceive the invisible, since it only distinguishes, the seen; our reason
cannot project itself into the time when it was not, because it can only
judge of that, to which it is prior in time. And even within these limits, the
infirmity which is bound up with its nature robs it of absolutely certain
knowledge of the sequence of cause and effect. How much less then can it
go back behind the time when it had its origin, and comprehend with its
perception things which existed before it in the realms of eternity?

47. The Apostle then recognized that nothing can fall within our
knowledge, except it be posterior in time to the faculty of sense.
Accordingly when he had asserted the depth of the wisdom of God, the
infinity of His inscrutable judgments, the secret of His unsearchable ways,
the mystery of His unfathomable mind, the incomprehensibility of His
uncommunicated counsel, he continued, For who hath first given to Him,

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and it shall be recompensed unto him again? Far of Him, and through Him,
and in Him are all things. The eternal God is neither subject to limitation,
nor did human reason and intelligence exercise their functions before He
had His being. His whole being is therefore a depth, which we can neither
examine nor penetrate. We say His whole being, not to define it as limited,
but to understand it in its unlimited boundlessness: because of no one has
He received His being, no antecedent giver can claim service from Him in
return for a gift bestowed: for of Him and through Him and in Him are all
things. He does not lack things that are of Him and through Him and in
Him. The Source and Maker of all, Who contains all, Who is beyond all,
does not need that which is within Him, the Creator His creatures, the
Possessor His possessions. Nothing is prior to Him, nothing derived from
any other than Him, nothing beyond Him. What element of fullness is still
lacking in God, which time will supply to make Him all in all? Whence can
He receive it, if outside Him is nothing, and while nothing is outside Him,
He is eternally Himself? And if He is eternally Himself, and there is
nothing outside Him, with what increase shall He be made full, by what
addition shall He be made other than He is? Did He not say, I am and I
change not? What possibility is there of change in Him? What scope for
progress? What is prior to eternity? What more divine than God? The
subjection of the Son will not therefore make God to be all in all, nor will
any cause perfect Him, from Whom and through Whom and in Whom are
all causes. He remains God as He ever was, and He needs nothing further,
for what He is, He is eternally of Himself and for Himself.

48. But neither is it necessary for the Only-begotten God that He should
change. He is God, and that is the name of full and perfect divinity. For, as
we said before, the meaning of the repeated glorifying, and the cause of the
subjection is that God may be all in all: but it is a Mystery, not a
necessity, that God is to be all in all. Christ abode in the form of God
when He assumed the form of a servant, not being subjected to change, but
emptying Himself; hiding within Himself, and remaining master of Himself
though He was emptied. He constrained Himself even to the form and
fashion of a man, lest the weakness of the assumed humility should not be
able to endure the immeasurable power of His nature. His unbounded
might contracted itself, until it could fulfill the duty of obedience even to
the endurance of the body to which it was yoked. But since He was

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self-contained even when He emptied Himself, His authority suffered no
diminution, for in the humiliation of the emptying He exercised within
Himself the power of that authority which was emptied.

49. It is therefore for the promotion of us, the assumed humanity, that
God shall be all in all. He Who was found in the form of a servant, though
He was in the form of God, is now again to be confessed in the glory of
God the Father: that is, without doubt He dwells in the form of God, in
Whose glory He is to be confessed. All is therefore a dispensation only,
and not a change of His nature; for He abides still in Him, in Whom He
ever was. But there intervenes a new nature, which began in Him with His
human birth, and so all that He obtains is on behalf of that nature which
before was not God, since after the Mystery of the Dispensation God is
all in all. It is, therefore, we who are the gainers, we who are promoted, for
we shall be conformed to the glory of the body of God. Further the
Only-begotten God, despite His human birth, is nothing less than God,
Who is all in all. That subjection of the body, by which all that is fleshly in
Him, is swallowed up into the spiritual nature, will make Him to be God
and all in all, since He is Man also as well as God; and His humanity which
advances towards this goal is ours also. We shall be promoted to a glory
conformable to that of Him Who became Man for us, being renewed unto
the knowledge of God, and created again in the image of the Creator, as the
Apostle says, Having put off the old man with his doings, and put on the
new man, which is being renewed unto the knowledge of God, after the
image of Him that created him. Thus is man made the perfect image of
God. For, being conformed to the glory of the body of God, he is exalted
to the image of the Creator, after the pattern assigned to the first man.
Leaving sin and the old man behind, he is made a new man unto the
knowledge of God, and arrives at the perfection of his constitution, since
through the knowledge of his God he becomes the perfect image of God.
Through godliness he is promoted to immortality, through immortality he
shall live for ever as the image of his Creator. BOOK XII.

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BOOK XII

1. At length, with the Holy Ghost speeding our way, we are approaching
the safe, calm harbor of a firm faith. We are in the position of men, long
tossed about by sea and wind, to whom it very often happens, that while
great heaped-up waves delay them for a time around the coasts near the
ports, at last that very surge of the vast and dreadful billows drives them
on into a trusty, well-known anchorage. And this, I hope, will befall us, as
we struggle in this twelfth book against the storm of heresy; so that while
we venture out trusty bark therein upon the wave of this grievous impiety,
this very wave may bring us to the haven of rest for which we long. For
while all are driven about by the uncertain wind of doctrine, there is panic
here and danger there, and then again there often is even shipwreck,
because it is maintained on prophetic authority that God Only-begotten is
a creature — so that to Him there belongs not birth but creation, because it
has been said in the character of Wisdom, The Lord created Me as the
beginning of His ways. This is the greatest billow in the storm they raise,
this is the big wave of the whirling tempest: yet when we have faced it,
and it has broken without damage to our ship, it will speed us forward
even to the all-safe harbor of the shore for which we long.

2. Yet we do not rest, like sailors, on uncertain or on idle hopes: whom, as
they shape their course to their wish, and not by assured knowledge, at
times the shifting, fickle winds forsake or drive from their course. But we
have by our side the unfailing Spirit of faith, abiding with us by the gift of
the Only-begotten God, and leading us to smooth waters in an unwavering
course. For we recognize the Lord Christ as no creature, for indeed He is
none such; nor as something that has been made, since He is Himself the
Lord of all things that are made; but we know Him to be God, God the true
generation of God the Father. All we indeed, as His goodness has thought
fit, have been named and adopted as sons of God: but He is to God the
Father the one, true Son, and the true and perfect birth, which abides only
in the knowledge of the Father and the Son. But this only, and this alone,
is our religion, to confess Him as the Son not adopted but born, not chosen
but begotten. For we do not speak of Him either as made, or as not born;

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since we neither compare the Creator to His creatures, nor falsely speak of
birth without begetting. He does not exist of Himself, Who exists through
birth; nor is He not born, Who is the Son; nor can He, Who is the Son,
come to exist otherwise than by being born, because He is the Son.

3. Moreover no one doubts that the assertions of impiety always
contradict and resist the assertions of religious faith; and that that cannot
be piously held now which is already condemned as impiously conceived;
as, for instance, the discrepancy and variance which these new correctors
of the apostolic faith maintain between the Spirit of the Evangelists and
that of Prophets; or their assertion that the Prophets prophesied one thing
and the Evangelists preached another, since Solomon calls upon us to adore
a creature, while Paul convicts those who serve a creature. And certainly
these two texts do not seem to agree together, according to the
blasphemous theory, whereby the Apostle, who was trained by the law,
and separated by divine appointment, and spoke through Christ speaking
in him, either was ignorant of the prophecy, or was not ignorant but
contradicted it; and thus did not know Christ to be a creature when he
named Him the Creator; and forbade the worship of a creature, warning us
that the Creator alone is to be served, and saying, Who changed the truth
of God into a lie, and served the creature, passing by the Creator Who is
blessed far ever and ever.

4. Does Christ, Who is God, speaking in Paul, fail to refute this impiety of
falsehood? Does He fail to condemn this lying perversion of truth? For
through the Lord Christ all things were created; and therefore it is His
proper name that He should be the Creator. Does not both the reality and
the title of His creative power belong to Him? Melchisedec is our witness,
thus declaring God to be Creator of heaven and earth: Blessed be Abraham
of God most high, Who created heaven and earth. The prophet Hosea also
is witness, saying, I am the Lord thy God, that establish the heavens and
create the earth, Whose hands have created all the host of heaven. Peter too
is witness, writing thus, Committing your souls as to a faithful Creator.
Why do we apply the name of the work to the Maker of that work? Why
do we give the same name to God and to our fellowmen? He is our Creator,
He is the Creator of all the heavenly host.

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5. Since by the faith of the Apostles and Evangelists these statements are
referred in their meaning to the Son, through Whom all things were made,
how shall He be made equal to the very works of His hands and be in the
same category of nature as all other things? In the first place our human
intelligence repudiates this statement that the Creator is a creature; since
creation comes to exist by means of the Creator. But if He is a creature, He
is both subject to corruption and exposed to the suspense of waiting, and
is subjected to bondage. For the same blessed Apostle Paul says: For the
long expectation of the creature waiteth for the revelation of the sons of
God. For the creature was subject to vanity, not of its own will, but on
account of Him Who has made it subject in hope. Because also the creature
itself shall be freed from the slavery of corruption into the liberty of the
glory of the children of God. If, therefore, Christ is a creature, it must
needs be that He is in uncertainty, hoping always with a tedious
expectation, and that His long expectation, rather than ours, is waiting, and
that while He waits He is subjected to vanity, and is subjected through a
subjection due to necessity, not of His own will. But since He is subjected
not of His own will, He must needs be also a bondservant; moreover since
tie is a bondservant He must needs also be dwelling in a corruptible nature.
For the Apostle teaches that all these things belong to the creature, and
that, when it shall be freed from these through a long expectation, it will
shine with a glory proper to man. But what a thoughtless and impious
assertion about God is this, to imagine Him exposed, through the insults
which the creature bears, to such mockeries as that He should hope and
serve, and be under compulsion and receive recognition, and be freed
hereafter into a condition which is ours, not His; while really it is of His
gift that we make our little progress.

6. But our impiety, by the license of this forbidden language, waxes apace
with yet deeper faithlessness; asserting that since the Son is a creature it is
bound to maintain that the Father also does not differ from a creature. For
Christ, remaining in the form of God, took the form of a servant; and if He
is a creature Who is in the form of God, God can never be separate from
the creature, because there is a creature in the form of God. But to be in the
form of God can only be understood to mean, remaining in the nature of
God whence also God is a creature, because there is a creature with His
nature. But He Who was in the form of God, did not grasp at being equal

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with God, because from equality with God, that is, from the form of God,
He descended into the form of a servant. But He could not descend from
God into man, except by emptying Himself, as God, of the form of God.
But when He emptied Himself, He was not effaced, so as not to be; since
then He would have become other in kind than He had been. For neither
did He, Who emptied Himself within Himself, cease to be Himself; since
the power of His might remains even in the power of emptying Himself;
and the transition into the form of a servant does not mean the loss of the
nature of God, since to have put off the form of God is nothing less than a
mighty act of divine power.

7. But to be in this way in the form of God is nothing else than to be equal
with God: so that equality of honor is owed to the Lord Jesus Christ, Who
is in the form of God, as He Himself says, That all men may honor the
Son, even as they honor the Father. He that honoreth not the Son honoreth
not the Father Who sent Him. There is never a difference between things
which does not also imply a different degree of honor. The same objects
deserve the same reverence; for otherwise the highest honor will be
unworthily bestowed on those which are inferior, or with insult to the
superior the inferior will be made equal to them in honor. But if the Son,
regarded as a creation rather than a birth, be treated with a reverence equal
to that paid the Father, then we grant no special meed of honor to the
Father, since we charge ourselves with only such reverence towards Him
as is shewn to a creature. But since He is equal to God the Father,
inasmuch as He is born as God from Him, He is also equal to Him in
honor, for He is a Son and not a creature.

8. This again is a notable utterance of the Father concerning Him: From the
womb, before the morning star I begat Thee. Here, as we have often said
already, nothing derogatory to God is implied in the concession to our
weakness of understanding; as though, because He said that He begot Him
from the womb, He were therefore composed of inner and outer parts,
which unite to form His members, and owed Ills being to the same causes
within time to which earthly bodies owe theirs; when in fact He Whose
existence is due to no natural necessities, free and perfect, and eternal Lord
of all nature, in explanation of the true character of the birth of His
Only-begotten, points to power of His own unchangeable nature. For
though Spirit be born of Spirit (consistently, be it remembered, with the

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true character of Spirit, through which itself is also Spirit), nevertheless its
only cause for being born lies within those perfect and unchangeable
causes. And though it is from a perfect and unchangeable cause that it is
born, it must needs be born from that cause, in accordance with the true
character of that cause. Now the necessary process of human birth is
conditioned by the causes which operate upon the womb. But as God is
not made up of parts, but is unchangeable as being Spirit, for God is Spirit,
He is subject to no natural necessity working within Him. But since He
was telling us of the birth of Spirit from Spirit, He instructed our
understanding by an example from causes which work among us: not to
give an example of the manner of birth, but to declare the fact of
generation; not that the example might prove Him subject to necessity, but
that it might enlighten our mind. If, therefore, God Only-begotten is a
created being, what meaning is there in a revelation which uses the common
facts of human birth to indicate that He was divinely generated?

9. For often by means of these members of our bodies, God illustrates for
us the method of His own operations, enlightening our intelligence by
using terms commonly understood: as when He says, Whose hands created
all the host of heaven; or again, The eyes of the Lord are upon the
righteous; or again, I have found David, the son of Jesse, a man after My
own heart. Now by the heart is denoted the desire, to which David was
well-pleasing through the uprightness of his character; and knowledge of
the whole universe, whereby nothing is beyond God's ken, is expressed
under the term 'eyes;' and His creative activity, whereby nothing exists
which is not of God, is understood by the name of 'hands.' Therefore as
God wills and foresees and does everything, and even in the use of terms
denoting bodily action must be understood to have no need of the
assistance of a body; surely, now, in the statement that He begat from the
womb, the idea is brought forward not of a human origin produced by a
bodily act, but of a birth which must be understood as spiritual, since in
the other cases where members are spoken of, this is done to represent to
us other active powers in God.

10. Therefore since heart is put for desire, and eyes for sight, and hands for
work achieved, — and yet, without in any way being made up of parts,
God desires and foresees and acts, these same operations being expressed
by the words heart, and eyes, and hand, — is not the meaning of the

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phrase that He begat from the womb an assertion of the reality of the
birth? Not that He begat the Son from His womb, just as neither does He
act by means of a hand, nor see by means of eyes, nor desire by means of a
heart. But since by the employment of these terms it is made clear that He
really acts and sees and wills everything, so from the word 'womb' it is
clear that He really begot from Himself Him Whom He begat; not that he
made use of a womb, but that He purposed to express reality. Just in the
same way He does not trill or see or act through bodily faculties, but uses
the names of these members in order that through the services performed
by corporeal forces we may understand the power of forces which are not
corporeal.

1 1 . Now the constitution of human society does not allow, nor indeed do
the words of our Lord's teaching permit, that the disciple should be above
his master, or the slave rule over his Lord; because, in these contrasted
positions, subordination to knowledge is the fitting state of ignorance, and
unconditional submission the appointed lot of servitude. And since it is
the common judgment of all that this is so, whose rashness now shall
induce us to say or think that God is a creature, or that the Son has been
made? For nowhere do we find that our Master and Lord spoke thus of
Himself to His servants and disciples, or that He taught that His birth was
a creation or a making. Moreover, the Father never bore witness to Him as
being aught else but a Son, nor did the Son profess that God was aught else
than His own true Father, assuredly affirming that He was born, not made
nor created, as He says, Every one that loveth the Father, loveth also the
Son Who is born of Him.

12. On the other hand His works in creation are acts of making and not a
birth through generation. For the heaven is not a son, neither is the earth a
son, nor is the world a birth; for of these it is said, All things were made
through Him; and by the prophet, The heavens are the works of Thy
hands; and by the same prophet, Neglect not the works of Thy hands. Is
the picture a son of the painter, or the sword a son of the smith or the
house a son of the architect? These are the works of their making: but He
alone is the Son of the Father Who is born of the Father.

13. And we indeed are sons of God, but sons because the Son has made us
such. For we were once sons of wrath, but have been made sons of God

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through the Spirit of adoption, and have earned that title by favor, not by
right of birth. And since everything that is made, before it was made, was
not, so we, although we were not sons, have been made what we are. For
formerly we were not sons: but after we have earned the name we are such.
Moreover, we have not been born, but made; not begotten, but purchased.
For God purchased a people for Himself, and by this act begot them. But
we never learn that God begot sons in the strict sense of the term. For He
does not say, "I have begotten and brought up My sons," but only, I have
begotten and brought up sons.

14. Yet perchance inasmuch as He says, My firstborn Son Israel, some one
will interpret the fact that He said, My firstborn, so as to deprive the Son
of the characteristic property of birth; as though, because God also applied
to Israel the epithet Mine, the adoption of those who have been made sons
was misrepresented as though it were an actual birth, and therefore the
phrase used of Him, This is My beloved Son, is not solely applicable to
the birth of God, since the epithet My is (so it is asserted) shared with
those who clearly were not born sons. But that they were not really born,
although they are said to have been born, is shewn even from that passage
where it is said, A people which shall be born, whom the Lord hath made.

15. Therefore the people of Israel is born, in such wise that it is made; nor
do we take the assertion that it is born as contradictory to the fact that it is
made. For it is a son by adoption, not by generation; nor is this its true
character, but its title. For although the words. My firstborn are written of
it; there is yet a great and wide difference between My beloved Son, and
My firstborn son. For where there is birth, there we see, My beloved Son;
but where there is a choice from among the nations, and adoption through
an act of will, there is My firstborn son. Here the people is God's, in
regard to its character as firstborn; in the former ease the fact that He is
God's, relates to His character as a Son. Again, in a case of birth the
father's ownership comes first, and then his love; in a case of adoption the
primary fact is that the son is made a firstborn, and then comes the
ownership. Thus to Israel, adopted for a son out of all the peoples of the
earth, properly belonged the character of a firstborn; but to Him alone,
Who is born God, properly belongs the character of a Son. Accordingly
there is no true and complete birth where sonship is imputed rather than
real: since it is not doubtful that that people, which is born into a state of

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sonship, is also made. But since it would not have been what it is now
become, and inasmuch as its birth is but a name for its being made, it has
no true birth, since it was something else before it was born. And for this
reason it was not before it was born, that is, before it was made, because
that which is a son from among the nations was a nation before it was a
son: and accordingly it is not truly a son, because it was not always a son.
But God Only-begotten was neither at any time not a Son, nor was He
anything before He was a Son, nor is He Himself anything except a Son.
And so He Who is always a Son, has rendered it impossible for us to think
of Him that there was a time when He was not.

16. For indeed human births involve a previous non-existence, because, as
a first reason, all are born from those, all of whom formerly were not. For
although each one who is born has his origin from one who has been,
nevertheless that very parent, from whom he is born, was not before he
was born. Again, as a second reason, he who is born, is born after that he
was not, for time existed before he was born. For if he is born to-day, in
the time which was yesterday, he was not; and he has come into a state of
being from a state of not being; and our reason enforces that that which is
born to-day did not exist yesterday. And so it remains that his birth, by
virtue of which he is, took place after a state of non-existence; since
necessarily today implies the previous existence of yesterday, so that it is
true of it that there was a time when it was not. And these facts hold good
of the origin of everything relating to man: all receive a beginning,
previously to which they had not been: firstly, as we have explained, in
respect of time, and then in respect of cause And in respect of time indeed
there is no doubt that things which now begin to be, formerly were not;
and this is true also in respect of cause, since it is certain that their
existence is not derived from a cause within themselves. For think over all
the causes of beginnings, and direct your understanding to their
antecedents: you will find that nothing began by self-causation, since
nothing is born by the free act of the parent, but all things are created what
they are through the power of God. Whence also it is a natural property of
each class of things by virtue of actual heredity, that it once was not and
then began to be, beginning after time began, and existing within time. And
while all existing things have an origin later than that of time, their causes
also, in their turn, were once nonexistent, being born from things which

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once were not. Even Adam, the first parent of the human race, was formed
from the earth, which was made out of nothing, and after time, that is to
say, after the heaven and earth, and the day and the sun, moon and stars,
and he had no first beginning in being born, and began to be when he once
had not been.

17. But for God Only-begotten, Who is preceded by no antecedent time,
the possibility is excluded that at some time He was not, since that "some
time" thus becomes prior to Him; and again, the assertion that He was not
involves the potion of time: whence time will not begin to be after Him,
but He Himself will begin to be after time, and, inasmuch as He was not
before He was born, the very period when He was not will take
precedence of Him. Further, He Who is born from Him Who really is,
cannot be understood to have been born from that which was not: since He
Who really is, is the cause of His existing, and His birth cannot have its
origin in that which is not. And therefore since in His case it is not true
either in regard of time that He ever was not, or in regard of the Father,
that is, the Author of His being, that He has come into existence out of
nothing, He has left no possibility with regard to Himself either of His
having been born out of nothing, or of His not having existed before He
was born.

18. Now I am not ignorant that most of those, whose mind being dulled by
impiety does not accept the mystery of God, or who through the strong
influence of a hostile spirit are ready to manifest, under the cover of
reverence, a marl passion for disparaging God, are wont to make strange
assertions in the ears of simple-minded men. They assert that since we say
that the Son always has been, and that He never has been anything which
He has not always been, we are therefore declaring that He is without
birth, inasmuch as He always has been; since, according to the workings of
human reason, that which always has existed cannot possibly have been
born: since (so they urge) the cause of a thing being born, is that
something, which was not, may come into existence, while the coming into
existence of something which was not, means nothing else, according to the
judgment of common sense, than its being born. They may add those
arguments, subtle enough and pleasant to hear; — "If He was born, He
began to be; at the time when He began to be, He was not: and when He
was not, it cannot be that He was." By such proofs let them maintain that

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it is the language of reasonable piety to say, "He was not before He was
born: because in order that He might come to be, One Who was not, not
One Who was, was born. Nor did He Who was, require a birth, although
He who was not was born, to the end that He might come to be."

19. Now, first of all, men professing a devout knowledge of divine things,
in matters where the truth preached by Evangelists and Apostles shewed
the way, ought to have laid aside the intricate questions of a crafty
philosophy, and rather to have followed after the faith which rests in God:
because the sophistry of a syllogistical question easily disarms a weak
understanding of the protection of its faith, since treacherous assertion
lures on the guileless defender, who tries to support his case by enquiry
into facts, till at last it robs him, by means of his own enquiry, of his
certainty; so that the answerer no longer retains in his consciousness a
truth which by his admission he has surrendered. For what answer
accommodates itself so well to the questioner's purpose, as the admission
on our part, when we are asked, "Does anything exist before it is born?"
that that which is born, did not previously exist? For it is contrary both to
nature and to necessary reason that a thing which already exists should be
born: since a thing must needs be born in order that it may come to be, and
not because it already existed. But when we have made this concession,
because it is rightly made, we lose the certainty of our faith, and being
ensnared we fall in with their impious and unchristian designs.

20. But the blessed Apostle Paul, taking precaution against this, as we
have often shewn, warned us to be on our guard, saying: Take heed lest
any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, according to the
tradition of men, according to the elements of the world, and not according
to Christ, in Whom dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.
Therefore we must be on our guard against philosophy, and methods
which rest upon traditions of men we must not so much avoid as refute.
Any concession that we make must imply not that we are out-argued but
that we are confused, for it is right that we, who declare that Christ is the
power of God and the wisdom of God, should not flee from the doctrines
of men, but rather overthrow them; and we must restrain and instruct the
simple-minded lest they be spoiled by these teachers. For since God can
do all things, and in His wisdom can do all things wisely, for neither is His
purpose unarmed with power nor His power unguided by purpose, it

574

behooves those who proclaim Christ to the world, to face the irreverent
and faulty doctrines of the world with the knowledge imparted by that
wise Omnipotence, according to the saying of the blessed Apostle: For our
weapons are not carnal but powerful for God, for the casting down of
strongholds, casting down reasonings and every high thing which is exalted
against the knowledge of God. The Apostle did not leave us a faith which
was bare and devoid of reason; for although a bare faith may be most
mighty to salvation, nevertheless, unless it is trained by teaching, while it
will have indeed a secure retreat to withdraw to in the midst of foes, it will
yet be unable to maintain a safe and strong position for resistance. Its
position will be like that which a camp affords to a weak force after a
flight; not like the undismayed courage of men who have a camp to hold.
Therefore we must beat down the insolent arguments which are raised
against God, and destroy the fastnesses of fallacious reasoning, and crush
cunning intellects which hit themselves up to impiety, with weapons not
carnal but spiritual, not with earthly, learning but with heavenly wisdom;
so that in proportion as divine things differ from human, so may the
philosophy of heaven surpass the rivalry of earth.

21. Accordingly let misbelief abandon its efforts; let it not think, because it
does not understand, that we deny a truth which, in fact, we alone rightly
understand and believe. For while we declare in so many words that He
was born, nevertheless we do not assert that He was ever not born. For it
is not the same thing to be not born and to be born: since the latter term
expresses origin derived from some other, the former origin derived from
none. And it is one thing to exist always, as the Eternal, without any
source of being, and another to be co-eternal with a Father, having Him for
the Source of being. For where a father is the source of being, there also is
birth; and further, where the Source of being is eternal, the birth also is
eternal: for since birth comes from the source of being, birth which comes
from an eternal Source of being must be eternal. Now everything which
always exists, is also eternal. But nevertheless, not everything which is
eternal is also not born; since that which is born from eternity has eternally
the character of having been born; but that which is not born is ingenerate
as well as eternal. But if that which has been born from the Eternal is not
born eternal, it will follow that the Father also is not an eternal Source of
being. Therefore if any measure of eternity is wanting to Him Who has

575

been born of the eternal Father, clearly the very same measure is wanting
to the Author of His being; since what belongs in an infinite degree to Him
Who begets, belongs in an infinite degree to Him also Who is born. For
neither reason nor intelligence allows of any interval between the birth of
God the Son and the generation by God the Father; since the generation
consists in the birth, and the birth in the generation. Thus each of these
events coincides exactly with the other; neither took place unless both
took place. Therefore that which owes its existence to both these events
cannot be eternal unless they both are eternal; since neither of the two
correlatives, apart from the other, has any reality, because it is impossible
for one to exist without the other.

22. But some one, who cannot receive this divine mystery, will say,
"Everything which has been born, once was not; since it was born in order
that it might come into existence."

23. But does any one doubt that all human beings that have been born, at
one time were not? It is, however, one thing to be born of some one who
once was not, and another to be born of One Who always is. For every
state of infancy, since previously it had no existence, began from some
point of time. And tiffs again, growing up into childhood, still later urges
on youth to fatherhood. Yet the man was not always a father, for he
advanced to youth through boyhood, and to boyhood through original
infancy. Therefore he who was not always a father, also did not always
beget: but where the Father is eternal, the Son also is eternal. And so if you
hold, whether by argument or by instinct, that God, in the mystery of our
knowledge of Whom one property is that He is Father, was not always the
Father of the begotten Son, you hold also, as a matter of understanding and
of knowledge, that the Son, Who was begotten, did not always exist. But if
the property of fatherhood be co-eternal with the Father, then necessarily
also the property of sonship must be co-eternal with the Son. And how
will it square with our language or our understanding to maintain that He
was not before He was born, Whose property it is that He always was
what He has been born.

24. And so God Only -begotten, containing in Himself the form and image
of the invisible God, in all things which are properties of God the Father is
equal to Him by virtue of the fullness of true Godhead in Himself. For, as

576

we have shewn in the former books, in respect of power and veneration He
is as mighty and as worthy of honor as the Father: so also, inasmuch as the
Father is always Father, He too, inasmuch as He is the Son, possesses the
like property of being always the Son. For according to the words spoken
to Moses, He Who is, hath sent Me unto you, we obtain the unambiguous
conception that absolute being belongs to God; since that which is, cannot
be thought of or spoken of as not being. For being and not being are
contraries, nor can these mutually exclusive descriptions be simultaneously
true of one and the same object: for while the one is present, the other
must be absent. Therefore, where anything is, neither conception nor
language will admit of its not being. When our thoughts are turned
backwards, and are continually carried back further and further to
understand the nature of Him Who is, this sole fact about Him, that He is,
remains ever prior to our thoughts; since that quality, which is infinitely
present in God, always withdraws itself from the backward gaze of our
thoughts, though they reach back to an infinite distance. The result is that
the backward straining of our thoughts can never grasp anything prior to
God's property of absolute existence; since nothing presents itself, to
enable us to understand the nature of God, even though we go on seeking
to eternity, save always the fact that God always is. That then which has
both been declared about God by Moses, that of which our human
intelligence can give no further explanation; that very quality the Gospels
testify to be a property of God Only-begotten; since in the beginning was
the Word, and since the Word was with God, and since He was the true
Light, and since God Only-begotten is in the bosom of the Father, and
since Jesus Christ is God over all.

25. Therefore He was, and He is, since He is from Him Who always is
what He is. But to be from Him, that is to say, to be from the Father, is
birth. Moreover, to be always from Him, Who always is, is eternity; but
this eternity is derived not from Himself, but from the Eternal. And from
the Eternal nothing can spring but what is eternal: for if the Offspring is
not eternal, then neither is the Father, Who is the source of generation,
eternal. Now since it is the special characteristic of His being that His
Father always exists, and that He is always His Son, and since eternity is
expressed in the name He that Is , therefore, since He possesses absolute
being, He possesses also eternal being. Moreover, no one doubts that

577

generation implies birth, and that birth points to one existing from that
time forth, and not to one who does not continue. Furthermore, there can
be no doubt that no one who already was in existence could be born. For
no cause of birth can accrue to Him, Who of Himself continues eternal. But
God Only-begotten, Who is the Wisdom of God, and the Power and the
Word of God, since He was born, bears witness to the Father as the source
of His being. Since He was born of One, Who eternally exists, He was not
born of nothing. Since He was born before times eternal, His birth must
necessarily be prior to all thought. There is no room for the verbal quibble,
"He was not, before He was born." For if He is within the range of our
thought, in the sense that He was not before He was born, then both our
thought and time are prior to His birth; since everything which once was
not, is within the compass of thought and time, by the very meaning of the
assertion that it once was not, which separates off, within time, a period
when it did not exist. But He is from the Eternal, and yet has always been;
He is not ingenerate, yet never was non-existent; since to have always been
transcends time, and to have been born is birth.

26. And so we confess that God Only-begotten was born, but born before
times eternal: since we must make our confession within such limits as the
express preaching of Apostles and Prophets assigns to us; though at the
same time human thought cannot grasp any intelligible idea of birth out of
time, since it is inconsistent with the nature of earthly beings that any of
them should be born before all times. But when we make this assertion,
how can we reconcile with it, as part of the same doctrine, the
contradictory statement that before His birth He was not, when according
to the Apostle He is God Only-begotten before times eternal? If, therefore,
the belief that He was born before times eternal is not only the reasonable
conclusion of human intelligence, but the confession of thoughtful faith,
then, since birth implies some author of being, and what surpasses all time
is eternal, and whatever is born before times eternal transcends earthly
perception, we are certainly exalting by impious self-will a notion of
human reason, if we maintain in a carnal sense that before He was born He
was not, since He is born eternal, beyond human perception or carnal
intelligence. And again, whatever transcends time is eternal.

27. For we can embrace all time in imagination or knowledge, since we
know that what is now to-day, did not exist yesterday, because what was

578

yesterday is not now; and on the other hand what is now, is only now and
was not also yesterday. And by imagination we can so span the past that
we have no doubt that before some city was founded, there existed a time
in which that city had not been founded. Since, therefore, all time is the
sphere of knowledge or imagination, we judge of it by the perceptions of
human reason; hence we are considered to hare reasonably asserted about
anything, "It was not, before it was born," since antecedent time is prior to
the origin of every single thing. But on the other hand, since in things of
God, that is to say, in regard to the birth of God, there is nothing that is
not before time eternal: it is illogical to use of Him the phrase "before He
was born," or to suppose that He Who possesses before times eternal the
eternal promise, is merely (in the language of the blessed Apostle) in hope
of eternal life, which God Who cannot lie has promised before times
eternal, or to say that once He was not. For reason rejects the notion that
He began to exist after anything, Who, so we must confess, existed before
times eternal.

28. We may grant that for anything to be born before times eternal is not
the way of human nature, nor a matter which we can understand; and yet
in this we believe God's declarations about Himself. How then does the
infidelity of our own day assert, according to the conceptions of human
intelligence, that that had no existence before it was born, which the
Apostolic faith tells us was, in some manner inconceivable to the human
understanding, always born, or in other words existed before times eternal?
For what is born before time is always born; since that which exists before
time eternal, always exists. But what has always been born, cannot at any
time have had no existence; since non-existence at a given time is directly
contrary to eternity of existence. Moreover, existing always excludes the
idea of not having existed always. And the idea of not having existed
always being excluded by the postulate that He has always been born, we
cannot conceive the supposition that He did not exist before He was born.
For it is obvious that He Who was born before times eternal, has always
been born, although we can forth no positive conception of anything
having been born before all time. For if we must confess (as is clearly
necessary) that He has been born before every creature, whether invisible
or corporeal, and before all ages and times eternal, and before all
perception, Who always exists through the very fact that He has been so

579

born; — then by no manner of thought can it be conceived that before He
was born, He did not exist; since He Who has been born before times
eternal, is prior to all thought, and we can never think that once He did not
exist, when we have to confess that He always exists.

29. But our opponent cunningly anticipates us with this carping objection.
"If," be urges, "it is inconceivable that He did not exist before He was
born, it must be conceivable that One Who already existed was born."

30. 1 will ask this objector in reply, whether he remembers my calling Him
anything else than born, and whether I did not say that existence before
times eternal and birth have the same meaning in the case of Him that was,
For the birth of One already existing is not really birth, but a self- wrought
change through birth, and the eternal existence of One Who is born means
that in His birth He is prior to any conception of time, and that there is no
tooth for the mind to suppose that at any time He was unborn. And so an
eternal birth before times eternal is not the same as existence before being
born. But to have been born always before times eternal excludes the
possibility of having had no existence be fore birth.

31. Again, this same fact excludes the possibility of saying that He existed
before He was born; because He Who transcends perception transcends it
in every respect. For if the notion of being born, though always existing,
transcends thought, it is equally impossible that the notion that He did not
exist before He was born should be a subject of thought. And so, since we
must confess that to have been always born means for us nothing beyond
the fact of birth, the question whether He did or did not exist before He
was born cannot be determined under our conditions of thought; since this
one fact that He was born before times eternal ever eludes the grasp of our
thought. So He was born and yet has always existed; He Who does not
allow anything else to be understood or said about Him than that He was
born. For since He is prior to time itself within which thought exists (since
time eternal is previous to thought), He debars thought from determining
concerning Him, whether He was or was not before He was born; since
existence before birth is incompatible with the idea of birth, and previous
non-existence involves the idea of time. Therefore, while the infinity of
times eternal is fatal to any explanation involving the idea of time — that is
to say, to the notion that He did not exist; His birth equally forbids any

580

that is inconsistent with it, — that is to say, the notion that He existed
before He was born. For if the question of His existence or His
non-existence can be determined under our conditions of thought, then the
birth itself must be after time; for He Who does not always exist must, of
necessity, have begun to be after some given point of time.

32. Therefore the conclusion reached by faith and argument and thought is
that the Lord Jesus both was born and always existed: since if the mind
survey the past in search of knowledge concerning the Son, this one fact
and nothing else, will be constantly present to the enquirer' s perception,
that He was born and always existed. As therefore it is a property of God
the Father to exist without birth, so also it must belong to the Son to exist
always through birth. But birth can declare nothing except that there is a
Father and the title Father nothing else except that there is a birth. For
neither those names nor the nature of the case, will allow of any
intermediate position. For either He was not always a Father, unless there
was always also a Son; or if He was always a Father, there was always
also a Son; since whatever period of time is denied to the Son, to make His
sonship non-eternal, just so much the Father lacks of having been always a
Father: so that although He was always God, nevertheless He cannot have
been also a Father for the same infinity during which He is God.

33. Now the declarations of impiety even go so far as not only to ascribe
to the Son birth in time, but also generation in time to the Father; because
the process of generation and the birth take place within one period.

34. But, heretic, do you consider it pious and devout to confess that God
indeed always existed, yet was not always Father? For if it is pious for
you to think so, you must then condemn Paul of impiety, when he says
that the Son existed before times eternal: you must also accuse Wisdom
itself, when it bears witness concerning itself that it was founded before
the ages: for it was present with the Father when He was preparing the
heaven. But in order that you may assign to God a beginning of His being a
Father, first determine the starting-point at which the times must have
begun. For if they had a beginning, the Apostle is a liar for declaring them
to be eternal. For you all are accustomed to reckon the times from the
creation of the sun and the moon, since it is written of them, And let them
be far signs and for times and for years. But He Who is before the heaven,

581

which in your view is even before time, is also before the ages. Nor is He
merely before the ages, but also before the generations of generations
which precede the ages. Why do you limit things divine and infinite by
what is perishable and earthly and narrow? With regard to Christ, Paul
knows of nothing except an eternity of times. Wisdom does not say that it
is after anything, but before everything. In your judgment the times were
established by the sun and the moon; but David shews that Christ remains
before the sun, saying, His is name is before the sun. And lest you should
think that the things of God began with the formation of this universe, he
says again, And for generations of generations before the moon. These
great men counted worthy of prophetic inspiration look down upon time:
every opening is barred whereby human perception might penetrate behind
the birth, which transcends times eternal. Yet let the faith of a devout
imagination accept this as limit of its speculations, remembering that the
Lord Jesus Christ, God Only-begotten, is born in a manner to be
acknowledged as a perfect birth, and in the reverence paid to His divinity,
not forgetting that He is eternal.

35. But we are accused of lying, and together with us the doctrine preached
by the Apostle is attacked, because while it confesses the birth, it asserts
the eternity of that birth: the result being that, while the birth bears
witness to an Author of being, the assertion of eternity in the mystery of
the divine birth transgresses the limits of human thought. For there is
brought forward against us the declaration of Wisdom concerning itself,
when it taught that it was created in these words The Lord created Me for
the beginning of His ways.

36. And, O wretched heretic! you turn the weapons granted to the Church
against the Synagogue, against belief in the Church's preaching, and distort
against the common salvation of all the sure meaning of a saving doctrine.
For you maintain by these words that Christ is a creature, instead of
silencing the Jew, who denies that Christ was God before eternal ages, and
that His power is active in all the working and teaching of God, by these
words of the living Wisdom! For Wisdom has in this passage asserted that
it had been created for the beginning of the ways of God and for His works
from the commencement of the ages, lest perchance it might be supposed
that it did not subsist before Mary; yet has not employed this word
'created' in order to signify that its birth was a creation, since it was

582

created for the beginning of God's ways and for His works. Nay rather lest
any one should suppose that this beginning of the ways, which is indeed
the starting-point for the human knowledge of things divine, was meant to
subordinate an infinite birth to conditions of time, Wisdom declared itself
established before the ages. For, since it is one thing to be created for the
beginning of the ways and for the works of God, and another to be
established before the ages, the establishing was intended to be understood
as prior to the creation; and the very fact of its being established for God's
works before the ages was intended to point to the mystery of the
creation; since the establishing is before the ages, but the creation for the
beginning of the ways and for the works of God is after the
commencement of the ages.

37. But now, test the terms 'creation' and 'establishing' should be an
obstacle to belief in the divine birth, these words follow, Before He made
the earth, before He made firm the mountains, before all the hills He begat
Me. Thus He is begotten before the earth, Who is established before the
ages; and not only before the earth, but also before the mountains and hills.
And indeed in these expressions, since Wisdom speaks of itself, more is
meant than is said. For all objects which are used to convey the idea of
infinity must be of such a kind as to be subsequent in point of time to no
single thing and to no class of things. But things existing in time cannot
possibly be fitted to indicate eternity; because, from the very fact that
they are posterior to other things, they are incapable of suggesting the
thought of infinity as a beginning, themselves having their own beginning in
time. For what wonder is it, that God should have begotten the Lord
Christ before the earth, when the origin of the angels is found to be prior to
the creation of the earth? Or why should He, Who was said to be begotten
before the earth, be also declared to be born before the mountains, and not
only before the mountains but also before the hills; the hills being
mentioned, as an afterthought, after the mountains, and reason requiring
that there should be a world before mountains could exist? For such
reasons it cannot be supposed that these words were used merely in order
that He might be understood to exist prior to hills and mountains and
earth, Who surpasses by the eternity of His own infinity things which are
themselves prior to earth and mountains and hills.

583

38. But this divine discourse has not left our understandings unenlightened,
since it explains the reason of the phrase in what follows: — God made the
regions, both the uninhabitable parts and the heights which are inhabited
under the heaven. When He was preparing the heaven, I was with Him;
and when He was setting apart His own seat. When above the winds He
made the clouds huge in the upper air, and when He placed securely the
springs under the heaven, and when He made firm the foundations of the
earth, I was by Him, joining all things together. What period in time is
here? Or how far are the conceptions of human intelligence allowed to
reach beyond the infinite birth of God Only-begotten? By means of things
whose creation we can conceive in our mind, it is not possible to
understand the generation of Him, Who is prior to all these things; and
hence we cannot maintain that He came, indeed, first in time, yet was not
infinite, inasmuch as the only privilege bestowed upon Him was a birth
prior to things temporal. For in that case, since they, by their constitution,
are subject to the conditions of time, He, though prior to them all, would
be equally subject to conditions of time, because their creation within time
would define the time of His birth, namely that He was born before then;
for that which is antecedent to temporal things stands in the same relation
to time as they.

39. But the voice of God, our instruction in true wisdom, speaks what is
perfect, and expresses the absolute truth, when it teaches that itself is
prior not merely to things of time, but even to things infinite. For when the
heaven was being prepared, it was present with God. Is the preparation of
the heaven an act of God within time; so that an impulse of thought
suddenly surprised His mind, as though it had been previously dull and
inert, and after the fashion of men He sought for materials and instruments
for fashioning the heaven? Nay, the prophet's conception of the working
of God is far different, when He says, By the word of the Lord were the
heavens established, and all their power by the breath of His mouth. Yet
the heavens needed the command of God, that they might be established;
for their arrangement and excellence in this firm unshaken constitution,
which they display, did not arise from the blending and commingling of
some kind of matter, but from the breath of the mouth of God. What then
does it mean, that Wisdom begotten of God was present with Him, when
He was preparing the heaven? For neither does the creation of heaven

584

consist in a preparation of material, nor does it consist with the nature of
God to linger over preliminary thoughts concerning His work. For
everything, which there is in created things, was always with God: for
although these things in respect of their creation have a beginning,
nevertheless they have no beginning in respect of the knowledge and
power of God. And here the prophet is our witness, saying, O God, Who
hast made all things which shah be. For although things future, in so far as
they are to be created, are still to be made, yet to God, with Whom there is
nothing new or sudden in creation they have already been made; since there
is a dispensation of times for their creation, and in the prescient working of
the divine power they have already been made. Here, therefore, Wisdom,
in teaching that it was born before the ages, teaches that it is not merely
prior to things which have been created, but is even co-eternal with what is
eternal, to wit, with the preparation of the heaven, and the setting apart of
the abode of God. For this abode was not set apart at the time when it was
actually made, for setting apart and fashioning an abode are different
things. Nor again was the heaven formed at the time when it was (ideally)
prepared, for Wisdom was with God both when He prepared and when He
set apart the heaven. And afterwards it was fashioning the heaven by the
side of God Who formed it: it proves its eternity by its presence with Him
as He prepares; it reveals its functions, when it fashions by the side of
God Who forms. Therefore, in the passage before us it said that it was
begotten even before the earth and mountains and hills, because it meant to
teach that it was present at the preparation of the heaven; in order that it
might shew that, even when the heaven was being prepared, this work was
already finished in the counsel of God, for to Him there is nothing new.

40. For the preparation for creation is perpetual and eternal: nor was the
frame of this universe actually made by isolated acts of thought, in the
sense that first the heaven was thought of, and afterwards there came into
God's mind a thought anti plan concerning the earth; that He thought of
each part singly, so that first the earth was spread out as a plain, and then
through better counsels was made to rise up in mountains, and yet again
was diversified with hills, and in the fourth place was also made habitable
even in the heights; that so the heaven was prepared an I the abode of God
set apart, and huge clouds in the upper air held the exhalations caught up
by the winds; then afterwards sure springs began to run under the heaven,

585

and, last of all, the earth was made firm with strong foundations. For
Wisdom declares that it is prior to all these things. But since all things
under the heaven were made through God, and Christ was present at the
fashioning of the heaven, and preceded even the eternity of the heaven
which was prepared, this fact does not allow us to think in respect to God
of disconnected thoughts on details, since the whole preparation of these
things is co-eternal with God. For although, as Moses teaches, each act of
creation had its proper order; — the making the firmament solid, the laying
bare of the dry land, the gathering together of the sea, the ordering of the
stars, the generation by the waters and the earth when they brought forth
living creatures out of themselves; yet the creation of the heaven and earth
and other elements is not separated by the slightest interval in God's
working, since their preparation had been completed in like infinity of
eternity in the counsel of God.

41. Thus, though Christ was present in God with these infinite and eternal
decrees, He has granted to us nothing more than a knowledge of the fact of
His birth; in order that, just as an apprehension of the birth is the means
which leads to faith in God, so also the knowledge of the eternity of His
birth might avail to sustain piety; since neither reason nor experience allow
us to speak of any but an eternal Son as proceeding from a Father Who is
eternal.

42. But perhaps the word 'creation,' and its employment of Him, disturbs
us. Certainly the word 'creation' would disturb us, if birth before the ages
and creation for the beginning of the ways of God and for His works were
not affirmed of Him. For birth cannot be understood to denote creation,
since the birth precedes causation, but the creation takes place through
causation. For before the preparation of the heaven and before the
commencement of the ages was He established, Who was created for the
beginning of the ways of God and for His works. Is it possible that to be
created for the beginning of the ways of God and for His works, means the
same as to be born before all things? No: one of these ideas relates to time
employed in action, but the other bears a sense which has no relation to
time.

43. Or perhaps you wish the assertion that He was created for the works
to be understood in the sense that He was created on account of the works;

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in other words that Christ was created for the sake of performing the
works. In that case He exists as a servant and a builder of the universe, and
was not born the Lord of Glory; He was created for the service of forming
the ages, and was not always the beloved Son and the King of the ages.
But, although the general understanding of Christians contradicts this
impious thought of yours, recognizing that it is one thing to be created for
the beginning of the ways of God and for His works, and another to be
born before the ages, yet this very same passage thwarts your purpose of
falsely asserting that the Lord Christ was created, on account of the
formation of the universe, since it shews that God the Father is the Maker
and Former of the universe, and shews it convincingly, since Christ
Himself was present fashioning by the side of Him Who was forming all
things. But, while all Scripture was designed to speak of the Lord Jesus
Christ as the Creator of the universe, Wisdom, to destroy all occasion for
impiety, has here declared that though God the Father was the Constructor
of the universe, yet itself was not absent from Him while constructing it,
since it was present with Him even when He was preparing it beforehand,
and that when the Father formed the universe, Wisdom also was fashioning
it by the side of Him Who formed it, and was present with Him even when
He prepared it. Whence Wisdom would have us understand that it was not
created on account of God's works, by the very fact that it had been
present at the eternal preparation of works yet to be, and proves Scripture
not to be false, by the fact that it fashioned the universe by the side of
God when He formed it.

44. Learn at last, heretic, from the revelation of Catholic teaching, what is
the meaning of the saying that Christ was created for the beginning of the
ways of God and for His works; and be taught by the words of Wisdom
itself the folly of your impious dullness. For thus it begins: If I shall
declare unto you the things which are done every day, I will remember to
recount those things which are from of old. For Wisdom had said before,
You, O men, I entreat, and I utter my voice to the sons of men. O ye
simple, understand subtilty, moreover ye unlearned, apply your heart; and
again, Through Me kings reign, and mighty men decree justice. Through
Me princes are magnified, and through Me despots possess the earth; and
again, I walk in the ways of equity, and move in the midst of the paths of
justice; that I may divide substance to those that love Me, and fill their

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treasures with good things. Wisdom is not silent about its daily work. And
firstly entreating all men, it advises the simple to understand subtilty, and
the unlearned to apply their heart, in order that a zealous and diligent
reader may ponder the different and separate meanings of the words. And
so it teaches that by its methods and ordinances all success, all attainment
of knowledge or fame or wealth, is achieved: it shews that within itself are
contained the reigns of kings and the prudence of the mighty, and the
famous works of princes, and the justice of despots who possess the
earth; that it moreover does not mingle with wicked deeds and has no part
in acts of injustice; and that all this is done by Wisdom in order that, by
taking part in every work of equity and justice, it may supply to those
that love it, a wealth of eternal goods anti incorruptible treasures.
Therefore Wisdom, after declaring that it will relate the things which are
done every day, promises that it will also be mindful to recount the things
which are from of old. And now what blindness is it, to think that things
were performed before the beginning of the ages, which are expressly
declared to date merely from the beginning of the ages! For every work
among those which date from the beginning of the ages is itself posterior to
that beginning: but on the contrary, things which are before the beginning
of the ages, precede the ordering of the ages, which are later than they. And
so Wisdom, after declaring that it is mindful to speak of the things which
date from the beginning of the ages, says, The Lord created Me for the
beginning of His ways for His works, by these words denoting things
performed from the date of the beginning of the ages. Thus Wisdom's
teaching concerns not a generation declared to precede the ages, but a
dispensation which began with the ages themselves.

45. We must also enquire what is the meaning of the saying that God, born
before the ages, was again created for the beginning of the ways of God and
for His works. This surely is said because where there is a birth before the
commencement of the ages, there is the eternity of an endless generation:
but where the same birth is represented as a creation from the
commencement of the ages, for the ways of God and for His works, it is
applied as the creative cause to the works and to the ways. And first, since
Christ is Wisdom, we must see whether He is Himself the beginning of the
way of the works of God. Of this, I think, there is no doubt; for He says, I
am the way, and, No man cometh to the Father except through Me. A way

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is the guide of those who go, the course marked out for those who hasten,
the safeguard of the ignorant, a teacher, so to speak, of things unknown
and longed for. Therefore He is created for the beginning of the ways, for
the works of God; because He is the Way and leads men to the Father. But
we must seek for the purpose of this creation, which is from the
commencement of the ages. For it is also the mystery of the last
dispensation, wherein Christ was again created in bodily form, and
declared that He was the way of the works of God. Again, He was created
for the ways of God from the commencement of the ages, when, subjecting
Himself to the visible form of a creature, He took the form of a created
being.

46. And so let us see for what ways of God, and for what works of God,
Wisdom was created from the commencement of the ages, though born of
God before all ages. Adam heard the voice of One walking in Paradise. Do
you think that His approach could have been heard, had He not assumed
the guise of a created being? Is not the fact, that He was heard as He
walked, proof that He was present in a created form? I do not ask in what
guise He spoke to Cain and Abel and Noah, and in what guise He was near
to Enoch also, blessing him. An Angel speaks to Hagar, and certainly He is
also God. Has He the same form, when He appears like an Angel, as He
has in that nature, by virtue of which He is God? Certainly the form of an
Angel is revealed, where afterwards mention is made of the nature of God.
But why should I speak of an Angel? He comes as a man to Abraham.
Under the guise of a man, in the shape of that created being, is not Christ
present in that nature, which He possesses as being also God? A man
speaks, and is present in the body, and is nourished by food; and yet God
is adored. Surely He Who was an Angel is now also man, in order to save
us from the assumption that any of these diverse aspects of one state, that
of the creature, is His natural form as God. Again, He comes to Jacob in
human shape, and even grasps him for wrestling; and He takes hold with
His hands, and struggles with His limbs, and bends His flanks, and adopts
every movement and gesture of ours. But again He is revealed, this time to
Moses, and as a fire; in order that you might learn to believe that this
created nature was to provide Him with an outward guise, not to embody
the reality of His nature. He possessed, at that moment, the power of
burning, but He did not assume the destructive property which is inherent

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in the nature of fire, for the fire evidently burned and yet the bush was not
injured.

47. Glance over the whole course of time, and realist in what guise He
appeared to Joshua the son of Nun, a prophet bearing His name, or to
Isaiah, who relates that he saw Him, as the Gospel also bears witness, or
to Ezekiel, who was admitted even to knowledge of the Resurrection, or to
Daniel, who confesses the Son of Man in the eternal kingdom of the ages,
or to all the rest to whom He presented Himself in the form of various
created beings, for the ways of God and for the works of God, that is to
say, to teach us to know God, and to profit our eternal state. Why dues
this method, expressly designed for human salvation, bring about at the
present time such an impious attack upon His eternal birth? The creation,
of which you speak, dates from the commencement of the ages; but His
birth is without end, and before the ages. Maintain by all means that we
are doing violence to words, if a Prophet, or the Lord, or an Apostle, or
any oracle whatever has described by the name of creation the birth of His
eternal divinity. In all these manifestations God, Who is a consuming fire,
is present, as created, in such a manner that He could lay aside the created
form by the same power by which He assumed it, being able to destroy
again that which had come into existence merely that it might be looked
upon.

48. But that blessed and true birth of the flesh conceived within the Virgin
the Apostle has named both a creating and a making, for then there was
born both the nature and form of our created being. And without doubt in
his view this name belongs to Christ's true birth as a man, since he says,
But when the fullness of the time came, God sent His Son, made of a
woman, made under the law, in order that He might redeem those who are
under the law, that we might obtain the adoption of sons. And so He is
God's own Son, Who is made in human form and of human origin; nor is
He only made but also created, as it is said: Even as the truth is in Jesus,
that ye put away according to your former manner of life, that old man,
which becomes corrupt according to the lusts of deceit. However, be ye
renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put ye on that new man, which is
created according God. So the new man is to be put on Who has been
created according to God. For He Who was Son of God was born also Son
Man. This was not the birth of the divinity, but the creating of the flesh;

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the new Man taking the title of the race, and being created according to
God Who was born before the ages. And how the new man was created
according to God, he explains in what follows, adding, in righteousness,
and in holiness, and in truth. For there was no guile in Him; and He has
been made unto us righteousness and sanctification, and is Himself the
Truth. This, then, is the Christ, created a new man according to God,
Whom we put on.

49. If, then, Wisdom, in saying that it was mindful of the things which
have been performed since the beginning of the ages, said that it was
created for the works of God and for the ways of God; and yet, while
saying that it was created, taught that it was established before the ages,
lest we should suppose that the mystery of that created form, so variously
and frequently assumed, involved some change in its nature; — for
although the firmness with which it was established would not allow of
any disturbance that could overthrow it, yet, lest the establishment might
seem to mean something less than birth, Wisdom declared itself to be
begotten before all things: — if this is so, why is the term 'creation' now
applied to the birth of that which was both begotten before all things, and
also established before the ages? Because that which was established
before the ages was created anew froth the commencement of the ages for
the beginning of the ways of God and for His works. In this sense must we
understand the difference between creation from the commencement of the
ages and that birth which precedes the ages and all things. Impiety at least
has not this excuse, that it can plead error as the cause of its profanity.

50. For although the weakness of the understanding might hinder the
perceptions of a man devoutly disposed, so that, even after this
explanation, he might fail to grasp the meaning of "creation," nevertheless,
even the letter of the Apostle's saying, when he applies the term "making"
to a true birth, should have sufficed for a sincere, if not intelligent, belief,
that the term "creation" was designed to conduce to a belief in generation.
For when the Apostle was minded to assert the birth of One from one
Parent, that is to say, the birth of the Lord from a virgin without a
conception due to human passions, he clearly had a definite purpose in
calling Him "made of a woman," Whom he knew and had frequently
asserted to have been born. He desired that the 'birth' should point to the
reality of the generation, and the 'making' should testify to the birth of

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One from one Parent; because the term 'making' excludes the idea of a
conception by means of human intercourse, it being expressly stated that
He was made of a virgin, though it is equally certain that He was born and
not made. But see, heretic, how impious you are. No sentence of prophet,
or evangelist, or apostle has said that Jesus Christ was created from God,
rather than born from Him: yet you deny the birth, and assert the creation,
but not according to the Apostle's meaning, when he said that He was
made, lest there should be any doubt that He was born as One from one
Parent. You make your assertion in a most impious sense, implying that
God did not derive His being by way of birth conveying nature; although a
creature would rather have come into being out of nothing. This is the
primary infection in your unhappy mind, not that you term birth a
creating, but that you adapt your faith to the idea of creation instead of
birth. And yet while it would mark a poor intellect, still it would not mark
a man entirely undevout, if you had called Christ created, in order that men
might recognize His impossible birth from God, as being that of One from
One.

51. But none of these phrases does a firm apostolic faith permit. For it
knows in what dispensation of time Christ was created, and in what
eternity of times He was born. Moreover, He was born God of God, and
the divinity of His true birth and perfect generation is not doubtful. For in
relation to God we acknowledge only two modes of being, birth and
eternity: birth, moreover, not after anything, but before all things, so that
birth only bears witness to a Source of being, and does not predicate any
incongruity between the offspring and the Source of being. Still, by
common admission, this birth, because it is from God, implies a secondary
position in respect to the Source of being, and yet cannot be separated
from that Source, since any attempt of thought to pass beyond acceptance
of the fact of birth, must also necessarily penetrate the mystery of the
generation. And so this is the only pious language to use about God: to
know Him as Father, and with Him to know also Him, Who is the Son
born of Him. Nor assuredly are we taught anything concerning God, except
that He is the Father of God the Only -begotten and the Creator. So let not
human weakness overreach itself; and let it make this only confession, in
which alone lies its salvation — that, before the mystery of the

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Incarnation, it is ever assured, concerning the Lord Jesus Christ, of this one
fact that He had been born.

52. For my part, so long as I shall have the power by means of this Spirit
Whom Thou hast granted me, Holy Father, Almighty God, I will confess
Thee to be not only eternally God, but also eternally Father. Nor will I
ever break out into such folly and impiety, as to make myself the judge of
Thy omnipotence and Thy mysteries, nor shall this weak understanding
arrogantly seek for more than that devout belief in Thy infinitude and faith
in Thy eternity, which have been taught me. I will not assert that Thou
wast ever without Thy Wisdom, and Thy Power, and Thy Word, without
God Only-begotten, my Lord Jesus Christ. The weak and imperfect
language, to which our nature is limited, does not dominate my thoughts
concerning Thee, so that my poverty of utterance should choke faith into
silence. For although we have a word and wisdom and power of our own,
the product of our free inward activity, yet Thine is the absolute
generation of perfect God, Who is Thy Word and Wisdom and Power; so
that He can never be separated from Thee, Who in these names of Thy
eternal properties is shewn to be born of Thee. Yet His birth is only so far
shewn as to make manifest the fact that Thou art the Source of His being;
yet sufficiently to confirm our belief in His infinity, inasmuch as it is
related that He was born before times eternal.

53. For in human affairs Thou hast set before us many things of such a
sort, that though we do not know their cause, yet the effect is not
unknown; and reverence inculcates faith, where ignorance is inherent in our
nature. Thus when I raised to Thy heaven these feeble eyes of mine, my
certainty regarding it was limited to the fact that it is Thine. For seeing
therein these orbits where the stars are fixed, and their annual revolutions,
and the Pleiades and the Great Bear and the Morning Star, each having
their varied duties in the service which is appointed them, I recognize Thy
presence, O God, in these things whereof I cannot gain any clear
understanding. And when I view the marvelous swellings of Thy sea, I
know that I have failed to comprehend not merely the origin of the waters
but even the movements of this changeful expanse; yet I grasp at faith in
some reasonable cause, although it is one that I cannot see, and fail not to
recognize Thee in these things also, which I do not know. Furthermore,
when in thought I turn to the earth, which by the power of hidden agencies

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causes to decay all the seeds which it receives, quickens them when
decayed, multiplies them when quickened, and makes them strong when
multiplied; in all these changes I find nothing which my mind can
understand, yet my ignorance helps towards recognizing Thee, for though I
know nothing of the nature that waits on me, I recognize Thee by actual
experience of the advantages I possess. Moreover, though I do not know
myself, yet I perceive so much that I marvel at Thee the more because I am
ignorant of myself. For without understanding it, I perceive a certain
motion or order or life in my mind when it exercises its powers; and this
very perception I owe to Thee, for though Thou deniest the power of
understanding my natural first beginning, yet Thou givest that of
perceiving nature with its charms. And since in what concerns myself I
recognize Thee, ignorant as I am, so recognizing Thee I will not in what
concerns Thee cherish a feebler faith in Thy omnipotence, because I do not
understand. My thoughts shall not attempt to grasp and master the origin
of Thy Only-begotten Son, nor shall my faculties strain to reach beyond
the truth that He is my Creator and my God.

54. His birth is before times eternal. If anything exist which precedes
eternity, it will be something which, when eternity is comprehended, still
eludes comprehension. And this something is Thine, and is Thy
Only-begotten; no portion, nor extension, nor any empty name devised to
suit some theory of Thy mode of action. He is the Son, a Son born of
Thee, God the Father, Himself true God, begotten by Thee in the unity of
Thy nature, and meet to be acknowledged after Thee, and yet with Thee,
since Thou art the eternal Author of His eternal origin. For since He is
from Thee, He is second to Thee; yet since He is Thine, Thou art not to be
separated from Him. For we must never assert that Thou didst once exist
without Thy Son, test we should be reproaching Thee either with
imperfection, as then unable to generate, or with superfluousness after the
generation. And so the exact meaning for us of the eternal generation is that
we know Thee to be the eternal Father of Thy Only-begotten Son, Who
was born of Thee before times eternal.

55. But, for my part, I cannot be content by the service of my faith and
voice, to deny that my Lord and my God, Thy Only-begotten, Jesus
Christ, is a creature; I must also deny that this name of 'creature' belongs
to Thy Holy Spirit, seeing that He proceeds from Thee and is sent through

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Him, so great is my reverence for everything that is Thine. Nor, because I
know that Thou alone art unborn and that the Only-begotten is born of
Thee, will I refuse to say that the Holy Spirit was begotten, or assert that
He was ever created. I fear the blasphemies which would be insinuated
against Thee by such use of this title 'creature,' which I share with the
other beings brought into being by Thee. Thy Holy Spirit, as the Apostle
says, searches and knows Thy deep things, and as Intercessor for me
speaks to Thee words I could not utter; and shall I express or rather
dishonor, by the title 'creature,' the power of His nature, which subsists
eternally, derived from Thee through Thine Only-begotten? Nothing,
except want belongs to Thee, penetrates into Thee; nor can the agency of a
power foreign and strange to Thee measure the depth of Thy boundless
majesty. To Thee belongs whatever enters into Thee; nor is anything
strange to Thee, which dwells in Thee through its searching power.

56. But I cannot describe Him, Whose pleas for me I cannot describe. As
in the revelation that Thy Only-begotten was born of Thee before times
eternal, when we cease to struggle with ambiguities of language and
difficulties of thought, the one certainty of His birth remains; so I hold fast
in my consciousness the truth that Thy Holy Spirit is from Thee and
through Him, although I cannot by my intellect comprehend it. For in Thy
spiritual things I am dull, as Thy Only-begotten says, Marvel not that I
said unto thee, ye must be barn anew. The Spirit breathes where it will,
and thou hearest the voice of it; but dost not know whence it comes or
whither it goes. So is every one who is barn of water and of the Holy
Spirit. Though I hold a belief in my regeneration, I hold it in ignorance; I
possess the reality, though I comprehend it not. For my own
consciousness had no part in causing this new birth, which is manifest in
its effects. Moreover the Spirit has no limits; He speaks when He will, and
what He will, and where He will. Since, then, the cause of His coming and
going is unknown, though the watcher is conscious of the fact, shall I count
the nature of the Spirit among created things, and limit Him by fixing the
time of His origin? Thy servant John says, indeed, that all things were
made through the Son, Who as God the Word was in the beginning, O God,
with Thee. Again, Paul recounts all things as created in Him, in heaven and
on earth, visible and invisible. And, while he declared that everything was
created in Christ and through Christ, he thought, with respect to the Holy

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Spirit, that the description was sufficient, when he called Him Thy Spirit.
With these men, peculiarly Thine elect, I will think in these matters; just
as, after their example, I will say nothing beyond my comprehension about
Thy Only-begotten, but simply declare that He was born, so also after
their example I will not trespass beyond that which human intellect can
know about Thy Holy Spirit, but simply declare that He is Thy Spirit.
May my lot be no useless strife of words, but the unwavering confession
of an unhesitating faith!

57. Keep, I pray Thee, this my pious faith undefiled, and even till my
spirit departs, grant that this may be the utterance of my convictions: so
that I may ever hold fast that which I professed in the creed of my
regeneration, when I was baptized in the Father, and the Son, and the Holy
Spirit. Let me, in short, adore Thee our Father, and Thy Son together with
Thee; let me win the favor of Thy Holy Spirit, Who is from Thee, through
Thy Only -begotten. For I have a convincing Witness to my faith, Who
says, Father, all Mine are Thine, and Thine are Mine, even my Lord Jesus
Christ, abiding in Thee, and from Thee, and with Thee, for ever God: Who
is blessed for ever and ever. Amen.

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INTRODUCTION TO THE

HOMILIES ON PSALMS 1., 53., 130

Some account of St. Hilary's Homilies on the Psalms has already been
given in the Introduction to this volume, pp. XL — XLV. A few words
remain to be said concerning his principle of exposition. This may be
gathered from his own statement in the fifth section of the Instructio
Psalmorum, the discourse preliminary to the Homilies: — 'There is no
doubt that the language of the Psalms must be interpreted by the light of
the teaching of the Gospel. Thus, whoever he be by whose mouth the
Spirit of prophecy has spoken, the whole purpose of his words is our
instruction concerning the glory and power of the coming, the Incarnation,
the Passion, the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ, and of our resurrection.
Moreover, all the prophecies are shit and sealed to worldly sense and
pagan wisdom, as Isaiah says, And all these words shall be unto you as the
sayings of this book which is sealed.... The whole is a texture woven of
allegorical and typical meanings, whereby are spread before our view all
the mysteries of the Only -begotten Son of God, Who was to be born in the
body, to suffer, to die, to rise again, to reign for ever with those who share
His glory because they believed on Him, to be the Judge of the rest of
mankind.' It is true that Hilary from time to time discriminates, and
sometimes very shrewdly, between passages which must, and others
which must not, be thus interpreted, but for the most part the commentary
is theological and therefore mystical. The Psalter is not used for the
establishment of doctrine. No position for which Hilary had not another
and an independent defense is maintained on the strength of an allegorical
explanation, and no deductions are drawn from such allegories. They are
simply used for the cumulative confirmation of truth otherwise revealed.
The result is a commentary much more illustrative of Hilary's own
thought than of that of the writers of the Psalms; and great as are the
merits of the Homilies, they are counter-balanced by obvious and serious
defects. There is, of course, little interest taken in the circumstances in
which the Psalms were written. They are, in Hilary's eyes, essentially

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prophecies, and he is content as a rule to describe the writer simply as 'the
Prophet.' And as with the history, so with the spirit of the Psalter. There
is little evidence that he recognized in it the noblest and most perfect
expression of human devotion towards God, and still less that he
appreciated the elevation of its poetry. For the latter failure there is ample
excuse. The Septuagint and Old Latin versions of the Psalms have for us
venerable antiquity and sacred associations, but they can hardly be said to
appeal to the imagination. Now while Hilary of course regarded the Greek
translation as authoritative on account both of our Lord's use of it and of
general consent, he treats it not as literature but rather in the spirit of a
lawyer interpreting and applying the terms of an ancient charter. Nor is it
likely that the Latin version would move Hilary as it sometimes moves us
who read it today and find a certain dignity and power in its unpolished
sentences. Its roughness could only shock, and its obscurity perplex, one
who, as we have said already (Intr, III), could think and express himself
clearly in what was to him a living and a cultivated language. But with all
his disadvantages he has produced a great and profoundly Christian work,
of permanent value and interest and of abiding influence upon thought,
theological and moral. For in these Homilies, and not least in those which
are here translated, the Roman genius for moral reflection is manifest, and
the pattern set which St. Ambrose was to follow with success in such
work as his De officiis ministrorum.

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HOMILIES ON THE PSALMS

PSALM 1

The primary condition of knowledge for reading the Psalms is the ability
to see as whose mouthpiece we are to regard the Psalmist as speaking, and
who it is that he addresses. For they are not all of the same uniform
character, but of different authorship and different types. For we
constantly find that the Person of God the Father is being set before us, as
in that passage of the eighty-eighth Psalm: I have exalted one chosen out of
My people, I have found David My servant, with My holy oil have I
anointed hint. He shall call Me, Thou art my Father and the upholder of
my salvation. And I will make him My first-born, higher than the kings of
the earth; while in what we might call the majority of Psalms the Person of
the Son is introduced, as in the seventeenth: A people whom I have not
known hath served Me; and in the twenty-first: they parted My garments
among them and cast lots upon My vesture. But the contents of the first
Psalm forbid us to understand it either of the Person of the Father or of the
Son: But his will hath been in the law of the Lord, and in His Law will he
meditate day and night. Now in the Psalm in which we said the Person of
the Father is intended, the terms used are exactly appropriate, for instance:
He shall call Me, Thou art my Father, my God and the upholder of my
salvation; and in that one in which we hear the Son speaking, He proclaims
Himself to be the author of the words by the very expressions He
employs, saying, A people whom I have not known hath served Me. That
is to say, when the Father on the one hand says: He shall call Me; and the
Son on the other hand says: a people hath served Me, they shew that it is
They Themselves Who are speaking concerning Themselves. Here,
however, where we have But his will hath been in the Law of the Lard;
obviously it is not the Person of the Lord speaking concerning Himself,
but the person of another, extolling the happiness of that man whose will
is in the Law of the Lord. Here, then, we are to recognize the person of the

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Prophet by whose lips the Holy Spirit speaks, raising us by the
instrumentality of his lips to the knowledge of a spiritual mystery.

2. And as he says this we must enquire concerning what man we are to
understand him to be speaking. He says: Happy is the man who hath not
walked in the counsel of the ungodly nor stood in the way of sinners, and
hath not sat in the seat of pestilence. But his will hath been in the Law of
the Lord, and in tits Law will he meditate day and night. And he shall be
like a tree planted by the rills of water, that will yield its fruit in its own
season. His leaf also shall not wither, and all things, whatsoever he shall
do, shall prosper. I have discovered, either from personal conversation or
from their letters and writings, that the opinion of many men about this
Psalm is, that we ought to understand it to be a description of our Lord
Jesus Christ, and that it is His happiness which is extolled in the verses
following. But this interpretation is wrong both in method and reasoning,
though doubtless it is inspired by a pious tendency of thought, since the
whole of the Psalter is to be referred to Him: the time and place in His life
to which this passage refers must be ascertained by the sound method of
knowledge guided by reason.

3. Now the words which stand at the beginning of the Psalm are quite
unsuited to the Person and Dignity of the Son, while the whole contents
are in themselves a condemnation of the careless haste that would use them
to extol Him. For when it is said, anti his will hath been in the Law of the
Lord, how (seeing that the Law was given by the Son of God) can a
happiness which depends on his will being in the Law of the Lord be
attributed to Him Who is Himself Lord of the Law? That the Law is His
He Himself declares in the seventy- seventh Psalm, where He says: Hear
My Law, O My people: incline your ears unto the words of My mouth. I
will open My mouth in a parable. And the Evangelist Matthew further
asserts that these words were spoken by the Son, when he says For this
cause spake He in parables that the saying might be fulfilled: I will open
My mouth in parables. The Lord then gave fulfillment in act to His own
prophecy, speaking in the parables in which He had promised that He
would speak. But how can the sentence, and he shall be like a tree planted
by the rills of water, — wherein growth in happiness is set forth in a figure
— be possibly applied to His Person, and a tree be said to be more happy
than the Son of God, and the cause of His happiness, which would be the

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case if an analogy were established between Him and it in respect of
growth towards happiness? Again, since according to Wisdom and the
Apostle, He is both before the ages and before times eternal, and is the
First-born of every creature; and since in Him and through Him all things
were created, how can He be happy by becoming like objects created by
Himself? For neither does the power of the Creator need for its exaltation
comparison with any creature, nor does the immemorial age of the
First-born allow of a comparison involving unsuitable conditions of time,
as would be the case if He were compared to a tree. For that which shall be
at some point of future time cannot be looked upon as having either
previously existed or as now existing anywhere. But whatsoever already is
does not teed any extension of time to begin existence, because it already
possesses continuous existence from the date of its beginning up till the
present.

4. And so, since these words are understood to be inapplicable to the
divinity of the Only-begotten Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, we must
suppose him, who is here extolled as happy by the Prophet, to be the man
who strives to conform himself to that body which the Lord assumed and
in which He was born as man, by zeal for justice and perfect fulfillment of
all righteousness. That this is the necessary interpretation will be shewn as
the exposition of the Psalm proceeds.

5. The Holy Spirit made choice of this magnificent and noble introduction
to the Psalter, in order to stir up weak man to a pure zeal for piety by the
hope of happiness, to teach him the mystery of the Incarnate God, to
promise him participation in heavenly glory, to declare the penalty of the
Judgment, to proclaim the two-fold resurrection, to shew forth the counsel
of God as seen in His award. It is indeed after a faultless and mature design
that He has laid the foundation of this great prophecy; His will being that
the hope connected with the happy man might allure weak humanity to
zeal for the Faith; that the analogy of the happiness of the tree might be
the pledge of a happy hope, that the declaration of His wrath against the
ungodly might set the bounds of fear to the excesses of ungodliness, that
difference in rank in the assemblies of the saints might mark difference in
merit, that the standard appointed forjudging the ways of the righteous
might shew forth the majesty of God.

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But let us now deal with the subject matter and the words which express
it.

6. Happy is the man who hath not walked in the counsel of the ungodly
nor stood in the way of sinners, and hath not sat in the seat of pestilence.
But his will hath been in the Law of the Lord, and in His Law will he
meditate day and night.

The Prophet recites five kinds of caution as continually present in the
mind of the happy man: the first, not to walk in the counsel of the
ungodly, the second, not to stand in the way of sinners, the third, not to
sit in the seat of pestilence, next, to set his will in the Law of the Lord, and
lastly, to meditate therein by day and by night. There must, therefore, be a
distinction between the ungodly and the sinner, between the sinner and the
pestilent; chiefly because here the ungodly has a counsel, the sinner a way,
the pestilent a seat, and again, because the question is of walking, not
standing, in the counsel of the ungodly; of standing, not walking, in the
way of the sinner. Now if we would understand the reason of these facts,
we must note the precise difference between the sinner and the undutiful,
that so it may become clear why to the sinner is assigned a way, and to the
undutiful a counsel; next, why the question is of standing in the way, and
of walking in the counsel, whereas men are accustomed to connect standing
with a counsel, and walking with a way.

Not every man that is a sinner is also undutiful: but the undutiful man
cannot fail to be a sinner. Let us take an instance from general experience.
Sons, though they be drunken and profligate and spendthrift, can yet love
their fathers; and with all these vices, and, therefore, not free from guilt,
may yet be free from undutifulness. But the undutiful, though they may be
models of continence and frugality, are, by the mere fact of despising the
parent, worse transgressors than it they were guilty of every sin that lies
outside the category of undutifulness.

7. There is no doubt then that, as this instance proves, the undutiful(or
ungodly) must be distinguished from the sinner. And, indeed, general
opinion agrees to call those men ungodly who scorn to search for the
knowledge of God, who in their irreverent mind take for granted that there
is no Creator of the world, who assert that it arrived at the order and
beauty which we see by chance movements, who, in order to deprive their

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Creator of all power to pass judgment on a life lived rightly or in sin, will
have it that man comes into being and passes out of it again by the simple
operation of a law of nature.

Thus, all the counsel of these men is wavering, unsteady, and vague, and
wanders about in the same familiar paths and over the same familiar
ground, never finding a resting-place, for it fails to reach any definite
decision. They have never in their system risen to the doctrine of a Creator
of the world, for instead of answering our questions as to the cause,
beginning, and duration of the world, whether the world is for man, or man
for the world, the reason of death, its extent and nature, they press in
ceaseless motion round the circle of this godless, argument and find no rest
in these imaginings.

8. There are, besides, other counsels of the ungodly, i.e., of those who have
fallen into heresy, unrestrained by the laws of either the New Testament
or the Old. Their reasoning ever takes the course of a vicious circle;
without grasp or foothold to stay them they tread their interminable round
of endless indecision. Their ungodliness consists in measuring God, not by
His own revelation, but by a standard of their choosing; they forget that it
is as godless to make a God as to deny Him; if you ask them what effect
these opinions have on their faith and hope, they are perplexed and
confused, they wander from the point and willfully avoid the real issue of
the debate. Happy is the man then who hath not walked in this kind of
counsel of the ungodly, nay, who has not even entertained the wish to
walk therein, for it is a sin even to think for a moment of things that are
ungodly.

9. The next condition is, that the man who has not walked in the counsel of
the ungodly shall not stand in the way of sinners. For there are many
whose confession concerning God, while it acquits them of ungodliness,
yet does not set them free from sin; those, for example, who abide in the
Church but do not observe her laws; such are the greedy, the drunken, the
brawlers, the wanton, the proud, hypocrites, liars, plunderers. No doubt
we are urged towards these sins by the promptings of our natural instincts;
but it is good for us to withdraw from the path into which we are being
hurried and not to stand therein, seeing that we are offered so easy a way
of escape. It is for this reason that the man who has not stood in the way

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of sinners is happy, for while nature carries him into that way, religious
belief draws him back.

10. Now the third condition for gaining happiness is not to sit in the seat
of pestilence. The Pharisees sat as teachers in Moses' seat, and Pilate sat
in the seat of judgment: of what seat then are we to consider the
occupation pestilential? Not surely of that of Moses, for it is the
occupants of the seat and not the occupation of it that the Lord condemns
when He says: The Scribes and Pharisees sit an Moses' seat; whatsoever
they bid you do, that do; but do not ye after their work . The occupation
of that seat is not pestilential, to which obedience is enjoined by the
Lord's own word. That then must be really pestilential, the infection of
which Pilate sought to avoid by washing his hands. For many, even
God-fearing men, are led astray by the canvassing for worldly honors; and
desire to administer the law of the courts, though they are bound by those
of the Church.

But although they bring to the discharge of their duties a religious
intention, as is shewn by their merciful and upright demeanor, still they
cannot escape a certain contagious infection arising from the business in
which their life is spent. For the conduct of civil cases does not suffer
them to be true to the holy principles of the Church's law, even though
they wish it. And without abandoning their pious purpose they are
compelled, against their will, by the necessary conditions of the seat they
have won, to use, at one time invective, at another, insult, at another,
punishment; and their very position makes them authors as well as victims
of the necessity which constrains them, their system being as it were
impregnated with the infection. Hence this title, the seat of pestilence, by
which the Prophet describes their seat, because by its infection it poisons
the very will of the religiously minded.

1 1 . But the fact that he has not walked in the counsel of the ungodly, nor
stood in the way of sinners, nor sat in the seat of pestilence, does not
constitute the perfection of the man's happiness. For the belief that one
God is the Creator of the world, the avoidance of sin by the pursuit of
unassuming goodness, the preference of the tranquil leisure of private life
to the grandeur of public position — all this may be found even in a pagan.
But here the Prophet, in portraying in the likeness of God the man that is

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perfect — one who may serve as a noble example of eternal happiness —
points to the exercise by him of no commonplace virtues, and to the
words, But his will hath been in the Law of the Lord, for the attainment of
perfect happiness. To refrain from what has gone before is useless unless
his mind be set on what follows, But his will hath been in the Law of the
Lord. The Prophet does not look for fear. The majority of men are kept
within the bounds of Law by fear; the few are brought under the Law by
will: for it is the mark of fear not to dare to omit what it is afraid of, but of
perfect piety to be ready to obey commands. This is why that man is
happy whose will, not whose fear, is in the Law of God.

12. But then sometimes the will needs supplementing; and the mere desire
for perfect happiness does not win it, unless performance wait upon
intention. The Psalm, you remember, goes on: And in His Law will he
meditate day and night. The man achieves the perfection of happiness by
unbroken and unwearied meditation in the Law. Now it may be objected
that this is impossible owing to the conditions of human infirmity, which
require time for repose, for sleep, for food: so that our bodily
circumstances preclude us from the hope of attaining happiness, inasmuch
as we are distracted by the interruption of our bodily needs from our
meditation by day and night. Parallel to this passage are the words of the
Apostle, Pray without ceasing. As though we were bound to set at naught
our bodily requirements and to continue praying without any interruption!
Meditation in the Law, therefore, does not lie in reading its words, but in
pious performance of its injunctions; not in a mere perusal of the books
and writings, but in a practical meditation and exercise in their respective
contents, and in a fulfillment of the Law by the works we do by night and
day, as the Apostle says: Whether ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do,
do all to the glory of God. The way to secure uninterrupted prayer is for
every devout man to make his life one long prayer by works acceptable to
God and always done to His glory: thus a life lived according to the Law
by night and day will in itself become a nightly anti daily meditation in the
Law.

13. But now that the man has found perfect happiness by keeping aloof
from the counsel of the ungodly and the way of sinners and the seat of
pestilence, and by gladly meditating in the Law of God by day and by
night, we are next to be shewn the rich fruit that this happiness he has won

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will yield him. Now the anticipation of happiness contains the germ of
future happiness. For the next verse runs: And he shall be like a tree
planted beside the rills of water, which shall yield its fruit in its own
season, whose leaf also shall not fall off. This may perhaps be deemed an
absurd and inappropriate comparison, in which are extolled a planted tree,
rills of water, the yielding of fruit, its own time, and the leaf that falls not.
All this may appear trivial enough to the judgment of the world. But let us
examine the teaching of the Prophet and see the beauty that lies in the
objects and words used to illustrate happiness.

14. In the book of Genesis, where the lawgiver depicts the paradise
planted by God, we are shewn that every tree is fair to look upon and
good for food; it is also stated that there stands in the midst of the garden a
tree of Life and a tree of the knowledge of good and evil; next that the
garden is watered by a stream that afterwards divides into four heads. The
Prophet Solomon teaches us what this tree of Life is in his exhortation
concerning Wisdom: She is a tree of life to all them that lay hold upon her,
and lean upon her. This tree then is living; and not only living, but,
furthermore, guided by reason; guided by reason, that is, in so far as to
yield fruit, and that not casually nor unseasonably, but in its own season.
And this tree is planted beside the rills of water in the domain of the
Kingdom of God, that is, of course, in Paradise, and in the place where the
stream as it issues forth is divided into four heads. For he does not say,
Behind the rills of water, but, Beside the rills of water, at the place where
first the heads receive each their flow of waters. This tree is planted in that
place whither the Lord, Who is Wisdom, leads the thief who confessed
Him to be the Lord, saying: Verily I say unto thee, to day shalt thou be
with Me in Paradise. And now that we have shewn upon prophetic
warrant that Wisdom, which is Christ, is called the tree of Life in
accordance with the mystery of the coming Incarnation and Passion, we
must go on to find support for the strict truth of this interpretation from
the Gospels. The Lord with His own lips compared Himself to a tree
when the Jews said that He cast out devils in Beelzebub: Either make the
tree good, said He, and its fruit good; or else make the tree corrupt, and its
fruit corrupt; far the tree is known by its fruits; because although to cast
out devils is an excellent fruit, they said He was Beelzebab, whose fruits
are abominable. Nor yet did He hesitate to teach that the power that makes

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the tree happy resided in His Person, when on the way to the Cross He
said: For if they do these things in the green tree, what shall be done in the
dry? Declaring by this image of the green tree that there was nothing in
Him that was subject to the dryness of death.

15. That happy man, then, will become like unto this tree when he shall be
transplanted, as the thief was, into the garden and set to grow beside the
rills of water: and his planting will be that happy new planting which
cannot be uprooted, to which the Lord refers in the Gospels when He
curses the other kind of planting and says: Every planting that My Father
hath not planted shall be rooted up. This tree, therefore, will yield its
fruits. Now in all other passages where God's Word teaches some lesson
from the fruits of trees, it mentions them as making fruit rather than as
yielding fruit, as when it says: A good tree cannot make evil fruitsm and
when in Isaiah the complaint about the vine is: I looked that it should make
grapes, and it made thorns. But this tree will yield its fruits, being supplied
with free-will and understanding for the purpose. For it will yield its fruits
in its own season. And, pray, in what season? In the season, of course, of
which the Apostle speaks: That He might make known unto you also the
mystery of His Will, according to His good pleasure which He hath
purposed in Himself, in the dispensation of the fullness of time. This,
then, is the dispensation of time, by which is regulated the right moment of
receiving, in the case of the recipients, and of giving, in that of the giver; for
the giver has choice of the season. But delay in point of time depends
upon the fullness of times. For the dispensation of yielding fruit waits
upon the fullness of time. Now what, you ask, is this fruit that is to be
dispensed? That assuredly of which this same Apostle is speaking when
he says: And He will change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like
His glorious body. Thus He will give us those fruits of His which He has
already brought to perfection in that man whom He has chosen to Himself
who is portrayed under the image of a tree, whose mortality He has utterly
done away and has raised him to share in His own immortality.

This man then will be happy like that tree, when at length he stands
surrounded by the glory of God, being made like unto the Lord.

16. But the leaf of this tree shall not fall off. There is no ground for wonder
that its leaves do not fall off, seeing that its fruits will not drop to the

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ground, either because they are forced off by ripeness, or shaken off by
external violence, but it will yield them, distributing them by an act of
reasoned service. Now the spiritual significance of the leaves is made clear
by a comparison based upon material objects. We see that leaves are made
to sprout round the fruits about which they cluster, for the express
purpose of protecting them, and of forming a kind of fence to the young
and tender shoots. What the leaves signify, then, is the teaching of God's
words in which the promised fruits are clothed. For it is these words that
kindly shade our hopes, that shield and protect them from the rough winds
of this world. These leaves, then, that is the words of God, shall not fall:
for the Lord Himself has said: Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My
words shall not pass away for of the words that have been spoken by God
not one shall fail or fall.

17. Now that the leaves of the tree we speak of are not valueless but are a
source of health to the nations is testified by St. John in the Apocalypse,
where he says: And He shewed me a river of water of life, bright as
crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb; in the midst
of the street of it and on either side of the river the tree of life, bearing
twelve manner of fruits, yielding its fruit every month: and the leaves of
the tree are for the healing the nations.

Bodily manifestations so reveal the mysteries of heaven that, although
matter by itself cannot convey the full spiritual meaning, yet to regard
them only in their material aspect is to mutilate them. We should have
expected to hear that there were trees, not one tree, standing on either side
of the river shewn to the saint. But because the tree of Life in the
sacrament of Baptism is in every case one, supplying to those that come
to it on every side the fruits of the apostolic message, so there stands on
either side of the river one tree of Life. There is one Lamb seen amid the
throne of God, and one river, and one tree of Life: three figures wherein are
comprised the mysteries of the Incarnation, Baptism and Passion, whose
leaves, that is to say, the words of the Gospel, bring healing to the nations
through the teaching of a message that cannot tall to the ground.

18. And all things whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. Never again shall His
gift and His statutes be set at naught, as they were in the case of Adam,
who by his sin in breaking the Law lost the happiness of an assured

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immortality; but now, thanks to the redemption wrought by the tree of
Life, that is, by the Passion of the Lord, all that happens to us is eternal
and eternally conscious of happiness in virtue of our future likeness to that
tree of Life. For all their doings shall prosper, being wrought no longer
amid shift and change nor in human weakness, for corruption will be
swallowed up in incorruption, weakness in endless life, the form of earthly
flesh in the form of God. This tree, then, planted and yielding its fruit in
its own season, shall that happy man resemble, himself being planted in
the Garden, that what God has planted may abide, never to be rooted up,
in the Garden where all things done by God shall be guided to a
prosperous issue, apart from the decay that belongs to human weakness
and to time, and has to be uprooted.

19. The next point after the prophet had set forth the man's perfect
happiness was for him to declare what punishment remained for the
ungodly. Thus there ensues: The ungodly tire not so, but are like the dust
which the wind driveth away from the face of the earth. The ungodly have
no possible hope of having the image of the happy tree applied to them;
the only lot that awaits them is one of wandering and winnowing, crushing,
dispersion and unrest; shaken out of the solid framework of their bodily
condition, they must be swept away to punishment in dust, a plaything of
the wind. They shall not be dissolved into nothing, for punishment must
find in them some stuff to work on, but ground into particles,
imponderable, unsubstantial, dry, they shall be tossed to and fro, and make
sport for the punishment that gives them never rest. Their punishment is
recorded by the same Prophet in another place where he says: I will beat
them small as the dust before the wind, like the mire of the streets I will
destroy them.

Thus as there is an appointed type for happiness, so is there one for
punishment. For as it is no hard task for the wind to scatter the dust, and
as men who walk through the mud of the streets are hardly aware that they
have been treading on it, so it is easy for the punishment of hell to destroy
and disperse the ungodly, the logical result of whose sins is to melt them
into mud and crush them into dust, reft of all solid substance, for dust and
mud they are, and being merely mud and dust are good for nothing else
than punishment.

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20. And the Prophet, seeing that the change of their solid substance into
dust will deprive them of all share in the boon of fruit to be bestowed
upon the happy man in season by the tree, has accordingly added:
Therefore the ungodly shall not rise again in the Judgment. The fact that
they shall not rise again does not convey sentence of annihilation upon
these men, for indeed they will exist as dust; it is the resurrection to
Judgment that is denied them. Non-existence will not enable them to miss
the pain of punishment; for while that which will be non-existent would
escape punishment, they, on the other hand, will exist to be punished, for
they will be dust. Now to become dust, whether by being dried to dust or
ground to dust, involves not loss of the state of existence, but a change of
state. But the fact that they will not rise again to Judgment makes it clear
that they have lost, not the power to rise, but the privilege of rising to
Judgment. Now what we are to understand by the privilege of rising again
and being judged is declared by the Lord in the Gospels where He says: He
that believeth on Me is not judged: he that believeth not hath been judged
already. And this is the judgment, that the light is come into the world, and
men loved the darkness rather than the light.

21. The terms of this utterance of the Lord are disturbing to inattentive
hearers and careless, hasty readers. For by saying: He that believeth on Me
shall not be judged, He exempts believers, and by adding: But he that
believeth not hath been judged already, He excludes unbelievers, from
judgment. If, then, He has thus exempted believers and debarred
unbelievers, allowing the chance of judgment neither to one class nor the
other, how can He be considered consistent when he adds thirdly: And this
is the judgment, that the light is come into the world, and men loved the
darkness rather than the light? For there can apparently be no place left for
judgment, since neither believers nor unbelievers are to be judged. Such no
doubt will be the conclusion drawn by inattentive hearers and hasty
readers. The utterance, however, has an appropriate meaning and a rational
interpretation of its own.

22. He that believes, says Christ, is not judged. And is there any need to
judge a believer? Judgment arises Out Of ambiguity, and where ambiguity
ceases, there is no call for trial and judgment. Hence not even unbelievers
need be judged, because there is no doubt about their being unbelievers; but
after exempting believers and unbelievers alike from judgment, the Lord

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added a case for judgment and human agents upon, whom it must be
exercised. For some there are who stand midway between the godly and
the ungodly, having affinities to both, but strictly belonging to neither
class, because they have come to be what they are by a combination of the
two. They may not be assigned to the ranks of belief, because there is in
them a certain infusion of unbelief; they may not be ranged with unbelief,
because they are not without a certain portion of belief. For many are kept
within the pale of the church by the fear of God; yet they are tempted all
the while to worldly faults by the allurements of the world. They pray,
because they are afraid; they sin, because it is their will. The fair hope of
future life makes them call themselves Christians; the allurements of
present pleasure make them act like heathen. They do not abide in
ungodliness, because they hold the name of God in honor; they are not
godly because they follow after things contrary to godliness. And they
cannot help loving those things best which can never enable them to be
what they call themselves, because their desire to do such works is
stronger than their desire to be true to their name. And this is why the
Lord, after saying that believers would not be judged and that unbelievers
had been judged already, added that This is the judgment, that the light is
come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light.

These, then, are they whom the judgment awaits which unbelievers have
already had passed upon them and believers do not need: because they
have loved darkness more than light; not that they did not love the light
too, but because their love of darkness is the more active. For when two
loves are matched in rivalry, one always wins the preference; and their
judgment arises from the fact that, though they loved Christ, they yet
loved darkness more. These then will be judged; they are neither exempted
from judgment like the godly, nor have they already been judged like the
ungodly; but judgment awaits them for the love which they have
deliberately preferred.

23. It is precisely the scheme and system thus laid down in the Gospel
that the Prophet has followed, when he says: Therefore the ungodly shall
not rise again in the Judgment, nor sinners in the counsel of the righteous.
He leaves no judgment for the ungodly, because they have been judged
already; on the other hand, he has refused to sinners, who as we shewed in
our former discourse are to be distinguished from the ungodly, the counsel

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of the righteous, because they are to be judged. For ungodliness causes the
former to be judged beforehand, but sin keeps the latter to be judged
hereafter. Thus ungodliness having already been judged is not admitted to
the judgment of sinners, while again sinners, who, are yet to be judged, are
deemed unworthy of enjoying the counsel of the righteous, who will not be
judged.

24. The source of this distinction lies in the following words: For the Lord
knoweth the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish.
Sinners do not come near the counsel of the righteous for this reason, that
the Lord knows the way of the righteous. Now He knows, not by an
advance from ignorance to knowledge, but because He condescends to
know. For there is no play of human emotions in God that He should
know or not know anything. The blessed Apostle Paul declared how we
were known of God when be said: If any man among you is a prophet or
spiritual, let him take knowledge of the things which I write unto you, that
they are of the Lord: but if any man does not know, he is not known.

Thus he shews that those are known of God who know the things of God:
they are to come to be known when they know, that is, when they attain
to the honor of being known through the merit of their known godliness, in
order that the knowledge may be seen to be a growth on the part of him
who is known, and not a growth on the part of one who knows not.

Now God shews clearly in the cases of Adam and Abraham that He does
not know sinners, but does know believers. For it was said to Adam when
he had sinned: Adam, where art thou? Not because God knew not that the
man whom He still had in the garden was there still, but to shew, by his
being asked where he was, that he was unworthy of God's knowledge by
the fact of having sinned. But Abraham, after being for a long time
unknown — the word of God came to him when he was seventy years of
age — was, upon his proving himself faithful to the Lord, admitted to
intimacy with God by the following act of high condescension: Now I
know that thou fearest the Lord thy God, and for My sake thou hast not
spared thy dearly loved son.

God certainly was not ignorant of the faith of Abraham, which He had
already reckoned to him for righteousness when he believed about the birth
of Isaac: but now because he had given a signal instance of his fear in

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offering his son, he is at last known, approved, rendered worthy of being
not unknown. It is in this way then that God both knows and to be judged,
are set far from their counsel; knows not — Adam the sinner is not known,
and Abraham the faithful is known is worthy, and they that is, of being
known by God Who surely have already been judged by Him Who said:
knows all things. The way of the righteous, The Father judgeth no man,
but hath given all therefore, who are not to be judged is known judgment
unto the Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, by God: and this is why sinners, who
are Who is blessed for ever and ever. Amen.

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PSALM 53 (54)

For the end among the hymns, of the meaning of David when the
Ziphims came and said Saul: behold, is not David hid with us?

Save me, O God, by Thy name, and judge me by Thy power. Hear my
prayer, O God; give ear unto the words of my mouth, and so on.

1. The doctrines of the Gospel were well known to holy and blessed David
in his capacity of Prophet, and although it was under the Law that he lived
his bodily life, he yet filled, as far as in him lay, the requirements of the
Apostolic behest and justified the witness borne to him by God in the
words: I have found a man after My own heart, David, the son of Jesse.
He did not avenge himself upon his foes by war, he did not oppose force
of arms to those that laid wait for him, but after the pattern of the Lord,
Whose name and Whose meekness alike he foreshadowed, when he was
betrayed he entreated, when he was in danger he sang psalms, when he
incurred hatred he rejoiced; and for tills cause he was found a man after
God's own heart. For although twelve legions of angels might have come to
the help of the Lord in His hour of passion, yet that He might perfectly
fulfill His service of humble obedience, He surrendered Himself to
suffering and weakness, only praying with the words: Father into Thy
hands I commend My spirit. After the same pattern, David, whose actual
sufferings prophetically foretold tile future sufferings of the Lord opposed
not his enemies either by word or act; in obedience to the command of the
Gospel, he would not render evil for evil, in imitation of his Master's
meekness, in his affliction, in his betrayal, in his fight, he called upon the
Lord and was content to use His weapons only in his contest with the
ungodly.

2. Now to this Psalm is prefixed a title arising out of an historical event;
but before the event is described we are instructed as to the scope, time
and application of the incidents underlying it. First we have: For the end of
the meaning of that David. Then there follows: When the Ziphims came
and said to Saul: behold, is not David hid with us? Thus David's betrayal
by the Ziphims awaits for its interpretation the end. This shews that what
was actually being done to David contained a type of something yet to

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cone; an innocent man is harassed by railing, a prophet is mocked by
reviling words, one approved by God is demanded for execution, a king is
betrayed to his foe. So the Lord was betrayed to Herod and Pilate by those
very men in whose hands He ought to have been safe. The Psalm then
awaits the end for its interpretation, and finds its meaning in the true
David, in Whom is the end of the Law, that David who holds the keys and
opens with them the gate of knowledge, in fulfilling the things foretold of
Him by David.

3. The meaning of the proper name, according to the exact sense of the
Hebrew, affords us no small assistance in interpreting the passage.
Ziphims mean what we call sprinklings of the face; these were called in
Hebrew Ziphims. Now, by the Law, sprinkling was a cleansing from sins;
it purified the people through faith by the sprinkling of blood, of which
this same blessed David thus speaks: Thou shalt sprinkle me with hyssop
and I shall be cleansed; the Law, through faith, providing as a temporary
substitute, in the blood of whole burnt-offerings, a type of the sprinkling
with the blood of the Lord, which was to be. But this people, like the
people of the Ziphims, being sprinkled on their lace and not in their faith,
and receiving the cleansing drops on their lips and not in their hearts,
turned faithless and traitors towards their David, as God had foretold by
the Prophet: This people honoreth Me with their lips, but their heart is far
from Me. They were ready to betray David because, the faith of their
heart being dead, they had performed all the mystical ceremonies of the
Law with deceitful face.

4. Save me, O God, by Thy Name, and judge me by Thy power. Hear my
prayer, O God; give ear unto the words of my mouth.

The suffering of the Prophet David is, according to the account we have
given of the title, a type of the Passion of our God and Lord Jesus Christ.
This is why his prayer also corresponds in sense with the prayer of Him
Who being the Word was made flesh: in such wise that He Who suffered
all things after the manner of man, in everything He said, spoke after the
manner of man; and He who bore the infirmities and took on Him the sins
of men approached God in prayer with the humility proper to men. This
interpretation, even though we be unwilling and slow to receive it, is
required by the meaning and force of the words, so that there can be no

615

doubt that everything in the Psalm is uttered by David as His mouthpiece.
For he says: Save me O God, by Thy name. Thus prays in bodily
humiliation, using the words of His own Prophet, the Only-begotten Son
of God, Who at the same time was claiming again the glory which He had
possessed before the ages. He asks to be saved by the Name of God
whereby He was called and wherein He was begotten, in order that the
Name of God which rightly belonged to His former nature and kind might
avail to save Him in that body wherein He had been born.

5. And because the whole of this passage is the utterance of One in the
form of a servant — of a servant obedient unto the death of the Cross —
which He took upon Him and for which He supplicates the saving help of
the Name that belongs to God, and being sure of salvation by that Name,
He immediately adds: and judge Me by Thy power. For now as the reward
for His humility in emptying Himself and assuming the form of a servant,
in the same humility in which He had assumed it, He was asking to resume
the form which He shared with God, having saved to bear the Name of
God that humanity in which as God He had obediently condescended to be
born. And in order to teach us that the dignity of this Name whereby He
prayed to be saved is something more than an empty title, He prays to be
judged by the power of God. For a right award is he essential result of
judgment, as the Scripture says: Becoming obedient unto death, yea, the
death of the Cross. Wherefore also God highly exalted Him and gave unto
Him the name which is above every name. Thus, first of all the name
which is above every name is given unto Him; then next, this is a judgment
of decisive force, because by the power of God, He, Who after being God
had died as man, rose again from death as man to be God, as the Apostle
says: He was crucified from weakness, yet He liveth by the power of God,
and again: For I am not ashamed of the Gospel: for it is the power of God
unto salvation to every one that believeth. For by the power of the
Judgment human weakness is rescued to bear God's name and nature; and
thus as the reward for His obedience He is exalted by the power of this
judgment unto the saving protection of God's name; whence He possesses
both the Name and the Power of God. Again, if the Prophet had begun this
utterance in the way men generally speak, he would have asked to be
judged by mercy or kindness, not by power. But judgment by power was
a necessity in the case of One Who being the Son of Got was born of a

616

virgin to be Son of Man, and Who now being Son of Man was to have the
Name and power of the Son of God restored to Him by the power of
judgment.

6. Next there follows: Hear my prayer, O God, give ear unto the words of
my mouth. The obvious thing for the Prophet to say was, O God, hear me.
But because he is speaking as the mouthpiece of Him, Who alone knew
how to pray, we are given a constantly reiterated demand that prayer shall
be heard. The words of St. Paul teach us that no man knows how he ought
to pray: For we know not how to pray as we ought. Man in his weakness,
therefore, has no right to demand that his prayer shall be heard: for even
the teacher of the Gentiles does not know the true object and scope of
prayer, and that, after the Lord had given a model. What we are shewn here
is the perfect confidence of Him, Who alone sees the Father, Who alone
knows the Father, Who alone can pray the whole night through — the
Gospel tells us that the Lord continued all night in prayer — Who in the
mirror of words has shewn us the true image of the deepest of all
mysteries in the simple words we use in prayer. And so, in making the
demand that His prayer should be heard, he added, in order to teach us that
this was the prerogative of His perfect confidence: Give ear unto the
words of My mouth. Now can any man suppose that it is a human
confidence which can thus desire that the words of his mouth should be
heard? Those words, for instance, in which we express the motions and
instincts of the mind, either when anger inflames us, or hatred moves us to
slander, or pain to complaint, when flattery makes us fawn, when hope of
gain or shame of the truth begets the lie, or resentment over injury, the
insult? Was there ever any man at all points so pure and patient in his life
as not to be liable to these failings of human instability? He alone could
confidently desire this Who did no sin, in Whose mouth was no deceit,
Who gave His back to the smiters, Who turned not His cheek from the
blow, Who did not resent scorn and spitting, Who never crossed the will of
Him, to Whose Will ordering it all He gave in all points glad obedience.

7. He has next added the reason why He prays for His words to be heard:
For strangers are risen up against Me and violent men have sought after
My soul; they have not set God before their eyes. The Only-begotten Son
of God, the Word of God and God the Word — although assuredly He
could Himself do all things that the Father could, as He says: What things

617

soever the Father doeth, the Son also doeth in like manner, while the name
describing the divine nature which was His inseparably involved the
inseparable possession of divine power, — yet in order that He might
present to us a perfect example of human humility, both prayed for and
underwent all things that are the lot of man. Sharing in our common
weakness He prayed the Father to save Him, so that He might teach us
that He was born man under all the conditions of man's infirmity. This is
why He was hungry and thirsty, slept and was weary, shunned the
assemblies of the ungodly, was sad and wept, suffered and died. And it
was in order to make it clear that He was subject to all these conditions,
not by His nature, but by assumption, that when He had undergone them
all He rose again. Thus all His complaints in the Psalms spring from a
mental state belonging to our nature. Nor must it cause surprise if we take
the words of the Psalms in this sense, seeing that the Lord Himself
testified, if we believe the Gospel, that the Psalms spiritually foretold His
Passion.

8. Now they were strangers that rose up against Him. For these are no
sons of Abraham, nor sons of God, but a brood of vipers, servants of sin, a
Canaanitish seed, their father an Amorite and their mother a daughter of
Heth, inheriting diabolical desires from the devil their parent. Further it is
the violent that seek after His soul; such as was Herod when he asked the
chief priests where Christ should be born, such as was the whole
synagogue when it bore false witness against Him. But in deeming this sold
to be of human nature and weakness they set not God before their eyes;
for God had stooped from that estate wherein He abode as God, even to
the beginnings of human birth; that is, He became Son of Man Who before
was the Son of God. For the Son of God is none other than He Who is Son
of Man, and Son of Man not in partial measure but born so, the Form of
God divesting Itself of that which It was and becoming that which It was
not, that so It might be born into a soul and body of Its own. Hence He is
both Son of God and Son of Man, hence both God and Man: in other
words the Son of God was born with the attributes derived from human
birth, the Nature of God condescending to assume the nature of one born
as man who is wholly molded of soul and flesh. Wherefore strangers, when
they rise up against Him, and the mighty, when they seek after that soul of
His, which in the Gospels is often sad and cast down, set not God before

618

their eyes, because God it was, and the Son of God existing from out the
ages, that was born with the attributes of human nature, was born as man,
that is, with our body and our soul, by a virgin birth; the mighty and
glorious works He wrought never opened their eyes to the fact that the
Son of Man Whose soul they were seeking had come to be man with a
beginning of life after an eternal existence as Son of God.

9. The introduction of a pause marks a change of person. He no longer
speaks but is addressed. For now the prophetic utterance assumes a
general character. Thus immediately after the prayer addressed to God, he
has added, in order that the confidence of the speaker might be understood
to have obtained what He was asking even in the very moment of asking:
Behold, God is My helper and the Lord is the upholder of My soul. He
has requited evil unto Mine enemies. To each separate petition he has
assigned its proper result, thus teaching us hath that God does not neglect
to hear, and that to look for a pledge of His pitifulness in hearing our
several petitions is not a thing unreasonable. For to the words, For
strangers are risen up against Me, the corresponding statement is: God is
My helper; while with regard to and the violent have sought after My
soul, the exact result of the hearing of His prayer is expressed in the
words: and the Lord is the upholder of My soul; lastly the statement, they
have not set God before their eyes, is appropriately balanced by, He hath
requites evil unto Mine enemies. Thus God both gives help against those
that rise up, and upholds the soul of His Holy One when it is sought by
the violent, and when He is not set before the eyes, nor considered by the
ungodly, He requites upon His enemies the very evils which they had
wrought; so that while without thinking upon God they seek the soul of
the righteous and rise up against Him, He is saved and upheld, and they
find that He Whom, absorbed in their wicked works, they did not consider,
avenges their malice by turning it against themselves.

10. Let pure religion, therefore, have tiffs confidence, and doubt not that
amid the persecutions at the hand of man anti the dangers to the soul, it
still has God for its helper, knowing that, if at length it comes to a violent
and unjust death, the soul on leaving the tabernacle of the body finds rest
with God its upholder; let it have, moreover, perfect assurance of requital
in the thought that all evil deeds return upon the heads of those that work
them. God cannot be charged with injustice, and perfect goodness is

619

unstained by the impulses and motions of an evil will. He does not awaken
mischief out of malice, but requites it in vengeance; He does not inflict it
because He wishes us ill, but He aims it against our sins. For these evils are
universally appointed as instruments of retribution without destruction of
life, such being the sternly just ordinance of that righteous judgment. But
these evils are warded off from the righteous by the law of righteousness,
and are turned back upon the unrighteous by the righteousness of that
judgment. Each proceeding is equally just; for the righteous, because they
are righteous, the warning exhibition of evil without actual infliction; for
the wicked, because they so deserve, the punitive infliction of evil; the
righteous will not suffer it, though it is displayed to them; the wicked will
never cease to suffer it, because it is displayed to them.

11. After this there is a return to the Person of God, to Whom the petition
was at the first addressed: Destroy them by Thy truth. Truth confounds
falsehood, and lying is destroyed by truth. We have shewn that the whole
of the foregoing prayer is the utterance of that human nature in which the
Son of God was horn; so here it is the voice of human nature calling upon
God the Father to destroy His enemies in His truth. What this truth is,
stands beyond doubt; it is of course He Who said: I am the Life, the Way,
the Anti the enemies were destroyed by the truth when, for all their
attempts to win Christ's condemnation by false witness, they heard that
He was risen from the dead and had to admit that He had resumed His
glory in all the reality of Godhead. Ere long they found, in ruin and
destruction by famine and war, their reward for crucifying God; for they
condemned the Lord of Life to death, and paid no heed to God's truth
displayed in Him through His glorious works. And thus the Truth of God
destroyed them when He rose again to resume the majesty of His Father's
Glory, and gave proof of the truth of that perfect Divinity which He
possessed.

12. Now in view of our repeated, nay our unbroken assertion both that it
was the Only-begotten Son of God Who was uplifted on the cross, and
that He was condemned to death Who is eternal by virtue of the origin
which is His by the nature which He derives from the eternal Father, it
must be clearly understood that He was subjected to suffering of no
natural necessity, but to accomplish the mystery of man's salvation; that
He submitted to suffering of His own Will, and not under compulsion.

620

And although this suffering did not belong to His nature as eternal Son, the
immutability of God being proof against the assault of any derogatory
disturbance, yet it was freely undertaken, and was intended to fulfill a
penal function without, however, inflicting the pain of penalty upon the
sufferer: not that the suffering in question was not of a kind to cause pain,
but because the divine Nature feels no pain. God suffered, then, by
voluntarily submitting to suffering; but although He underwent the
sufferings in all the fullness of their force, which necessarily causes pain to
the sufferers, yet He never so abandoned the powers of His Nature as to
feel pain.

13. For next there follows: I will sacrifice unto Thee freely. The sacrifices
of the Law, which consisted of whole burnt-offerings and oblations of
goats and of bulls, did not involve an expression of free will, because the
sentence of a curse was pronounced on all who broke the Law. Whoever
failed to sacrifice laid himself open to the curse. And it was always
necessary to go through the whole sacrificial action because the addition of
a curse to the commandment forbade any trifling with the obligation of
offering. It was from this curse that our Lord Jesus Christ redeemed us,
when, as the Apostle says: Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law,
being made curse for us, for it is written: cursed is every one that hangeth
on a tree. Thus He offered Himself to the death of the accursed that He
might break the curse of the Law, offering Himself voluntarily a victim to
God the Father, in order that by means of a voluntary victim the curse
which attended the discontinuance of the regular victim might be removed.
Now of this sacrifice mention is made in another passage of the Psalms:
Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared for
Me; that is, by offering to God the Father, Who refused the legal sacrifices,
the acceptable offering of the body which He received. Of which offering
the holy Apostle thus speaks: Far this He did once for all when He offered
Himself up, securing complete salvation for the human race by the offering
of this holy, perfect victim.

14. Then He gives thanks to God the Father for the accomplishment of all
these acts: I will give thanks unto Thy name, O Lord, for it is good, for
Than hast delivered Me out of all affliction. He has assigned to each clause
its strict fulfillment. Thus at the beginning He bad said: Save Me, O God,
by Thy name; after the prayers had been heard it was right that there

621

should follow a corresponding ascription of thanks, in order that
confession might be made to His name by Whose name He had prayed to
be saved, and that inasmuch as He had asked for help against the strangers
that rose up against Him, He might set on record that He bad received it in
the burst of joy expressed in the words: Thou hast delivered Me out of all
affliction. Then in respect of the fact that the violent in seeking after His
soul did not set God before their eyes, He has declared His eternal
possession of unchangeable divinity in the words: And Mine eye hath
looked down upon Mine enemies. For the Only-begotten Son of God was
not cut off by death. It is true that in order to take the whole of our nature
upon Him He submitted to death, that is to the apparent severance of soul
and body, and made His way even to the realms below, the debt which
man must manifestly pay: but He rose again and abides for ever and looks
down with an eye that death cannot dim upon His enemies, being exalted
unto the glory of God and born once more Son of God after becoming Son
of Man, as He had been Son of God when He first became Son of Man, by
the glory of His resurrection. He looks down upon His enemies to whom
He once said: Destroy this temple, and in three days I will build it up. And
so, now that this temple of His body has been built again, He surveys
from His throne on high those who sought after His soul, and, set far
beyond the power of human death, He looks down from heaven upon
those who wrought His death, He who suffered death, yet could not die,
the God-Man, our Lord Jesus Christ, Who is blessed for ever and ever.
Amen.

622

PSALM 130 (131)

O Lord, my heart is not exalted, neither have mine eyes been lifted up.

1. This Psalm, a short one, which demands an analytical rather than a
homiletical treatment, teaches us the lesson of humility and meekness.
Now, as we have in a great number of other places spoken about humility,
there is no need to repeat the same things here. Of course we are bound to
bear in mind in how great need our faith stands of humility when we hear
the Prophet thus speaking of it as equivalent to the performance of the
highest works: O Lord, my heart is not exalted. For a troubled heart is the
noblest sacrifice in the eyes of God. The heart, therefore, must not be
lifted up by prosperity, but humbly kept within the bounds of meekness
through the fear of God.

2. Neither have Mine eyes been lifted up. The strict sense of the Greek
here conveys a different meaning; ouSe e|X£TecopiG0r|Gocv oi 6p9ocX|j,oi
\xov> that is, have not been lifted up from one object to look on another.
Yet the eyes must be lifted up in obedience to the Prophet's words: Lift
up your eyes and see who hath displayed all these things. And the Lord
says in the gospel: Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields, that they are
white unto harvest. The eyes, then, are to be lifted up: not, however, to
transfer their gaze elsewhere, but to remain fixed once for all upon that to
which they have been raised.

3. Then follows: Neither have I walked amid great things, nor amid
wonderful things that are above me. It is most dangerous to walk amid
mean things, and not to linger amid wonderful things. God's utterances are
great; He Himself is wonderful in the highest: how then can the psalmist
pride himself as on a good work for not walking amid great and wonderful
things? It is the addition of the words, which are above me, that shews that
the walking is not amid those things which men commonly regard as great
and wonderful, For David, prophet and king as he was, once was humble
and despised and unworthy to sit at his father's table; but he found favor
with God, he was anointed to be king, he was inspired to prophesy. His
kingdom did not make him haughty, he was not moved by hatreds: he
loved those that persecuted him, he paid honor to his dead enemies, he

623

spared his incestuous and murderous children. In his capacity of sovereign
he was despised, in that of father he was wounded, in that of prophet he
was afflicted; yet he did not call for vengeance as a prophet might, nor
exact punishment as a father, nor requite insults as a sovereign. And so he
did not walk amid things great and wonderful which were above him.

4. Let us see what comes next: If I was not humble-minded but have lifted
up my soul. What inconsistency on the Prophet's part! He does not lift
up his heart: he does lift up his soul. He does not walk amid things great
and wonderful that are above him; yet his thoughts are not mean. He is
exalted in mind and cast down in heart. He is humble in his own affairs: but
he is not humble in his thought. For his thought reaches to heaven his soul
is lifted up on high. But his heart, out of which proceed, according to the
Gospel, evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false
witness, railings, is humble, pressed down beneath the gentle yoke of
meekness. We must strike a middle course, then, between humility and
exaltation, so that we may be humble in heart but lifted up in soul and
thought.

5. Then he goes on: Like a weaned child upon his mother's breast, so will
thou reward my soul. We are told that when Isaac was weaned Abraham
made a feast because now that he was weaned he was on the verge of
boyhood and was passing beyond milk food. The Apostle feeds all that are
imperfect in the faith and still babes in the things of God with the milk of
knowledge. Thus to cease to need milk marks the greatest possible
advance. Abraham proclaimed by a joyful feast that his son had come to
stronger meat, and the Apostle refuses bread to the carnal-minded and
those that are babes in Christ. And so the Prophet prays that God,
because he has not lifted up his heart, nor walked amid things great and
wonderful that are above him, because he has not been humble-minded but
did lift up his soul, may reward his soul, lying like a weaned child upon his
mother: that is to say that he may be deemed worthy of the reward of the
perfect, heavenly and living bread, on the ground that by reason of his
works already recorded he has now passed beyond the stage of milk.

6. But he does not demand this living bread from heaven for himself alone,
he encourages all mankind to hope for it by saying: Let Israel hope in the
Lord from henceforth and for evermore. He sets no temporal limit to our

624

hope, he bids our faithful expectation stretch out into infinity. We are to
hope for ever and ever, winning the hope of future life through the hope of
our present life which we have in Christ Jesus our Lord, Who is blessed
for ever and ever. Amen.

625

JOHN OF DAMASCUS

EXPOSITION OF THE ORTHODOX FAITH

TRANSLATED BY

THE REV. S.D.F. SALMOND, D.D. F.E.I.S.,

PRINICIPAL OF THE FREE CHURCH COLLEGE,
ABERDEEN.

In the difficlut task of translating the De Fide Orthodoxa — a task made the
more difficult attimes by the conditionof the text, — I am indebted for much
to my son, James L. Salmond, M.A., M.B., formerly of Balliol College,
Oxford. There still remain passages of doubtful interpretation. It was
intended to furnish a larger body of Notes and also an account of John and
his writings. It has been found advisable, however, to complete the volume
without these.

S.D.F. SALMOND
ABERDEEN,

1 Sept. 1898.

626

CONTENTS OF DOGMATIC CHAPTERS

BOOK I

CHAP. 1. (1.) That the Deity is incomprehensible, and that we ought not

to pry into and meddle with the things which have

not been delivered to us by the holy Prophets, and

Apostles, and Evangelists.
CHAP. 2. (2.) Concerning things utterable and things unutterable, and

things knowable and things unknowable.
CHAP. 3. (3.) Proof that there is a God.

CHAP. 4. (4.) Concerning the nature of Deity: that it is incomprehensible.
CHAP. 5. (5.) Proof that God is one and not many.
CHAP. 6. (6.) Concerning the Word and the Son of God: a reasoned

proof.
CHAP. 7. (7.) Concerning the Holy Spirit: a reasoned proof.
CHAP. 8. (8.) Concerning the Holy Trinity.
CHAP. 9. (9.) Concerning what is affirmed about God.
CHAP. 10. (10.) Concerning divine union and separation.
CHAP. 11. (11.) Concerning what is affirmed about God as though He had

body.
CHAP. 12. (12.) Concerning the same.
CHAP. 13. (13.) Concerning the place of God: and that the Deity alone is

uncircum scribed.
CHAP. 14. (14.) The properties of the divine nature.

BOOK II

CHAP. 1. (15.) Concerning aeon or age.
CHAP. 2. (16.) Concerning the creation.
CHAP. 3. (17.) Concerning the angels.
CHAP. 4. (18.) Concerning the devil and demons.

627

CHAP. 5. (19.) Concerning the visible creation.

CHAP. 6. (20.) Concerning the Heaven.

CHAP. 7. (21.) Concerning light, fire, the luminaries, sun, moon and stars

CHAP. 8. (22.) Concerning air and winds.

CHAP. 9. (23.) Concerning the waters.

CHAP. 10. (24.) Concerning earth and its products.

CHAP. 11. (25.) Concerning Paradise.

CHAP. 12. (26.) Concerning Man.

CHAP. 13. (27.) Concerning Pleasures.

CHAP. 14. (28.) Concerning Pain.

CHAP. 15. (29.) Concerning Fear.

CHAP. 16. (30.) Concerning Anger.

CHAP. 17. (31.) Concerning Imagination.

CHAP. 18. (32.) Concerning Sensation.

CHAP. 19. (33.) Concerning Thought.

CHAP. 20. (34.) Concerning Memory.

CHAP. 21. (35.) Concerning Conception and Articulation.

CHAP. 22. (36.) Concerning Passion and Energy.

CHAP. 23. (37.) Concerning Energy.

CHAP. 24. (38.) Concerning what is Voluntary and what is Involuntary.

CHAP. 25. (39.) Concerning what is in our own power, that is, concerning

Free-will.
CHAP. 26. (40.) Concerning Events.

CHAP. 27. (41 .) Concerning the reason of our endowment with Free-will.
CHAP. 28. (42.) Concerning what is not in our hands.
CHAP. 29. (43.) Concerning Providence.
CHAP. 30. (44.) Concerning Prescience and Predestination.

BOOK III

CHAP. 1.(45.) Concerning the Divine Economy and God's care over us,

and concerning our salvation.
CHAP. 2. (46.) Concerning the manner in which the Word was conceived,

and concerning His divine incarnation.
CHAP. 3. (47.) Concerning Christ's two natures, in opposition to those

who hold that He has only one.

628

CHAP. 4. (48.) Concerning the manner of the Mutual Communication.

CHAP. 5. (49.) Concerning the number of the Natures.

CHAP. 6. (50.) That in one of its subsistences the divine nature in united

in its entirety to the human nature, in its entirety

and not only part to part.
CHAP. 7. (51.) Concerning the one compound subsistence of God the

Word.
CHAP. 8. (52.) In reply to those who ask whether the two natures are

brought under continuous or discontinuous

quantity.
CHAP. 9. (53.) In reply to the question whether there is any Nature that

has no Subsistence.
CHAP. 10. (54.) Concerning the Trisagium ("the Thrice Holy").
CHAP. 11. (55.) Concerning the Nature as viewed in Species and in

Individual, and concerning the difference between

Union and Incarnation: and how this is to be

understood, "The one Nature of God the Word

Incarnate."
CHAP. 12. (56.) That the holy Virgin is the Mother of God: an argument

directed against the Nestorians.
CHAP. 13. (57.) Concerning the properties of the two Natures.
CHAP. 14. (58.) Concerning the volitions and free- wills of our Lord Jesus

Christ.
CHAP. 15. (59.) Concerning the energies in our Lord Jesus Christ.
CHAP. 16. (60.) In reply to those who say, "If man has two natures and

two energies, Christ must be held to have three

natures and as many energies."
CHAP. 17. (61.) Concerning the deification of the nature of our Lord's

flesh and of His will.
CHAP. 18. (62.) Further concerning volitions and free-wills: minds, too,

and knowledges and wisdoms.
CHAP. 19. (63.) Concerning the theandric energy.
CHAP. 20. (64.) Concerning the natural and innocent passions.
CHAP. 21. (65.) Concerning ignorance and servitude.
CHAP. 22. (66.) Concerning His growth.
CHAP. 23. (67.) Concerning His Fear.
CHAP. 24. (68.) Concerning our Lord's Prayer.

629

CHAP. 25. (69.) Concerning the Appropriation.

CHAP. 26. (70.) Concerning the Passion of our Lord's body, and the

Impassibility of his divinity.
CHAP. 27. (7 1 .) Concerning the fact that the divinity of the Word

remained inseparable from the soul and the body,

even at our Lord's death, and that His subsistence

continued one.
CHAP. 28. (72.) Concerning Corruption and Destruction.
CHAP. 29. (73.) Concerning the Descent to Hades.

BOOK IV

CHAP. 1.(74.) Concerning what followed the Resurrection.
CHAP. 2. (75.) Concerning the sitting at the right hand of the Father.
CHAP. 3. (76.) In reply to those who say, "If Christ has two natures,

either ye do service to the creature in worshipping

created nature, or ye say that there is one nature to

be worshipped, and another not to be worshipped."
CHAP. 4. (77.) Why it was the Son of God, and not the Father or the

Spirit, that became man: and what having become

man He achieved.
CHAP. 5. (78.) In reply to those who ask if Christ's subsistence is create

or uncreate.
CHAP. 6. (79.) Concerning the question, when Christ was called.
CHAP. 7. (80.) In answer to those who enquire whether the holy Mother

of God bore two natures, and whether two natures

hung upon the Cross.
CHAP. 8. (81.) How the Only-begotten Son of God is called first-born.
CHAP. 9. (82.) Concerning Faith and Baptism.
CHAP. 10. (83.) Concerning Faith

CHAP. 11. (84.) Concerning the Cross and here further concerning Faith.
CHAP. 12. (85.) Concerning Worship towards the East.
CHAP. 13. (86.) Concerning the holy and immaculate Mysteries of the

Lord.
CHAP. 14. (87.) Concerning our Lord's genealogy and concerning the holy

Mother of God.

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CHAP. 15. (88.) Concerning the honor die to the Saints and their remains.

CHAP. 16. (89.) Concerning Images.

CHAP. 17. (90.) Concerning Scripture.

CHAP. 18. (91.) Regarding the things said concerning Christ.

CHAP. 19. (92.) That God is not the cause of evils.

CHAP. 20. (93.) That there are not two Kingdoms.

CHAP. 21. (94.) The purpose for which God in His foreknowledge created

persons who would sin and not repent.
CHAP. 22. (95.) Concerning the law of God and the law of sin.
CHAP. 23. (96.) Against the Jews on the question of the Sabbath.
CHAP. 24. (97.) Concerning Virginity.
CHAP. 25. (98.) Concerning the Circumcision.
CHAP. 26. (99.) Concerning the Antichrist.
CHAP. 27. (100.) Concerning the Resurrection.

631

PROLOGUE

FROM THE LATIN OF THE EDITION OF MICHAEL LEQUIEN,
AS GIVEN IN MINGE'S PATROLOGY.

After the rules of Christian dialectic and the review of the errors of
ancient heresies comes the at last the book "Concerning the Orthodox
Faith." In this book John of Damascus retains the same order as was
adopted by Theodore in his "Epitmoe of Divine Dogmas," but takes a
different method, for the former, by the sheer weight of his own genius,
framed various kinds of arguments against heretics, adducing the testimony
of the sacred page, and thus he composed a concise treatise of Theology.
Our author, however did not confine himself to Scripture, but gathered
together also the opinions of the holy Fathers, and produced a work
marked with equal perspicuity and brevity, and forming an unexhausted
storehouse of tradition in which nothing is to be found that has not been
either sanctioned by the ecumenical synods or accepted by the approved
leaders of the Church.

He followed, indeed, chiefly Gregory of Nazianzus, who, from the great
accuracy of his erudition in divine matters, earned the title "The
Theologian," and who left scarcely any chapter of Christian learning
untouched in his surviving works, and is free from any taint or suspicion
of the slightest error. John had read his books with such assiduity that he
seemed to hold them all in the embrace of his faithful memory. Wherefore
throughout this work you may hear not so much John of Damascus as
Gregory the Theologian expounding the mysteries of the orthodox faith.
John further made use of Basil the Great, of Gregory of Nyssa, and
especially of Nemsius, bishop of Emesa in Syria, the most beloved of all;
likewise of Cyril of Alexandria, Leo the Great, Leontius of Byzantium, the
martyr Maximus: also of Athanasius, Chrysostom, Epiphanius, and, not
to mention others, that writer who took the name of Dionysius the
Areopagite. Out of all these he culled on every hand the flower of their
opinions, and concocted most sweet honey of soundest doctrine. For his
aim was, not to strike out views of his own or anything novel, but rather

632

to collect into one single theological work the opinions of the ancients
which were scattered through the various volumes. And, indeed, in order
that the reader may more readily perceive the method of this most careful
teacher, we shall carefully note in the margin the names of the authors and
of the books from which he copied each separate opinion.

To John of Damascus, therefore, belongs the merit of being the first to
compose a volume packed with the sentences of catholic teachers.
Accordingly his authority among theologians was always weighty, not
only in the East but even in the West, and with the Latins; all the more so
after the translation into Latin of his book "Concerning the Orthodox
Faith," by Burgundio, a citizen of Pisa, during the Pontificate of Eugenius
the Third. Further if was this translation that was used by that master of
sentences, St. Thomas, and other later theologians, down till the time when
at the beginning of the 16th century Jacobus Faber Stapulensis attempted
to produce a more perfect translation than was the old one with its
uncouth and barbarous diction. But as this one, too, had many faults,
Jacobus Billius, in the course of the same century, completed a version of
greater elegance but yet lacking in carefulness and brevity. For, as
Combefis remarked, "in translating the Damascene Billius showed the
rawness of a recruit." Combefis himself, however, considered the
translation of Billy of no little worth; for when he was toiling at a new
edition of the works of John of Damascus, he did not think it necessary to
make a new translation once more, but was quite content to emend the
earlier one. For he was rightly aware that all the most learned interpreters
of lengthy tomes slip into many errors, and that it is much easier to
improve on the errors of others than to detect one's own. Thus our
translation will represent that of Billius purged of its blemishes and
restored to a more concise style. But in order that our edition should go
forth in a more accurate shape than the rest, besides using the older
translations and the various copies to the number of twenty or more
codices, collated by my own hand, I have moreover revised the Greek
phraseology and diction in those places of the Greek Fathers which the
Damascene has massed together. Nay, further, omitting both the shorter
commentaries of Faber on each chapter and also the longer ones of Judocus
Clictoveus of Neoportuna, neither of whom contributes much, if anything,
to the intelligent understanding of the Greek Fathers, I have attempted by

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fuller annotations, to place before the eyes of all a specimen of eastern
theology, drawn alike from those teachers whom the Damascene copied
and from Greeks of later date whom I had the privilege of consulting.

The customary division among the Latins of the work "Concerning the
Orthodox Faith" into four books is found in no Greek codex, nor in the
Greek edition of Verona. And, further, that division is not met with in the
old manuscripts of the original Latin translation, except as a chance note
written in ink by a second and later hand on the margins of some of them.
Hence Marcus Hopperus appears to be mistaken in ascribing in the
dedicatory epistle of the Graeco-Latin edition of Basil the division into
four books to the Latin translator: that is, unless I am mistaken, do Faber,
whose edition he published. Traces of this, however, exist in the books of
St. Thomas Aquinas I therefore hold that this mode of division was
devised and introduced by the Latins in imitation of the four books of
"Sentences" of Peter Lombard. Codex Regius n. 3445, and that is a very
late one, alone seems to divide the "De Fide Orthodoxa" into two parts,
the first, or (Ttepi i;f|c; GeoXoyiat;), dealing indeed with the one triune
God, the Creator and Provider, and the second, or (rcepi xf|<;
oiKovou.ioc<;), with God Incarnate, the Redeemer and Rewarder. but an
objection to this division is the clear connection between chapter 43, in
which the Incarnation, or "Oeconomia Divina," is discussed, and the words
which immediately precede it in the end of chapter, 42, which is entitles
"On Praedestination," making either chapter part of one continuous
discussion. This fault cannot be taken to the other division into four parts.
But in order not to startle the reader accustomed to the former division
with too much novelty, I have, following Hopperus, assigned indeed to the
Greek chapters the same numbers as were marked in the Greek codices,
but I have not hesitated to divide the Latin translation into four books.

I have come across no edition of the old Latin translation; but the version
of Jacombus Faber was issued in Paris by Judocus Clictoveus from the
press of Henry Stephen in the year 1512, along with commentaries. Next,
in the year 1535, Henry Pet, the printer of Basle, published the existing
works of St. John of Damascus, and amongst them the four books
"Concerning the Orthodox Faith, as translated by Jacobus Faber of
Stapula," but without any commentary. After some years the same Henry
in a second edition added the shorter commentaries of Clictoveus, and

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again in the edition published in the year 1537. In the preface to these
editions there occurs among others the following sentence, "Now for the
first time are added annotations explaining all the difficulties and the hard
and lofty passages.: For of a truth I know no older edition in which those
explanations, such as they are, are given. Further, the author of these is
asserted by Henricus Gravus, of the order of Preachers, in his own Latin
edition of the works of holy John of Damascus, which he brought out at
Colonge from the press of Peter Quentel, in the year 1546, to have been
Jacobus Faber, and of a surety indeed in certain places, and in especial
where the most holy mystery of the Eucharist is under discussion, the
annotations are somewhat frigid in character and do not express with
sufficient fullness of the catholic faith. And his cannot be said without
pain, for the sake of a man whom otherwise I should look up to as worthy
of veneration, as almost one of my own house, had he not proved himself a
traitor to his ancestral religion or at least somewhat too partial to
innovators. As to the edition of our Gravius, learned as he was in both
Latin and Greek, he revised the translation, Jacobus Faber' s translation,
and compared it with the Greek text and illustrated it with very short
scholia, "for the sake of heretics," as he said in the dedicatory letter to
Oswald, especially where they themselves try in vain to shake the doctrine
of the Church as stated by the Damascene.

The book "Concerning the Orthodox Faith" Donatus Veronensis caused to
be printed at Verona first in Greek only, and presented it to Clement the
Seventh in the year 1531. Not till the year 1548 did he produce a version
containing both the Greek and Latin, and again in the year 1575. Next, in
the year 1577, Jacobus Billy published at Paris his own translation
without the Greek text: and it was printed again in that same city in the
years 1603 and 1617.

Here it will not be superfluous to call to mind that the great part of the
first book, as they say, of the work "Concerning the Orthodox Faith:
exists as the sixth volume of the works of Cyril of Alexandria, inscribed in
that teacher's name, a result to be doubtless attributed to the carelessness
of some copyist who found these writings of the Damascene along with
others of Cyril.

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AN EXACT EXPOSITION OF THE

ORTHODOX FAITH

BOOK1

CHAPTER 1

That the Deity is incomprehensible, and that we ought not to pry

into and meddle with tire things which have not been delivered to us

by the holy Prophets, and Apostles, and Evangelists.

No one hath seen God at any time; the Only-begotten Son, which is in the
bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him. The Deity, therefore, is
ineffable and incomprehensible. For no one knoweth the Father, save the
Son, nor the Son, save the Father. And the Holy Spirit, too, so knows the
things of God as the spirit of the man knows the things that are in him.
Moreover, after the first and blessed nature no one, not of men only, but
even of supramundane powers, and the Cherubim, I say, and Seraphim
themselves, has ever known God, save he to whom He revealed Himself.

God, however, did not leave us in absolute ignorance. For the knowledge of
God's existence has been implanted by Him in all by nature. This creation,
too, and its maintenance, and its government, proclaim the majesty of the
Divine nature. Moreover, by the Law and the Prophets in former times
and afterwards by His Only-begotten Son, our Lord and God and Savior
Jesus Christ, He disclosed to us the knowledge of Himself as that was
possible for us. All things, therefore, that have been delivered to us by
Law and Prophets and Apostles and Evangelists we receive, and know,
and honor, seeking for nothing beyond these. For God, being good, is the

636

cause of all good, subject neither to envy nor to any passion. For envy is
far removed from the Divine nature, which is both passionless and only
good. As knowing all things, therefore, and providing for what is profitable
for each, He revealed that which it was to our profit to know; but what we
were unable to bear He kept secret. With these things let us be satisfied,
and let us abide by them, not removing everlasting boundaries, nor
overpassing the divine tradition.

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CHAPTER 2

Concerning things utterable and things unutterable, and things
knowable and thinks unknowable.

It is necessary, therefore, that one who wishes to speak or to hear of God
should understand clearly that alike in the doctrine of Deity and in that of
the Incarnation, neither are all things unutterable nor all utterable; neither
all unknowable nor all knowable. But the knowable belongs to one order,
and the utterable to another; just as it is one thing to speak and another
thing to know. Many of the things relating to God, therefore, that are
dimly understood cannot be put into fitting terms, but on things above us
we cannot do else than express ourselves according to our limited capacity;
as, for instance, when we speak of God we use the terms sleep, and wrath,
and regardlessness, hands, too, and feet, land such like expressions.

We, therefore, both know and confess that God is without beginning,
without end, eternal and everlasting, uncreate, unchangeable, invariable,
simple, uncompound, incorporeal, invisible, impalpable, uncircumscribed,
infinite, incognizable, indefinable, incomprehensible, good, just, maker of
all things created, almighty, all-ruling, all-surveying, of all overseer,
sovereign, judge; and that God is One, that is to say, one essences; and that
He is known, and has His being in three subsistences, in Father, I say, and
Son and Holy Spirit; and that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit
are one in all respects, except in that of not being begotten, that of being
begotten, and that of procession; and that the Only-begotten Son and
Word of God and God, in His bowels of mercy, for our salvation, by the
good pleasure of God and the co-operation of the Holy Spirit, being
conceived without seed, was born uncorruptedly of the Holy Virgin and
Mother of God, Mary, by the Holy Spirit, and became of her perfect
Man; and that the Same is at once perfect God and perfect Man, of two
natures, Godhead and Manhood, and in two natures possessing
intelligence, will and energy, and freedom, and, in a word, perfect according
to the measure and proportion proper to each, at once to the divinity, I
say, and to the humanity, yet to one composite persons; and that He
suffered hunger and thirst and weariness, and was crucified, and for three

638

days submitted to the experience of death and burial, and ascended to
heaven, from which also He came to us, and shall come again. And the
Holy Scripture is witness to this and the whole choir of the Saints.

But neither do we know, nor can we tell, what the essence of God is, or
how it is in all, or how the Only-begotten Son and God, having emptied
Himself, became Man of virgin blood, made by another law contrary to
nature, or how He walked with dry feet upon the waters. It is not within
our capacity, therefore, to say anything about God or even to think of
Him, beyond the things which have been divinely revealed to us, whether
by word or by manifestation, by the divine oracles at once of the Old
Testament and of the New.

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CHAPTER 3

Proof that there is a God.

That there is a God, then, is no matter of doubt to those who receive the
Holy Scriptures, the Old Testament, I mean, and the New; nor indeed to
most of the Greeks. For, as we said, the knowledge of the existence of God
is implanted in us by nature. But since the wickedness of the Evil One has
prevailed so mightily against man's nature as even to drive some into
denying the existence of God, that most foolish and woe-fullest pit of
destruction (whose folly David, revealer of the Divine meaning, exposed
when he said, The fool said in his heart, There is no God), so the disciples
of the Lord and His Apostles, made wise by the Holy Spirit and working
wonders in His power and grace, took them captive in the net of miracles
and drew them up out of the depths of ignorance to the light of the
knowledge of God. In like manner also their successors in grace and worth,
both pastors and teachers, having received the enlightening grace of the
Spirit, were wont, alike by the power of miracles and the word of grace, to
enlighten those walking in darkness and to bring back the wanderers into
the way. But as for us who are not recipients either of the gift of miracles
or the gift of teaching (for indeed we have rendered ourselves unworthy of
these by our passion for pleasure), come, let us in connection with this
theme discuss a few of those things which have been delivered to us on
this subject by the expounders of grace, calling on the Father, the Son, and
the Holy Spirit.

All things, that exist, are either created or uncreated. If, then, things are
created, it follows that they are also wholly mutable. For things, whose
existence originated in change, must also be subject to change, whether it be
that they perish or that they become other than they are by act of wills.
But if things are uncreated they must in all consistency be also wholly
immutable. For things which are opposed in the nature of their existence
must also be opposed in the mode of their existence, that is to say, must
have opposite properties: who, then, will refuse to grant that all existing
things, not only such as come within the province of the senses, but even
the very angels, are subject to change and transformation and movement of

640

various kinds? For the things appertaining to the rational world, I mean
angels and spirits and demons, are subject to changes of will, whether it is
a progression or a retrogression in goodness, whether a struggle or a
surrender; while the others suffer changes of generation and destruction, of
increase and decrease, of quality and of movement in space. Things then
that are mutable are also wholly created. But things that are created must
be the work of some maker, and the maker cannot have been created. For if
he had been created, he also must surely have been created by some one,
and so on till we arrive at something uncreated. The Creator, then, being
uncreated, is also wholly immutable. And what could this be other than
Deity?

And even the very continuity of the creation, and its preservation and
government, teach us that there does exist a Deity, who supports and
maintains and preserves and ever provides for this universe. For how could
opposite natures, such as fire and water, air and earth, have combined with
each other so as to form one complete world, and continue to abide in
indissoluble union, were there not some omnipotent power which bound
them together and always is preserving them from dissolution?

What is it that gave order to things of heaven and things of earth, and all
those things that move in the air and in the water, or rather to what was in
existence before these, viz., to heaven and earth and air and the elements of
fire and water? What was it that mingled and distributed these? What was
it that set these in motion and keeps them in their unceasing and
unhindered course? Was it not the Artificer of these things, and He Who
hath implanted in everything the law whereby the universe is carried on
and directed? Who then is the Artificer of these things? Is it not He Who
created them and brought them into existence. For we shall not attribute
such a power to the spontaneous. For, supposing their coming into
existence was due to the spontaneous; what of the power that put all in
orders? And let us grant this, if you please. What of that which has
preserved and kept them in harmony with the original laws of their
existence? Clearly it is something quite distinct from the spontaneous.And
what could this be other than Deity?

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CHAPTER 4

Concerning the nature of Deity: that it is incomprehensible.

It is plain, then, that there is a God. But what He is in His essence anti
nature is absolutely incomprehensible and unknowable. For it is evident
that He is incorporeal. For how could that possess body which is infinite,
and boundless, and formless, and intangible and invisible, in short, simple
and not compound? How could that be immutable which is circumscribed
and subject to passion? And how could that be passionless which is
composed of elements and is resolved again into them? For combination is
the beginning of conflict, and conflict of separation, and separation of
dissolution, and dissolution is altogether foreign to God.

Again, how will it also be maintained that God permeates and fills the
universe? as the Scriptures say, Do not I fill heaven and earth, saith the
Lords? For it is an impossibility that one body should permeate other
bodies without dividing and being divided, and without being enveloped
and contrasted, in the same way as all fluids mix and commingle.

But if some say that the body is immaterial, in thee same way as the fifth
body of which the Greek philosophers speak (which body is an
impossibility), it will be wholly subject to motion like the heaven. For that
is what they mean by the fifth body. Who then is it that moves it? For
everything that is moved is moved by another thing. And who again is it
that moves that? and so on to infinity till we at length arrive at something
motionless. For the first mover is motionless, and that is the Deity. And
must not that which is moved be circumscribed in space? The Deity, then,
alone is motionless, moving the universe by immobility. So then it must be
assumed that the Deity is incorporeal.

But even this gives no true idea of His essence, to say that He is
unbegotten, and without beginning, changeless and imperishable, and
possessed of such other qualities as we are wont to ascribe to God and His
environments. For these do not indicate what He is, but what He is not.
But when we would explain what the essence of anything is, we must not
speak only negatively. In the case of God, however, it is impossible to
explain what He is in His essence, and it befits us the rather to hold

642

discourse about His absolute separation from all things. For He does not
belong to the class of existing things: not that He has no existence, but that
He is above all existing things, nay even above existence itself. For if all
forms of knowledge have to do with what exists, assuredly that which is
above knowledge must certainly be also above essence: and, conversely,
that which is above essence will also be above knowledge.

God then is infinite and incomprehensible and all that is comprehensible
about Him is His infinity and incomprehensibility. But all that we can
affirm concerning God does not shew forth God's nature, but only the
qualities of His nature. For when you speak of Him as good, and just, and
wise, and so forth, you do not tell God's nature but only the qualities of
His nature. Further there are some affirmations which we make concerning
God which have the force of absolute negation: for example, when we use
the term darkness, in reference to God, we do not mean darkness itself, but
that He is not light but above light: and when we speak of Him as light, we
mean that He is not darkness.

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CHAPTER 5

Proof that God is one and not many.

We have, then, adequately demonstrated that there is a God, and that His
essence is incomprehensible. But that God is one and not many is no
matter of doubt to those who believe in the Holy Scriptures. For the Lord
says in the beginning of the Law: I am the Lord thy God, which have
brought thee out of the land of Egypt. Thou shall have no other Gods
before Me. And again He says, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one
Lord. And in Isaiah the prophet we read For I am the first God and I am
the last and beside Me there is no God. Before Me there was not any God,
nor after Me will there be any God, and beside Me there is no God. And
the Lord, too, in the holy gospels speaketh these words to His Father,
And this is life eternal, that they may know Thee the only true God. But
with those that do not believe in the Holy Scriptures we will reason thus.

The Deity is perfect, and without blemish in goodness, and wisdom, and
power, without beginning, without end, everlasting, uncircumscribed, and
in short, perfect in all things. Should we say, then, that there are many
Gods, we must recognize difference among the many. For if there is no
difference among them, they are one rather than many. But if there is
difference among them, what becomes of the perfectness? For that which
comes short of perfection, whether it be in goodness, or power, or
wisdom, or time, or place, could not be God. But it is this very identity in
all respects that shews that the Deity is one and not many.

Again, if there are many Gods, how can one maintain that God is
uncircumscribed? For where the one would be, the other could not be.

Further, how could the world be governed by many and saved from
dissolution and destruction, while strife is seen to rage between the rulers?
For difference introduces strife. And if any one should say that each rules
over a part, what of that which established this order and gave to each his
particular realm? For this would the rather be God. Therefore, God is one,
perfect, uncircumscribed, maker of the universe, and its preserver and
governor, exceeding and preceding all perfection.

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Moreover, it is a natural necessity that duality should originate in unity.

645

CHAPTER 6

Concerning the Word and the San of God: a reasoned proof.

So then this one and only God is not Wordless. And possessing the Word,
He will have it not as without a subsistence, nor as having had a beginning,
nor as destined to cease to be. For there never was a time when God was
not Word: but He ever possesses His own Word, begotten of Himself, not,
as our word is, without a subsistence and dissolving into air, but having a
subsistence in Him and life and perfection, not proceeding out of Himself
but ever existing within Himself. For where could it be, if it were to go
outside Him? For inasmuch as our nature is perishable and easily
dissolved, our word is also without subsistence. But since God is
everlasting and perfect, He will have His Word subsistent in Him, and
everlasting trod living, and possessed of all the attributes of the Begetter.
For just as our word, proceeding as it floes out of the mind, is neither
wholly identical with the mind nor utterly diverse from it (for so far as it
proceeds out of the mind it is different from it, while so far as it reveals the
mind, it is no longer absolutely diverse from the mind, but being one in
nature with the mind, it is yet to the subject diverse from it), so in the
same manner also the Word of Gods in its independent subsistence is
differentiated froth Him from Whom it derives its subsistence: but
inasmuch as it displays in itself the same attributes as are seen in God, it is
of the same nature as God. For just as absolute perfection is contemplated
in the Father, so also is it contemplated in the Word that is begotten of
Him.

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CHAPTER 7

Concerning the Holy Spirit, a reasoned proof.

Moreover the Word must also possess Spirit. For in fact even our word is
not destitute of spirit; but in our case the spirit is something different from
our essence. For there is an attraction and movement of the air which is
drawn in and poured forth that the body may be sustained. And it is this
which in the moment of utterance becomes the articulate word, revealing in
itself the force of the word. But in the case of the divine nature, which is
simple and uncompound, we must confess in all piety that there exists a
Spirit of God, for the Word is not more imperfect than our own word.
Now we cannot, in piety, consider the Spirit to be something foreign that
gains admission into God from without, as is the case with compound
natures like us. Nay, just as, when we heard of the Word of God, we
considered it to be not without subsistence, nor the product of learning,
nor the mere utterance of voice, nor as passing into the air and perishing,
but as being essentially subsisting, endowed with free volition, and energy,
and omnipotence: so also, when we have learnt about the Spirit of God, we
contemplate it as the companion of the Word and the revealer of His
energy, and not as mere breath without subsistence. For to conceive of the
Spirit that dwells in God as after the likeness of our own spirit, would be
to drag down the greatness of the divine nature to the lowest depths of
degradation. But we must contemplate it as an essential power, existing in
its own proper and peculiar subsistence, proceeding from the Father anti
resting in the Word, and shewing forth the Word, neither capable of
disjunction from God in Whom it exists, and the Word Whose companion
it is, nor poured forth to vanish into nothingness, but being in subsistence
in the likeness of the Word, endowed with life, free volition, independent
movement, energy, ever willing that which is good, and having power to
keep pace with the will in all its decrees, having no beginning and no end.
For never was the Father at any time lacking in the Word, nor the Word in
the Spirit.

Thus because of the unity in nature, the error of the Greeks in holding that
God is many, is utterly destroyed: and again by our acceptance of the

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Word and the Spirit, the dogma of the Jews is overthrown: and there
remains of each party only what is profitable. On the one hand of the
Jewish idea we have the unity of God's nature, anti on the other, of the
Greek, we have the distinction in subsistences and that only.

But should the Jew refuse to accept the Word and the Spirit, let the divine
Scripture confute him and curb his tongue. For concerning the Word, the
divine David says, For ever, O Lord, Thy Word is settled in heaven. And
again, He sent His Word and healed them. But the word that is uttered is
not sent, nor is it for ever settled. And concerning the Spirit, the same
David says, Thou sendest forth Thy Spirit, they are created. And again,
By the word of the Lord were the heavens made: and all the host of them
by the breath of His mouth. Job, too, says, The Spirit of God hath made
me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life. Now the Spirit
which is sent and makes and stablishes and conserves, is not mere breath
that dissolves, any more than the mouth of God is a bodily member. For
the conception of both must be such as harmonizes with the Divine nature.

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CHAPTER 8

Concerning the Holy Trinity.

We believe, then, in One God, one beginning, having no beginning,
uncreate, unbegotten, imperishable and immortal, everlasting, infinite,
uncircumscribed, boundless, of infinite power, simple, uncompound,
incorporeal, without flux, passionless, unchangeable, unalterable, unseen,
the fountain of goodness and justice, the light of the mind, inaccessible; a
power known by no measure, measurable only by His own will alone (for
all things that He wills He can), creator of all created things, seen or
unseen, of all the maintainer and preserver, for all the provider, master and
Lord and king over all, with an endless and immortal kingdom: having no
contrary, filling all, by nothing encompassed, but rather Himself the
encompasser and maintainer and original possessor of the universe,
occupying all essences intact and extending beyond all things, and being
separate from all essence as being super-essential and above all things and
absolute God, absolute goodness, and absolute fullness: determining all
sovereignties and ranks, being placed above all sovereignty and rank, above
essence and life and word and thought: being Himself very light and
goodness and life and essence, inasmuch as He does not derive His being
from another, that is to say, of those things that exist: but being Himself
the fountain of being to all that is, of life to the living, of reason to those
that have reason; to all the cause of all good: perceiving all things even
before they have become: one essence, one divinity, one power, one will,
one energy, one beginning, one authority, one dominion, one sovereignty,
made known in three perfect subsistences anti adored with one adoration,
believed in and ministered to by all rational creation, united without
confusion and divided without separation (which indeed transcends
thought). (We believe) in Father and Son and Holy Spirit whereinto also
we have been baptized. For so our Lord commanded the Apostles to
baptize, saying, Baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit.

(We believe) in one Father, the beginning, and cause of all: begotten of no
one: without cause or generation, alone subsisting: creator of all: but Father

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of one only by nature, His Only-begotten Son and our Lord and God and
Savior Jesus Christ, and Producer of the most Holy Spirit. And in one Son
of God, the Only-begotten, our Lord, Jesus Christ: begotten of the Father,
before all the ages: Light of Light, true God of true God: begotten, not
made, consubstantial with the Father, through Whom all things are made:
and when we say He was before all the ages we shew that His birth is
without time or beginning: for the Son of God was not brought into being
out of nothing, He that is the effulgence of the glory, the impress of the
Father's subsistence, the living wisdom and power, the Word possessing
interior subsistence, the essential and perfect and living image s of the
unseen God. But always He was with the Father and in Him, everlastingly
and without beginning begotten of Him. For there never was a time when
the Father was and the Son was not, but always the Father and always the
Son, Who was begotten of Him, existed together. For He could not have
received the name Father apart from the Son: for if He were without the
Son, He could not be the Father: and if He thereafter had the Son,
thereafter He became the Father, not having been the Father prior to this,
and He was changed from that which was not the Father and became the
Father. This is the worst form of blasphemy. For we may not speak of
God as destitute of natural generative power: and generative power means,
the power of producing from one's self, that is to say, from one's own
proper essence, that which is like in nature to one's self.

In treating, then, of the generation of the Son, it is an act of impiety to say
that time comes into play and that the existence of the Son is of later origin
than the Father. For we hold that it is from Him, that is, from the Father's
nature, that the Son is generated. And unless we grant that the Son
coexisted from the beginning with the Father, by Whom He was begotten,
we introduce change into the Father's subsistence, because, not being the
Father, He subsequently became the Father. For the creation, even though
it originated later, is nevertheless not derived from the essence of God, but
is brought into existence out of nothing by His will and power, and change
does not touch God's nature. For generation means that the begetter
produces out of his essence offspring similar in essence. But creation and
making mean that the creator and maker produces from that which is
external, and not out of his own essence, a creation of an absolutely
dissimilar nature.

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Wherefore in God, Who alone is passionless and unalterable, and
immutable, and ever so continueth, both begetting and creating are
passionless. For being by nature passionless and not liable to flux, since
He is simple and uncompound, He is not subject to passion or flux either
in begetting or in creating, nor has He need of any cooperation. But
generation in Him is without beginning and everlasting, being the work of
nature and producing out of His own essence, that the Begetter may not
undergo change, and that He may not be God first and God last, nor
receive any accession: while creation in the case of God, being the work of
will, is not coeternal with God. For it is not natural that that which is
brought into existence out of nothing should be coeternal with what is
without beginning and everlasting. There is this difference in fact between
man's making and God's. Man can bring nothing into existence out of
nothing, but all that he makes requires pre-existing matter for its basis, and
he does not create it by will only, but thinks out first what it is to be and
pictures it in his mind, and only then fashions it with his hands,
undergoing labor and troubles, and often missing the mark and failing to
produce to his satisfaction that after which he strives. But God, through
the exercise of will alone, has brought all things into existence out of
nothing. Now there is the same difference between God and man in
begetting and generating. For in God, Who is without time and beginning,
passionless, not liable to flux, incorporeal, alone and without end,
generation is without time and beginning, passionless and not liable to flux,
nor dependent on the union of two: nor has His own incomprehensible
generation beginning or end. And it is without beginning because He is
immutable: without flux because He is passionless and incorporeal:
independent of the union of two again because He is incorporeal but also
because He is the one and only God, and stands in need of no cooperation:
and without end or cessation because He is without beginning, or time, or
end, and ever continues the same. For that which has no beginning has no
end: but that which through grace is endless is assuredly not without
beginning, as, witness, the angels.

Accordingly the everlasting God generates His own Word which is perfect,
without beginning and without end, that God, Whose nature and existence
are above time, may not engender in time. But with man clearly it is
otherwise, for generation is with him a matter of sex, and destruction and

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flux and increase and body clothe him round about, and he possesses a
nature which is male or female. For the male requires the assistance of the
female. But may He Who surpasses all, and transcends all thought and
comprehension, be gracious to us.

The holy catholic and apostolic Church, then, teaches the existence at once
of a Father: and of His Only -begotten Son, born of Him without time and
flux and passion, in a manner incomprehensible and perceived by the God
of the universe alone: just as we recognize the existence at once of fire and
the light which proceeds from it: for there is not first fire and thereafter
light, but they exist together. And just as light is ever the product of fire,
and ever is in it and at no time is separate from it, so in like manner also
the Son is begotten of the Father and is never in any ways separate from
Him, but ever is in Him. But whereas the light which is produced from fire
without separation, and abideth ever in it, has no proper subsistence of its
own distinct from that of fire (for it is a natural quality of fire), the
Only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father without separation and
difference and ever abiding in Him, has a proper subsistence of its own
distinct froth that of the Father.

The terms, 'Word' and 'effulgence,' then, are used because He is begotten
of the Father without the union of two, or passion, or time, or flux, or
separation: and the terms 'Son' and 'impress of the Father's subsistence,'
because He is perfect and has subsistence s and is in all respects similar to
the Father, save that the Father is not begotten: and the term
'Only -begotten' because He alone was begotten alone of the Father alone.
For no other generation is like to the generation of the Son of God, since no
other is Son of God. For though the Holy Spirit proceedeth from the
Father, yet this is not generative in character but processional. This is a
different mode of existence, alike incomprehensible and unknown, just as is
the generation of the Son. Wherefore all the qualities the Father has are the
Son's, save that the Father is unbegotten, and this exception involves no
difference in essence nor dignity, but only a different mode of coming into
existence. We have an analogy in Adam, who was not begotten (for God
Himself molded him), and Seth, who was begotten (for he is Adam's son),
and Eve, who proceeded out of Adam's rib (for she was not begotten).
These do not differ from each other in nature, for they are human beings:
but they differ in the mode of coming into existence.

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For one must recognize that the word ocyevnrov with only one V signifies
"uncreate" or "not having been made," while ayevvrycov written with
double V means "unbegotten." According to the first significance essence
differs from essence: for one essence is uncreate, or ayevnrov with one 'v,'
and another is create oryevnrri. But in the second significance there is no
difference between essence and essence. For the first subsistence of all
kinds of living creatures is ocyevvrrrac; but not 6cyevr|TO<;. For they were
created by the Creator, being brought into being by His Word, but they
were not begotten, for there was no pre-existing form like themselves from
which they might have been born.

So then in the first sense of the word the three absolutely divine
subsistences of the Holy Godhead agree: for they exist as one in essence
and uncreate. But with the second signification it is quite otherwise. For
the Father alone is ingenerate, no other subsistence having given Him being.
And the Son alone is generate, for He was begotten of the Father's essence
without beginning and without time. And only the Holy Spirit proceedeth
from the Father's essence, not having been generated but simply
proceeding. For this is the doctrine of Holy Scripture. But the nature of
the generation and the procession is quite beyond comprehension.

And this also it behooves us to know, that the names Fatherhood, Sonship
and Procession, were not applied to the Holy Godhead by us: on the
contrary, they were communicated to us by the Godhead, as the divine
apostle says, Wherefore I bow the knee to the Father, from Whom is every
family in heaven and on earth. But if we say that the Father is the origin of
the Son and greater than the Son, we do not suggest any precedence in time
or superiority in nature of the Father over the Son (for through His agency
He made the ages), or superiority in any other respect save causation. And
we mean by this, that the Son is begotten of the Father and not the Father
of the Son, and that the Father naturally is the cause of the Son: just as we
say in the same way not that fire proceedeth from light, but rather light
from fire. So then, whenever we hear it said that the Father is the origin of
the Son and greater than the Son, let us understand it to mean in respect of
causation. And just as we do not say that fire is of one essence and light of
another, so we cannot say that the Father is of one essence and the Son of
another: but both are of one and the same essence. And just as we say that
fire has brightness through the light proceeding from it, and do not consider

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the light of the fire as an instrument ministering to the fire, but rather as its
natural force: so we say that the Father creates all that He creates through
His Only-begotten Son, not as though the Son were a mere instrument
serving the Father's ends, but as His natural and subsistential force. And
just as we say both that the fire shines and again that the light of the fire
shines, So all things whatsoever the Father doeth, these also doeth the Son
likewise. But whereas light possesses no proper subsistence of its own,
distinct from that of the fire, the Son is a perfect subsistence, inseparable
from the Father's subsistence, as we have shewn above. For it is quite
impossible to find in creation an image that will illustrate in itself exactly in
all details the nature of the Holy Trinity. For how could that which is
create and compound, subject to flux and change, circumscribed, formed
and corruptible, clearly shew forth the super-essential divine essence,
unaffected as it is in any of these ways? Now it is evident that all creation
is liable to most of these affections, and all from its very nature is subject
to corruption.

Likewise we believe also in one Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life:
Who proceedeth from the Father and resteth in the Son: the object of equal
adoration and glorification with the Father and Son, since He is coessential
and coeternal: the Spirit of God, direct, authoritative, the fountain of
wisdom, and life, and holiness: God existing and addressed along with
Father and Son: uncreate, full, creative, all-ruling, all-effecting,
all-powerful, of infinite power, Lord of all creation and not under any
Lord: deifying, not deified: filling, not filled: shared in, not sharing in:
sanctifying, not sanctified: the intercessor, receiving the supplications of
all: in all things like to the Father and Son: proceeding from the Father and
communicated through the Son, and participated in by all creation, through
Himself creating, and investing with essence and sanctifying, and
maintaining the universe: having subsistence, existing in its own proper and
peculiar subsistence, inseparable and indivisible from Father and Son, and
possessing all the qualities that the Father and Son possess, save that of
not being begotten or born. For the Father is without canst and unborn: for
He is derived from nothing, but derives from Himself His being, nor does
He derive a single quality from another. Rather He is Himself the beginning
and cause of the existence of all things in a definite and natural manner. But
the Son is derived from the Father after the manner of generation, and the

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Holy Spirit likewise is derived from the Father, yet not after the manner of
generation, but after that of procession. And we have learned that there is a
difference between generation and procession, but the nature of that
difference we in no wise understand. Further, the generation of the Son
from the Father and the procession of the Holy Spirit are simultaneous.

All then that the Son and the Spirit have is from the Father, even their very
being: and unless the Father is, neither the Son nor the Spirit is. And unless
the Father possesses a certain attribute, neither the Son nor the Spirit
possesses it: and through the Father, that is, because of the Father's
existence, the Son and the Spirit exist, and through the Father, that is,
because of the Father having the qualities, the Son and the Spirit have all
their qualities, those of being unbegotten, and of birth and of procession
being excepted. For in these hypostatic or personal properties alone do the
three holy subsistences differ from each other, being indivisibly divided
not by essence but by the distinguishing mark of their proper and peculiar
subsistence.

Further we say that each of the three has a perfect subsistence, that we
may understand not one compound perfect nature made up of three
imperfect elements, but one simple essence, surpassing and preceding
perfection, existing in three perfect subsistences. For all that is composed
of imperfect elements must necessarily be compound. But from perfect
subsistences no compound can arise. Wherefore we do not speak of the
form as from subsistences, but as in subsistences. But we speak of those
things as imperfect which do not preserve the form of that which is
completed out of them. For stone and wood and iron are each perfect in its
own nature, but with reference to the building that is completed out of
them each is imperfect: for none of them is in itself a house.

The subsistences then we say are perfect, that we may not conceive of the
divine nature as compound. For compoundness is the beginning of
separation. And again we speak of the three subsistences as being in each
other, that we may not introduce a crowd and multitude of Gods. Owing
to the three subsistences, there is no compoundness or confusion: while,
owing to their having the same essence and dwelling in one another, and
being the same in will, and energy, and power, and authority, and

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movement, so to speak, we recognize the indivisibility and the unity of
God. For verily there is one God, and His word and Spirit.

Marg. MS. Concerning the distinction of the three subsistences: and
concerning the thing itself and our reason and thought in relation to

it.

One ought, moreover, to recognize that it is one thing to look at a matter as
it is, and another thing to look at it in the light of reason and thought. In
the case of all created things, the distinction of the subsistences is observed
in actual fact. For in actual fact Peter is seen to be separate from Paul. But
the community and connection and unity are apprehended by reason and
thought. For it is by the mind that we perceive that Peter and Paul are of
the same nature and have one common nature. For both are living creatures,
rational and mortal: and both are flesh, endowed with the spirit of reason
and understanding. It is, then, by reason that this community of nature is
observed. For here indeed the subsistences do not exist one within the
other. But each privately and individually, that is to say, in itself, stands
quite separate, having very many points that divide it from the other. For
they are both separated in space and differ in time, and are divided in
thought, and power, and shape, or form, and habit, and temperament and
dignity, and pursuits, and all differentiating properties, but above all, in the
fact that they do not dwell in one another but are separated. Hence it
comes that we can speak of two, three, or many men.

And this may be perceived throughout the whole of creation, but in the
case of the holy and superessential and incomprehensible Trinity, far
removed from everything, it is quite the reverse. For there the community
and unity are observed in fact, through the coeternity of the subsistences,
and through their having the same essence and energy and will and concord
of mind, and then being identical in authority and power and goodness — I
do not say similar but identical — and then movement by one impulse. For
there is one essence, one goodness, one power, one will, one energy, one
authority, one and the same, I repeat, not three resembling each other. But
the three subsistences have one and the same movement. For each one of
them is related as closely to the other as to itself: that is to say that the

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Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are one in all respects, save those of
not being begotten, of birth and of procession. But it is by thought that the
difference is perceived. For we recognize one God: but only in the
attributes of Fatherhood, Sonship, and Procession, both in respect of cause
and effect and perfection of subsistence, that is, manner of existence, do
we perceive difference. For with reference to the uncircumscribed Deity
we cannot speak of separation in space, as we can in our own case. For the
subsistences dwell in one another, in no wise confused but cleaving
together, according to the word of the Lord, I am in the father, and the
father in Me: nor can one admit difference in will or judgment or energy or
power or anything else whatsoever which may produce actual and absolute
separation in our case. Wherefore we do not speak of three Gods, the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, but rather of one God, the holy
Trinity, the Son and Spirit being referred to one cause, and not
compounded or coalesced according to the synaeresis of Sabellius. For, as
we said, they are made one not so as to commingle, but so as to cleave to
each other, and they have their being in each other without any coalescence
or commingling. Nor do the Son and the Spirit stand apart, nor are they
sundered in essence according to the dieresis of Arias. For the Deity is
undivided amongst things divided, to put it concisely: and it is just like
three suns cleaving to each other without separation and giving out light
mingled and conjoined into one. When, then, we turn our eyes to the
Divinity, and the first cause and the sovereignty and the oneness anti
sameness, so to speak, of the movement and will of the Divinity, and the
identity in essence and power and energy and lordship, what is seen by us
is unity. But when we look to those things in which the Divinity is, or, to
put it more accurately, which are the Divinity, and those things which are
in it through the first cause without time or distinction in glory or
separation, that is to say, the subsistences of the Son and the Spirit, it
seems to us a Trinity that we adore. The Father is one Father, and without
beginning, that is, without cause: for He is not derived from anything. The
Son is one Son, but not without beginning, that is, not without cause: for
He is derived from the Father. But if you eliminate the idea of a beginning
from time, He is also without beginning: for the creator of times cannot be
subject to time. The Holy Spirit is one Spirit, going forth from the Father,
not in the manner of Sonship but of procession; so that neither has the
Father lost His property of being unbegotten because He hath begotten,

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nor has the Son lost His property of being begotten because He was
begotten of that which was unbegotten (for how could that be so?), nor
does the Spirit change either into the Father or into the Son because He
hath proceeded and is God. For a property is quite constant. For how
could a property persist if it were variable, moveable, and could change
into something else? For if the Father is the Son, He is not strictly the
Father: for there is strictly one Father. And if the Son is the Father, He is
not strictly the Son: for there is strictly one Son and one Holy Spirit.

Further, it should be understood that we do not speak of the Father as
derived from any one, but we speak of Him as the Father of the Son. And
we do not speak of the Son as Cause or Father, but we speak of Him both
as from the Father, and as the Son of the Father. And we speak likewise of
the Holy Spirit as from the Father, and call Him the Spirit of the Father.
And we do not speak of the Spirit as from the Son: s but yet we call Him
the Spirit of the Son. For if any one hath not the Spirit of Christ, he is
none of His, saith the divine apostle. And we confess that He is
manifested and imparted to us through the Son. For He breathed upon His
Disciples, says he, and said, Receive ye the Holy Spirit. It is just the same
as in the case of the sun from which come both the ray and the radiance
(for the sun itself is the source of both the ray and the radiance), and it is
through the ray that the radiance is imparted to us, and it is the radiance
itself by which we are lightened and in which we participate. Further we
do not speak of the Son of the Spirit, or of the Son as derived from the
Spirit.

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CHAPTER 9

Concerning what is affirmed about God.

The Deity is simple and uncompound. But that which is composed of
many and different elements is compound. If, then, we should speak of the
qualities of being uncreate and without beginning and incorporeal and
immortal and everlasting and good and creative and so forth as essential
differences in the case of God, that which is composed of so many
qualities will not be simple but must be compound. But this is impious in
the extreme. Each then of the affirmations about God should be thought of
as signifying not what He is in essence, but either something that it is
impossible to make plain, or some relation to some of those things which
are contrasts or some of those things that follow the nature, or an energy.

It appears then that the most proper of all the names given to God is "He
that is," as He Himself said in answer to Moses on the mountain, Say to
the sons of Israel, He that is hath sent Me. For He keeps all being in His
own embrace, like a sea of essence infinite and unseen. Or as the holy
Dionysius says, "He that is good." For one cannot say of God that He has
being in the first place and goodness in the second.

The second name of God is 6 9eo<;, derived from Oeeiv , to run, because
He courses through all things, or from ociGeiv, to burn: For God is a fire
consuming all evils: or from GeaoGou, because He is all-seeing: for nothing
can escape Him, and over all He keepeth watch. For He saw all things
before they were, holding them timelessly in His thoughts; and each one
conformably to His voluntary anti timeless thought, which constitutes
predetermination and image and pattern, comes into existence at the
predetermined time.

The first name then conveys the notion of His existence and of the nature
of His existence: while the second contains the idea of energy. Further, the
terms 'without beginning,' ' incorruptible,' 'unbegotten,' as also
'uncreate,' 'incorporeal,' 'unseen,' and so forth, explain what He is not:
that is to say, they tell us that His being had no beginning, that He is not
corruptible, nor created, nor corporeal, nor visible. Again, goodness and

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justice and piety and such like names belong to the nature, but do not
explain His actual essence. Finally, Lord and King and names of that class
indicate a relationship with their contrasts: for the name Lord has reference
to those over whom the Lord rules, and the name King to those under
kingly authority, and the name Creator to the creatures, and the name
Shepherd to the sheep he tends.

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CHAPTER 10

Concerning divine union and separation.

Therefore all these names must be understood as common to deity as a
whole, and as containing the notions of sameness and simplicity and
indivisibility and union: while the names Father, Son and Spirit, and cause,
less and caused, and unbegotten and begotten, and procession contain the
idea of separation: for these terms do not explain His essence, but the
mutual relationship and manner of existence.

When, then, we have perceived these things and are conducted from these
to the divine essence, we do not apprehend the essence itself but only the
attributes of the essence: just as we have not apprehended the essence of
the soul even when we have learnt that it is incorporeal and without
magnitude and form: nor again, the essence of the body when we know
that it is white or black, but only the attributes of the essence. Further, the
true doctrine teacheth that the Deity is simple and has one simple energy,
good and energizing in all things, just as the sun's ray, which warms all
things and energizes in each in harmony with its natural aptitude and
receptive power, having obtained this form of energy from God, its Maker.

But quite distinct is all that pertains to the divine and benignant
incarnation of the divine Word. For in that neither the Father nor the Spirit
have any part at all, unless so far as regards approval and the working of
inexplicable miracles which the God-Word, having become man like us,
worked, as unchangeable God and son of God.

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CHAPTER 11

Concerning what is affirmed about God as though He had body

Since we find many terms used symbolically in the Scriptures concerning
God which are more applicable to that which has body, we should
recognize that it is quite impossible for us men clothed about with this
dense covering of flesh to understand or speak of the divine and lofty and
immaterial energies of the Godhead, except by the use of images and types
and symbols derived from our own life. So then all the statements
concerning God, that imply body, are symbols, but have a higher meaning:
for the Deity is simple and formless. Hence by God's eyes and eyelids and
sight we are to understand His power of overseeing all things and His
knowledge, that nothing can escape: for in the case of us this sense makes
our knowledge more complete and more full of certainty. By God's ears
and hearing is meant His readiness to be propitiated and to receive our
petitions: for it is this sense that renders us also kind to suppliants,
inclining our ear to them more graciously. God's mouth and speech are His
means of indicating His will; for it is by the mouth and speech that we
make clear the thoughts that are in the heart: God's food and drink are our
concurrence to His will, for we, too, satisfy the necessities of our natural
appetite through the sense of taste. And God's sense of smell is His
appreciation of our thoughts of and good will towards Him, for it is
through this sense that we appreciate sweet fragrance. And God's
countenance is the demonstration and manifestation of Himself through
His works, for our manifestation is through the countenance. And God's
hands mean the effectual nature of His energy, for it is with our own hands
that we accomplish our most useful and valuable work. And His right hand
is His aid in prosperity, for it is the right hand that we also use when
making anything of beautiful shape or of great value, or where much
strength is required. His handling is His power of accurate discrimination
and exaction, even in the minutest and most secret details, for those whom
we have handled cannot conceal from us aught within themselves. His feet
and walk are His advent and presence, either for the purpose of bringing
succor to the needy, or vengeance against enemies, or to perform any other

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action, for it is by using our feet that we come to arrive at any place. His
oath is the unchangeableness of His counsel, for it is by oath that we
confirm our compacts with one another. His anger and fury are His hatred
of and aversion to all wickedness, for we, too, hate that which is contrary
to our mind and become enraged thereat. His forgetfulness and sleep and
slumbering are His delay in taking vengeance on His enemies and the
postponement of the accustomed help to His own. And to put it shortly,
all the statements made about God that imply body have some hidden
meaning and teach us what is above us by means of something familiar to
ourselves, with the exception of any statement concerning the bodily
sojourn of the God- Word. For He for our safety took upon Himself the
whole nature of man, the thinking spirit, the body, and all the properties of
human nature, even the natural and blameless passions.

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CHAPTER 12

Concerning the Same

The following, then, are the mysteries which we have learned from the
holy oracles, as the divine Dionysius the Areopagite said: that God is the
cause and beginning of all: the essence of all that have essence: the life of
the living: the reason of all rational beings: the intellect of all intelligent
beings: the recalling and restoring of those who fall away from Him: the
renovation and transformation of those that corrupt that which is natural:
the holy foundation of those who are tossed in unholiness: the
steadfastness of those who have stood firm: the way of those whose
course is directed to Him and the hand stretched forth to guide them
upwards. And I shall add He is also the Father of all His creatures (for
God, Who brought us into being out of nothing, is in a stricter sense our
Father than are our parents who have derived both being and begetting
from Him): the shepherd of those who follow and are tended by Him: the
radiance of those who are enlightened: the initiation of the initiated: the
deification of the deified: the peace of those at discord: the simplicity of
those who love simplicity: the unity of those who worship unity: of all
beginning the beginning, super-essential because above all beginnings: and
the good revelation of what is hidden, that is, of the knowledge of Him so
far as that is lawful for and attainable by each.

Further and more accurately concerning divine names

The Deity being incomprehensible is also assuredly nameless. Therefore
since we know not His essence, let us not seek for a name for His essence.
For names are explanations of actual things. But God, Who is good and
brought us out of nothing into being that we might share in His goodness,
and Who gave us the faculty of knowledge, not only did not impart to us
His essence, but did not even grant us the knowledge of His essence. For it
is impossible for nature to understand fully the supernatural. Moreover, if
knowledge is of things that are, how can there be knowledge of the
super-essential? Through His unspeakable goodness, then, it pleased Him
to be called by names that we could understand, that we might not be
altogether cut off from the knowledge of Him but should have some notion

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of Him, however vague. Inasmuch, then, as He is incomprehensible, He is
also unnamable. But inasmuch as He is the cause of all and contains in
Himself the reasons and causes of all that is, He receives names drawn
from all that is, even from opposites: for example, He is called light and
darkness, water and fire: in order that we may know that these are not of
His essence but that He is super-essential and unnamable: but inasmuch as
He is the cause of all, He receives names from all His effects.

Wherefore, of the divine names, some have a negative signification, and
indicate that He is super-essential: such are "non-essential," "timeless,"
"without beginning," "invisible": not that God is inferior to anything or
lacking in anything (for all things are His and have become from Him and
through Him and endure in Him), but that He is pre-eminently separated
from all that is. For He is not one of the things that are, but over all things.
Some again have an affirmative signification, as indicating that He is the
cause of all things. For as the cause of all that is and of all essence, He is
called both Ens and Essence. And as the cause of all reason and wisdom, of
the rational and the wise, He is called both reason and rational, and wisdom
and wise. Similarly He is spoken of as Intellect and Intellectual, Life and
Living, Power and Powerful, and so on with all the rest. Or rather those
names are most appropriate to Him which are derived from what is most
precious and most akin to Himself. That which is immaterial is more
precious and more akin to Himself than that which is material, and the
pure than the impure, and the holy than the unholy: for they have greater
part in Him. So then, sun and light will be more apt names for Him than
darkness, and day than night, and life than death, and fire and spirit and
water, as having life, than earth, and above all, goodness than wickedness:
which is just to say, being more than not being. For goodness is existence
and the cause of existence, but wickedness is the negation of goodness, that
is, of existence. These, then, are the affirmations and the negations, but the
sweetest names are a combination of both: for example, the super-essential
essence, the Godhead that is more than God, the beginning that is above
beginning and such like. Further there are some affirmations about God
which have in a pre-eminent degree the force of denial: for example,
darkness: for this does not imply that God is darkness but that He is not
light, but above light.

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God then is called Mind and Reason and Spirit and Wisdom and Power, as
the cause of these, and as immaterial, and maker of all, and omnipotent.
And these names are common to the whole Godhead, whether affirmative
or negative. And they are also used of each of the subsistences of the Holy
Trinity in the very same and identical way and with their full significance.
For when I think of one of the subsistences, I recognize it to be perfect
God and perfect essence: but when I combine and reckon the three
together, I know one perfect God. For the Godhead is not compound but
in three perfect subsistences, one perfect indivisible and uncompound
God. And when I think of the relation of the three subsistences to each
other, I perceive that the Father is super-essential Sun, source of goodness,
fathomless sea of essence, reason, wisdom, power, light, divinity: the
generating and productive source of good hidden in it. He Himself then is
mind, the depth of reason, begetter of the Word, and through the Word the
Producer of the revealing Spirit. And to put it shortly, the Father has no
reason, wisdom, power, will, save the Son Who is the only power of the
Father the immediate cause of the creation of the universe: as perfect
subsistence begotten of perfect subsistence in a manner known to Himself,
Who is and is named the Son. And the Holy Spirit is the power of the
Father revealing the hidden mysteries of His Divinity, proceeding from the
Father through the Son in a manner known to Himself, but different from
that of generation. Wherefore the Holy Spirit is the perfecter of the
creation of the universe. All the terms, then, that are appropriate to the
Father, as cause, source, begetter, are to be ascribed to the Father alone:
while those that are appropriate to the caused, begotten Son, Word,
immediate power, will, wisdom, are to be ascribed to the Son: and those
that are appropriate to the caused, processional, manifesting, perfecting
power, are to be ascribed to the Holy Spirit. The Father is the source and
cause of the Son and the Holy Spirit: Father of the Son alone and producer
of the Holy Spirit. The Son is Son, Word, Wisdom, Power, Image,
Effulgence, Impress of the Father and derived from the Father. But the
Holy Spirit is not the Son of the Father but the Spirit of the Father as
proceeding from the Father. For there is no impulse without Spirit. And
we speak also of the Spirit of the Son, not as through proceeding from
Him, but as proceeding through Him from the Father. For the Father alone
is cause.

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CHAPTER 13

Concerning the place of God:
and that the Deity alone is uncircumscribed.

Bodily place is the limit of that which contains, by which that which is
contained is contained: for example, the air contains but the body is
contained. But it is not the whole of the containing air which is the place of
the contained body, but the limit of the containing air, where it comes into
contact with the contained body: and the reason is clearly because that
which contains is not within that which it contains.

But there is also mental place where mind is active, and mental and
incorporeal nature exists: where mind dwells and energizes and is contained
not in a bodily but in a mental fashion. For it is without form, and so
cannot be contained as a body is. God, then, being immaterial and
uncircumscribed, has not place. For He is His own place, filling all things
and being above all things, and Himself maintaining all things. Yet we
speak of God having place and the place of God where His energy
becomes manifest. For He penetrates everything without mixing with it,
and imparts to all His energy in proportion to the fitness and receptive
power of each: and by this I mean, a purity both natural and voluntary.
For the immaterial is purer than the material, and that which is virtuous
than that which is linked with vice. Wherefore by the place of God is
meant that which has a greater share in His energy and grace. For this
reason the Heaven is His throne. For in it are the angels who do His will
and are always glorifying Him. For this is His rest and the earth is His
footstool. For in it He dwelt in the flesh among men. And His sacred flesh
has been named the foot of God. The Church, too, is spoken of as the
place of God: for we have set this apart for the glorifying of God as a sort
of consecrated place wherein we also hold converse with Him. Likewise
also the places in which His energy becomes manifest to us, whether
through the flesh or apart from flesh, are spoken of as the places of God.

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But it must be understood that the Deity is indivisible, being everywhere
wholly in His entirety and not divided up part by part like that which has
body, but wholly in everything and wholly above everything.

Marg. MS. Concerning the place of angel and spirit,
and concerning the uncircumscribed.

The angel, although not contained in place with figured form as is body,
yet is spoken of as being in place because he has a mental presence and
energizes in accordance with his nature, and is not elsewhere but has his
mental limitations there where he energizes. For it is impossible to energize
at the same time in different places. For to God alone belongs the power of
energizing everywhere at the same time. The angel energizes in different
places by the quickness of his nature and the promptness and speed by
which he can change his place: but the Deity, Who is everywhere and
above all, energizes at the same time in diverse ways with one simple
energy.

Further the soul is bound up with the body, whole with whole and not
part with part: and it is not contained by the body but contains it as fire
does iron, and being in it energizes with its own proper energies.

That which is comprehended in place or time or apprehension is
circumscribed: while that which is contained by none of these is
uncircumscribed. Wherefore the Deity alone is uncircumscribed, being
without beginning and without end, and containing all things, and in no
wise apprehended. For He alone is incomprehensible and unbounded,
within no one's knowledge and contemplated by Himself alone. But the
angel is circumscribed alike in time (for His being had commencement) and
in place (but mental space, as we said above) and in apprehension. For
they know somehow the nature of each other and have their bounds
perfectly defined by the Creator. Bodies in short are circumscribed both in
beginning and end, and bodily place and apprehension.

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Marg. MS. From various sources concerning God and the father,

and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

And concerning the Word and the Spirit.

The Deity, then, is quite unchangeable and invariable. For all things which
are not in our hands He hath predetermined by His foreknowledge, each in
its own proper and peculiar time and place. And accordingly the Father
judgeth no one, but hath given all judgment to the Son. For clearly the
Father and the Son and also the Holy Spirit judged as God. But the Son
Himself will descend in the body as man, and will sit on the throne of
Glory (for descending and sitting require circumscribed body), and will
judge all the world injustice.

All things are far apart from God, not in place but in nature. In our case,
thoughtfulness, and wisdom, and counsel come to pass and go away as
states of being. Not so in the case of God: for with Him there is no
happening or ceasing to be: for He is invariable and unchangeable: and it
would not be right to speak of contingency in connection with Him. For
goodness is concomitant with essence. He who longs always after God, he
seeth Him: for God is in all things. Existing things are dependent on that
which is, and nothing can be unless it is in that which is. God then is
mingled with everything, maintaining their nature: and in His holy flesh the
God-Word is made one in subsistence and is mixed with our nature, yet
without confusion.

No one seeth the Father, save the Son and the Spirit.

The Son is the counsel and wisdom and power of the Father. For one may
not speak of quality in connection with God, from fear of implying that
He was a compound of essence and quality.

The Son is from the Father, and derives from Him all His properties: hence
He cannot do ought of Himself. For He has not energy peculiar to Himself
and distinct from the Father.

That God Who is invisible by nature is made visible by His energies, we
perceive from the organization and government of the world.

The Son is the Father' s image, and the Spirit the Son' s, through which
Christ dwelling in man makes him after his own image.

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The Holy Spirit is God, being between the unbegotten and the begotten,
and united to the Father through the Son. We speak of the Spirit of God,
the Spirit of Christ, the mind of Christ, the Spirit of the Lord, the very
Lord, the Spirit of adoption, of truth, of liberty, of wisdom (for He is the
creator of all these): filling all things with essence, maintaining all things,
filling the universe with essence, while yet the universe is not the measure
of His power.

God is everlasting and unchangeable essence, creator of all that is, adored
with pious consideration.

God is also Father, being ever unbegotten, for He was born of no one, but
hath begotten His coeternal Son: God is likewise Son, being always with
the Father, born of the Father timelessly, everlastingly, without flux or
passion, or separation from Him. God is also Holy Spirit, being
sanctifying power, subsistential, proceeding from the Father without
separation, and resting in the Son, identical in essence with Father and Son.

Word is that which is ever essentially present with the Father. Again,
word is also the natural movement of the mind, according to which it is
moved and thinks and considers, being as it were its own light and
radiance. Again, word is the thought that is spoken only within the heart.
And again, word is the utterance that is the messenger of thought. God
therefore is Word essential and enhypostatic: and the other three kinds of
word are faculties of the soul, and are not contemplated as having a proper
subsistence of their own. The first of these is the natural offspring of the
mind, ever welling up naturally out of it: the second is the thought: and the
third is the utterance.

The Spirit has various meanings. There is the Holy Spirit: but the powers
of the Holy Spirit are also spoken of as spirits: the good messenger is also
spirit: the demon also is spirit: the soul too is spirit: and sometimes mind
also is spoken of as spirit. Finally the wind is spirit and the air is spirit.

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CHAPTER 14

The properties of the divine nature.

Uncreate, without beginning, immortal, infinite, eternal, immaterial, good,
creative, just, enlightening, immutable, passionless, uncircumscribed,
immeasurable, unlimited, undefined, unseen, unthinkable, wanting in
nothing, being His own rule and authority, all-ruling, life-giving,
omnipotent, of infinite power, con-raining and maintaining the universe
and making provision for all: all these and such like attributes the Deity
possesses by nature, not having received them from elsewhere, but
Himself imparting all good to His own creations according to the capacity
of each.

The subsistences dwell and are established firmly in one another. For they
are inseparable and cannot part from one another, but keep to their
separate courses within one another, without coalescing or mingling, but
cleaving to each other. For the Son is in the Father and the Spirit: and the
Spirit in the Father and the Son: and the Father in the Son and the Spirit,
but there is no coalescence or commingling or confusion And there is one
and the same motion: for there is one impulse and one motion of the three
subsistences, which is not to be observed in any created nature.

Further the divine effulgence and energy, being one anti simple and
indivisible, assuming many varied forms in its goodness among what is
divisible and allotting to each the component parts of its own nature, still
remains simple and is multiplied without division among the divided, and
gathers and converts the divided into its own simplicity. For all things long
after it and have their existence in it. It gives also to all things being
according to their several natures, and it is itself the being of existing
things, the life of living things, the reason of rational beings, the thought of
thinking beings. But it is itself above mind and reason and life and essence.

Further the divine nature has the property of penetrating all things without
mixing with them and of being itself impenetrable by anything else.
Moreover, there is the property of knowing all things with a simple
knowledge and of seeing all things, simply with His divine, all- surveying,

671

immaterial eye, both the things of the present, and the things of the past,
and the things of the future, before they come into being. It is also sinless,
and can cast sin out, and bring salvation: and all that it wills, it can
accomplish, but does not will all it could accomplish. For it could destroy
the universe but it does not will so to do.

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BOOK II

CHAPTER 1

Concerning aeon or age

He created the ages Who Himself was. before the ages, Whom the divine
David thus addresses, From age to age Than art. The divine apostle also
says, Through Whom He created the ages.

It must then be understood that the word age has various meanings, for it
denotes many things. The life of each man is called an age. Again, a period
of a thousand years is called an age. Again, the whole course of the present
life is called an age: also the future life, the immortal life after the
resurrection, is spoken of as an age. Again, the word age is used to denote,
not time nor yet a part of time as measured by the movement and course
of the sun, that is to say, composed of days and nights, but the sort of
temporal motion and interval that is coextensive with eternity. For age is
to things eternal just what time is to things temporal.

Seven ages of this world are spoken of, that is, from the creation of the
heaven and earth till the general consummation and resurrection of men.
For there is a partial consummation, viz., the death of each man: but there
is also a general and complete consummation, when the general resurrection
of men will come to pass. And the eighth age is the age to come.

Before the world was formed, when there was as yet no sun dividing day
from night, there was not an age such as could be measured, but there was
the sort of temporal motion and interval that is coextensive with eternity.
And in this sense there is but one age, and God is spoken of as ocicovio<;
and 7tpoouc6vioc;, for the age or aeon itself is His creation. For God, Who
alone is without beginning, is Himself the Creator of all things, whether age
or any other existing thing. And when I say God, it is evident that I mean

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the Father and His Only, begotten Son, our Lord, Jesus Christ, and His
all-holy Spirit, our one God.

But we speak also of ages of ages, inasmuch as the seven ages of the
present world include many ages in the sense of lives of men, and the one
age embraces all the ages, and the present and the future are spoken of as
age of age. Further, everlasting (i.e. ocicovioc,) life and everlasting
punishment prove that the age or neon to come is unending. For time will
not be counted by days and nights even after the resurrection, but there
will rather be one day with no evening, wherein the Sun of Justice will
shine brightly on the just, but for the sinful there will be night profound
and limitless. In what way then will the period of one thousand years be
counted which, according to Origen, is required for the complete
restoration? Of all the ages, therefore, the sole creator is God Who hath
also created the universe and Who was before the ages.

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CHAPTER 2

Concerning the creation.

Since, then, God, Who is good and more than good, did not find
satisfaction in self-contemplation, but in fits exceeding goodness wished
certain things to come into existence which would enjoy His benefits and
share in His goodness, He brought all things out of nothing into being and
created them, both what is invisible and what is visible. Yea, even man,
who is a compound of the visible and the invisible. And it is by thought
that He creates, and thought is the basis of the work, the Word filling it
and the Spirit perfecting it.

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CHAPTER 3

Concerning angels.

He is Himself the Maker and Creator of the angels: for He brought them
out of nothing into being and created them after His own image, an
incorporeal race, a sort of spirit or immaterial fire: in the words of the
divine David, He maketh His angels spirits, and His ministers a flame of
fire: and He has described their lightness and the ardor, and heat, and
keenness and sharpness with which they hunger for God and serve Him,
and how they are borne to the regions above and are quite delivered from
all material thought.

An angel, then, is an intelligent essence, in perpetual motion, with
free-will, incorporeal, ministering to God, having obtained by grace an
immortal nature: and the Creator alone knows the form and limitation of its
essence. But all that we can understand is, that it is incorporeal and
immaterial. For all that is compared with God Who alone is incomparable,
we find to be dense and material. For in reality only the Deity is
immaterial and incorporeal.

The angel' s nature then is rational, and intelligent, and endowed with
free-will, change, able in will, or fickle. For all that is created is changeable,
and only that which is uncreated is unchangeable. Also all that is rational is
endowed with free-will. As it is, then, rational and intelligent, it is
endowed with free-will: and as it is created, it is changeable, having power
either to abide or progress in goodness, or to turn towards evil.

It is not susceptible of repentance because it is incorporeal. For it is owing
to the weakness of his body that man comes to have repentance.

It is immortal, not by natures but by grace. For all that has had beginning
comes also to its natural end. But God alone is eternal, or rather, He is
above the Eternal: for He, the Creator of times, is not under the dominion
of time, but above time.

They are secondary intelligent lights derived from that first light which is
without beginning, for they have the power of illumination; they have no

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need of tongue or hearing, but without uttering words they communicate to
each other their own thoughts and counsels.

Through the Word, therefore, all the angels were created, and through the
sanctification by the Holy Spirit were they brought to perfection, sharing
each in proportion to his worth and rank in brightness and grace.

They are circumscribed: for when they are in the Heaven they are not on
the earth: and when they are sent by God down to the earth they do not
remain in the Heaven. They are not hemmed in by walls and doors, and
bars and seals, for they are quite unlimited. Unlimited, I repeat, for it is not
as they really are that they reveal themselves to the worthy men to whom
God wishes them to appear, but in a changed form which the beholders are
capable of seeing. For that alone is naturally and strictly unlimited which is
uncreated. For every created tiring is limited by God Who created it.

Further, apart from their essence they receive the sanctification from the
Spirit: through the divine grace they prophesy: they have no need of
marriage for they are immortal.

Seeing that they are minds they are in mental places, and are not
circumscribed after the fashion of a body. For they have not a bodily form
by nature, nor are they tended in three dimensions. But to whatever post
they may be assigned, there they are present after the manner of a mind
and energize, and cannot be present and energize in various places at the
same time.

Whether they are equals in essence or differ from one another we know
not. God, their Creator, Who knoweth all things, alone knoweth. But they
differ from each other in brightness and position, whether it is that their
position is dependent on their brightness, or their brightness on their
position: and they impart brightness to one another, because they excel
one another in rank and nature. And clearly the higher share their
brightness and knowledge with the lower.

They are mighty and prompt to fulfill the will of the Deity, and their
nature is endowed with such celerity that wherever the Divine glance bids
them there they are straightway found. They are the guardians of the
divisions of the earth: they are set over nations and regions, allotted to
them by their Creator: they govern all our affairs and bring us succor. And

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the reason surely is because they are set over us by the divine will and
command and are ever in the vicinity of God.

With difficulty they are moved to evil, yet they are not absolutely
immovable: but now they are altogether immovable, not by nature but by
grace and by their nearness to the Only Good.

They behold God according to their capacity, and this is their food.

They are above us for they are incorporeal, and are free of all bodily
passion, yet are not passionless: for the Deity alone is passionless.

They take different forms at the bidding of their Master, God, and thus
reveal themselves to men and unveil the divine mysteries to them.

They have Heaven for their dwelling-place, and have one duty, to sing
God's praise and carry out His divine will.

Moreover, as that most holy, and sacred, and gifted theologian, Dionysius
the Areopagite, says, All theology, that is to say, the holy Scripture, has
nine different names for the heavenly essences. These essences that divine
master in sacred things divides into three groups, each containing three.
And the first group, he says, consists of those who are in God's presence
and are said to be directly and immediately one with Him, viz., the
Seraphim with their six wings, the many-eyed Cherubim and those that sit
in the holiest thrones. The second group is that of the Dominions, and the
Powers, and the Authorities; and the third, and last, is that of the Rulers
and Archangels and Angels

Some, indeed, like Gregory the Theologian, say that these were before the
creation of other things. He thinks that the angelic and heavenly powers
were first and that thought was their function. Others, again, hold that
they were created after the first heaven was made. But all are agreed that it
was before the foundation of man. For myself, I am in harmony with the
theologian. For it was fitting that the mental essence should be the first
created, and then that which can be perceived, and finally man himself, in
whose being both parts are united.

But those who say that the angels are creators of any kind of essence
whatever are the mouth of their father, the devil. For since they are created
things they are not creators. But He Who creates and provides for and

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maintains all things is God, Who alone is uncreate and is praised and
glorified in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

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CHAPTER 4

Concerning the devil and demons.

He who from among these angelic powers was set over the earthly realm,
and into whose hands God committed the guardianship of the earth, was
not made wicked in nature but was good, and made for good ends, and
received from his Creator no trace whatever of evil in himself. But he did
not sustain the brightness and the honor which the Creator had bestowed
on him, and of his free choice was changed from what was in harmony to
what was at variance with his nature, and became roused against God Who
created him, and determined to rise in rebellion against Him: and he was the
first to depart from good and become evil. For evil is nothing else than
absence of goodness, just as darkness also is absence of light. For goodness
is the light of the mind, and, similarly, evil is the darkness of the mind.
Light, therefore, being the work of the Creator and being made good (for
God saw all that He made, and behold they were exceeding good) produced
darkness at His free-will. But along with him an innumerable host of angels
subject to him were torn away and followed him and shared in his fall.
Wherefore, being of the same nature as the angels, they became wicked,
turning away at their own free choice from good to evil

Hence they have no power or strength against any one except what God in
His dispensation hath conceded to them, as for instance, against Job and
those swine that are mentioned in the Gospels. But when God has made
the concession they do prevail, and are changed and transformed into any
form whatever in which they wish to appear.

Of the future both the angels of God and the demons are alike ignorant: yet
they make predictions. God reveals the future to the angels and commands
them to prophesy, and so what they say comes to pass. But the demons
also make predictions, sometimes because they see what is happening at a
distance, and sometimes merely making guesses: hence much that they say
is false and they should not be believed, even although they do often, in
the way we have said, tell what is true. Besides they know the Scriptures.

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All wickedness, then, and all impure passions are the work of their mind.
But while the liberty to attack man has been granted to them, they have
not the strength to over master any one: for we have it in our power to
receive or not to receive the attack. Wherefore there has been prepared for
the devil and his demons, and those who follow him, fire unquenchable and
everlasting punishment.

Note, further, that what in the case of man is death is a fall in the case of
angels. For after the fall there is no possibility of repentance for them, just
as after death there is for men no repentance.

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CHAPTER 5

Concerning the visible creation.

Our God Himself, Whom we glorify as Three in One, created the heaven
and the earth and all that they contain, and brought all things out of
nothing into being: some He made out of no pre-existing basis of matter,
such as heaven, earth, air, fire, water: and the rest out of these elements
that He had created, such as living creatures, plants, seeds. For these are
made up of earth, and water, and air, and fire, at the bidding of the Creator.

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CHAPTER 6

Concerning the Heaven.

The heaven is the circumference of things created, both visible and
invisible. For within its boundary are included and marked off both the
mental faculties of the angels and all the world of sense. But the Deity
alone is uncircumscribed, filling all things, and surrounding all things, and
hounding all things, for He is above all things, and has created all things.

Since, therefore, the Scripture speaks of heaven, and heaven of heaven, and
heavens of heavens, and the blessed Paul says that he was snatched away
to the third heaven, we say that in the cosmogony of the universe we
accept the creation of a heaven which the foreign philosophers,
appropriating the views of Moses, call a starless sphere. But further, God
called the firmament also heaven, which He commanded to be in the midst
of the waters, setting it to divide the waters that are above the firmament
from the waters that are below the firmament. And its nature, according to
the divine Basilius, who is versed in the mysteries of divine Scripture, is
delicate as smoke. Others, however, hold that it is watery in nature, since
it is set in the midst of the waters: others say it is composed of the four
elements: and lastly, others speak of it as a filth body, distinct from the
four elements.

Further, some have thought that the heaven encircles the universe and has
the form of a sphere, and that everywhere it is the highest point, and that
the center of the space enclosed by it is the lowest part: and, further, that
those bodies that are light and airy are allotted by the Creator the upper
region: while those that are heavy and tend to descend occupy the lower
region, which is the middle. The element, then, that is lightest and most
inclined to soar upwards is fire, and hence they hold that its position is
immediately after the heaven, and they call it ether, and after it comes the
lower air. But earth and water, which are heavier and have more of a
downward tendency, are suspended in the center. Therefore, taking them
in the reverse order, we have in the lowest situation earth and water: but
water is lighter than earth, and hence is more easily set in motion: above

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these on all hands, like a covering; is the circle of air, and all round the air is
the circle of ether, and outside air is the circle of the heaven.

Further, they say that the heaven moves in a circle and so compresses all
that is within it, that they remain firm and not liable to fall asunder.

They say also that there are seven zones of the heaven, one higher than the
other. And its nature, they say, is of extreme fineness, like that of smoke,
and each zone contains one of the planets. For there are said to be seven
planets: Sol, Luna, Jupiter, Mercury, Mars, Venus and Saturn. But
sometimes Venus is called Lucifer and sometimes Vesper. These are called
planets because their movements are the reverse of those of the heaven.
For while the heaven and all other stars move from east to west, these
alone move from west to east. And this can easily be seen in the case of
the moon, which moves each evening a little backwards.

All, therefore, who hold that the heaven is in the form of a sphere, say that
it is equally removed and distant from the earth at all points, whether
above, or sideways, or below. And by 'below' and ' sideways' I mean all
that comes within the range of our senses. For it follows from what has
been said, that the heaven occupies the whole of the upper region and the
earth the whole of the lower. They say, besides, that the heaven encircles
the earth in the manner of a sphere, and bears along with it in its most
rapid revolutions sun, moon and stars, and that when the sun is over the
earth it becomes day there, and when it is under the earth it is night. And,
again, when the sun goes under the earth it is night here, but day yonder.

Others have pictured the heaven as a hemisphere. This idea is suggested by
these words of David, the singer of God, Who stretchest out the heavens
like a curtain, by which word he clearly means a tent: and by these from
the blessed Isaiah, Who hath established the heavens like a vault: and also
because when the sun, moon, and stars set they make a circuit round the
earth from west to north, and so reach once more the east. Still, whether it
is this way or that, all things have been made and established by the divine
command, and have the divine will and counsel for a foundation that
cannot be moved. For He Himself spoke and they were made: He Himself
commanded and they were created. He hath also established them for ever
and ever: He hath made a decree which will not pass.

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The heaven of heaven, then, is the first heaven which is above the
firmament. So here we have two heavens, for God called the firmament
also Heaven. And it is customary in the divine Scripture to speak of the air
also as heavens, because we see it above us. Bless Him, it says, all ye birds
of the heaven, meaning of the air. For it is the air and not the heaven that is
the region in which birds fly. So here we have three heavens, as the divine
Apostle said. But if you should wish to look upon the seven zones as
seven heavens there is no injury done to the word of truth. For it is usual
in the Hebrew tongue to speak of heaven in the plural, that is, as heavens,
and when a Hebrew wishes to say heaven of heaven, he usually says
heavens of heavens, and this clearly means heaven of heaven, which is
above the firmament, and the waters which are above the heavens, whether
it is the air and the firmament, or the seven zones of the firmament, or the
firmament itself which are spoken of in the plural as heavens according to
the Hebrew custom.

All things, then, which are brought into existence are subject to corruption
according to the law of their nature, and so even the heavens themselves
are corruptible. But by the grace of God they are maintained and
preserved. Only the Deity, however, is by nature without beginning and
without end. Wherefore it has been said, They will perish, but Thou dost
endure: nevertheless, the heavens will not be utterly destroyed. For they
will wax old and be wound round as a covering, and will be changed, and
there will be a new heaven and a new earth.

For the great part the heaven is greater than the earth, but we need not
investigate the essence of the heaven, for it is quite beyond our knowledge.

It must not be supposed that the heavens or the luminaries are endowed
with life. For they are inanimate and insensible. So that when the divine
Scripture saith, Let the heavens rejoice and the earth be glad, it is the angels
in heaven and the men on earth that are invited to rejoice. For the Scripture
is familiar with the figure of personification, and is wont to speak of
inanimate things as though they were animate: for example, The sea saw it
and fled: Jordan was driven back. And again, What ailed thee, O thou sea,
that thou fleddest? thou, O Jordan, that thou was driven back? Mountains,
too, and hills are asked the reason of their leaping in the same way as we
are wont to say, the city was gathered together, when we do not mean the

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buildings, but the inhabitants of the city: again, the heavens declare the
glory of God, does not mean that they send forth a voice that can be heard
by bodily ears, but that from their own greatness they bring before our
minds the power of the Creator: and when we contemplate their beauty we
praise the Maker as the Master-Craftsman.

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CHAPTER 7

Concerning light, fire, the luminaries, sun, moon and stars

Fire is one of the four elements, light and with a greater tendency to ascend
than the others. It has the power of burning and also of giving light, and it
was made by the Creator on the first day. For the divine Scripture says,
And God said, Let there be light, and there was light. Fire is not a different
thing from what light is, as some maintain. Others again hold that this fire
of the universe is above the air and call it ether. In the beginning, then, that
is to say on the first day, God created light, the ornament and glory of the
whole visible creation. For take away light and all things remain in
undistinguishable darkness, incapable of displaying their native beauty.
And God called the light day, but the darkness He called night. Further,
darkness is not any essence, but an accident: for it is simply absence of
light. The air, indeed, has not light in its essence. It was, then, this very
absence of light from the air that God called darkness: and it is not the
essence of air that is darkness, but the absence of light which clearly is
rather an accident than an essence. And, indeed, it was not night, but day,
that was first named, so that day is first and after that comes night. Night,
therefore, follows day. And from the beginning of day till the next day is
one complete period of day and night. For the Scripture says, And the
evening and the morning were one day.

When, therefore, in the first three days the light was poured forth and
reduced at the divine command, both day and night came to pass. But on
the fourth day God created the great luminary, that is, the sun, to have rule
and authority over the day: for it is by it that day is made: for it is day
when the sun is above the earth, and the duration of a day is the course of
the sun over the earth from its rising till its setting. And He also created
the lesser luminaries, that is, the moon and the stars, to have rule and
authority over the night, and to give light by night. For it is night when the
sun is under the earth, and the duration of night is the course of the sun
under the earth from its rising till its setting. The moon, then, and the stars
were set to lighten the night: not that they are in the daytime under the
earth, for even by day stars are in the heaven over the earth but the sun

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conceals both the stars and the moon by the greater brilliance of its light
and prevents them from being seen.

On these luminaries the Creator bestowed the first-created light: not
because He was in need of other light, but that that light might not remain
idle. For a luminary is not merely light, but a vessel for containing light.

There are, we are told, seven planets amongst these luminaries, and these
move in a direction opposite to that of the heaven: hence the name planets.
For, while they say that the heaven moves from east to west, the planets
move from west to east; but the heaven bears the seven planets along with
it by its swifter motion. Now these are the names of the seven planets:
Luna, Mercury, Venus, Sol, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and in each zone of
heaven is, we are told, one of these seven planets:

In the first and highest Saturn

In the second Jupiter

In the third Mars

In the fourth Sol

In the fifth Venus

In the sixth Mercury

In the seventh and lowest Luna

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The course which the Creator appointed for them to run is unceasing and
remaineth fixed as He established them. For the divine David says, The
moan and the stars which Thou establishedst, and by the word
'establishedst,' he referred to the fixity and unchangeableness of the order
and series granted to them by God. For He appointed them for seasons,
and signs, and days and years. It is through the Sun that the four seasons
are brought about. And the first of these is spring: for in it God created all
things, and even down to the present time its presence is evidenced by the

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bursting of the flowers into bud, and this is the equinoctial period, since
day and night each consist of twelve hours. It is caused by the sun rising in
the middle, and is mild and increases the blood, and is warm and moist, and
holds a position midway between winter and summer, being warmer and
drier than winter, but colder and moister than summer. This season lasts
from March 21st till June 24th. Next, when the rising of the sun moves
towards more northerly parts, the season of summer succeeds, which has a
place midway between spring and autumn, combining the warmth of
spring with the dryness of autumn: for it is dry and warm, and increases
the yellow bile. In it falls the longest day, which has fifteen hours, and the
shortest night of all, having only nine hours. This season lasts from June
24th till September 25th. Then when the sun again returns to the middle,
autumn takes the place of summer. It has a medium amount of cold and
heat, dryness and moisture, and holds a place midway between summer
and winter, combining the dryness of summer with the cold of winter. For
it is cold and dry, and increases the black bile. This season, again, is
equinoctial, both day and night consisting of twelve hours, and it lasts
from September 25th till December 25th. And when the rising of the sun
sinks to its smallest and lowest point, i.e. the south, winter is reached,
with its cold and moisture. It occupies a place midway between autumn
and spring, combining the cold of autumn and the moisture of spring. In it
falls the shortest day, which has only nine hours, and the longest night,
which has fifteen: and it lasts from December 25th till March 21st. For the
Creator made this wise provision that we should not pass from the
extreme of cold, or heat, or dryness, or moisture, to the opposite extreme,
and thus incur grievous maladies. For reason itself teaches us the danger of
sudden changes.

So, then, it is the sun that makes the seasons, and through them the year: it
likewise makes the days and nights, the days when it rises and is above the
earth, and the nights when it sets below the earth: and it bestows on the
other luminaries, both moon and stars, their power of giving forth light.

Further, they say that there are in the heaven twelve signs made by the
stars, and that these move in an opposite direction to the sun and moon,
and the other five planets, and that the seven planets pass across these
twelve signs. Further, the sun makes a complete month in each sign and

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traverses the twelve signs in the same number of months. These, then, are
the names of the twelve signs and their respective months: —

The Ram, which receives the sun on the 21st of March.

The Bull, on the 23rd of April.

The Twins, on the 24th of May.

The Crab, on the 24th of June.

The Virgin, on the 25th of July.

The Scales, on the 25th of September.

The Scorpion, on the 25th of October.

The Archer, on the 25th of November.

Capricorn, on the 25th of December.

Aquarius, on the 25th of January.

The Fish, on the 24th of February.

But the moon traverses the twelve signs each month, since it occupies a
lower position and travels through the signs at a quicker rate. For if you
draw one circle within another, the inner one will be found to be the lesser:
and so it is that owing to the moon occupying a lower position its course
is shorter and is sooner completed

Now the Greeks declare that all our affairs are controlled by the rising and
setting and collision of these stars, viz., the sun and moon: for it is with
these matters that astrology has to do. But we hold that we get from them
signs of rain and drought, cold and heat, moisture and dryness, and of the
various winds, and so forth, but no sign whatever as to our actions. For we
have been created with free wills by our Creator and are masters over our
own actions. Indeed, if all our actions depend on the courses of the stars,
all we do is done of necessity: and necessity precludes either virtue or vice.
But if we possess neither virtue nor vice, we do not deserve praise or
punishment, and God, too, will turn out to be unjust, since He gives good
things to some and afflicts others. Nay, He will no longer continue to guide
or provide for His own creatures, if all things are carried and swept along

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in the grip of necessity. And the faculty of reason will be superfluous to
us: for if we are not masters of any of our actions, deliberation is quite
superfluous. Reason, indeed, is granted to us solely that we might take
counsel, and hence all reason implies freedom of will.

And, therefore, we hold that the stars are not the causes of the things that
occur, nor of the origin of things that come to pass, nor of the destruction
of those things that perish. They are rather signs of showers and changes
of air. But, perhaps, some one may say that though they are not the causes
of wars, yet they are signs of them. And, in truth, the quality of the air
which is produced by sun, and moon, and stars, produces in various ways
different temperaments, and habits, and dispositions. But the habits are
amongst the things that we have in our own hands, for it is reason that
rules, and directs, and changes them.

It often happens, also, that comets arise. These are signs of the death of
kings, and they are not any of the stars that were made in the beginning,
but are formed at the same tithe by divine command and again dissolved.
And so not even that star which the Magi saw at the birth of the Friend
and Savior of man, our Lord, Who became flesh for our sake, is of the
number of those that were made in the beginning. And this is evidently the
case because sometimes its course was from east to west, and sometimes
from north to south; at one moment it was hidden, and at the next it was
revealed: which is quite out of harmony with the order and nature of the
stars.

It must be understood, then, that the moon derives its light from the sun;
not that God was unable to grant it light of its own, but in order that
rhythm and order may be unimpressed upon nature, one part ruling, the
other being ruled, and that we might thus be taught to live in community
and to share our possessions with one another, and to be under subjection,
first to our Maker and Creator, our God and Master, and then also to the
rulers set in authority over us by Him: and not to question why this man
is ruler and not I myself, but to welcome all that comes from God in a
gracious and reasonable spirit.

The sun and the moon, moreover, suffer eclipse, and this demonstrates the
folly of those who worship the creature in place of the Creator, and
teaches us how changeable and alterable all things are For all things are

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changeable save God, and whatever is changeable is liable to corruption in
accordance with the laws of its own nature.

Now the cause of the eclipse of the sun is that the body of the moon is
interposed like a partition- wall and casts a shadow, and prevents the light
from being shed down on us: and the extent of the eclipse is proportional
to the size of the moon's body that is found to conceal the sun. But do not
marvel that the moon's body is the smaller. For many declare that the sun
is many times larger even than the earth, and the holy Fathers say that it is
equal to the earth: yet often a small cloud, or even a small hill or a wall
quite conceals it.

The eclipse of the moon, on the other hand, is due to the shadow the earth
casts on it when it is a fifteen days' moon and the sun and moon happen
to be at the opposite poles of the highest circle, the sun being under the
earth and the moon above the earth. For the earth casts a shadow and the
sun's light is prevented from illuminating the moon, and therefore it is then
eclipsed.

It should be understood that the moon was made full by the Creator, that
is, a fifteen days' moon: for it was fitting that it should be made complete.
But on the fourth day, as we said, the sun was created. Therefore the
moon was eleven days in advance of the sun, because from the fourth to
the fifteenth day there are eleven days. Hence it happens that in each year
the twelve months of the moon contain eleven days fewer than the twelve
months of the sun. For the twelve months of the sun contain three hundred
and sixty-five and a quarter days, and so because the quarter becomes a
whole, in four years an extra day is completed, which is called bis-sextile.
And that year has three hundred and sixty- six days. The years of the
moon, on the other hand, have three hundred and fifty-four days. For the
moon wanes from the time of its origin, or renewal, till it is fourteen and
three-quarter days' old, and proceeds to wane till the twenty-ninth and a
half day, when it is completely void of light And then when it is once more
connected with the sun it is reproduced and renewed, a memorial of our
resurrection. Thus in each year the moon gives away eleven days to the
sun, and so in three years the intercalary month of the Hebrews arises, and
that year comes to consist of thirteen months, owing to the addition of
these eleven days.

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It is evident that both sun and moon and stars are compound and liable to
corruption according to the laws of their various natures. But of their
nature we are ignorant. Some, indeed, say that fire when deprived of matter
is invisible, and thus, that when it is quenched it vanishes altogether.
Others, again, say that when it is quenched it is transformed into air.

The circle of the zodiac has an oblique motion and is divided into twelve
sections called zodia, or signs: each sign has three divisions of ten each, i.e.
thirty divisions, and each division has sixty very minute subdivisions. The
heaven, therefore, has three hundred and sixty-five degrees: the hemisphere
above the earth and that below the earth each having one hundred and
eighty degrees.

The abodes of the planets.

The Ram and the Scorpion are the abode of Mars: the Bull and the Scales,
of Venus: the Twins and the Virgin, of Mercury: the Crab, of the Moon:
the Lion, of the Sun: the Archer and the Fish, of Jupiter: Capricorn and
Aquarius, of Saturn.

Their altitudes.

The Ram has the altitude of the Sun: the Bull, of the Moon: the Crab, of
Jupiter: the Virgin, of Mars: the Scales, of Saturn: Capricorn, of Mercury:
the Fish, of Venus.

The phases of the moon.

It is in conjunction whenever it is in the same degree as the sun: it is born
when it is fifteen degrees distant from the sun: it rises when it is
crescent-shaped, and this occurs twice, at which times it is sixty degrees
distant from the sun: it is half-full twice, when it is ninety degrees from the
sun: twice it is gibbous, when it is one hundred and twenty degrees from
the sun: it is twice a full moon, giving full light, when it is a hundred and
fifty degrees from the sun: it is a complete moon when it is a hundred and
eighty degrees distant from the sun. We say twice, because these phases

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occur both when the moon waxes and when it wanes. In two and a half
days the moon traverses each sign.

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CHAPTER 8

Concerning air and winds.

Air is the most subtle element, and is moist and warm: heavier, indeed,
than fire: but lighter than earth and water: it is the cause of respiration and
voice: it is colorless, that is, it has no color by nature: it is clear and
transparent, for it is capable of receiving light: it ministers to three of our
senses, for it is by its aid that we see, hear and smell: it has the power
likewise of receiving heat and cold, dryness and moisture, and its
movements in space are up, down, within, without, to the right and to the
left, and the cyclical movement.

It does not derive its light from itself, but is illuminated by sun, and moon,
and stars, and fire. And this is just what the Scripture means when it says,
And darkeness was upon the deep; for its object is to shew that the air has
not derived its light from itself, but that it is quite a different essence from
light.

And wind is a movement of air: or wind is a rush of air which changes its
name as it changes the place whence it rushes.

Its place is in the air. For place is the circumference of a body. But what is
it that surrounds bodies but air? There are, moreover, different places in
which the movement of air originates, and from these the winds get their
names. There are in all twelve winds. It is said that air is just fire after it
has been extinguished, or the vapor of heated water. At all events, in its
own special nature the air is warm, but it becomes cold owing to the
proximity of water and earth, so that the lower parts of it are cold, and the
higher warm.

These then are the winds: Caecias, or Meses, arises in the region where the
sun rises in summer. Subsolanus, where the sun rises at the equinoxes.
Eurus, where it rises in winter. Africus, where it sets in winter. Favonius,
where it sets at the equinoxes, and Corns, or Olympias, or Iapyx, where it
sets in summer. Then come Auster and Aquilo, whose blasts oppose one
another. Between Aquilo and Caecias comes Boreas: and tween Eurus and

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Auster, Phoenix or Euronotus; between Auster and Africus, Libonotus or
Leucouotus: and lastly, between Aquilo and Coras, Thrascias, or Cercius,
as it is called by the inhabitants of that region.

[These, then, are the races which dwell at the ends of the world: beside
Subsolanus are the Bactriani: beside Eurus, the Indians: beside Phoenix, the
Red Sea and Ethiopia: beside Libonotus, the Garamantes, who are beyond
Systis: beside Africus, the Ethiopians and the Western Mauri: beside
Favonius, the columns of Hercules and the beginnings of Libya and
Europe: beside Coras, Iberia, which is now called Spain: beside Thrascia,
the Gauls and the neighbouring nations: beside Aquilo, the Scythians who
are beyond Thrace: beside Boreas, Pontus, Maeotis and the Sarmatae:
beside Caecias, the Caspian Sea and the Sacai.]

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CHAPTER 9

Concerning the waters.

Water also is one of the four elements, the most beautiful of God's
creations. It is both wet and cold, heavy, and with a tendency to descend,
and flows with great readiness. It is this the Holy Scripture has in view
when it says, And darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit
of God moved upon the face of the waters. For the deep is nothing else
than a huge quantity of water whose limit man cannot comprehend. In the
beginning, indeed, the water lay all over the surface of the earth. And first
God created the firmament to divide the water above the firmament from
the water below the firmament. For in the midst of the sea of waters the
firmament was established at the Master's decree. And out of it God bade
the firmament arise, and it arose. Now for what reason was it that God
placed water above the firmament? It was because of the intense burning
heat of the sun and ether. For immediately under the firmament is spread
out the ether, and the sun and moon and stars are in the firmament, and so
if water had not been put above it the firmament would have been
consumed by the heat.

Next, God bade the waters be gathered together into one mass. But when
the Scripture speaks of one mass it evidently does not mean that they
were gathered together into one place: for immediately it goes on to say,
And the gatherings of the waters He called seas: but the words signify that
the waters were separated off in a body from the earth into distinct
groups. Thus the waters were gathered together into their special
collections and the dry land was brought to view. And hence arose the two
seas that surround Egypt, for it lies between two seas. These collections
contain various seas and mountains, and islands, and promontories, and
harbors, and surround various bays and beaches, and coastlands. For the
word beach is used when the nature of the tract is sandy, while coastland
signifies that it is rocky and deep close into shore, getting deep all on a
sudden In like manner arose also the sea that lies where the sun rises, the
name of which is the Indian Sea: also the northern sea called the Caspian.
The lakes also were formed in the same manner.

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The ocean, then, is like a river encircling the whole earth, and I think it is
concerning it that the divine Scripture says, A river went ant of Paradise.
The water of the ocean is sweet and potable. It is it that furnishes the seas
with water which, because it stays a long time in the seas and stands
unmoved, becomes bitter: for the sun and the waterspouts draw up always
the finer parts. Thus it is that clouds are formed and showers take place,
because the filtration makes the water sweet.

This is parted into four first divisions, that is to say, into four rivers. The
name of the first is Pheison, which is the Indian Ganges; the name of the
second is Geon, which is the Nile flowing from Ethiopia down to Egypt:
the name of the third is Tigris, and the name of the fourth is Euphrates.
There are also very many other mighty rivers of which some empty
themselves into the sea and others are used up in the earth. Thus the whole
earth is bored through and mined, and has, so to speak, certain veins
through which it sends up in springs the water it has received from the sea.
The water of the spring thus depends for its character on the quality of the
earth. For the sea water is filtered and strained through the earth and thus
becomes sweet. But if the place from which the spring arises is bitter or
briny, so also is the water that is sent up. Moreover, it often happens that
water which has been closely pent up bursts through with violence, and
thus it becomes warm. And this is why they send forth waters that are
naturally warm.

By the divine decree hollow places are made in the earth, and so into these
the waters are gathered. And this is how mountains are formed. God, then,
bade the first water produce living breath, since it was to be by water and
the Holy Spirit that moved upon the waters in the beginning, that man was
to be renewed. For this is what the divine Basilius said: Therefore it
produced living creatures, small and big; whales and dragons, fish that
swim in the waters, and feathered fowl. The birds form a link between
water and earth and air: for they have their origin in the water, they live on
the earth and they fly in the air. Water, then, is the most beautiful element
and rich in usefulness, and purifies from all filth, and not only from the
filth of the body but from that of the soul, if it should have received the
grace of the Spirit.

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Concerning the seas.

The Aegean Sea is received by the Hellespont, which ends at Abydos and
Sestus: next, the Propontis, which ends at Chalcedon and Byzantium: here
are the straits where the Pontus arises. Next, the lake of Maeotis. Again,
from the beginning of Europe and Libya it is the Iberian Sea, which extends
from the pillars of Hercules to the Pyrenees mountain. Then the Ligurian
Sea as far as the borders of Etruria. Next, the Sardinian Sea, which is above
Sardinia and inclines downwards to Libya. Then the Etrurian Sea, which
begins at the extreme limits of Liguria and ends at Sicily. Then the Libyan
Sea. Then the Cretan, and Sicilian, and Ionian, and Adriatic Seas, the last of
which is poured out of the Sicilian Sea, which is called the Corinthian Gulf,
or the Alcyonian Sea. The Saronic Sea is surrounded by the Sunian and
Scylaean Seas. Next is the Myrtoan Sea and the Icarian Sea, in which are
also the Cyclades. Then the Carpathian, and Pamphylian, and Egyptian
Seas: and, thereafter, above the Icarian Sea, the Aegean Sea pours itself out.
There is also the coast of Europe from the mouth of the Tanais River to
the Pillars of Hercules, 609,709 stadia: and that of Libya from the Tigris,
as far as the mouth of the Canobus, 209,252 stadia: and lastly, that of Asia
from the Canobus to the Tanais, which, including the Gulf, is 4,111 stadia.
And so the full extent of the seaboard of the world that we inhabit with the
gulfs is 1,309,072 stadia.

699

CHAPTER 10

Concerning earth and its products.

The earth is one of the four elements, dry, cold, heavy, motionless,
brought into being by God, out of nothing on the first day. For in the
beginning, he said, God created the heaven and the earths: but the seat and
foundation of the earth no man has been able to declare. Some, indeed, hold
that its seat is the waters: thus the divine David says, To Him Who
established the earth on the waters. Others place it in the air. Again some
other says, fare Who hangeth the earth on nothing. And, again, David, the
singer of God, says, as though the representative of God, I bear up the
pillars of it, meaning by "pillars" the force that sustains it. Further, the
expression, He hath rounded it upon the seas, shews clearly that the earth
is on all hands surrounded with water. But whether we grant that it is
established on itself, or on air or on water, or on nothing, we must not turn
aside from reverent thought, but must admit that all things are sustained
and preserved by the power of the Creator.

In the beginning, then, as the Holy Scripture says, it was hidden beneath
the waters, and was unwrought, that is to say, not beautified. But at God's
bidding, places to hold the waters appeared, and then the mountains came
into existence, and at the divine command the earth received its own
proper adornment, and was dressed in all manner of herbs and plants, and
on these, by the divine decree, was bestowed the power of growth and
nourishment, and of producing seed to generate their like. Moreover, at the
bidding of the Creator it produced also all manner of kinds of living
creatures, creeping things, and wild beasts, and cattle. All, indeed, are for
the seasonable use of man: but of them some are for food, such as stags,
sheep, deer, and such like: others for service such as camels, oxen, horses,
asses, and such like: and others for enjoyment, such as apes, and among
birds, jays and parrots, and such like. Again, amongst plants and herbs
some are fruit bearing, others edible, others fragrant and flowery, given to
us for our enjoyment, for example, the rose and such like, and others for
the healing of disease. For there is not a single animal or plant in which the
Creator has not implanted some form of energy capable of being used to

700

satisfy man's needs. For He Who knew all things before they were, saw
that in the future man would go forward in the strength of his own will,
and would be subject to corruption, and, therefore, He created all things for
his seasonable use, alike those in the firmament, and those on the earth,
and those in the waters.

Indeed, before the transgression all things were under his power. For God
set him as ruler over all things on the earth and in the waters. Even the
serpent was accustomed to man, and approached him more readily than it
did other living creatures, and held intercourse with him with delightful
motions. And hence it was through it that the devil, the prince of evil,
made his most wicked suggestion to our first parents. Moreover, the earth
of its own accord used to yield fruits, for the benefit of the animals that
were obedient to man, and there was neither rain nor tempest on the earth.
But after the transgression, when he was compared with the unintelligent
cattle and became like to them, after he had contrived that in him irrational
desire should have rule over reasoning mind and had become disobedient to
the Master's command, the subject creation rose up against him whom the
Creator had appointed to be ruler: and it was appointed for him that he
should till with sweat the earth from which he had been taken.

But even now wild beasts are not without their uses, for, by the terror
they cause, they bring man to the knowledge of his Creator and lead him to
call upon His name. And, further, at the transgression the thorn sprung out
of the earth in accordance with the Lord's express declaration and was
conjoined with the pleasures of the rose, that it might lead us to remember
the transgression on account of which the earth was condemned to bring
forth for us thorns and prickles.

That this is the case is made worthy of belief from the fact that their
endurance is secured by the word of the Lord, saying, Be fruitful and
multiply, and replenish the earth.

Further, some hold that the earth is in the form of a sphere, others that it is
in that of a cone. At all events it is much smaller than the heaven, and
suspended almost like a point in its midst. And it will pass away and be
changed. But blessed is the man who inherits the earth promised to the
meek.

701

For the earth that is to be the possession of the holy is immortal. Who,
then, can fitly marvel at the boundless and incomprehensible wisdom of
the Creator? Or who can render sufficient thanks to the Giver of so many
blessings?

[There are also provinces, or prefectures, of the earth which we recognize:
Europe embraces thirty four, and the huge continent of Asia has
forty-eight of these provinces, and twelve canons as they are called.]

702

CHAPTER 11

Concerning Paradise.

Now when God was about to fashion man oat of the visible and invisible
creation in His own image and likeness to reign as king and ruler over all
the earth and all that it contains, He first made for him, so to speak, a
kingdom in which he should live a life of happiness and prosperity. And
this is the divine paradise, planted in Eden by the hands of God, a very
storehouse of joy and gladness of heart (for "Eden" means luxuriousness).
Its site is higher in the East than all the earth: it is temperate and the air
that surrounds it is the rarest and purest: evergreen plants are its pride,
sweet fragrances abound, it is flooded with light, and in sensuous freshness
and beauty it transcends imagination: in truth the place is divine, a meet
home for him who was created in God's image: no creature lacking reason
made its dwelling there but man alone, the work of God's own hands.

In its midst God planted the tree of life and the tree of knowledge. The tree
of knowledge was for trial, and proof, and exercise of man's obedience and
disobedience: and hence it was named the tree of the knowledge of good
and evil, or else it was because to those who partook of it was given power
to know their own nature. Now this is a good thing for those who are
mature, but an evil thing for the immature and those whose appetites are
too strong, being like solid food to tender babes still in need of milk. For
our Creator, God, did not intend us to be burdened with care and troubled
about many things, nor to take thought about, or make provision for, our
own life. But this at length was Adam's fate: for he tasted and knew that
he was naked and made a girdle round about him: for he took fig-leaves and
girded himself about. But before they took of the fruit, They were both
naked. Adam and Eve, and were not ashamed. For God meant that we
should be thus free from passion, and this is indeed the mark of a mind
absolutely void of passion. Yea, He meant us further to be free from care
and to have but one work to perform, to sing as do the angels, without
ceasing or intermission, the praises of the Creator, and to delight in
contemplation of Him and to cast all our care on Him. This is what the
Prophet David proclaimed to us when He said, Cast thy burden on the

703

Lord, and He will sustain thee. And, again, in the Gospels, Christ taught
His disciples saying, Take no thought for your life what ye shall eat, nor
for your body what ye shall put on. And further, Seek ye first the
Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added
unto you. And to Martha He said, Martha, Martha, thou art careful and
troubled about many things: but one thing is needful: and Mary hath
chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her, meaning,
clearly, sitting at His feet and listening to His words.

The tree of life, on the other hand, was a tree having the energy that is the
cause of life, or to be eaten only by those who deserve to live and are not
subject to death. Some, indeed, have pictured Paradise as a realm of sense,
and others as a realm of mind. But it seems to me, that, just as man is a
creature, in whom we find both sense and mind blended together, in like
manner also man's most holy temple combines the properties of sense and
mind, and has this twofold expression: for, as we said, the life in the body
is spent in the most divine and lovely region, while the life in the soul is
passed in a place far more sublime and of more surpassing beauty, where
God makes His home, and where He wraps man about as with a glorious
garment, and robes him in His grace, and delights and sustains him like an
angel with the sweetest of all fruits, the contemplation of Himself. Verily
it has been filly named the tree of life. For since the life is not cut short by
death, the sweetness of the divine participation is imparted to those who
share it. And this is, in truth, what God meant by every tree, saying, Of
every tree in Paradise thou mayest freely eat. For the 'every' is just
Himself in Whom and through Whom the universe is maintained. But the
tree of the knowledge of good and evil was for the distinguishing between
the many divisions of contemplation, and this is just the knowledge of
one's own nature, which, indeed, is a good thing for those who are mature
and advanced in divine contemplation (being of itself a proclamation of the
magnificence of God), and have no fear of falling, because they have
through time come to have the habit of such contemplation, but it is an evil
tiring to those still young and with stronger appetites, who by reason of
their insecure bold on the better part, and because as yet they are not
firmly established in the seat of the one and only good, are apt to be torn
and dragged away from this to the care of their own body.

704

Thus, to my thinking, the divine Paradise is twofold, and the God-inspired
Fathers handed down a true message, whether they taught this doctrine or
that. Indeed, it is possible to understand by every tree the knowledge of
the divine power derived from created things. In the words of the divine
Apostle, For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are
clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made. But of all these
thoughts and speculations the sublimest is that dealing with ourselves, that
is, with our own composition. As the divine David says, The knowledge
of Thee from me, that is from my constitution, was made a wonder. But
for the reasons we have already mentioned, such knowledge was dangerous
for Adam who had been so lately created.

The tree of life too may be understood as that more divine thought that has
its origin in the world of sense, and the ascent through that to the
originating and constructive cause of all. And this was the name He gave to
every tree, implying fullness and indivisibility, and conveying only
participation in what is good. But by the tree of the knowledge of good
and evil, we are to understand that sensible and pleasurable food which,
sweet though it seems, in reality brings him who partakes of it into
communion with evil. For God says, Of every tree in Paradise thou
mayest freely eat. It is, me-thinks, as if God said, Through all My
creations thou art to ascend to Me thy creator, and of all the fruits titan
mayest pluck one, that is, Myself who ant the true life: let every thing
bear for thee the fruit of life, and let participation in Me be the support of
your own being. For in this way than wilt be immortal. But of the tree of
the knowledge of good and evil, thou shall not eat of it: for in the day that
thou eatest thereof thou shall surely die s. For sensible food is by nature
for the replenishing of that which gradually wastes away and it passes into
the drought and perisheth: and he cannot remain incorruptible who
partakes of sensible food.

705

CHAPTER 12

Concerning Man.

In this way, then, God brought into existence mental essence, by which I
mean, angels and all the heavenly orders. For these clearly have a mental
and incorporeal nature: "incorporeal" I mean in comparison with the
denseness of matter. For the Deity alone in reality is immaterial and
incorporeal. But further He created in the same way sensible essence, that
is heaven and earth and the intermediate region; and so He created both the
kind of being that is of His own nature (for the nature that has to do with
reason is related to God, and apprehensible by mind alone), and the kind
which, inasmuch as it clearly falls under the province of the senses, is
separated from Him by the greatest interval. And it was also fit that there
should be a mixture of both kinds of being, as a token of still greater
wisdom and of the opulence of the Divine expenditure as regards natures,
as Gregorius, the expounder of God's being and ways, puts it, and to be a
sort of connecting link between the visible and invisible natures. And by
the word "fit" I mean, simply that it was an evidence of the Creator's will,
for that will is the law and ordinance most meet, and no one will say to his
Maker, "Why hast Thou so fashioned me?" For the potter is able at his
will to make vessels of various patterns out of his clay, as a proof of his
own wisdom.

Now this being the case, He creates with His own hands man of a visible
nature and an invisible, after His own image and likeness: on the one hand
man's body He formed of earth, and on the other his reasoning and
thinking soul He bestowed upon him by His own inbreathing, and this is
what we mean by "after His image." For the phrase "after His image"
clearly refers to the side of his nature which consists of mind and free will,
whereas "after His likeness "means likeness in virtue so far as that is
possible.

Further, body and soul were formed at one and the same time, not first the
one and then the other, as Origen so senselessly supposes.

706

God then made man without evil, upright, virtuous, free from pain and
care, glorified with every virtue, adorned with all that is good, like a sort of
second microcosm within the great world, another angel capable of
worship, compound, surveying the visible creation and initiated into the
mysteries of the realm of thought, king over the things of earth, but subject
to a higher king, of the earth and of the heaven, temporal and eternal,
belonging to the realm of sight and to the realm of thought, midway
between greatness and lowliness, spirit and flesh: for he is spirit by grace,
but flesh by overweening pride: spirit that he may abide and glorify his
Benefactor, and flesh that he may suffer, and suffering may be admonished
and disciplined when he prides himself in his greatness: here, that is, in the
present life, his life is ordered as an animal's, but elsewhere, that is, in the
age to come, he is changed and — to complete the mystery — becomes
deified by merely inclining himself towards God; becoming deified, in the
way of participating in the divine glory and not in that of a change into the
divine being.

But God made him by nature sinless, and endowed him with free will. By
sinless, I mean not that sin could find no place in him (for that is the case
with Deity alone), bat that sin is the result of the free volition he enjoys
rather than an integral part of his nature; that is to say, he has the power to
continue and go forward in the path of goodness, by cooperating with the
divine grace, and likewise to turn from good and take to wickedness, for
God has conceded this by conferring freedom of will upon him. For there
is no virtue in what is the result of mere force.

The soul, accordingly, is a living essence, simple, incorporeal, invisible in
its proper nature to bodily eyes, immortal, reasoning and intelligent,
formless, making use of an organized body, and being the source of its
powers of life, and growth, and sensation, and generation, mind being but
its purest part and not in any wise alien to it; (for as the eye to the body,
so is the mind to the soul); further it enjoys freedom and volition and
energy, and is mutable, that is, it is given to change, because it is created.
All these qualities according to nature it has received of the grace of the
Creator, of which grace it has received both its being and this particular
kind of nature.

707

Marg. The different applications of "incorporeal." We understand two
kinds of what is incorporeal and invisible and formless: the one is such in
essence, the other by free gift: and likewise the one is such in nature, and
the other only in comparison with the denseness of matter. God then is
incorporeal by nature, but the angels and demons and souls are said to be
so by free gift, and in comparison with the denseness of matter.

Further, body is that which has three dimensions, that is to say, it has
length and breadth and depth, or thickness. And every body is composed
of the four elements; the bodies of living creatures, moreover, are
composed of the four humors.

Now there are, it should be known, four elements: earth which is dry and
cold: water which is cold and wet: air which is wet and warm: fire which is
warm and dry. In like manner there are also four humors, analogous to the
four elements: black bile, which bears an analogy to earth, for it is dry and
cold: phlegm, analogous to water, for it is cold and wet: blood, analogous
to air, for it is wet and warm: yellow bile, the analogue to fire, for it is
warm and city. Now, fruits are composed of the elements, and the humors
are composed of the fruits, and the bodies of living creatures consist of the
humors and dissolve back into them. For every thing that is compound
dissolves back into its elements.

Marg. That man has community alike with inanimate things and
animate creatures, whether they are devoid of or possess the faculty

of reason.

Man, it is to be noted, has community with things inanimate, and
participates in the life of unreasoning creatures, and shares in the mental
processes of those endowed with reason. For the bond of union between
man and inanimate things is the body and its composition out of the font
elements: and the bond between man and plants consists, in addition to
these things, of their powers of nourishment and growth and seeding, that
is, generation: and finally, over and above these links man is connected
with unreasoning animals by appetite, that is anger and desire, and sense
and impulsive movement.

There are then five senses, sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch. Further,
impulsive movement consists in change from place to place, and in the

708

movements of the body as a whole and in the emission of voice and the
drawing of breath. For we have it in our power to perform or refrain from
performing these actions.

Lastly, man's reason unites him to incorporeal and intelligent natures, for
he applies his reason and mind and judgment to everything, and pursues
after virtues, and eagerly follows after piety, which is the crown of the
virtues. And so man is a microcosm.

Moreover, it should be known that division and flux and change are
peculiar to the body alone. By change, I mean change in quality, that is in
heat and cold and so forth: by flux, I mean change in the way of depletion,
for dry things and wet things and spirit s suffer depletion, and require
repletion: so that hunger and thirst are natural affections. Again, division is
the separation of the humors, one from another, and the partition into form
and matter.

But piety and thought are the peculiar properties of the soul. And the
virtues are common to soul and body, although they are referred to the
soul as if the soul were making use of the body.

The reasoning part, it should be understood, naturally bears rule over that
which is void of reason. For the faculties of the soul are divided into that
which has reason, and that which is without reason. Again, of that which is
without reason there are two divisions: that which does not listen to
reason, that is to say, is disobedient to reason, and that which listens and
obeys reason. That which does not listen or obey reason is the vital or
pulsating faculty, and the spermatic or generative faculty, and the
vegetative or nutritive faculty: to this belong also the faculties of growth
and bodily formation. For these are not under the dominion of reason but
under that of nature. That which listens to and obeys reason, on the other
hand is divided into anger anti desire. And the unreasoning part of the soul
is called in common the pathetic and the appetitive. Further, it is to be
understood, that impulsive movement s likewise belongs to the part that is
obedient to reason.

The part which does not pay heed to reason includes the nutritive and
generative and pulsating faculties: and the name "vegetative" is applied to

709

the faculties of increase and nutriment and generation, and the name "vital"
to the faculty of pulsation.

Of the faculty of nutrition, then, there are four forces: an attractive force
which attracts nourishment: a retentive force by which nourishment is
retained and not suffered to be immediately excreted: an alternative force
by which the food is resolved into the humors: and an excretive force, by
which the excess of food is excreted into the draught and cast forth.

The forces again, inherent in a living creature are, it should be noted, partly
psychical, partly vegetative, partly vital. The psychical forces are
concerned with free volition, that is to say, impulsive movement and
sensation. Impulsive movement includes change of place and movement of
the body as a whole, and phonation and respiration. For it is in our power
to perform or refrain from performing these acts. The vegetative and vital
forces, however, are quite outside the province of will. The vegetative,
moreover, include the faculties of nourishment and growth, and generation,
and the vital power is the faculty of pulsation. For these go on energizing
whether we will it or not.

Lastly, we must observe that of actual things, some are good, and some are
bad. A good thing in anticipation constitutes desire: while a good thing in
realization constitutes pleasure. Similarly an evil thing in anticipation
begets fear, and in realization it begets pain. And when we speak of good
in this connection we are to be understood to mean both real and apparent
good: and, similarly, we mean real and apparent evil.

710

CHAPTER 13

Concerning Pleasures.

There are pleasures of the soul and pleasures of the body. The pleasures of
the soul are those which are the exclusive possession of the soul, such as
the pleasures of learning and contemplation. The pleasures of the body,
however, are those which are enjoyed by soul and body in fellowship, and
hence are called bodily pleasures: and such are the pleasures of food and
intercourse and the like. But one could not find any class of pleasures
belonging solely to the body.

Again, some pleasures are true, others false. And the exclusively
intellectual pleasures consist in knowledge and contemplation, while the
pleasures of the body depend upon sensation. Further, of bodily
pleasures, some are both natural and necessary, in the absence of which life
is impossible, for example the pleasures of food which replenishes waste,
and the pleasures of necessary clothing. Others are natural but not
necessary, as the pleasures of natural and lawful intercourse. For though
the function that these perform is to secure the permanence of the race as a
whole, it is still possible to live a virgin life apart from them. Others,
however, are neither natural nor necessary, such as drunkenness, lust, and
surfeiting to excess. For these contribute neither to the maintenance of our
own lives nor to the succession of the race, but on the contrary, are rather
even a hindrance. He therefore that would live a life acceptable to God
must follow after those pleasures which are both natural and necessary:
and must give a secondary place to those which are natural but not
necessary, and enjoy them only in fitting season, and manner, and measure;
while the others must be altogether renounced.

Those then are to be considered moral pleasures which are not bound up
with pain, and bring no cause for repentance, and result in no other harm
and keep within the bounds of moderation, and do not draw us far away
from serious occupations, nor make slaves of us.

711

CHAPTER 14

Concerning Pain.

There are four varieties of pain, viz., anguish, griefs, envy, pity. Anguish is
pain without utterance: grief is pain that is heavy to bear like a burden:
envy is pain over the good fortune of others: pity is pain over the evil
fortune of others.

712

CHAPTER 15

Concerning Fear.

Fear is divided into six varieties: viz., shrinking, shame, disgrace,
consternation, panic, anxiety. Shrinking is fear of some act about to take
place. Shame is fear arising from the anticipation of blame: and this is the
highest form of the affection. Disgrace is fear springing from some base act
already done, and even for this form there is some hope of salvation.
Consternation is fear originating in some huge product of the imagination.
Panic is fear caused by some unusual product of the imagination. Anxiety
is fear of failure, that is, of misfortune: for when we fear that our efforts
will not meet with success, we suffer anxiety.

713

CHAPTER 16

Concerning Anger.

Anger is the ebullition of the heart' s blood produced by bilious exhalation
or turbidity. Hence it is that the words %oXf| and %6Xo<; are both used in
the sense of anger. Anger is sometimes lust for vengeance. For when we are
wronged or think that we are wronged, we are distressed, and there arises
this mixture of desire and anger.

There are three forms of anger: rage, which the Greeks also call %o^r| or
%6Xo<;, i>f|vi<; and koto<;. When anger arises and begins to be roused, it is
called rage or %oXr| or %6Xoc;. Wrath again implies that the bile endures,
that is to say, that the memory of the wrong abides: and indeed the Greek
word for it, |if|vic, is derived from peveiv, and means what abides and is
transferred to memory. Rancor, on the other hand, implies watching for a
suitable moment for revenge, and the Greek word for it is kotoc; from
KeiaGoci.

Anger further is the satellite of reason, the vindicator of desire. For when
we long after anything and are opposed in our desire by some one, we are
angered at that person, as though we had been wronged: and reason
evidently deems that there are just grounds for displeasure in what has
happened, in the case of those who, like us, have in the natural course of
things to guard their own position.

714

CHAPTER 17

Concerning Imagination.

Imagination is a faculty of the unreasoning part of the soul. It is through
the organs of sense that it is brought into action, and it is spoken of as
sensation. And further, what is imagined and perceived is that which
comes within the scope of the faculty of imagination and sensation. For
example, the sense of sight is the visual faculty itself, but the object of
sight is that which comes within the scope of the sense of sight, such as a
stone or any other such object. Further, an imagination is an affection of
the unreasoning part of the soul which is occasioned by some object acting
upon the sensation. But an appearance is an empty affection of the
unreasoning part of the soul, not occasioned by any object acting upon the
sensation. Moreover the organ of imagination is the anterior ventricle of
the brain.

715

CHAPTER 18

Concerning Sensation.

Sensation is that faculty of the soul whereby material objects can be
apprehended or discriminated. And the sensoria are the organs or members
through which sensations are conveyed. And the objects of sense are the
things that come within the province of sensation. And lastly, the subject
of sense is the living animal which possesses the faculty of sensation. Now
there are five senses, and likewise five organs of sense.

The first sense is sight: and the sensoria or organs of sight are the nerves of
the brain and the eyes. Now sight is primarily perception of color, but
along with the color it discriminates the body that has color, and its size
and form, and locality, and the intervening space and the number: also
whether it is in motion or at rest, rough or smooth, even or uneven, sharp
or blunt, and finally whether its composition is watery or earthy, that is,
wet or dry.

The second sense is hearing, whereby voices and sounds are perceived.
And it distinguishes these as sharp or deep, or smooth or loud. Its organs
are the soft nerves of the brain, and the structure of the ears. Further, man
and the ape are the only animals that do not move their ears.

The third sense is smell, which is caused by the nostrils transmitting the
vapors to the brain: and it is bounded by the extreme limits of the anterior
ventricle of the brain. It is the faculty by which vapors are perceived and
apprehended. Now, the most generic distinction between vapors is
whether they have a good or an evil odor, or form an intermediate class
with neither a good nor an evil odor. A good odor is produced by the
thorough digestion in the body of the humors. When they are only
moderately digested the intermediate class is formed, and when the
digestion is very imperfect or utterly wanting, an evil odor results.

The fourth sense is taste: it is the faculty whereby the humors are
apprehended or perceived, and its organs of sense are the tongue, and more
especially the lips, and the palate (which the Greeks call cupocvioKot;),
and in these are nerves that come from the brain and are spread out, and

716

convey to the dominant part of the soul the perception or sensation they
have encountered. The so-called gustatory qualities of the humors are
these: — sweetness, pungency, bitterness, astringency, acerbity, sourness,
saltness, fattiness, stickiness; for taste is capable of discriminating all
these. But water has none of these qualities, and is therefore devoid of
taste. Moreover, astringency is only a more intense and exaggerated form
of acerbity.

The fifth sense is touch, which is common to all living things. Its organs
are nerves which come from the brain and ramify all through the body.
Hence the body as a whole, including even the other organs of sense,
possesses the sense of touch. Within its scope come heat and cold,
softness and hardness, viscosity and brittleness, heaviness and lightness:
for it is by touch alone that these qualities are discriminated. On the other
hand, roughness and smoothness, dryness and wetness, thickness and
thinness, up and down, place and size, whenever that is such as to be
embraced in a single application of the sense of touch, are all common to
touch and sight, as well as denseness and rareness, that is porosity, and
rotundity if it is small, and some other shapes. In like manner also by the
aid of memory and thought perception of the nearness of a body is
possible, and similarly perception of number up to two or three, and such
small and easily reckoned figures. But it is by sight rather than touch that
these things are perceived.

The Creator, it is to be noted, fashioned all the other organs of sense in
pairs, so that if one were destroyed, the other might fill its place. For there
are two eyes, two ears, two orifices of the nose, and two tongues, which in
some animals, such as snakes, are separate, but in others, like man, are
united. But touch is spread over the whole body with the exception of
bones, nerves, nails, horns, hairs, ligaments, and other such structures.

Further, it is to be observed that sight is possible only in straight lines,
whereas smell and hearing are not limited to straight lines only, but act in
all directions. Touch, again, and taste act neither in straight lines, nor in
every direction, but only when each comes near to the sensible objects that
are proper to it.

717

CHAPTER 19

Concerning Thought.

The faculty of thought deals with judgments and assents, and impulse to
action and disinclinations, and escapes from action: and more especially
with thoughts connected with what is thinkable, and the virtues and the
different branches of learning, and the theories of the arts and matters of
counsel and choice. Further, it is this faculty which prophesies the future
to us in dreams, and this is what the Pythagoreans, adopting the Hebrew
view, hold to be the one true form of prophecy. The organ of thought then
is the mid- ventricle of the brain, and the vital spirit it contains.

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CHAPTER 20

Concerning Memory.

The faculty of memory is the cause and storehouse of remembrance and
recollection. For memory is a fantasy s that is left behind of some
sensation and thought manifesting itself in action; or the preservation of a
sensation and thought. For the soul comprehends objects of sense through
the organs of sense, that is to say, it perceives, and thence arises a notion:
and similarly it comprehends the objects of thought through the mind, and
thence arises a thought. It is then the preservation of the types of these
notions and thoughts that is spoken of as memory.

Further, it is worthy of remark that the apprehension of matters of
thought depends on learning, or natural process of thought, and not on
sensation. For though objects of sense are retained in the memory by
themselves, only such objects of thought are remembered as we have
learned, and we have no memory of their essence.

Recollection is the name given to the recovery of some memory lost by
forgetfulness. For forgetfulness is just loss of memory. The faculty of
imagination then, having apprehended material objects through the senses,
transmits this to the faculty of thought or reason (for they are both the
same), and this after it has received and passed judgment on it, passes it on
to the faculty of memory. Now the organ of memory is the posterior
ventricle of the brain, which the Greeks call the TtapeyKecpa^'n;, and the
vital spirit it contains.

719

CHAPTER 21

Concerning Conception and Articulation.

Again the reasoning part of the soul is divided into conception and
articulation. Conception is an activity of the soul originating in the reason
without resulting in utterance. Accordingly, often, even when we are silent
we run through a whole speech in our minds, and hold discussions in our
dreams. And it is this faculty chiefly which constitutes us all reasoning
beings. For those who are dumb by birth or have lost their voice through
some disease or injury, are just as much reasoning beings. But articulation
by voice or in the different dialects requires energy: that is to say, the
word is articulated by the tongue and mouth, and this is why it is named
articulation. It is, indeed, the messenger of thought, and it is because of it
that we are called speaking beings.

720

CHAPTER 22

Concerning Passion and Energy.

Passion is a word with various meanings. It is used in regard to the body,
anti refers to diseases and wounds, and again, it is used in reference to the
soul, and means desire anti anger. But to speak broadly and generally,
passion is an animal affection which is succeeded by pleasure anti pain.
For pain succeeds passion, but is not the same thing as passion. For
passion is an affection of things without sense, but not so pain. Pain then
is not passion, but the sensation of passion: and it must be considerable,
that is to say, it must be great enough to come within the scope of sense.

Again, the definition of passions of the soul is this: Passion is a sensible
activity of the appetitive faculty, depending on the presentation to the
mind of something good or bad. Or in other words, passion is an irrational
activity of the soul, resulting from the notion of something good or bad.
For the notion of something good results in desire, and the notion of
something bad results in anger. But passion considered as a class, that is,
passion in general, is defined as a movement in one thing caused by
another. Energy, on the other hand, is a drastic movement, and by
"drastic" is meant that which is moved of itself. Thus, anger is the energy
manifested by the part of the soul where anger resides, whereas passion
involves the two divisions of the soul, and in addition the whole body
when it is forcibly impelled to action by anger. For there has been caused
movement in one thing caused by another, and this is called passion.

But in another sense energy is spoken of as passion. For energy is a
movement in harmony with nature, whereas passion is a movement at
variance with nature. According, then, to this view, energy may be spoken
of as passion when it does not act in accord with nature, whether its
movement is due to itself or to some other thing. Thus, in connection with
the heart, its natural pulsation is energy, whereas its palpitation, which is
an excessive and unnatural movement, is passion and not energy.

But it is not every activity of the passionate part of the soul that is called
passion, but only the more violent ones, and such as are capable of causing

721

sensation: for the minor and unperceived movements are certainly not
passions. For to constitute passion there is necessary a considerable degree
of force, and thus it is on this account that we add to the definition of
passion that it is a sensible activity. For the lesser activities escape the
notice of the senses, and do not cause passion.

Observe also that our soul possesses twofold faculties, those of
knowledge, and those of life. The faculties of knowledge are mind, thought,
notion, presentation, sensation: and the vital or appetitive faculties are will
and choice. Now, to make what has been said clearer, let us consider these
things more closely, and first let us take the faculties of knowledge.

Presentation and sensation then have already been sufficiently discussed
above. It is sensation that causes a passion, which is called presentation, to
arise in the soul, and from presentation comes notion. Thereafter thought,
weighing the truth or falseness of the notion, determines what is true: and
this explains the Greek word for thought, Siocvoioc, which is derived from
Siocvoeiv, meaning to think and discriminate. That, however, which is
judged and determined to be true, is spoken of as mind.

Or to put it otherwise: The primary activity of the mind, observe, is
intelligence, but intelligence applied to any object is called a thought, and
when this persists and makes on the mind an impression of the object of
thought, it is named reflection, and when reflection dwells on the same
object and puts itself to the test, and closely examines the relation of the
thought to the soul, it gets the name prudence. Further, prudence, when it
extends its area forms the power of reasoning, and is called conception, and
this is defined as the fullest activity of the soul, arising in that part where
reason resides, and being devoid of outward expression: and from it
proceeds the uttered word spoken by the tongue. And now that we have
discussed the faculties of knowledge, let us turn to the vital or appetitive
faculties.

It should be understood that there is implanted in the soul by nature a
faculty of desiring that which is in harmony with its nature, and of
maintaining in close union all that belongs essentially to its nature: and this
power is called will or 9eXr|oi<;. For the essence both of existence and of
living yearns after activity both as regards mind and sense, and in this it
merely longs to realize its own natural and perfect being. And so this

722

definition also is given of this natural will: will is an appetite, both rational
and vital, depending only on what is natural. So that will is nothing else
than the natural and vital and rational appetite of all things that go to
constitute nature, that is, just the simple faculty. For the appetite of
creatures without reason, since it is irrational, is not called will.

Again (3o\)Xr|ai<; or wish is a sort of natural will, that is to say, a natural
and rational appetite for some definite thing. For there is seated in the soul
of man a faculty of rational desire. When, then, this rational desire directs
itself naturally to some definite object it is called wish. For wish is rational
desire and longing for some definite thing.

Wish, however, is used both in connection with what is within our power,
and in connection with what is outside our power, that is, both with regard
to the possible and the impossible. For we wish often to indulge lust or to
be temperate, or to sleep and the like, and these are within our power to
accomplish, and possible. But we wish also to be kings, and this is not
within our power, or we wish perchance never to die, and this is an
impossibility.

The wish, then, has reference to the end alone, and not to the means by
which the end is attained. The end is the object of our wish, for instance,
to be a king or to enjoy good health: but the means by which the end is
attained, that is to say, the manner in which we ought to enjoy good
health, or reach the rank of king, are the objects of deliberation. Then after
wish follow inquiry and speculation (Cfyz^oiq and gk£\|/i<;), and after
these, if the object is anything within our power, comes counsel or
deliberation (PcuXri or Po\)Xei>oi<;): counsel is an appetite for
investigating lines of action lying within our own power. For one
deliberates, whether one ought to prosecute any matter or not, and next,
one decides which is the better, and this is called judgment (kp'igk;).
Thereafter, one becomes disposed to and forms a liking for that in favor of
which deliberation gave judgment, and this is called inclination (yvcojxri).
For should one form a judgment and not be disposed to or form a liking for
the object of that judgment, it is not called inclination. Then, again, after
one has become so disposed, choice or selection (rcpoocipeoK; and
kniXoyr\) comes into play. For choice consists in the choosing and
selecting of one of two possibilities in preference to the other. Then one is

723

impelled to action, and this is called impulse (oppfi): and thereafter it is
brought into employment, and this is called use (%pf|Gi<;). The last stage
after we have enjoyed the use is cessation from desire.

In the case, however, of creatures without reason, as soon as appetite is
roused for any-tiring, straightway arises impulse to action. For the
appetite of creatures without reason is irrational, and they are ruled by
their natural appetite. Hence, neither the names of will or wish are
applicable to the appetite of creatures without reason. For will is rational,
free and natural desire, and in the case of man, endowed with reason as he
is, the natural appetite is ruled rather than rules For his actions are free,
and depend upon reason, since the faculties of knowledge and life are
bound up together in man. He is free in desire, free in wish, free in
examination and investigation, free in deliberation, free in judgment, free in
inclination, free in choice, free in impulse, and free in action where that is
in accordance with nature.

But in the case of God, it is to be remembered, we speak of wish, but it is
not correct to speak of choice. For God does not deliberate, since that is a
mark of ignorance, and no one deliberates about what he knows. But if
counsel is a mark of ignorance, surely choice must also be so. God, then,
since He has absolute knowledge of everything, does not deliberate.

Nor in the case of the soul of the Lord do we speak of counsel or choice,
seeing that He had no part in ignorance. For, although He was of a nature
that is not cognizant of the future, yet because of His oneness in
subsistence with God the Word, He had knowledge of all things, and that
not by grace, but, as we have said, because He was one in subsistence. For
He Himself was both God and Man, and hence He did not possess the will
that acts by opinion or disposition. While He did possess the natural and
simple will which is to be observed equally in all the personalities of men,
His holy soul had not opinion (or, disposition) that is to say, no
inclination opposed to His divine will, nor aught else contrary to His
divine will. For opinion (or, disposition) differs as persons differ, except m
the case of the holy and simple and uncompound and indivisible Godhead.
There, indeed, since the subsistences are in nowise divided or separated,
neither is the object of will divided. And there, since there is but one
nature, there is also but one natural will. And again, since the subsistences

724

are unseparated, the three subsistences have also one object of will, and
one activity. In the case of men, however, seeing that their nature is one,
their natural will is also one, but since their subsistences are separated and
divided from each other, alike in place and time, and disposition to things,
and in many other respects, for this reason their acts of will and their
opinions are different. But in the case of our Lord Jesus Christ, since He
possesses different natures, His natural wills, that is, His volitional
faculties belonging to Him as God and as Man are also different. But since
the subsistence is one, and He Who exercises the will is one, the object of
the will the gnomic will, is also one, His human will evidently following
His divine will, and willing that which the divine will willed it to will.

Further note, that will (GeXnaic;) and wish (pouXnaic;) are two different
things: also the object of will (to GeXrycov) and the capacity for will
(GeXnriKov), and the subject that exercises will (6 GeXcov), are all
different. For will is just the simple faculty of willing, whereas wish is will
directed to some definite object. Again, the object of will is the matter
underlying the will, that is to say, the thing that we will: for instance,
when appetite is roused for food. The appetite pure and simple, however,
is a rational will. The capacity for will, moreover, means that which
possesses the volitional faculty, for example, man. Further, the subject
that exercises will is the actual person who makes use of will.

The word to GeXrijioc, it is well to note, sometimes denotes the will, that
is, the volitional faculty, and in this sense we speak of natural will: and
sometimes it denotes the object of will, and we speak of will (6eXr|jj,oc
yvcou-iKov) depending on inclination.

725

CHAPTER 23

Concerning Energy.

All the faculties we have already discussed, both those of knowledge and
those of life, both the natural and the artificial, are, it is to be noted, called
energies. For energy s is the natural force and activity of each essence: or
again, natural energy is the activity innate in every essence: and so, clearly,
things that have the same essence have also the same energy, and things
that have different natures have also different energies. For no essence can
be devoid of natural energy.

Natural energy again is the force in each essence by which its nature is
made manifest. And again: natural energy is the primal, eternally-moving
force of the intelligent soul: that is, the eternally-moving word of the soul,
which ever springs naturally from it. And yet again: natural energy is the
force and activity of each essence which only that which is not lacks.

But actions are also called energies: for instance, speaking, eating, drinking,
and such like. The natural affections also are often called energies, for
instance, hunger, thirst, and so forth. And yet again, the result of the force
is also often called energy.

Things are spoken of in a twofold way as being potential and actual. For
we say that the child at the breast is a potential scholar, for he is so
equipped that, if taught, he will become a scholar. Further, we speak of a
potential and an actual scholar, meaning that the latter is versed in letters,
while the former has the power of interpreting letters, but does not put it
into actual use: again, when we speak of an actual scholar, we mean that he
puts his power into actual use, that is to say, that he really interprets
writings.

It is, therefore, to be observed that in the second sense potentiality and
actuality go together; for the scholar is in the one case potential, and in the
other actual.

726

The primal and only true energy of nature is the voluntary or rational and
independent life which constitutes our humanity. I know not how those
who rob the Lord of this can say that He became man.

Energy is drastic activity of nature: and by drastic is meant that which is
moved of itself.

727

CHAPTER 24

Concerning what is Voluntary anal what is Involuntary.

The voluntary implies a certain definite action, and so-called
involuntariness also implies a certain definite action. Further, many
attribute true involuntariness not only to suffering, but even to action. We
must then understand action to be rational energy. Actions are followed by
praise or blame, and some of them are accompanied with pleasure and
others with pain; some are to be desired by the actor, others are to be
shunned: further, of those that are desirable, some are always so, others
only at some particular time. And so it is also with those that are to be
shunned. Again, some actions enlist pity and are pardonable, others are
hateful and deserve punishment. Voluntariness, then, is assuredly followed
by praise or blame, and renders the action pleasurable and desirable to the
actor, either for all time or for the moment of its performance.
Involuntariness, on the other hand, brings merited pity or pardon in its
train, and renders the act painful and undesirable to the doer, and makes
him leave it in a state of incompleteness even though force is brought to
bear upon him.

Further, what is involuntary, depends in part on force and in part on
ignorance. It depends on force when the creative beginning in cause is from
without, that is to say, when one is forced by another without being at all
persuaded, or when one does not contribute to the act on one's own
impulse, or does not co-operate at all, or do on one's own account that
which is exacted by force. Thus we may give this definition: "An
involuntary act is one in which the beginning is from without, and where
one does not contribute at all on one's own impulse to that which one is
force" And by beginning we mean the creative cause. All involuntary act
depends, on the other hand, on ignorance, when one is not the cause of the
ignorance one's self, but events just so happen. For, if one commits
murder while drunk, it is an act of ignorance, but yet not involuntary: for
one was one's self responsible for the cause of the ignorance, that is to
say, the drunkenness. But if while shooting at the customary range one

728

slew one's father who happened to be passing by, this would be termed an
ignorant and involuntary act.

As, then, that which is involuntary is in two parts, one depending on
force, the other on ignorance, that which is voluntary is the opposite of
both. For that which is voluntary is the result neither of force nor of
ignorance. A voluntary act, then, is one of which the beginning or cause
originates in an actor, who knows each individual circumstance through
which and in which the action takes place. By "individual" is meant what
the rhetoricians call circumstantial elements: for instance, the actor, the
sufferer, the action (perchance a murder), the instrument, the place, the
time, the manner, the reason of the action.

Notice that there are certain things that occupy a place intermediate
between what is voluntary and what is involuntary. Although they are
unpleasant and painful we welcome them as the escape from a still greater
trouble; for instance, to escape shipwreck we cast the cargo overboard.

Notice also that children and irrational creatures perform voluntary
actions, but these do not involve the exercise of choice: further, all our
actions that are done in anger and without previous deliberation are
voluntary actions, but do not in the least involve free choice. Also, if a
friend suddenly appears on the scene, or if one unexpectedly lights on a
treasure, so far as we are concerned it is quite voluntary, but there is no
question of choice in the matter. For all these things are voluntary, because
we desire pleasure from them, but they do not by any means imply choice,
because they are not the result of deliberation. And deliberation must
assuredly precede choice, as we have said above.

729

CHAPTER 25

Concerning what is in our own power, that is, concerning Free-will.

The first enquiry involved in the consideration of free-will, that is, of what
is in our own power, is whether anything is in our power: for there are
many who deny this. The second is, what are the things that are in our
power, and over what things do we have authority? The third is, what is
the reason for which God Who created us endued us with free-will? So
then we shall take up the first question, and firstly we shall prove that of
those things which even our opponents grant, some are within our power.
And let us proceed thus.

Of all the things that happen, the cause is said to be either God, or
necessity, or fate, or nature, or chance, or accident. But God's function has
to do with essence and providence: necessity deals with the movement of
things that ever keep to the same course: fate with the necessary
accomplishment of the things it brings to pass (for fate itself implies
necessity): nature with birth, growth, destruction, plants and animals;
chance with what is rare and unexpected. For chance is defined as the
meeting and concurrence of two causes, originating in choice but bringing to
pass something other than what is natural: for example, if a man finds a
treasure while digging a ditch: for the man who hid the treasure did not do
so that the other might find it, nor did the finder dig with the purpose of
finding the treasure: but the former hid it that he might take it away when
he wished, and the other's aim was to dig the ditch: whereas something
happened quite different from what both had in view. Accident again deals
with casual occurrences that take place among lifeless or irrational things,
apart from nature and art. This then is their doctrine. Under which, then,
of these categories are we to bring what happens through the agency of
man, if indeed man is not the cause and beginning of action? for it would
not be right to ascribe to God actions that are sometimes base and unjust:
nor may we ascribe these to necessity, for they are not such as ever
continue the same: nor to fate, for fate implies not possibility only but
necessity: nor to nature, for nature's province is animals and plants: nor to
chance, for the actions of men are not rare and unexpected: nor to accident,

730

for that is used in reference to the casual occurrences that take place in the
world of lifeless and irrational things. We are left then with this fact, that
the man who acts and makes is himself the author of his own works, and is
a creature endowed with free-will.

Further, if man is the author of no action, the faculty of deliberation is
quite superfluous for to what purpose could deliberation be put if man is
the master of none of his actions? for all deliberation is for the sake of
action. But to prove that the fairest and most precious of man's
endowments is quite superfluous would be the height of absurdity. If then
man deliberates, he deliberates with a view to action. For all deliberation is
with a view to and on account of action.

731

CHAPTER 26

Concerning Events.

Of events, some are in our hands, others are not. Those then are in our
hands which we are free to do or not to do at our will, that is all actions
that are done voluntarily (for those actions are not called voluntary the
doing of which is not in our hands), and in a word, all that are followed by
blame or praise and depend on motive and law. Strictly all mental and
deliberative acts are in our hands. Now deliberation is concerned with equal
possibilities: and an 'equal possibility' is an action that is itself within our
power and its opposite, and our mind makes choice of the alternatives, and
this is the origin of action. The actions, therefore, that are in our hands are
these equal possibilities: e.g. to be moved or not to be moved, to hasten or
not to hasten, to long for unnecessaries or not to do so, to tell lies or not to
tell lies, to give or not to give, to rejoice or not to rejoice as fits the
occasion, and all such actions as imply virtue or vice in their performance,
for we are free to do or not to do these at our pleasure. Amongst equal
possibilities also are included the arts, for we have it in our power to
cultivate these or not as we please.

Note, however, that while the choice of what is to be done is ever in our
power, the action itself often is prevented by some dispensation of the
divine Providence.

732

CHAPTER 27

Concerning the reason of our endowment with Free-will.

We hold, therefore, that free-will comes on the scene at the same moment
as reason, and that change and alteration are congenital to all that is
produced. For all that is produced is also subject to change. For those
things must be subject to change whose production has its origin in change.
And change consists in being brought into being out of nothing, and in
transforming a substratum of matter into something different. Inanimate
things, then, and things without reason undergo the aforementioned bodily
changes, while the changes of things endowed with reason depend on
choice. For reason consists of a speculative and a practical part. The
speculative part is the contemplation of the nature of things, and the
practical consists in deliberation and defines the true reason for what is to
be done. The speculative side is called mind or wisdom, and the practical
side is called reason or prudence. Every one, then, who deliberates does so
in the belief that the choice of what is to be done lies in his hands, that he
may choose what seems best as the result of his deliberation, and having
chosen may act upon it. And if this is so, free-will must necessarily be
very closely related to reason. For either man is an irrational being, or, if he
is rational, he is master of his acts and endowed with free-will. Hence also
creatures without reason do not enjoy free-will: for nature leads them
rather than they nature, and so they do not oppose the natural appetite,
but as soon as their appetite longs after anything they rush headlong after
it. But man, being rational, leads nature rather than nature him, and so
when he desires aught he has the power to curb his appetite or to indulge it
as he pleases. Hence also creatures devoid of reason are the subjects
neither of praise nor blame, while man is the subject of both praise and
blame.

Note also that the angels, being rational, are endowed with free-will, and,
inasmuch as they are created, are liable to change. This in fact is made plain
by the devil who, although made good by the Creator, became of his own
free-will the inventor of evil, and by the powers who revolted with him,

733

that is the demons, and by the other troops of angels who abode in
goodness.

734

CHAPTER 28

Concerning what is not in our hands.

Of things that are not in our hands some have their beginning or cause in
those that are in our power, that is to say, the recompenses of our actions
both in the present and in the age to come, but all the rest are dependent on
the divine will. For the origin of all things is from God, but their
destruction has been introduced by our wickedness for our punishment or
benefit. For God did not create death, neither does He take delight in the
destruction of living things. But death is the work rather of man, that is, its
origin is in Adam's transgression, in like manner as all other punishments.
But all other things must be referred to God. For our birth is to be referred
to His creative power; and our continuance to His conservative power; and
our government and safety to His providential power; and the eternal
enjoyment of good things by those who preserve the laws of nature in
which we are formed is to be ascribed to His goodness. But since some
deny the existence of Providence, let us further devote a few words to the
discussion of Providence.

735

CHAPTER 29

Concerning Providence.

Providence, then, is the care that God takes over existing things. And again:
Providence is the will of God through which all existing things receive their
fitting issue. But if Providence is God's will, according to true reasoning all
things that come into being through Providence must necessarily be both
most fair and most excellent, and such that they cannot be surpassed. For
the same person must of necessity be creator of and provider for what
exists: for it is not meet nor fitting that the creator of what exists and the
provider should be separate persons. For in that case they would both
assuredly be deficient, the one in creating, the other in providing. God
therefore is both Creator and Provider, and His creative and preserving and
providing power is simply His good-will. For whatsoever the Lard pleased
that did He in heaven and in earth, and no one resisted His will. He willed
that all things should be and they were. He wills the universe to be framed
and it is framed, and all that He wills comes to pass.

That He provides, and that He provides excellently, one can most readily
perceive thus. God alone is good and wise by nature. Since then He is
good, He provides: for he who does not provide is not good. For even men
and creatures without reason provide for their own offspring according to
their nature, and he who does not provide is blamed. Again, since He is
wise, He takes the best care over what exists.

When, therefore, we give heed to these things we ought to be filled with
wonder at all the works of Providence, and praise them all, and accept
them all without enquiry, even though they are in the eyes of many unjust,
because the Providence of God is beyond our ken and comprehension,
while our reasonings and actions and the future are revealed to His eyes
alone. And by "all" I mean those that are not in our hands: for those that
are in our power are outside the sphere of Providence and within that of
our Free-will.

Now the works of Providence are partly according to the good-will(of
God) and partly according to permission. Works of good-will include all

736

those that are undeniably good, while works of permission are For

Providence often permits the just man to encounter misfortune in order
that he may reveal to others the virtue that lies concealed within him, as
was the case with Job. At other times it allows something strange to be
done in order that something great and marvelous might be accomplished
through the seemingly- strange act, as when the salvation of men was
brought about through the Cross. In another way it allows the pious man
to suffer sore trials in order that he may not depart from a right conscience
nor lapse into pride on account of the power and grace granted to him, as
was the case with Paul.

One man is forsaken for a season with a view to another's restoration, in
order that others when they see his state may be taught a lesson, as in the
case of Lazarus and the rich man. For it belongs to our nature to be east
down when we see persons in distress. Another is deserted by Providence
in order that another may be glorified, and not for his own sin or that of his
parents, just as the man who was blind from his birth ministered to the
glory of the Son of Man. Again another is permitted to suffer in order to
stir up emulation in the breasts of others, so that others by magnifying the
glory of the sufferer may resolutely welcome suffering in the hope of
future glory and the desire for future blessings, as in the case of the
martyrs. Another is allowed to fall at times into some act of baseness in
order that another worse fault may be thus corrected, as for instance when
God allows a man who takes pride in his virtue and righteousness to fall
away into fornication in order that he may be brought through this fall into
the perception of his own weakness and be humbled and approach and
make confession to the Lord.

Moreover, it is to be observed that the choice of what is to be done is in
our own hands: but the final issue depends, in the one case when our
actions are good, on the cooperation of God, Who in His justice brings
help according to His foreknowledge to such as choose the good with a
right conscience, and, in the other case when our actions are to evil, on the
desertion by God, Who again in His justice stands aloof in accordance with
His foreknowledge.

Now there are two forms of desertion: for there is desertion in the matters
of guidance and training, and there is complete and hopeless desertion. The

737

former has in view the restoration and safety and glory of the sufferer, or
the rousing of feelings of emulation and imitation in others, or the glory of
God: but the latter is when man, after God has done all that was possible
to save him, remains of his own set purpose blind and uncured, or rather
incurable, and then he is handed over to utter destruction, as was Judas.
May God be gracious to us, and deliver us from such desertion.

Observe further that the ways of God's providence are many, and they
cannot be explained in words nor conceived by the mind.

And remember that all the assaults of dark and evil fortune contribute to
the salvation of those who receive them with thankfulness, and are
assuredly ambassadors of help.

Also one must bear in mind that God's original wish was that all should be
saved and come to His Kingdom. For it was not for punishment that He
formed us but to share in His goodness, inasmuch as He is a good God.
But inasmuch as He is a just God, His will is that sinners should suffer
punishment.

The first then is called God's antecedent will and pleasure, and springs
from Himself, while the second is called God's consequent will and
permission, and has its origin in us. And the latter is two-fold; one part
dealing with matters of guidance and training, and having in view our
salvation, and the other being hopeless and leading to our utter
punishment, as we said above. And this is the case with actions that are
not left in our hands.

But of actions that are in our hands the good ones depend on His
antecedent goodwill and pleasure, while the wicked ones depend neither on
His antecedent nor on His consequent will, but are a concession to
free-will For that which is the result of compulsion has neither reason nor
virtue in it. God makes provision for all creation and makes all creation the
instrument of His help and training, yea often even the demons
themselves, as for example in the cases of Job and the swine.

738

CHAPTER 30

Concerning Prescience and Predestination.

We ought to understand that while God knows all things beforehand, yet
He does not predetermine all things. For He knows beforehand those
things that are in our power, but He does not predetermine them. For it is
not His will that there should be wickedness nor does He choose to
compel virtue. So that predetermination is the work of the divine command
based on fore-knowledge. But on the other hand God predetermines those
things which are not within our power in accordance with His prescience.
For already God in His prescience has prejudged all things in accordance
with His goodness and justice.

Bear in mind, too, that virtue is a gift from God implanted in our nature,
and that He Himself is the source and cause of all good, and without His
co-operation and help we cannot will or do any good thing, But we have it
in our power either to abide in virtue and follow God, Who calls us into
ways of virtue, or to stray from paths of virtue, which is to dwell in
wickedness, and to follow the devil who summons but cannot compel us.
For wickedness is nothing else than the withdrawal of goodness, just as
darkness is nothing else than the withdrawal of light While then we abide
in the natural state we abide in virtue, but when we deviate from the
natural state, that is from virtue, we come into an unnatural state and dwell
in wickedness.

Repentance is the returning from the unnatural into the natural state, from
the devil to God, through discipline and effort.

Man then the Creator made male, giving him to share in His own divine
grace, and bringing him thus into communion with Himself: and thus it was
that he gave in the manner of a prophet the names to living flyings, with
authority as though they were given to be his slaves. For having been
endowed with reason and mind, and free-will after the image of God, he
was filly entrusted with dominion over earthly things by the common
Creator and Master of all.

739

But since God in His prescience knew that man would transgress and
become liable to destruction, He made from him a female to be a help to
him like himself; a help, indeed, for the conservation of the race after the
transgression from age to age by generation. For the earliest formation is
called 'making' and not 'generation.' For 'making ' is the original formation
at God's hands, while 'generation' is the succession from each Other made
necessary by the sentence of death imposed on us 'on account of the
transgression.

This man He placed in Paradise, a home that was alike spiritual and
sensible. For he lived in the body on the earth in the realm of sense, while
he dwelt in the spirit among the angels, cultivating divine thoughts, and
being supported by them: living in naked simplicity a life free from
artificiality, and being led up through His creations to the one and only
Creator, in Whose contemplation he found joy and gladness.

When therefore He had furnished his nature with free-will, He imposed a
law on him, not to taste of the tree of knowledge. Concerning this tree, we
have said as much as is necessary in the chapter about Paradise, at least as
much as it was in our power to say. And with this command He gave the
promise that, if he should preserve the dignity of the soul by giving the
victory to reason, and acknowledging his Creator and observing His
command, he should share eternal blessedness and live to all eternity,
proving mightier than death: but if forsooth he should subject the soul to
the body, and prefer the delights of the body, comparing himself in
ignorance of his true dignity to the senseless beasts, and shaking off Iris
Creator's yoke, and neglecting His divine injunction, he will be liable to
death and corruption, and will be compelled to labor throughout a
miserable life. For it was no profit to man to obtain incorruption while still
untried and unproved, lest he should fall into pride and under the judgment
of the devil. For through his incorruption the devil, when he had fallen as
the result of his own free choice, was firmly established in wickedness, so
that there was no room for repentance and no hope of change: just as,
moreover, the angels also, when they had made free choice of virtue
became through grace immovably rooted in goodness.

It was necessary, therefore, that man should first be put to the test (for
man untried and unproved would be worth nothing), and being made

740

perfect by the trial through the observance of the command should thus
receive incorruption as the prize of his virtue. For being intermediate
between God and matter he was destined, if he kept the command, to be
delivered from his natural relation to existing things and to be made one
with God's estate, and to be immovably established in goodness, but, if he
transgressed and inclined the rather to what was material, and tore his mind
from the Author of his being, I mean God, his fate was to be corruption,
and he was to become subject to passion instead of passionless, and mortal
instead of immortal, and dependent on connection and unsettled
generation. And in his desire for life he would cling to pleasures as though
they were necessary to maintain it, and would fearlessly abhor those who
sought to deprive him of these, and transfer his desire from God to matter,
and his anger from the real enemy of his salvation to his own brethren. The
envy of the devil then was the reason of man's fall. For that same demon,
so full of envy and with such a hatred of good, would not suffer us to
enjoy the pleasures of heaven, when he himself was kept below on account
of his arrogance, and hence the false one tempts miserable man with the
hope of Godhead, and leading him up to as great a height of arrogance as
himself, he hurls him down into a pit of destruction just as deep.

741

BOOK III

CHAPTER 1

Concerning the Divine Oeconomy and God's care over us, and
concerning our salvation.

Man, then, was thus snared by the assault of the arch-fiend, and broke his
Creator's command, and was stripped of grace and put off his confidence
with God, and covered himself with the asperities of a toilsome life (for
this is the meaning of the fig-leaves); and was clothed about with death,
that is, mortality and the grossness of flesh (for this is what the garment of
skins signifies); and was banished from Paradise by God's just judgment,
and condemned to death, and made subject to corruption. Yet,
notwithstanding all this, in His pity, God, Who gave him his being, and
Who in His graciousness bestowed on him a life of happiness, did not
disregard man. But He first trained him in many ways and called him back,
by groans and trembling, by the deluge of water, and the utter destruction
of almost the whole race, by confusion and diversity of tongues, by the
rule of angels, by the burning of cities, by figurative manifestations of God,
by wars and victories and defeats, by signs and wonders, by manifold
faculties, by the law and the prophets: for by all these means God
earnestly strove to emancipate man from the wide-spread and enslaving
bonds of sin, which had made life such a mass of iniquity, and to effect
man's return to a life of happiness. For it was sin that brought death like a
wild and savage beast into the world s to the ruin of the human life. But it
behooved the Redeemer to be without sin, and not made liable through sin
to death, and further, that His nature should be strengthened and renewed,
and trained by labor and taught the way of virtue which leads away from
corruption to the life eternal and, in the end, is revealed the mighty ocean
of love to man that is about Him. For the very Creator and Lord Himself

742

undertakes a struggle in behalf of the work of His own hands, and learns
by toil to become Master. And since the enemy snares man by the hope of
Godhead, he himself is snared in turn by the screen of flesh, and so are
shown at once the goodness and wisdom, the justice and might of God.
God's goodness is revealed in that He did not disregard the frailty of His
own handiwork, but was moved with compassion for him in his fall, and
stretched forth His hand to him: and His justice in that when man was
overcome He did not make another victorious over the tyrant, nor did He
snatch man by might from death, but in His goodness and justice He made
him, who had become through his sins the slave of death, himself once
more conqueror and rescued like by like, most difficult though it seemed:
and His wisdom is seen in His devising the most fitting solution of the
difficulty. For by the good pleasure of our God and Father, the
Only-begotten Son and Word of God and God, Who is in the bosom of the
God and Father, of like essence with the Father and the Holy Spirit, Who
was before the ages, Who is without beginning and was in the beginning,
Who is in the presence of the God and Father, and is God and made in the
form of God, bent the heavens and descended to earth: that is to say, He
humbled without humiliation His lofty station which yet could not be
humbled, and condescends to His servants, with a condescension ineffable
and incomprehensible: (for that is what the descent signifies). And God
being perfect becomes perfect man, and brings to perfection the newest of
all new things, the only new thing under the Sun, through which the
boundless might of God is manifested. For what greater thing is there, than
that God should become Man? And the Word became flesh without being
changed, of the Holy Spirit, and Mary the holy and ever- virgin one, the
mother of God. And He acts as mediator between God and man, He the
only lover of man conceived in the Virgin's chaste womb without will or
desire, or any connection with man or pleasurable generation, but through
the Holy Spirit and the first offspring of Adam. And He becomes obedient
to the Father Who is like unto us, and finds a remedy for our disobedience
in what He had assumed from us, and became a pattern of obedience to us
without which it is not possible to obtain salvation.

743

CHAPTER 2

Concerning the manner in which the Word was conceived, and
concerning His divine incarnation.

The angel of the Lord was sent to the holy Virgin, who was descended
from David's line. Far it is evident that our Lord sprang out of Judah, of
which tribe no one turned his attention to the altar, as the divine apostle
said: but about this we will speak more accurately later. And bearing glad
tidings to her, he said, Hail thou highly favored one, the Lord is with thee.
And she was troubled at his word, and the angel said to her, Fear not,
Mary, for thou hast found favor with God, and shalt bring forth a Son and
shalt call His name Jesus; for He shall save His people from their sins.
Hence it comes that Jesus has the interpretation Savior. And when she
asked in her perplexity, How can this be, seeing I know not a man? the
angel again answered her, The Holy Spirit shall came upon thee, and the
power of the Highest shall overshadow thee. Therefore also that holy thing
which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. And she said to
him, Behold the handmaid of the Lord: be it unto me according to Thy
word.

So then, after the assent of the holy Virgin, the Holy Spirit descended on
her, according to the word of the Lord which the angel spoke, purifying
her, and granting her power to receive the divinity of the Word, and
likewise power to bring forth. And then was she overshadowed by the
enhypostatic Wisdom and Power of the most high God, the Son of God
Who is of like essence with the Father as of Divine seed, and from her holy
and most pure blood He formed flesh animated with the spirit of reason
and thought, the first-fruits of our compound nature: not by procreation
but by creation through the Holy Spirit: not developing the fashion of the
body by gradual additions but perfecting it at once, He Himself, the very
Word of God, standing to the flesh in the relation of subsistence. For the
divine Word was not made one with flesh that had an independent
pre-existence, but taking up His abode in the womb of the holy Virgin, He
unreservedly in His own subsistence took upon Himself through the pure
blood of the eternal Virgin a body of flesh animated with the spirit of

744

reason and thought, thus assuming to Himself the first-fruits of man's
compound nature, Himself, the Word, having become a subsistence in the
flesh. So that He is at once flesh, and at the same time flesh of God the
Word, and likewise flesh animated, possessing both reason and thought.
Wherefore we speak not of man as having become God, but of God as
having become Man. For being by nature perfect God, He naturally
became likewise perfect Man: and did not change His nature nor make the
dispensation an empty show, but became, without confusion or change or
division, one in subsistence with the flesh, which was conceived of the
holy Virgin, and animated with reason and thought, and had found
existence in Him, while He did not change the nature of His divinity into
the essence of flesh, nor the essence of flesh into the nature of His
divinity, and did not make one compound nature out of His divine nature
and the human nature He had assumed.

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CHAPTER 3

Concerning Christ's two natures, in apposition to those who hold

that He has only one.

For the two natures were united with each other without change or
alteration, neither the divine nature departing from its native simplicity,
nor yet the human being either changed into the nature of God or reduced
to non-existence, nor one compound nature being produced out of the two.
For the compound nature cannot be of the same essence as either of the
natures out of which it is compounded, as made one thing out of others:
for example, the body is composed of the four elements, but is not of the
same essence as fire or air, or water or earth, nor does it keep these names.
If, therefore, after the union, Christ's nature was, as the heretics hold, a
compound unity, He had changed from a simple into a compound nature,
and is not of the same essence as the Father Whose nature is simple, nor as
the mother, who is not a compound of divinity and humanity. Nor will He
then be in divinity and humanity: nor will He be called either God or Man,
but simply Christ: and the word Christ will be the name not of the
subsistence, but of what in their view is the one nature.

We, however, do not give it as our view that Christ' s nature is compound,
nor yet that He is one thing made of other things and differing from them
as man is made of sold and body, or as the body is made of the four
elements, but hold that, though He is constituted of these different parts
He is yet the same. For we confess that He alike in His divinity and in His
humanity both is and is said to be perfect God, the same Being, and that
He consists of two natures, and exists in two natures. Further, by the
word "Christ" we understand the name of the subsistence, not in the sense
of one kind, but as signifying the existence of two natures. For in His own
person He anointed Himself; as God anointing His body with His own
divinity, and as Man being anointed. For He is Himself both God and
Man. And the anointing is the divinity of His humanity. For if Christ,
being of one compound nature, is of like essence to the Father, then the
Father also must be compound and of like essence with the flesh, which is
absurd and extremely blasphemous.

746

How, indeed, could one and the same nature come to embrace opposing
and essential differences? For how is it possible that the same nature
should be at once created and uncreated, mortal and immortal,
circumscribed and uncircumscribed?

But if those who declare that Christ has only one nature should say also
that that nature is a simple one, they must admit either that He is God
pure and simple, and thus reduce the incarnation to a mere pretense, or
that He is only man, according to Nestorius. And how then about His
being "perfect in divinity and perfect in humanity"? And when can Christ
be said to be of two natures, if they hold that He is of one composite
nature after the union? For it is surely clear to every one that before the
union Christ's nature was one.

But this is what leads the heretics astray, viz., that they look upon nature
and subsistence as the same thing. For when we speak of the nature of men
as one, observe that in saying this we are not looking to the question of
soul and body. For when we compare together the soul and the body it
cannot be said that they are of one nature. But since there are very many
subsistences of men, and yet all have the same kind of nature: for all are
composed of soul and body, and all have part in the nature of the soul, and
possess the essence of the body, and the common form: we speak of the
one nature of these very many and different subsistences; while each
subsistence, to wit, has two natures, and fulfills itself in two natures,
namely, soul and body.

But a common form cannot be admitted in the case of our Lord Jesus
Christ. For neither was there ever, nor is there, nor will there ever be
another Christ constituted of deity and humanity, and existing in deity and
humanity at once perfect God and perfect man. And thus in the case of our
Lord Jesus Christ we cannot speak of one nature made up of divinity and
humanity, as we do in the case of the individual made up of soul and body.
For in the latter case we have to do with an individual, but Christ is not an
individual. For there is no predicable form of Christlihood, so to speak,
that He possesses. And therefore we hold that there has been a union of
two perfect natures, one divine and one human; not with disorder or
confusion, or intermixture, or commingling, as is said by the God-accursed
Dioscorus and by Eutyches and Severus, and all that impious company:

747

and not in a personal or relative manner, or as a matter of dignity or
agreement in will, or equality in honor, or identity in name, or good
pleasure, as Nestorius, hated of God, said, and Diodorus and Theodorus of
Mopsuestia, and their diabolical tribe: but by synthesis; that is, in
subsistence, without change or confusion or alteration or difference or
separation, and we confess that in two perfect natures there is but one
subsistence of the Son of God incarnate; holding that there is one and the
same subsistence belonging to His divinity and His humanity, and granting
that the two natures are preserved in Him after the union, but we do not
hold that each is separate and by itself, but that they are united to each
other in one compound subsistence. For we look upon the union as
essential, that is, as true and not imaginary. We say that it is essential,
moreover, not in the sense of two natures resulting in one compound
nature, but in the sense of a true union of them in one compound
subsistence of the Son of God, and we hold that their essential difference is
preserved. For the created remaineth created, and the uncreated, uncreated:
the mortal remaineth mortal; the immortal, immortal: the circumscribed,
circumscribed: the uncircumscribed, uncircumscribed: the visible, visible:
the invisible, invisible. "The one part is all glorious with wonders: while
the other is the victim of insults."

Moreover, the Word appropriates to Himself the attributes of humanity:
for all that pertains to His holy flesh is His: and He imparts to the flesh
His own attributes by way of communication in virtue of the
interpenetration of the parts one with another, and the oneness according
to subsistence, and inasmuch as He Who lived and acted both as God and
as man, taking to Himself either form and holding intercourse with the
other form, was one and the same. Hence it is that the Lord of Glory is
said to have been crucified, although His divine nature never endured the
Cross, and that the Son of Man is allowed to have been in heaven before
the Passion, as the Lord Himself said. For the Lord of Glory is one and the
same with Him Who is in nature and in truth the Son of Man, that is, Who
became man, and both His wonders and His sufferings are known to us,
although His wonders were worked in His divine capacity, and His
sufferings endured as man. For we know that, just as is His one
subsistence, so is the essential difference of the nature preserved. For how
could difference be preserved if the very things that differ from one

748

another are not preserved? For difference is the difference between things
that differ. In so far as Christ's natures differ from one another, that is, in
the matter of essence, we hold that Christ unites in Himself two extremes:
in respect of His divinity He is connected with the Father and the Spirit,
while in respect of His humanity He is connected with His mother and all
mankind. And in so far as His natures are united, we hold that He differs
from the Father and the Spirit on the one hand, and from the mother and
the rest of mankind on the other. For the natures are united in His
subsistence, having one compound subsistence, in which He differs from
the Father and the Spirit, and also from the mother and us.

749

CHAPTER 4

Concerning the manner of the Mutual Communication.

Now we have often said already that essence is one thing and subsistence
another, and that essence signifies the common and general form of
subsistences of the same kind, such as God, man, while subsistence marks
the individual, that is to say, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, or Peter, Paul.
Observe, then, that the names, divinity and humanity, denote essences or
natures: while the names, God and man, are applied both in connection
with natures, as when we say that God is incomprehensible essence, and
that God is one, and with reference to subsistences, that which is more
specific having the name of the more general applied to it, as when the
Scripture says, Therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee, or again,
There was a certain man in the land of Uz, for it was only to Job that
reference was made.

Therefore, in the case of our Lord Jesus Christ, seeing that we recognize
that He has two natures but only one subsistence compounded of both,
when we contemplate His natures we speak of His divinity and His
humanity, but when we contemplate the subsistence compounded of the
natures we sometimes use terms that have reference to His double nature,
as "Christ," and "at once God and man," and "God Incarnate;" and
sometimes those that imply only one of His natures, as "God" alone, or
"Son of God," and "man" alone, or "Son of Man;" sometimes using names
that imply His loftiness and sometimes those that imply His lowliness.
For He Who is alike God and man is one, being the former from the Father
ever without cause, but having become the latter afterwards for His love
towards man.

When, then, we speak of His divinity we do not ascribe to it the
properties of humanity. For we do not say that His divinity is subject to
passion or created. Nor, again, do we predicate of His flesh or of His
humanity the properties of divinity: for we do not say that His flesh or
His humanity is uncreated. But when we speak of His subsistence,
whether we give it a name implying both natures, or one that refers to only

750

one of them, we still attribute to it the properties of both natures. For
Christ, which name implies both natures, is spoken of as at once God and
man, created and uncreated, subject to suffering anti incapable of suffering:
and when He is named Son of God and God, in reference to only one of
His natures, He still keeps the properties of the co-existing nature, that is,
the flesh, being spoken of as God who suffers, and as the Lord of Glory
crucified, not in respect of His being God but in respect of His being at the
same time man. Likewise also when He is called Man and Son of Man, He
still keeps the properties and glories of the divine nature, a child before the
ages, and man who knew no beginning; it is not, however, as child or man
but as God that He is before the ages, and became a child in the end. And
Ibis is the manner of the mutual communication, either nature giving in
exchange to the other its own properties through the identity of the
subsistence and the interpenetration of the parts with one another.
Accordingly we can say of Christ: This our God was seen upon the earth
and lived amongst men, and This man is uncreated and impossible and
uncircum scribed.

751

CHAPTER 5

Concerning the number of the Natures.

In the case, therefore, of the Godhead we confess that there is but one
nature, but hold that there are three subsistences actually existing, anti hold
that all things that are of nature and essence are simple, and recognize the
difference of the subsistences only in the three properties of independence
of cause and Fatherhood, of dependence on cause and Sonship, of
dependence on cause and procession. And we know further that these are
indivisible and inseparable from each other and united into one, and
interpenetrating one another without confusion. Yea, I repeat, united
without confusion, for they are three although united, and they are
distinct, although inseparable. For although each has an independent
existence, that is to say, is a perfect subsistence and has an individuality of
its own, that is, has a special mode of existence, yet they are one in
essence and in the natural properties, and in being inseparable and
indivisible from the Father's subsistence, and they both are and are said to
be one God. In the very same way, then, in the case of the divine and
ineffable dispensation, exceeding all thought and comprehension, I mean
the Incarnation of the One God the Word of the Holy Trinity, and our
Lord Jesus Christ, we confess that there are two natures, one divine and
one human, joined together with one another and united in subsistence, so
that one compound subsistence is formed out of the two natures: but we
hold that the two natures are still preserved, even after the union, in the
one compound subsistence, that is, in the one Christ, and that these exist
in reality and have their natural properties; for they are united without
confusion, and are distinguished and enumerated without being separable.
And just as the three subsistences of the Holy Trinity are united without
confusion, and are distinguished and enumerated without being separable,
the enumeration not entailing division or separation or alienation or
cleavage among them (for we recognize one God the Father, the Son and
the Holy Spirit), so in the same way the natures of Christ also, although
they are united, yet are united without confusion; and although they
interpenetrate one another, yet they do not permit of change or

752

transmutation of one into the other. For each keeps its own natural
individuality strictly unchanged. And thus it is that they can be
enumerated without the enumeration introducing division. For Christ,
indeed, is one, perfect both in divinity and in humanity. For it is not the
nature of number to cause separation or unity, but its nature is to indicate
the quantity of what is enumerated, whether these are united or separated:
for we have unity, for instance, when fifty stones compose a wall, but we
have separation when the fifty stones lie on the ground; and again, we have
unity when we speak of coal having two natures, namely, fire and wood,
but we have separation in that the nature of fire is one thing, and the nature
of wood another thing; for these things are united and separated not by
number, but in another way. So, then, just as even though the three
subsistences of the Godhead are united with each other, we cannot speak
of them as one subsistence because we should confuse and do away with
the difference between the subsistences, so also we cannot speak of the
two natures of Christ as one nature, united though they are in subsistence,
because we should then confuse and do away with and reduce to nothing
the difference between the two natures.

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CHAPTER. 6

That in one of its subsistences the divine nature

is united in its entirety to the human nature,

in its entirety and not only part to part.

What is common and general is predicated of the included particulars.
Essence, then, is common as being a form, while subsistence is particular.
It is particular not as though it had part of the nature and had not the rest,
but particular in a numerical sense, as being individual. For it is in number
and not in nature that the difference between subsistences is said to lie.
Essence, therefore, is predicated of subsistence, because in each
subsistence of the same form the essence is perfect. Wherefore
subsistences do not differ from each other in essence but in the accidents
which indeed are the characteristic properties, but characteristic of
subsistence and not of nature. For indeed they define subsistence as
essence along with accidents. So that the subsistence contains both the
general and the particular, and has an independent existence, while essence
has not an independent existence but is contemplated in the subsistences.
Accordingly when one of the subsistences suffers, the whole essence,
being capable of suffering, is held to have suffered in one of its
subsistences as much as the subsistence suffered, but it does not
necessarily follow, however, that all the subsistences of the same class
should suffer along with the suffering subsistence.

Thus, therefore, we confess that the nature of the Godhead is wholly and
perfectly in each of its subsistences, wholly in the Father, wholly in the
Son, and wholly in the Holy Spirit. Wherefore also the Father is perfect
God, the Son is perfect God, and the Holy Spirit is perfect God. In like
manner, too, in the Incarnation of the Trinity of the One God the Word of
the Holy Trinity, we hold that in one of its subsistences the nature of the
Godhead is wholly and perfectly united with the whole nature of
humanity, and not part united to part. The divine Apostle in truth says
that in Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, that is to say
in His flesh. And His divinely-inspired disciple, Dionysius, who had so
deep a knowledge of things divine, said that the Godhead as a whole had
fellowship with us in one of its own subsistences. But we shall not be

754

driven to hold that all the subsistences of the Holy Godhead, to wit the
three, are made one in subsistence with all the subsistences of humanity.
For in no other respect did the Father and the Holy Spirit take part in the
incarnation of God the Word than according to good will and pleasure But
we hold that to the whole of human nature the whole essence of the
Godhead was united. For God the Word omitted none of the things which
He implanted in our nature when He formed us in the beginning, but took
them all upon Himself, body and soul both intelligent and rational, and all
their properties. For the creature that is devoid of one of these is not man.
But He in His fullness took upon Himself me in my fullness, and was
united whole to whole that He might in His grace bestow salvation on the
whole man. For what has not been taken cannot be healed.

The Word of God, then, was united to flesh through the medium of mind
which is intermediate between the purity of God and the grossness of
flesh. For the mind holds sway over soul and body, but while the mind is
the purest part of the soul God is that of the mind. And when it is allowed
by that which is more excellent, the mind of Christ gives proof of its own
authority, but it is under the dominion of and obedient to that which is
more excellent, and does those things which the divine will purposes.

Further the mind has become the seat of the divinity united with it in
subsistence, just as is evidently the case with the body too, not as an
inmate, which is the impious error into which the heretics fall when they
say that one bushel cannot contain two bushels, for they are judging what
is immaterial by material standards. How indeed could Christ be called
perfect God and perfect man, and be said to be of like essence with the
Father and with us, if only part of the divine nature is joined in Him to
part of the human nature?

We hold, moreover, that our nature has been raised from the dead and has
ascended to the heavens and taken its seat at the right hand of the Father:
not that all the persons of men have risen from the dead and taken their
seat at the right hand of the Father, but that this has happened to the
whole of our nature in the subsistence of Christ. Verily the divine Apostle
says, God hath raised us up together and made us sit together in Christ.

And this further we hold, that the union took place through common
essences. For every essence is common to the subsistences contained in it,

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and there cannot be found a partial and particular nature, that is to say,
essence: for otherwise we would have to hold that the same subsistences
are at once the same and different in essence, and that the Holy Trinity in
respect of the divinity is at once the same and different in essence. So then
the same nature is to be observed in each of the subsistences, and when we
said that the nature of the word became flesh, as did the blessed
Athanasius and Cyrillus, we mean that the divinity was joined to the flesh.
Hence we cannot say "The nature of the Word suffered;" for the divinity
in it did not suffer, but we say that the human nature, not by any means,
however, meaning all the subsistences of men, suffered in Christ, and we
confess further that Christ suffered in His human nature. So that when we
speak of the nature of the Word we mean the Word Himself. And the
Word has both the general element of essence and the particular element of
subsistence.

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CHAPTER 7

Concerning the one compound subsistence of God the Word.

We hold then that the divine subsistence of God the Word existed before
all else and is without time and eternal, simple and uncompound,
uncreated, incorporeal, invisible, intangible, uncircumscribed, possessing all
the Father possesses, since He is of the same essence with Him, differing
from the Father's subsistence in the manner of His generation and the
relation of the Father's subsistence, being perfect also and at no time
separated from the Father's subsistence: and in these last, days, without
leaving the Father's bosom, took up His abode in an uncircumscribed
manner in the womb of the holy Virgin, without the instrumentality of
seed, and in an incomprehensible manner known only to Himself, and
causing the flesh derived from the holy Virgin to subsist in the very
subsistence that was before all the ages.

So then He was both in all things and above all things and also dwelt in the
womb of the holy Mother of God, but in it by the energy of the
incarnation. He therefore became flesh and He took upon Himself thereby
the first-fruits of our compound nature, viz., the flesh animated with the
intelligent and national soul, so that the very subsistence of God the Word
was changed into the subsistence of the flesh, and the subsistence of the
Word, which was formerly simple, became compound, yea compounded of
two perfect natures, divinity and humanity, and bearing the characteristic
and distinctive property of the divine Sonship of God the Word in virtue
of which it is distinguished from the Father and the Spirit, and also the
characteristic and distinctive properties of the flesh, in virtue of which it
differs from the Mother and the rest of mankind, bearing further the
properties of the divine nature in virtue of which it is united to the Father
and the Spirit, and the marks of the human nature in virtue of which it is
united to the Mother and to us. And further it differs from the Father and
the Spirit and the Mother and us in being at once God and man. For this
we know to be the most special property of the subsistence of Christ.

757

Wherefore we confess Him, even after the incarnation, the one Son of God,
and likewise Son of Man, one Christ, one Lord, the only-begotten Son and
Word of God, one Lord Jesus. We reverence His two generations, one from
the Father before time and beyond cause and reason and time and nature,
and one in the end for our sake, and like to us and above us; for our sake
because it was for our salvation, like to us in that He was man born of
woman at full tithe, and above us because it was not by seed, but by the
Holy Spirit and the Holy Virgin Mary, transcending the laws of
parturition. We proclaim Him not as God only, devoid of our humanity,
nor yet as man only, stripping Him of His divinity, nor as two distinct
persons, but as one and the same, at once God and man, perfect God and
perfect man, wholly God anti wholly man, the same being wholly God,
even though He was also flesh and wholly man, even though He was also
most high God. And by "perfect God" and "perfect man" we mean to
emphasize the fullness and unfailingness of the natures: while by "wholly
God" and "wholly man" we mean to lay stress on the singularity and
individuality of the subsistence.

And we confess also that there is one incarnate nature of God the Word,
expressing by the word "incarnate" the essence of the flesh, according to
the blessed Cyril. And so the Word was made flesh and yet did not
abandon His own proper immateriality: He became wholly flesh and yet
remained wholly uncircumscribed. So far as He is body He is diminished
and contracted into narrow limits, but inasmuch as He is God He is
uncircumscribed, His flesh not being coextensive with His uncircumscribed
divinity.

He is then wholly perfect God, but yet is not simply God: for He is not
only God but also man. And He is also wholly perfect man but not simply
man, for He is not only man but also God. For "simply" here has reference
to His nature, and "wholly" to His subsistence, just as "another thing"
would refer to nature, while "another" would refer to subsistence.

But observe that although we hold that the natures of the Lord permeate
one another, yet we know that the permeation springs from the divine
nature. For it is that that penetrates and permeates all things, as it wills,
while nothing penetrates it: and it is it, too, that imparts to the flesh its
own peculiar glories, while abiding itself impossible and without

758

participation in the affections of the flesh. For if the sun imparts to us his
energies and yet does not participate in ours, how much the rather must
this be true of the Creator anti Lord of the Sun.

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CHAPTER 8

In reply to those who ask whether the natures of the Lord are
brought under a continuous or a discontinuous quantity.

If any one asks concerning the natures of the Lord if they are brought
under a continuous or discontinuous quantity, we will say that the natures
of the Lord are neither one body nor one superficies, nor one line, nor time,
nor place, so as to be reduced to a continuous quantity. For these are the
things that are reckoned continuously.

Further note that number deals with things that differ, and it is quite
impossible to enumerate things that differ from one another in no respect:
and just so far as they differ are they enumerated: for instance, Peter and
Paul are not counted separately in so far as they are one. For since they are
one in respect of their essence they cannot be spoken of as two natures,
but as they differ in respect of subsistence they are spoken of as two
subsistences. So that number deals with differences, and just as the
differing objects differ from one another so far they are enumerated.

The natures of the Lord, then, are united without confusion so far as
regards subsistence, and they are divided without separation according to
the method and manner of difference. And it is not according to the manner
in which they are united that they are enumerated, for it is not in respect
of subsistence that we hold that there are two natures of Christ: but
according to the manner in which they are divided without separation they
are enumerated, for it is in respect of the method and manner of difference
that there are two natures of Christ. For being united in subsistence and
permeating one another, they are united without confusion, each
preserving throughout its own peculiar and natural difference. Hence, since
they are enumerated according to the manner of difference, and that alone,
they must be brought under a discontinuous quantity.

Christ, therefore, is one, perfect God and perfect man: and Him we
worship along with the Father and the Spirit, with one obeisance, adoring
even His immaculate flesh and not holding that the flesh is not meet for
worship: for in fact it is worshipped in the one subsistence of the Word,

760

which indeed became subsistence for it. But in this we do not do homage
to that which is created. For we worship Him, not as mere flesh, but as
flesh united with divinity, and because His two natures are brought under
the one person and one subsistence of God the Word. I fear to touch coal
because of the fire bound up with the wood. I worship the twofold nature
of Christ because of the divinity that is in Him bound up with flesh. For I
do not introduce a fourth person into the Trinity. God forbid! but I
confess one person of God the Word and of His flesh, and the Trinity
remains Trinity, even after the incarnation of the Word.

In reply to those who ask whether the two natures are brought under
a continuous or a discontinuous quantity.

The natures of the Lord are neither one body nor one superficies, nor one
line, nor place, nor time, so as to be brought under a continuous quantity:
for these are the things that are reckoned continuously. But the natures of
the Lord are united without confusion in respect of subsistence, and are
divided without separation according to the method and manner of
difference. And according to the manner in which they are united they are
not enumerated. For we do not say that the natures of Christ are two
subsistences or two in respect of subsistence. But according to the manner
in which they are divided without division, are they enumerated. For there
are two natures according to the method and manner of difference. For
being united in subsistence and permeating one another they are united
without confusion, neither having been changed into the other, but each
preserving its own natural difference even after the union. For that which
is created remained created, and that which is uncreated, uncreated. By the
manner of difference, then, and in that alone, they are enumerated, and thus
are brought under discontinuous quantity. For things which differ from
each other in no respect cannot be enumerated, but just so far as they
differ are they enumerated; for instance, Peter and Paul are not enumerated
in those respects in which they are one: for being one in respect of their
essence they are not two natures nor are they so spoken of. But inasmuch
as they differ in subsistence they are spoken of as two subsistences. So
that difference is the cause of number.

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CHAPTER 9

In reply to the question whether there is Nature
that has no Subsistence.

For although there is no nature without subsistence, nor essence apart
from person (since in truth it is in persons and subsistences that essence
and nature are to be contemplated), yet it does not necessarily follow that
the natures that are united to one another in subsistence should have each
its own proper subsistence. For after they have come together into one
subsistence, it is possible that neither should they be without subsistence,
nor should each have its own peculiar subsistence, but that both should
have one and the same subsistence. For since one and the same subsistence
of the Word has become the subsistence of the natures, neither of them is
permitted to be without subsistence, nor are they allowed to have
subsistences that differ from each other, or to have sometimes the
subsistence of this nature and sometimes of that, but always without
division or separation they both have the same subsistence — a
subsistence which is not broken up into parts or divided, so that one part
should belong to this, and one to that, but which belongs wholly to this
and wholly to that in its absolute entirety. For the flesh of God the Word
did not subsist as an independent subsistence, nor did there arise another
subsistence besides that of God the Word, but as it existed in that it
became rather a subsistence which subsisted in another, than one which
was an independent subsistence. Wherefore, neither does it lack
subsistence altogether, nor yet is there thus introduced into the Trinity
another subsistence.

762

CHAPTER 10

Concerning the Trisagium ("the Thrice Holy").

This being so, we declare that the addition which the vain-minded Peter the
Fuller made to the Trisagium or "Thrice Holy" Hymn is blasphemous; for
it introduces a fourth person into the Trinity, giving a separate place to the
Son of God, Who is the truly subsisting power of the Father, and a
separate place to Him Who was crucified as though He were different from
the "Mighty One," or as though the Holy Trinity was considered possible,
and the Father and the Holy Spirit suffered on the Cross along with the
Son. Have done with this blasphemous and nonsensical interpolation! For
we hold the words "Holy God" to refer to the Father, without limiting the
title of divinity to Him alone, but acknowledging also as God the Son and
the Holy Spirit: and the words "Holy and Mighty" we ascribe to the Son,
without stripping the Father and the Holy Spirit of might: and the words
"Holy and Immortal" we attribute to the Holy Spirit, without depriving
the Father and the Son of immortality. For, indeed, we apply all the divine
names simply and unconditionally to each of the subsistences in imitation
of the divine Apostle's words. But to us there is but one God, the Father,
of Whom are all things, and we in Him: and one Lord Jesus Christ by
Whom are all things, and we by Him And, nevertheless, we follow
Gregory the Theologian when he says, "But to us there is but one God,
the Father, of Whom are all things, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through
Whom are all things, and one Holy Spirit, in Whom are all things:" for the
words "of Whom" and "through Whom" and "in Whom" do not divide the
natures (for neither the prepositions nor the order of the names could ever
be changed), but they characterize the properties of one unconfused
nature. And this becomes clear from the fact that they are once more
gathered into one, if only one reads with care these words of the same
Apostle, Of Him and through Him and in Him are all things: to Him be the
glory for ever and ever. Amen.

For that the "Trisagium" refers not to the Son alone, but to the Holy
Trinity, the divine and saintly Athanasius and Basil and Gregory, and all
the band of the divinely-inspired Fathers bear witness: because, as a matter

763

of fact, by the threefold holiness the Holy Seraphim suggest to us the three
subsistences of the superessential Godhead. But by the one Lordship they
denote the one essence and dominion of the supremely-divine Trinity.
Gregory the Theologian of a truth says, "Thus, then, the Holy of Holies,
which is completely veiled by the Seraphim, and is glorified with three
consecrations, meet together in one lordship and one divinity." This was
the most beautiful and sublime philosophy of still another of our
predecessors.

Ecclesiastical historians, then, say that once when the people of
Constantinople were offering prayers to God to avert a threatened
calamity, during Proclus' tenure of the office of Archbishop, it happened
that a boy was snatched up from among the people, and was taught by
angelic teachers the "Thrice Holy" Hymn, "Thou Holy God, Holy and
Mighty One, Holy and Immortal One, have mercy upon us:" and when
once more he was restored to earth, he told what he had learned, and all the
people sang the Hymn, and so the threatened calamity was averted. And in
the fourth holy and great (Ecumenical Council, I mean the one at
Chalcedon, we are told that it was in this form that the Hymn was sung;
for the minutes of this holy assembly so record it. It is, therefore, a matter
for laughter and ridicule that this "Thrice Holy" Hymn, taught us by the
angels, and confirmed by the averting of calamity, ratified and established
by so great an assembly of the holy Fathers, and sung first by the
Seraphim as a declaration of the three subsistences of the Godhead, should
be mangled and forsooth emended to suit the view of the stupid Fuller as
though he were higher than the Seraphim. But oh! the arrogance! not to say
folly! But we say it thus, though demons should rend us in pieces, "Do
Thou, Holy God, Holy and Mighty One, Holy and Immortal One, have
mercy upon us."

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CHAPTER 11

Concerning the Nature as viewed in Species and in Individual,

and concerning the difference between Union and Incarnation:

and how this is to be understood,

"The one Nature of God the Word Incarnate."

Nature is regarded either abstractly as a matter of pure thought (for it has
no independent existence): or commonly in all subsistences of the same
species as their bond of union, and is then spoken of as nature viewed in
species: or universally as the same, but with the addition of accidents, in
one subsistence, and is spoken of as nature viewed in the individual, this
being identical with nature viewed in species. God the Word Incarnate,
therefore, did not assume the nature that is regarded as an abstraction in
pure thought (for tiffs is not incarnation, but only an imposture and a
figment of incarnation), nor the nature viewed in species (for He did not
assume all the subsistences): but the nature viewed in the individual, which
is identical with that viewed in species. For He took on Himself the
elements of our compound nature, and these not as having an independent
existence or as being originally an individual, and in this way assumed by
Him, but as existing in His own subsistence. For the subsistence of God
the Word in itself became the subsistence of the flesh, and accordingly "the
Word became flesh" clearly without any change, and likewise the flesh
became Word without alteration, and God became man. For the Word is
God, and man is God, through having one and the same subsistence. And
so it is possible to speak of tile same thing as being the nature of the Word
and the nature in the individual. For it signifies strictly and exclusively
neither the individual, that is, the subsistence, nor the common nature of
the subsistences, but the common nature as viewed and presented in one of
the subsistences.

Union, then, is one thing, and incarnation is something quite different. For
union signifies only the conjunction, but not at all that with which union is
effected. But incarnation (which is just the same as if one said "the putting
on of man's nature") signifies that tile conjunction is with flesh, that is to
say, with man, just as the heating of iron implies its union with fire.

765

Indeed, the blessed Cyril himself, when he is interpreting the phrase, "one
nature of God the Word Incarnate," says in the second epistle to Sucensus,
"For if we simply said 'the one nature of the Word' and then were silent,
and did not add the word 'incarnate.' but, so to speak, quite excluded the
dispensation, there would be some plausibility in the question they feign
to ask, 'If one nature is the whole, what becomes of the perfection in
humanity, or how has the essence like us come to exist?' But inasmuch as
the perfection in humanity and the disclosure of the essence like us are
conveyed in the word 'incarnate,' they must cease from relying on a mere
straw" Here, then, he placed the nature of the Word over nature itself. For
if He had received nature instead of subsistence, it would not have been
absurd to have omitted the "incarnate." For when we say simply one
subsistence of God the Word, we do not err. In like manner, also, Leontius
the Byzantine considered this phrase to refer to nature, and not to
subsistence. But in the Defense which he wrote in reply to the attacks that
Theodoret made on the second anathema, the blessed Cyril says this: "The
nature of the Word, that is, the subsistence, which is the Word itself." So
that "the nature of the Word" means neither the subsistence alone, nor
"the common nature of the subsistence," but "the common nature viewed
as a whole in the subsistence of the Word."

It has been said, then, that the nature of the Word became flesh, that is,
was united to flesh: but that the nature of the Word suffered in the flesh
we have never heard up till now, though we have been taught that Christ
suffered in the flesh. So that "the nature of the Word" does not mean "the
subsistence." It remains, therefore, to say that to become flesh is to be
united with the flesh, while the Word having become flesh means that the
very subsistence of the Word became without change the subsistence of
the flesh. It has also been said that God became man, and man God. For
the Word which is God became without alteration man. But that the
Godhead became man, or became flesh, or put on the nature of man, this
we have never heard. This, indeed, we have learned, that the Godhead was
united to humanity in one of its subsistences, and it has been stated that
God took on a different form or essence, to wit our own. For the name
God is applicable to each of the subsistences, but we cannot use the term
Godhead in reference to subsistence. For we are never told that the
Godhead is the Father alone, or the Son alone, or the Holy Spirit alone. For

766

"Godhead" implies "nature," while "Father" implies subsistence just as
"Humanity" implies nature, and "Peter" subsistence. But "God" indicates
the common element of the nature, and is applicable derivatively to each of
the subsistences, just as "man" is. For He Who has divine nature is God,
and he who has human nature is man.

Besides all this, notice that the Father and the Holy Spirit take no part at
all in the incarnation of the Word except in connection with the miracles,
and in respect of good will and purpose.

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CHAPTER 12

That the holy Virgin is the Mother of God:
an argument directed against the Nestorians.

Moreover we proclaim the holy Virgin to be in strict truth the Mother of
God. For inasmuch as He who was born of her was true God, she who
bare the true God incarnate is the true mother of God. For we hold that
God was born of her, not implying that the divinity of the Word received
from her the beginning of its being, but meaning that God the Word
Himself, Who was begotten of the Father timelessly before the ages, and
was with the Father and the Spirit without beginning anti through eternity,
took up His abode in these last days for the sake of our salvation in the
Virgin's womb, and was without change made flesh and born of her. For
the holy Virgin did not bare mere man but true God: and not mere God but
God incarnate, Who did not bring down His body from Heaven, nor
simply passed through the Virgin as channel, but received from her flesh of
like essence to our own and subsisting in Himself. For if the body had
come down from heaven and had not partaken of our nature, what would
have been the use of His becoming man? For the purpose of God the Word
becoming man was that the very same nature, which had sinned and fallen
and become corrupted, should triumph over the deceiving tyrant and so be
freed from corruption, just as the divine apostle puts it, For since by man
came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. If the first is
true the second must also be true.

Although, however, he says, The first Adam is of the earth earthy; the
second Adam is Lord from Heaven, he does not say that His body is from
heaven, but emphasizes the fact that He is not mere man. For, mark, he
called Him both Adam and Lord, thus indicating His double nature. For
Adam is, being interpreted, earth-born: and it is clear that man's nature is
earth-born since he is formed from earth, but the title Lord signifies His
divine essence.

And again the Apostle says: God sent forth His only-begotten Son, made
of a woman. He did not say "made by a woman." Wherefore the divine

768

apostle meant that the only-begotten Son of God and God is the same as
He who was made man of the Virgin, and that He who was born of the
Virgin is the same as the Son of God and God.

But He was born after the bodily fashion inasmuch as He became man, and
did not take up His abode in a man formed beforehand, as in a prophet, but
became Himself in essence and truth man, that is He caused flesh animated
with the intelligent and reasonable to subsist in His own subsistence, and
Himself became subsistence for it. For this is the meaning of "made of a
woman." For how could the very Word of God itself have been made
under the law, if He did not become man of like essence with ourselves?

Hence it is with justice and truth that we call the holy Mary the Mother of
God. For this name embraces the whole mystery of the dispensation. For
if she who bore Him is the Mother of God, assuredly He Who was born of
her is God and likewise also man. For how could God, Who was before the
ages, have been born of a woman unless He had become man? For the son
of man must clearly be man himself. But if He Who was born of a woman
is Himself God, manifestly He Who was born of God the Father in
accordance with the laws of an essence that is divine and knows no
beginning, and He Who was in the last days born of the Virgin in
accordance with the laws of an essence that has beginning and is subject to
time, that is, an essence which is human, must be one and the same. The
name in truth signifies the one subsistence and the two natures and the two
generations Of our Lord Jesus Christ.

But we never say that the holy Virgin is the Mother of Christ because it
was in order to do away with the title Mother of God, and to bring
dishonor on the Mother of God, who alone is in truth worthy of honor
above all creation, that the impure and abominable Judaizing Nestorius,
that vessel of dishonor, invented this name for an insult. For David the
king, and Aaron, the high priest, are also called Christ, for it is customary
to make kings and priests by anointing: and besides every God-inspired
man may be called Christ, but yet be is not by nature God: yea, the
accursed Nestorius insulted Him Who was born of the Virgin by calling
Him God-bearer. May it be far from us to speak of or think of Him as
God-bearer only, Who is in truth God incarnate. For the Word Himself
became flesh, having been in truth conceived of the Virgin, but coming

769

forth as God with the assumed nature which, as soon as He was brought
forth into being, was deified by Him, so that these three things took place
simultaneously, the assumption of our nature, the coming into being, and
the deification of the assumed nature by the Word. And thus it is that the
holy Virgin is thought of and spoken of as the Mother of God, not only
because of the nature of the Word, but also because of the deification of
man's nature, the miracles of conception and of existence being wrought
together, to wit, the conception the Word, and the existence of the flesh in
the Word Himself. For the very Mother of God in some marvelous manner
was the means of fashioning the Framer of all things and of bestowing
manhood on the God and Creator of all, Who deified the nature that He
assumed, while the union preserved those things that were united just as
they were united, that is to say, not only the divine nature of Christ but
also His human nature, not only that which is above us but that which is
of us. For He was not first made like us and only later became higher than
us, but ever from His first coating into being He existed with the double
nature, because He existed in the Word Himself from the beginning of the
conception. Wherefore He is human in His own nature, but also, in some
marvelous manner, of God and divine. Moreover He has the properties of
the living flesh: for by reason of the dispensation the Word received these
which are, according to the order of natural motion, truly natural.

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CHAPTER 13

Concerning the properties of the two Natures.

Confessing, then, the same Jesus Christ, our Lord, to be perfect God and
perfect man, we hold that the same has all the attributes of the Father save
that of being ingenerate, and all the attributes of the first Adam, save only
his sin, these attributes being body and the intelligent and rational soul; and
further that He has, corresponding to the two natures, the two sets of
natural qualities belonging to the two natures: two natural volitions, one
divine and one human, two natural, energies, one divine and one human,
two natural free- wills, one divine and one human, and two kinds of
wisdom and knowledge, one divine and one human. For being of like
essence with God and the Father, He wills and energizes freely as God,
and being also of like essence with us He likewise wills and energizes
freely as man. For His are the miracles and His also are the passive states.

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CHAPTER 14

Concerning the volitions and free-will of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Since, then, Christ has two natures, we hold that He has also two natural
wills and two natural energies. But since His two natures have one
subsistence, we hold that it is one and the same person who wills and
energizes naturally in both natures, of which, and in which, and also which
is Christ our Lord: and moreover that He wills and energizes without
separation but as a united whole. For He wills and energizes in either form
in close communion with the other. For things that have the same essence
have also the same will and energy, while things that are different in
essence are different in will and energy; and vice versa, things that have the
same will anti energy have the same essence, while things that are different
in will and energy are different in essence.

Wherefore in the case of the Father and Son and Holy Spirit we recognize,
from their sameness in will and energy, their sameness in nature. But in the
case of the divine dispensation we recognize from their difference in will
and energy the difference of the two natures, and as we perceive the
difference of the two natures we confess that the wills and energies also are
different. For just as the number of the natures of one and the same Christ,
when considered and spoken of with piety, do not cause a division of the
one Christ but merely bring out the fact that the difference between the
natures is maintained even in the union, so it is with the number of wills
and energies that belong essentially to His natures. (For He was endowed
with the powers of willing and energizing in both natures, for the sake of
our salvation) It does not introduce division: God forbid! but merely brings
out the fact that the differences between them are safeguarded and
preserved even in the union. For we hold that wills and energies are
faculties belonging to nature, not to subsistence; I mean those faculties of
will and energy by which He Who wills and energizes does so. For if we
allow that they belong to subsistence, we will be forced to say that the
three subsistences of the Holy Trinity have different wills and different
energies.

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For it is to be noted s that willing and the manner of willing are not the
same thing. For to will is a faculty of nature, just as seeing is, for all men
possess it; but the manner of willing does not depend on nature but on our
judgment, just as does also the manner of seeing, whether well or ill. For all
men do not will in the same way, nor do they all see in the same way. And
this also we will grant in connection with energies. For the manner of
willing, or seeing, or energizing, is the mode of using the faculties of will
and sight and energy, belonging only to him who uses them, and marking
him off from others by the generally accepted difference.

Simple willing then is spoken of as volition or the faculty of will, being a
rational propension and natural will; but in a particular way willing, or that
which underlies volition, is the object of will, and will dependent on
judgment. Further that which has innate in it the faculty of volition is
spoken of as capable of willing: as for instance the divine is capable of
willing, and the human in like manner. But he who exercises volition, that
is to say the subsistence, for instance Peter, is spoken of as willing.

Since, then, Christ is one and His subsistence is one, He also Who wills
both as God and as man is one and the same. And since He has two
natures endowed with volition, inasmuch as they are rational (for whatever
is rational is endowed with volition and free-will), we shall postulate two
volitions or natural wills in Him. For He in His own person is capable of
volition in accordance with both His natures. For He assumed that faculty
of volition which belongs naturally to us. And since Christ, Who in His
own person wills according to either nature, is one, we shall postulate the
same object of will in His case, not as though He wills only those things
which He willed naturally as God (for it is no part of Godhead to will to
eat or drink and so forth), but as willing also those things which human
nature requires for its support, and this without involving any opposition
in judgment, but simply as the result of the individuality of the natures.
For then it was that He thus willed naturally, when His divine volition so
willed and permitted the flesh to suffer and do that which was proper to it.

But that volition is implanted in man by nature is manifest from this.
Excluding the divine life, there are three forms of life: the vegetative, the
sentient, and the intellectual. The properties of the vegetative life are the
functions of nourishment, and growth, and production: that of the sentient

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life is impulse: and that of the rational and intellectual life is freedom of
will. If, then, nourishment belongs by nature to the vegetative life and
impulse to the sentient, freedom of will by nature belongs to the rational
and intellectual life. But freedom of will is nothing else than volition. The
Word, therefore, having become flesh, endowed with life and mind and
free-will, became also endowed with volition.

Further, that which is natural is not the result of training: for no one learns
how to think, or live, or hunger, or thirst, or sleep. Nor do we learn how to
will: so that willing is natural.

And again: if in the case of creatures devoid of reason nature rules, while
nature is ruled in man who is moved of his own free-will and volition, it
follows, then, that man is by nature endowed with volition.

And again: if man has been made after the image of the blessed and
super-essential Godhead, and if the divine nature is by nature endowed
with free-will and volition, it follows that man, as its image, is free by
nature and volitive. For the fathers defined freedom as volition.

And further: if to will is a part of the nature of every man and not present
in some and absent in others, and if that which is seen to be common to all
is a characteristic feature of the nature that belongs to the individuals of the
class, surely, then, man is by nature endowed with volition.

And once more: if the nature receives neither more nor less, but all are
equally endowed with volition and not some more than others, then by
nature man is endowed with volition. So that since man is by nature
endowed with volition, the Lord also must be by nature endowed with
volition, not only because He is God, but also because He became man.
For just as He assumed our nature, so also He has assumed naturally our
will. And in this way the Fathers said that He formed our will in Himself.

If the will is not natural, it must be either hypostatic or unnatural. But if it
is hypostatic, the Son must thus, forsooth, have a different will from what
the Father has: for that which is hypostatic is characteristic of subsistence
only. And if it is unnatural, will must be a defection from nature: for what
is unnatural is destructive of what is natural.

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The God and Father of all things wills either as Father or as God. Now if
as Father, His will be different from that of the Son, for the Son is not the
Father. But if as God, the Son is God and likewise the Holy Spirit is God,
and so volition is part of His nature, that is, it is natural.

Besides, if according to the view of the Fathers, those who have one and
the same will have also one and the same essence, and if the divinity and
humanity of Christ have one and the same will, then assuredly these have
also one and the same essence.

And again: if according to the view of the Fathers the distinction between
the natures is not seen in the single will, we mast either, when we speak of
the one will, cease to speak of the different natures in Christ or, when we
speak of the different natures of Christ, cease to speak of the one will.

And further, the divine Gospel says, The Lord came into the borders of
Tyre and Sidon and entered into a house, and would have no man know it;
but He could not be hid. If, then, His divine will is omnipotent, but yet,
though He would, He could not be hid, surely it was as man that He would
and could not, and so as man He must be endowed with volition.

And once again, the Gospel tells us that, He, having come into the place,
said T thirst' : and they gave Him same vinegar mixed with gall, and when
He had tasted it fare would not drink. If, then, on the one hand it was as
God that tie suffered thirst and when He had tasted would not drink,
surely He must be subject to passion s also as God, for thirst and taste are
passions. But if it was not as God but altogether as man that He was
athirst, likewise as man He must be endowed with volition.

Moreover, the blessed Paul the Apostle says, He became obedient unto
death, even the death of the cross. But obedience is subjection of the real
will, not of the unreal will. For that which is irrational is not said to be
obedient or disobedient. But the Lord having become obedient to the
Father, became so not as God but as man. For as God He is not said to be
obedient or disobedient. For these things are of the things that are trader
one's band, as the inspired Gregorius said. Wherefore, then, Christ is
endowed with volition as man.

While, however, we assert that will is natural, we hold not that it is
dominated by necessity, but that it is free. For if it is rational, it must be

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absolutely free. For it is not only the divine and uncreated nature that is
free from the bonds of necessity, but also the intellectual and created
nature. And this is manifest: for God, being by nature good and being by
nature the Creator and by nature God, is not all this of necessity. For who
is there to introduce this necessity?

It is to be observed further, that freedom of will is used in several senses,
one in connection with God, another in connection with angels, and a third
in connection with men. For used in reference to God it is to be understood
in a superessential manner, and in reference to angels it is to be taken in the
sense that the election is concomitant with the state, and admits of the
interposition of no interval of time at all: for while the angel possesses
free-will by nature, he uses it without let or hindrance, having neither
antipathy on the part of the body to overcome nor any assailant. Again,
used in reference to men, it is to be taken in the sense that the state is
considered to be anterior in time to the election. For than is free and has
free-will by nature, but he has also the assault of the devil to impede him
and the motion of the body: and thus through the assault and the weight of
the batty, election comes to be later than the state.

If, then, Adam obeyed of his own will and ate of his own will, surely in us
the will is the first part to suffer. And if the will is the first to suffer, and
the Word Incarnate did not assume this with the rest of our nature, it
follows that we have not been freed from sin.

Moreover, if the faculty of free-will which is in nature is His work and yet
He did not assume it, He either condemned His own workmanship as not
good, or grudged us the comfort it brought, and so deprived us of the full
benefit, and shewed that He was Himself subject to passion since He was
not willing or not able to work out our perfect salvation.

Moreover, one cannot speak of one compound thing made of two wills in
the same way as a subsistence is a composition of two natures. Firstly
because the compositions are of things in subsistence (hypotasis), not of
things viewed in a different category, not in one proper to them: and
secondly, because if we speak of composition of wills and energies, we
will be obliged to speak of composition of the other natural properties,
such as the uncreated and the created, the invisible and the visible, and so
on. And what will be the name of the will that is compounded out of two

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wills? For the compound cannot be called by the name of the elements that
make it up. For otherwise we should call that which is compounded of
natures nature and not subsistence. And further, if we say that there is one
compound will in Christ, we separate Him in will from the Father, for the
Father's will is not compound. It remains, therefore, to say that the
subsistence of Christ atone is compound and common, as in the case of the
natures so also in that of the natural properties.

And we cannot, if we wish to be accurate, speak of Christ as having
judgment (yvcojiri) and preference. For judgment is a disposition with
reference to the decision arrived at after investigation and deliberation
concerning something unknown, that is to say, after counsel and decision.
And after judgment comes preference, which chooses out and selects the
one rather than the other. But the Lord being not mere man but also God,
and knowing all things, had no need of inquiry, and investigation, and
counsel, and decision, and by nature made whatever is good His own and
whatever is bad foreign to Him. For thus says Isaiah the prophet, Before
the child shall know to prefer the evil, he shall choose the good; because
before the child knows good or evil, he refuses wickedness by choosing the
good. For the word "before" proves that it is not with investigation and
deliberation, as is the way with us, but as God and as subsisting in a divine
manner in the flesh, that is to say, being united in subsistence to the flesh,
and because of His very existence and all-embracing knowledge, that He is
possessed of good in His own nature. For the virtues are natural qualities,
and are implanted in all by nature and in equal measure, even if we do not
all in equal measure employ our natural energies. By the transgression we
were driven from the natural to the unnatural. But the Lord led us back
from the unnatural into the natural. For this is what is the meaning of in
our image, after our likeness. And the discipline and trouble of this life
were not designed as a means for our attaining virtue which was foreign to
our nature, but to enable us to cast aside the evil that was foreign and
contrary to our nature: just as on laboriously removing from steel the rust
which is not natural to it but acquired through neglect, we reveal the
natural brightness of the steel.

Observe further that the word judgment (yvcbpri) is used in many ways
and in many senses. Sometimes it signifies exhortation: as when the divine
apostle says, Now concerning virgins I have no commandment of the Lord;

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yet I give my judgment: sometimes it means counsel, as when the prophet
David says, They have taken crafty counsel against Thy people:
sometimes it means a decree, as when we read in Daniel, Concerning whom
(or, what) went this shameless decree forth? At other times it is used in
the sense of belief, or opinion, or purpose, and, to put it shortly, the word
judgment has twenty-eight different meanings.

778

CHAPTER 15

Concerning the energies in our Lord Jesus Christ.

We hold, further, that there are two energies in our Lord Jesus Christ. For
He possesses on the one hand, as God and being of like essence with the
Father, the divine energy, and, likewise, since He became man and of like
essence to us, the energy proper to human nature.

But observe that energy and capacity for energy, and the product of
energy, and the agent of energy, are all different. Energy is the efficient
(SpoccrciKri) and essential activity of nature: the capacity for energy is the
nature from which proceeds energy: the product of energy is that which is
effected by energy: and the agent of energy is the person or subsistence
which uses the energy. Further, sometimes energy is used in the sense of
the product of energy, and the product of energy in that of energy, just as
the terms creation and creature are sometimes transposed. For we say "all
creation," meaning creatures.

Note also that energy is an activity and is energized rather than energizes;
as Gregory the Theologian says m his thesis concerning the Holy Spirit:
"If energy exists, it must manifestly be energized and will not energize: and
as soon as it has been energized, it will cease."

Life itself, it should be observed, is energy, yea, the primal energy of the
living creature and so is the whole economy of the living creature, its
functions of nutrition and growth, that is, the vegetative side of its nature,
and the movement stirred By impulse, that is, the sentient side, and its
activity of intellect and free-will. Energy, moreover, is the perfect
realization of power. If, then, we contemplate all these in Christ, surely we
must also hold that He possesses human energy.

The first thought that arises in us is called energy: and it is simple energy
not involving any relationship, the mind sending forth the thoughts
peculiar to it in an independent and invisible way, for if it did not do so it
could not justly be called mind. Again, the revelation and unfolding of
thought by means of articulate speech is said to be energy. But this is no

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longer simple energy that revolves no relationship, but it is considered in
relation as being composed of thought and speech. Further, the very
relation which be who does anything bears to that which is brought about
is energy; and the very thing that is effected is called energy. The first
belongs to the soul alone, the second to the soul making use of the body,
the third to the body animated by mind, and the last is the effect. For the
mind sees beforehand what is to be and then performs it thus by means of
the body. And so the hegemony belongs to the soul, for it uses the body as
an instrument, leading and restraining it. But the energy of the body is
quite different, for the booty is led and moved by the soul. And with
regard to the effect, the touching and handling and, so to speak, the
embrace of what is effected, belong to the body, while the figuration and
formation belong to the soul. And so in connection with our Lord Jesus
Christ, the power of miracles is the energy of His divinity, while the work
of His hands and the willing and the saying, I will, be thou clean, are the
energy of His humanity. And as to the effect, the breaking of the loaves,
and the fact that the leper heard the "I will," belong to His humanity, while
the multiplication of the loaves and the purification of the leper belong to
His divinity. For through both, that is through the energy of the booty anti
the energy of the soul. He displayed one and the same, cognate and equal
divine energy. For just as we saw that His natures were united and
permeate one another, and yet do not deny that they are different but even
enumerate them, although we know they are inseparable, so also in
connection with the wills and the energies we know their union, and we
recognize their difference and enumerate them without introducing
separation. For just as the flesh was deified without undergoing change in
its own nature, in the same way also will and energy are deified without
transgressing their own proper limits. For whether He is the one or the
other, He is one and the same, and whether He wills and energizes in one
way or the other, that is as God or as man, He is one and the same.

We must, then, maintain that Christ has two energies in virtue of His
double nature. For things that have diverse natures, have also different
energies, and things that have diverse energies, have also different natures.
And so conversely, things that have the same nature have also the same
energy, and things that have one and the same energy have also one and the
same essence, which is the view of the Fathers, who declare the divine

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meaning. One of these alternatives, then, must be true: either, if we hold
that Christ has one energy, we must also hold that He has but one essence,
or, if we are solicitous about truth, and confess that He has according to
the doctrine of the Gospels and the Fathers two essences, we must also
confess that He has two energies corresponding to and accompanying
them. For as He is of like essence with God and the Father in divinity, He
will be His equal also in energy. And as He likewise is of like essence with
us in humanity He will be our equal also in energy. For the blessed
Gregory, bishop of Nyssa, says, "Things that have one and the same
energy, have also absolutely the same power." For all energy is the effect
of power. But it cannot be that uncreated and created nature have one and
the same nature or power or energy. But if we should hold that Christ has
but one energy, we should attribute to the divinity of the Word the
passions of the intelligent spirit, viz. tear and grief and anguish.

If they should say, indeed, that the holy Fathers said in their disputation
concerning the Holy Trinity, "Things that have one and the same essence
have also one and the same energy, and things which have different
essences have also different energies," and that it is not right to transfer to
the dispensation what has reference to matters of theology, we shall
answer that if it has been said by the Fathers solely with reference to
theology, and if the Son has not even after the incarnation the same energy
as the Father s, assuredly He cannot have the same essence. But to whom
shall we attribute this, My Father worketh hitherto and I work: and this,
What things soever He seeth the Father doing, these also doeth the Son
likewise: and this, If ye believe not Me, believe My works: and this, The
work which I do bear witness concerning Me: and this. As the Father
raised up the dead and quickeneth them, even so the Son quickeneth whom
He will. For all these shew not only that He is of like essence to the Father
even after the incarnation, but that He has also the same energy.

And again: if the providence that embraces all creation is not only of the
Father and the Holy Spirit, but also of the Son even after the incarnation,
assuredly since that is energy, He must have even after the incarnation the
same energy as the Father.

But if we have learnt from the miracles that Christ has the same essence as
the Father, and since the miracles happen to be the energy of God,

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assuredly He must have even after the incarnation the same energy as the
Father.

But, if there is one energy belonging to both His divinity and His
humanity, it will be compound, and will be either a different energy from
that of the Father, or the Father, too, will have a compound energy. But if
the Father has a compound energy, manifestly He must also have a
compound nature.

But if they should say that together with energy is also introduced
personality, we shall reply that if personality is introduced along with
energy, then the true converse must hold good that energy is also
introduced along with personality; and there will be also three energies of
the Holy Trinity just as there are three persons or subsistences, or there
will be one person and one subsistence just as there is only one energy.
Indeed, the holy Fathers have maintained with one voice that things that
have the same essence have also the same energy.

But further, if personality is introduced along with energy, those who
divine that neither one nor two energies of Christ are to be spoken of, do
not maintain that either one or two persons of Christ are to be spoken of.

Take the case of the flaming sword; just as in it the natures of the fire and
the steel are preserved distinct, so also are their two energies and their
effects. For the energy of the steel is its cutting power, and that of the fire
is its burning power, and the cut is the effect of the energy of the steel, and
the burn is the effect of the energy of the fire: and these are kept quite
distinct in the burnt cut, and in the cut burn, although neither does the
burning take place apart from the cut after the union of the two, nor the
cut apart from the burning: and we do not maintain on account of the
twofold natural energy that there are two flaming swords, nor do we
confuse the essential difference of the energies on account of the unity of
the flaming sword. In like manner also, in the case of Christ, His divinity
possesses an energy that is divine and omnipotent while His humanity has
an energy such as is our own. And the effect of His human energy was His
taking the child by the hand and drawing her to Himself, while that of His
divine energy was the restoring of her to life. For the one is quite distinct
from the other, although they are inseparable from one another in theandric
energy. But if, because Christ has one subsistence, He must also have one

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energy, then, because He has one subsistence, He must also have one
essence.

And again: if we should hold that Christ has but one energy, this must be
either divine or human, or neither. But if we hold that it is divine we must
maintain that He is God alone, stripped of our humanity. And if we hold
that it is human, we shall be guilty of the impiety of saying that He is mere
man. And if we hold that it is neither divine nor human, we must also hold
that He is neither God nor man, of like essence neither to the Father nor to
us. For it is as a result of the union that the identity in hypostasis arises,
but yet the difference between the natures is not done away with. But
since the difference between the natures is preserved, manifestly also the
energies of the natures will be preserved. For no nature exists that is
lacking in energy.

If Christ our Master has one energy, it must be either created or uncreated;
for between these there is no energy, just as there is no nature. If, then, it
is created, it will point to created nature alone, but if it is uncreated, it will
betoken uncreated essence alone. For that which is natural must
completely correspond with its nature: for there cannot exist a nature that
is defective. But the energy that harmonizes with nature does not belong to
that which is external: and this is manifest because, apart from the energy
that harmonizes with nature, no nature can either exist or be known. For
through that in which each thing manifests its energy, the absence of
change confirms its own proper nature.

If Christ has one energy, it must be one and the same energy that performs
both divine anti human actions. But there is no existing thing which abiding
in its natural state can act in opposite ways: for fire does not freeze and
boil, nor does water dry up and make wet. How then could He Who is by
nature God, and Who became by nature man, have both performed
miracles, and endured passions with one and the same energy?

If, then, Christ assumed the human mind, that is to say, the intelligent and
reasonable soul, undoubtedly He has + thought, and will think for ever.
But thought is the energy of the mind: and so Christ, as man, is endowed
with energy, and will be so for ever.

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Indeed, the most wise and great and holy John Chrysostom says in his
interpretation of the Acts, in the second discourse, "One would not err if
he should call even His passion action: for in that He suffered all things, tie
accomplished that great and marvelous work, the overthrow of death, and
all His other works."

It all energy is defined as essential movement of some nature, as those who
are versed in these matters say, where does one perceive any nature that
has no movement, and is completely devoid of energy, or where does one
find energy that is not movement of natural power? But, as the blessed
Cyril says, no one in his senses could admit that there was but one natural
energy of God and His creation. It is not His human nature that raises up
Lazarus from the dead, nor is it His divine power that sheds tears: for the
shedding of tears is peculiar to human nature while the life is peculiar to
the enhypostatic life. But yet they are common the one to the other,
because of the identity in subsistence. For Christ is one, and one also is
His person or subsistence, but yet He has two natures, one belonging to
His humanity, and another belonging to His divinity. And the glory,
indeed, which proceeded naturally from His divinity became common to
both through the identity in subsistence, and again on account of His flesh
that which was lowly became common to both. For He Who is the one or
the other, that is God or man, is one and the same, and both what is divine
and what is human belong to Himself. For while His divinity performed
the miracles, they were not done apart from the flesh, and while His flesh
performed its lowly offices, they were not done apart from the divinity.
For His divinity was joined to the suffering flesh, yet remaining without
passion, and endured the saving passions, and the holy mind was joined to
the energizing divinity of the Word, perceiving and knowing what was
being accomplished.

And thus His divinity communicates its own glories to the body while it
remains itself without part in the sufferings of the flesh. For His flesh did
not suffer through His divinity in the same way that His divinity energized
through the flesh. For the flesh acted as the instrument of His divinity.
Although, therefore, from the first conception there was no division at all
between the two forms, but the actions of either form through all the time
became those of one person, nevertheless we do not in any way confuse

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those things that took place without separation, but recognize from the
quality of its works what sort of form anything has.

Christ, then, energizes according to both His natures and either nature
energizes in Him in communion with the other, the Word performing
through tile authority and power of its divinity all the actions proper to
the Word, i.e. all acts of supremacy and sovereignty, and the body
performing all the actions proper to the body, in obedience to the will of
the Word that is united to it, and of whom it has become a distinct part.
For He was not moved of Himself to the natural passions, nor again did He
in that way recoil from the things of pain, and pray for release from them,
or suffer what befell from without, but He was moved in conformity with
His nature, the Word willing and allowing Him economically * to suffer
that, and to do the things proper to Him, that the truth might be confirmed
by the works of nature.

Moreover, just as He received in His birth of a virgin superessential
essence, so also He revealed His human energy in a superhuman way,
walking with earthly feet on unstable water, not by turning the water into
earth, but by causing it in the superabundant power of His divinity not to
flow away nor yield beneath the weight of material feet. For not in a
merely human way did He do human things: for He was not only man, but
also God, and so even His sufferings brought life anti salvation: nor yet did
He energize as God, strictly after the manner of God, for He was not only
God, but also man, and so it was by touch and word and such like that He
worked miracles.

But if any one should say, "We do not say that Christ has but one nature,
in order to do away with His human energy, but we do so because human
energy, in opposition to divine energy, is called passion (7t&T0oc;)." we
shall answer that, according to this reasoning, those also who hold that He
has but one nature do not maintain this with a view to doing away with
His human nature, but because human nature in opposition to divine
nature is spoken of as passible (TtocGrruKri). But God forbid that we
should call the human activity passion, when we are distinguishing it from
divine energy. For, to speak generally, of nothing is the existence
recognized or defined by comparison or collation. If it were so, indeed,
existing things would turn out to be mutually the one the cause of the

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other. For if the human activity is passion because the divine activity is
energy, assuredly also the human nature must be wicked because the divine
nature is good, and, by conversion and opposition, if the divine activity is
called energy because the human activity is called passion, then also the
divine nature must be good because the human nature is bad. And so all
created things must be bad, and he must have spoken falsely who said,
And God saw every thing that He had made, and, behold, it was very
good.

We, therefore, maintain that the holy Fathers gave various names to the
human activity according to the underlying notion. For the called it power,
and energy, and difference, and activity, and property, and quality, and
passion, not in distinction from the divine activity, but power, because it
is a conservative and invariable force; and energy, because it is a
distinguishing mark, and reveals the absolute similarity between all things
of the same class; and difference, because it distinguishes; and activity,
because it makes manifest; and property, because it is constituent and
belongs to that alone, and not to any other; and quality, because it gives
form; and passion, because it is moved, For all things that are of God and
after God suffer in respect of being moved, forasmuch as they have not in
themselves motion or power. Therefore, as has been said, it is not in order
to distinguish the one from the other that it has been named, but it is in
accordance with the plan implanted in it in a creative manner by the Cause
that framed the universe. Wherefore, also, when they spoke of it along
with the divine nature they called it energy. For he who said, "For either
form energizes close communion with the other," did something quite
different froth him who said, And when He had fasted forty days, He was
afterwards an hungered:(for He allowed His nature to energize when it so
willed, in the way proper to itself,) or from those who hold there is a
different energy in Him or that He has a twofold energy, or now one
energy and now another. For these statements with the change in terms
signify the two energies. Indeed, often the number is indicated both by
change of terms and by speaking of them as divine and human. For the
difference is difference in differing things, but how do things that do not
exist differ?

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CHAPTER 16

In reply to those who say "If man has two natures and two energies,
Christ must be held to have three natures and as many energies."

Each individual man, since he is composed of two natures, soul and body,
and since these natures are unchangeable in him, could appropriately be
spoken of as two natures: for he preserves even after their union thee
natural properties of either. For the body is not immortal, but corruptible;
neither is the soul mortal, but immortal: and the body is not invisible pot
the soul visible to bodily eyes: but the soul is rational and intellectual, and
incorporeal, while the body is dense and visible, and irrational. But things
that are opposed to one another in essence have not one nature, and,
therefore, soul and body cannot have one essence.

And again: if man is a rational and mortal animal, and every definition is
explanatory of the underlying natures, and the rational is not the same as
the mortal according to the plan of nature, man then certainly cannot have
one nature, according to the rule of his own definition.

But if man should at any time be said to have one nature, the word
"nature" is here used instead of "species," as when we say that man does
not differ from man in any difference of nature. But since all men are
fashioned in the same way, and are composed of soul and body, and each
has two distinct natures, they are all brought under one definition. And
this is not unreasonable, for the holy Athanasius spake of all created things
as having one nature forasmuch as they were all produced, expressing
himself thus in his Oration against those who blasphemed the Holy Spirit:
"That the Holy Spirit is above all creation, and different from the nature of
things produced and peculiar to divinity, we may again perceive. For
whatever is seen to be common to many things, and not more in one and
less in another, is called essence, since, then, every man is composed of
soul and body, accordingly we speak of man as having one nature. But we
cannot speak of our Lord's subsistence as one nature: for each nature
preserves, even after the union, its natural properties, nor can we find a

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class of Christs. For no other Christ was born both of divinity and of
humanity to be at once God and man."

And again: man's unity in species is not the same thing as the unity of soul
and body in essence. For man's unity in species makes clear the absolute
similarity between all men, while the unity of soul and body in essence is
an insult to their very existence, and reduces them to nothingness: for
either the one must change into the essence of the other, or from different
things something different must be produced, and so both would be
changed, or if they keep to their own proper limits there must be two
natures. For, as regards the nature of essence the corporeal is not the same
as the incorporeal. Therefore, although holding that man has one nature,
not because the essential quality of his soul and that of his body are the
same, but because the individuals included under the species are exactly the
same, it is not necessary for us to maintain that Christ also has one nature,
for in this case there is no species embracing many subsistences.

Moreover, every compound is said to be composed of what immediately
composes it. For we do not say that a house is composed of earth and
water, but of bricks and timber. Otherwise, it would be necessary to speak
of man as composed of at least five things, viz., the four elements and soul.
And so also, in the case of our Lord Jesus Christ we do not look at the
parts of the parts, but at those divisions of which He is immediately
composed, viz., divinity and humanity.

And further, if by saying that man has two natures we are obliged to hold
that Christ has three, you, too, by saying that man is composed of two
natures must hold that Christ is composed of three natures: and it is just
the same with the energies. For energy must correspond with nature: and
Gregory the Theologian bears witness that man is said to have and has two
natures, saying, "God and man are two natures, since, indeed, soul and
body also are two natures." And in his discourse "Concerning Baptism" he
says, "Since we consist of two parts, soul and body, the visible and the
invisible nature, the purification is likewise twofold, that is, by water and
Spirit."

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CHAPTER 17

Concerning the deification of the nature of our
Lord's flesh and of His will.

It is worthy of note that the flesh of the Lord is not said to have been
deified and made equal to God and God in respect of any change or
alteration, or transformation, or confusion of nature: as Gregory the
Theologian says, "Whereof the one deified, and the other was deified, and,
to speak boldly, made equal to God: and that which anointed became man,
and that which was anointed became God." For these words do not mean
any change in nature, but rather the economical union(I mean the union in
subsistence by virtue of which it was united inseparably with God the
Word), and the permeation of the natures through one another, just as we
saw that burning permeated the steel. For, just as we confess that God
became man without change or alteration, so we consider that the flesh
became God without change. For because the Word became flesh, He did
not overstep the limits of His own divinity nor abandon the divine glories
that belong to Him: nor, on the other hand, was the flesh, when deified,
changed in its own nature or in its natural properties. For even after the
union, boil the natures abode unconfused and their properties unimpaired.
But the flesh of the Lord received the riches of the divine energies through
the purest union with the Word, that is to say, the union in subsistence,
without entailing the loss of any of its natural attributes. For it is not in
virtue of any energy of its own but through the Word united to it, that it
manifests divine energy: for the flaming steel burns, not because it has been
endowed in a physical way with burning energy, but because it has
obtained this energy by its union with fire.

Wherefore the same flesh was mortal by reason of its own nature and
life-giving through its union with the Word in subsistence. And we hold
that it is just the same with the deification of the will; for its natural
activity was not changed but united with His divine and omnipotent will,
and became the will of God, made man. And so it was that, though He
wished, He could not of Himself escape, because it pleased God the Word
that the weakness of the human will, which was in truth in Him, should be

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made manifest. But He was able to cause at His will the cleansing of the
leper, because of the union with the divine will.

Observe further, that the deification of the nature and the will points most
expressly and most directly both to two natures and two wills. For just as
the burning does not change into fire the nature of the thing that is burnt,
but makes distinct both what is burnt, and what burned it, and is indicative
not of one but of two natures, so also the deification does not bring about
one compound nature but two, and their union in subsistence. Gregory the
Theologian, indeed, says, "Whereof the one deified, the other was deified,"
and by the words "whereof," "the one," "the other," he assuredly indicates
two natures.

790

CHAPTER 18

Further concerning volitions and free-wills: minds, too, and
knowledges and wisdoms.

When we say that Christ is perfect Gods and perfect man, we assuredly
attribute to Him all the properties natural to both the Father and mother.
For He became man in order that that which was overcome might
overcome. For He Who was omnipotent did not in His omnipotent
authority and might lack the power to rescue man out of the hands of the
tyrant. But the tyrant would have had a ground of complaint if, after He
had overcome man, God should have used force against him. Wherefore
God in His pity and love for man wished to reveal fallen man himself as
conqueror, and became man to restore like with like.

But that man is a rational and intelligent animal, no one will deny. How,
then, could He have become man if He took on Himself flesh without soul,
or soul without mind? For that is not man. Again, what benefit would His
becoming man have been to us if He Who suffered first was not saved, nor
renewed and strengthened by the union with divinity? For that which is
not assumed is not remedied. He, therefore, assumed the whole man, even
the fairest part of him, which had become diseased, in order that He might
bestow salvation on the whole. And, indeed, there could never exist a mind
that had not wisdom and was destitute of knowledge. For if it has not
energy or motion, it is utterly reduced to nothingness.

Therefore, God the Word, wishing to restore that which was in His own
image, became man. But what is that which was in His own image, unless
mind? So He gave up the better and assumed the worse. For mind s is in
the border-land between God and flesh, for it dwells indeed in fellowship
with the flesh, and is, moreover, the image of God. Mind, then, mingles
with mind, and mind holds a place midway between the pureness of God
and the denseness of flesh. For if the Lord assumed a soul without mind,
He assumed the soul of an irrational animal.

But if the Evangelist said that the Word was made flesh, note that in the
Holy Scripture sometimes a man is spoken of as a soul, as, for example,

791

with seventy-five souls came Jacob into Egypt: and sometimes a man is
spoken of as flesh, as, for example, All flesh shall see the salvation of God.
And accordingly the Lord did not become flesh without soul or mind, but
man. He says, indeed, Himself, Why seek ye to kill Me, a Man that hath
told you the truth? He, therefore, assumed flesh animated with the spirit
of reason and mind, a spirit that holds sway over the flesh but is itself
under the dominion of the divinity of the Word.

So, then, He had by nature, both as God and as man, the power of will.
But His human will was obedient anti subordinate to His divine will, not
being guided by its own inclination, but willing those things which the
divine will willed. For it was with the permission of the divine will that He
suffered by nature what was proper to Him. For when He prayed that He
might escape the death, it was with His divine will naturally willing and
permitting it that He did so pray and agonize and fear, and again when His
divine will willed that His human will should choose tire death, the passion
became voluntary to Him. For it was not as God only, but also as man,
that He voluntarily surrendered Himself to the death. And thus He
bestowed on us also courage in the face of death. So, indeed, He said before
His saving passion, Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me,"
manifestly as though He were to drink the cup as man and not as God. It
was as man, then, that He wished the cup to pass from Him: but these are
the words of natural timidity. Nevertheless, He said, not My will, that is
to say, not in so far as I am of a different essence from Thee, but Thy will
be done, the is to say, My will and Thy will, in so far as I am of the same
essence as Thou. Now these are the words of a brave heart. For the Spirit
of the Lord, since He truly became man in His good pleasure, on first
testing its natural weakness was sensible of the natural fellow- suffering
involved in its separation from the body, but being strengthened by the
divine will it again grew bold in the face of death. For since He was
Himself wholly God although also man, and wholly man although also
God, He Himself as man subjected in Himself and by Himself His human
nature to God and the Father, and became obedient to the Father, thus
making Himself the most excellent type and example for us.

Of His own free-will, moreover, He exercised His divine and human will.
For free-will is assuredly implanted in every rational nature. For to what
end would it possess reason, if it could not reason at its own free-will? For

792

the Creator hath implanted even in the unreasoning brutes natural appetite
to compel them to sustain their own nature. For devoid of reason, as they
are, they cannot guide their natural appetite but are guided by it. And so,
as soon as the appetite for anything has sprung up, straightway arises also
the impulse for action. And thus they do not win praise or happiness for
pursuing virtue, nor punishment for doing evil. But the rational nature,
although it does possess a natural appetite, can guide and train it by reason
wherever the laws of nature are observed. For the advantage of reason
consists in this, tire free-will, by which we mean natural activity in a
rational subject. Wherefore in pursuing virtue it wins praise and happiness,
and in pursuing vice it wins punishment.

So that the soul s of the Lord being moved of its own free-will willed, but
willed of its free-will those things which His divine will willed it to will.
For the flesh was not moved at a sign from the Word, as Moses and all the
holy men were moved at a sign from heaven. But He Himself, Who was
one and yet both God and man, willed according to both His divine and
His human will. Wherefore it was not in inclination but rather in natural
power that the two wills of the Lord differed from one another. For His
divine will was without beginning and all-effecting, as having power that
kept pace with it, and free from passion; while His human will had a
beginning in time, and itself endured the natural and innocent passions, and
was not naturally omnipotent. But yet it was omnipotent because it truly
and naturally had its origin in the God- Word.

793

CHAPTER 19

Concerning the theandric energy.

When the blessed Dionysius says that Christ exhibited to us some sort of
novel theandric energy, he does not do away with the natural energies by
saying that one energy resulted from the union of the divine with the
human energy: for in the same way we could speak of one new nature
resulting from the union of the divine with the human nature. For,
according to the holy Fathers, things that have one energy have also one
essence. But Ire wished to indicate the novel and ineffable manner in which
the natural energies of Christ manifest themselves, a manner befitting the
ineffable manner in which the natures of Christ mutually, permeate one
another, and further how strange and wonder-rid and, in the nature of
things, unknown was His life as man, and lastly the manner of the mutual
interchange arising from the ineffable union. For we hold that the energies
are not divided and that the natures do not energies separately, but that
each conjointly in complete community with the other energizes with its
own proper energy. For the human part did not energize merely in a
human manner, for He was not mere man; nor did the divine part energize
only after the manner of God, for He was not simply God, but He was at
once God and man. For just as in the case of natures we recognize both
their union and their natural difference, so is it also with the natural wills
and energies.

Note, therefore, that in the case of our Lord Jesus Christ, we speak
sometimes of His two natures and sometimes of His one person: anti the
one or the other is referred to one conception. For the two natures are one
Christ, and the one Christ is two natures. Wherefore it is all the same
whether we say "Christ energizes according to either of His natures," or
"either nature energizes in Christ in communion with the other." The
divine nature, then, has communion with the flesh in its energizing, because
it is by the good pleasure of the divine will that the flesh is permitted to
suffer and do the things proper to itself, and because the energy of the
flesh is altogether saving, and this is an attribute not of human but of
divine energy. On the other hand the flesh has communion with the

794

divinity of the Word in its energizing, because the divine energies are
performed, so to speak, through the organ of the body, and because He
Who energizes at once as God and man is one and the same.

Further observe that His holy mind also performs its natural energies,
thinking and knowing that it is God's mind and that it is worshipped by all
creation, and remembering the times He spent on earth and all He suffered,
but it has communion with the divinity of the Word in its energizing and
orders and governs the universe, thinking and knowing and ordering not as
the mere mind of man, but as united in subsistence with God and acting as
the mind of God.

This, then, the theandric energy makes plain that when God became man,
that is when He became incarnate, both His human energy was divine, that
is deified, and not without part in His divine energy, and His divine energy
was not without part in His human energy, but either was observed in
conjunction with the other. Now this manner of speaking is called a
periphrasis, viz., when one embraces two things in one statement. For just
as in the case of the flaming sword we speak of the cut burn as one, and
the burnt cut as one, but still hold that the cut and the burn have different
energies and different natures, the burn having the nature of fire and the cut
the nature of steel, in the same way also when we speak of one theandric
energy of Christ, we understand two distinct energies of His two natures, a
divine energy belonging to His divinity, and a human energy belonging to
His humanity.

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CHAPTER 20

Concerning the natural and innocent passions.

We confess, then, that He assumed all the natural and innocent passions of
man. For He assumed the whole man and all man's attributes save sin. For
that is not natural, nor is it implanted in us by the Creator, but arises
voluntarily in our mode of life as the result of a further implantation by the
devil, though it cannot prevail over us by force. For the natural and
innocent passions are those which are not in our power, but which have
entered into the life of man owing to the condemnation by reason of the
transgression; such as hunger, thirst, weariness, labor, the tears, the
corruption, the shrinking from death, the fear, the agony with the bloody
sweat, the succor at the hands of angels because of the weakness of the
nature, and other such like passions which belong by nature to every man.

All, then, He assumed that He might sanctify all. He was tried and
overcame in order that He might prepare victory for us and give to nature
power to overcome its antagonist, in order that nature which was
overcome of old might overcome its former conqueror by the very
weapons wherewith it had itself been overcome.

The wicked one, then, made his assault from without, not by thoughts
prompted inwardly, just as it was with Adam. For it was not by inward
thoughts, but by the serpent that Adam was assailed. But the Lord
repulsed the assault and dispelled it like vapor, in order that the passions
which assailed him and were overcome might be easily subdued by us, and
that the new Adam should save the old.

Of a truth our natural passions were in harmony with nature and above
nature in Christ. For they were stirred in Him after a natural manner when
He permitted the flesh to suffer what was proper to it: but they were
above nature because that which was natural did not in the Lord assume
command over the will. For no compulsion is contemplated in Him but all
is voluntary. For it was with His will that He hungered and thirsted and
feared and died.

796

CHAPTER 21

Concerning ignorance and servitude.

He assumed, it is to be noted, the ignorant and servile nature. For it is
man's nature to be the servant of God, his Creator, and he does not
possess knowledge of the future. If, then, as Gregory the Theologian
holds, you are to separate the realm of sight from the realm of thought, the
flesh is to be spoken of as both servile and ignorant, but on account of the
identity of subsistence and the inseparable union the soul of the Lord was
enriched with the knowledge of the future as also with the other
miraculous powers. For just as the flesh of men is not in its own nature
life-giving, while the flesh of our Lord which was united in subsistence
with God the Word Himself, although it was not exempt from the
mortality of its nature, yet became life-giving through its union in
subsistence with the Word, and we may not say that it was not and is not
for ever life-giving: in like manner His human nature does not in essence
possess the knowledge of the future, but the soul of the Lord through its
union with God the Word Himself and its identity in subsistence was
enriched, as I said, with the knowledge of the future as well as with the
other miraculous powers.

Observe further that we may not speak of Him as servant. For the words
servitude and mastership are not marks of nature but indicate relationship,
to something, such as that of fatherhood and sonship. For these do not
signify essence but relation.

It is just as we said, then, in connection with ignorance, that if you
separate with subtle thoughts, that is, with fine imaginings, the created
from the uncreated, the flesh is a servant, unless it has been united with
God the Word. But how can it be a servant when t is once united in
subsistence? For since Christ is one, He cannot be His own servant and
Lord. For these are not simple predications but relative. Whose servant,
then could He be? His Father' s? The Son, then, would not have all the
Father's attributes, if He is the Father's servant and yet in no respect His
own. Besides, how could the apostle say concerning us who were adopted

797

by Him, So that you are no longer a servant but a son, if indeed He is
Himself a servant? The word servant, then, is used merely as a title,
though not in the strict meaning: but for our sakes He assumed the form of
a servant and is called a servant among us. For although He is without
passion, yet for our sake He was the servant of passion and became the
minister of our salvation. Those, then, who say that He is a servant divide
the one Christ into two, just as Nestorius did. But we declare Him to be
Master and Lord of all creation, the one Christ, at once God and man, and
all-knowing. For in Him are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, the
hidden treasures.

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CHAPTER 22

Concerning His growth.

He is, moreover, said to grow in wisdom and age and grace, increasing in
age indeed and through the increase in age manifesting the wisdom that is in
Him; yea, further, making men's progress in wisdom and grace, and the
fulfillment of the Father's goodwill, that is to say, men's knowledge of
God and men's salvation, His own increase, and everywhere taking as His
own that which is ours. But those who hold that He progressed in wisdom
and grace in the sense of receiving some addition to these attributes, do not
say that the union took place at the first origin of the flesh, nor yet do
they give precedence to the union in subsistence, but giving heed to the
foolish Nestorius they imagine some strange relative union and mere
indwelling, understanding neither what they say nor whereof they affirm.
For if in truth the flesh was united with God the Word from its first origin,
or rather if it existed in Him and was identical in subsistence with Him,
how was it that it was not endowed completely with all wisdom and
grace? not that it might itself participate in the grace, nor share by grace in
what belonged to the Word, but rather by reason of the union in
subsistence, since both what is human and what is divine belong to the one
Christ, and that He Who was Himself at once God and man should pour
forth like a fountain over the universe His grace and wisdom and plenitude
of every blessing.

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CHAPTER 23

Concerning His Fear.

The word fear has a double meaning. For fear is natural when the soul is
unwilling to be separated from the body, on account of the natural
sympathy and close relationship planted in it in the beginning by the
Creator, which makes it fear and struggle against death and pray for an
escape from it. It may be defined thus: natural fear is the force whereby we
cling to being with shrinking. For if all things were brought by the Creator
out of nothing into being, they all have by nature a longing after being and
not after non-being. Moreover the inclination towards those things that
support existence is a natural property of them. Hence God the Word
when He became man had this longing, manifesting, on the one hand, in
those things that support existence, the inclination of His nature in desiring
food and drink and sleep, and having in a natural manner made proof of
these things, while on the other hand displaying in those things that bring
corruption His natural disinclination in voluntarily shrinking in the hour of
His passion before the flee of death. For although what happened did so
according to the laws of nature, yet it was not, as in our case, a matter of
necessity. For He willingly and spontaneously accepted that which was
natural. So that fear itself and terror and agony belong to the natural and
innocent passions and are not under the dominion of sin.

Again, there is a fear which arises from treachery of reasoning and want of
faith, and ignorance of the hour of death, as when we are at night affected
by fear at some chance noise. This is unnatural fear, and may be thus
defined: unnatural fear is an unexpected shrinking. This our Lord did not
assume. Hence He never felt fear except in the hour of His passion,
although He often experienced a feeling of shrinking in accordance with the
dispensation. For He was not ignorant of the appointed time.

But the holy Athanasius in his discourse against Apollinarius says that He
did actually feel fear. "Wherefore the Lord said: Now is My soul troubled.
The 'now' indeed means just 'when He willed,' but yet points to what
actually was. For He did not speak of what was not, as though it were

800

present, as if the things that were said only apparently happened. For all
things happened naturally and actually." And again, after some other
matters, he says," In nowise does His divinity admit passion apart from a
suffering body, nor yet does it manifest trouble and pain apart froth a
pained and troubled soul, nor does it suffer anguish and offer up prayer
apart from a mind that suffered anguish and offered up prayer. For,
although these occurrences were not due to any overthrow of nature, yet
they took place to shew forth His real being." The words "these
occurrences were not due to any overthrow of His nature," prove that it
was not involuntarily that He endured these things.

801

CHAPTER 24

Concerning our Lord's Praying.

Prayer is an uprising of the mind to God or a petitioning of God for what
is fitting. How then did it happen that our Lord offered up prayer in the
case of Lazarus, and at the hour of His passion? For His holy mind was in
no need either of any uprising towards God, since it had been once and for
all united in subsistence with the God Word, or of any petitioning of God.
For Christ is one. But it was because He appropriated to Himself our
personality and took our impress on Himself, and became an ensample for
us, and taught us to ask of God and strain towards Him, and guided us
through His own holy mind in the way that leads up to God. For just as
He endured the passion, achieving for our sakes a triumph over it, so also
He offered up prayer, guiding us, as I said, in the way that leads up to
God, and "fulfilling all righteousness" on our behalf, as He said to John,
and reconciling His Father to us, and honoring Him as the beginning and
cause, and proving that He is no enemy of God. For when He said in
connection with Lazarus, Father, I thank Thee that Thou hast heard Me.
And I know that Thou hearest Me always, but because of the people
which stand by I said it, that they may believe that Thou hast sent Me, is
it not most manifest to all that He said this in honor of His Father as the
cause even of Himself, and to shew that He was no enemy of God?

Again, when he said, Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me:
yet, not as I will but as Thou wilt, is it not clear to all that He said this as a
lesson to us to ask help in our trials only from God, and to prefer God's
will to oar own, and as a proof that He did actually appropriate to Himself
the attributes of our nature, and that He did in truth possess two wills,
natural, indeed, and corresponding with His natures but yet in no wise
opposed to one another? "Father" implies that He is of the same essence,
but "if it be possible" does not mean that He was in ignorance (for what is
impossible to God?), but serves to teach us to prefer God's will to our
own. For that alone is impossible which is against God's will and
permission. "But not as I will but as Thou wilt," for inasmuch as He is
God, He is identical with the Father, while inasmuch as He is man, He

802

manifests the natural will of mankind. For it is this that naturally seeks
escape from death.

Further, these words, My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?
He said as making our personality His own. For neither would God be
regarded with us as His Father, unless one were to discriminate with subtle
imaginings of the mind between that which is seen and that which is
thought, nor was He ever forsaken by His divinity: nay, it was we who
were forsaken and disregarded. So that it was as appropriating our
personality that He offered these prayers.

803

CHAPTER 25

Concerning the Appropriation.

It is to be observed that there are two appropriations: one that is natural
and essential, and one that is personal and relative. The natural and
essential one is that by which our Lord in His love for man took on
Himself our nature and all our natural attributes, becoming in nature and
truth man, and making trial of that which is natural: but the personal and
relative appropriation is when any one assumes the person of another
relatively, for instance, out of pity or love, and in his place utters words
concerning him that have no connection with himself. And it was in this
way that our Lord appropriated both our curse and our desertion, and such
other things as are not natural: not that He Himself was or became such,
but that He took upon Himself our personality and ranked Himself as one
of us. Such is the meaning in which this phrase is to be taken: Being made a
curse for our sakes.

804

CHAPTER 26

Concerning the Passion of our Lord's body,
and the Impassibility of His divinity.

The Word of God then itself endured all in the flesh, while His divine
nature which alone was passionless remained void of passion. For since
the one Christ, Who is a compound of divinity and humanity, and exists in
divinity and humanity, truly suffered, that part which is capable of
passion suffered as it was natural it should, but that part which was void
of passion did not share in the suffering. For the soul, indeed, since it is
capable of passion shares in the pain and suffering of a bodily cut, though
it is not cut itself but only the body: but the divine part which is void of
passion does not share in the suffering of the body.

Observe, further, that we say that God suffered in the flesh, bat never that
His divinity suffered in the flesh, or that God suffered through the flesh.
For if, when the sun is shining upon a tree, the axe should cleave the tree,
and, nevertheless, the sun remains uncleft and void of passion, much more
will the passionless divinity of the Word, united in subsistence to the
flesh, remain void of passion when the body undergoes passion. And
should any one pour water over flaming steel, it is that which naturally
suffers by the water, I mean, the fire, that is quenched, but the steel
remains untouched (for it is not the nature of steel to be destroyed by
water): much more, then, when the flesh suffered did His only passionless
divinity escape all passion although abiding inseparable from it. For one
must not take the examples too absolutely and strictly: indeed, in the
examples, one must consider both what is like and what is unlike,
otherwise it would not be an example. For, if they were like in all respects
they would be identities, and not examples, and all the more so in dealing
with divine matters. For one cannot find an example that is like in all
respects whether we are dealing with theology or the dispensation.

805

CHAPTER 27

Concerning the fact that the divinity of the Word remained

inseparable from the soul and the body, even at our Lord's death, and

that His subsistence continued one.

Since our Lord Jesus Christ was without sin (for He committed no sin, He
Who took away the sin of the world, nor was there any deceit found in His
mouth) He was not subject to death, since death came into the world
through sin. He dies, therefore, because He took on Himself death on our
behalf, and He makes Himself an offering to the Father for our sakes. For
we had sinned against Him, and it was meet that He should receive the
ransom for us, and that we should thus he delivered from the
condemnation. God forbid that the blood of the Lord should have been
offered to the tyrant. Wherefore death approaches, and swallowing up the
body as a bait is transfixed on the hook of divinity, and after tasting of a
sinless and life-giving body, perishes, and brings up again all whom of old
he swallowed up. For just as darkness disappears on the introduction of
light, so is death repulsed before the assault of life, and brings life to all,
but death to the destroyer.

Wherefore, although He died as man and His Holy Spirit was severed from
His immaculate body, yet His divinity remained inseparable from both, I
mean, from His soul and His body, and so even thus His one hypostasis
was not divided into two hypostases. For body and soul received
simultaneously in the beginning their being in the subsistence of the Word,
and although they were severed from one another by death, yet they
continued, each of them, having the one subsistence of the Word. So that
the one subsistence of the Word is alike the subsistence of the Word, and
of soul and body. For at no time had either soul or body a separate
subsistence of their own, different from that of the Word, and the
subsistence of the Word is for ever one, and at no time two. So that the
subsistence of Christ is always one. For, although the soul was separated
from the body topically, yet hypostatically they were united through the
Word.

806

CHAPTER 28

Concerning Corruption and Destruction.

The word corruption has two meanings. For it signifies all the human
sufferings, such as hunger, thirst, weariness, the piercing with nails, death,
that is, the separation of soul and body, and so forth. In this sense we say
that our Lord's body was subject to corruption. For He voluntarily
accepted all these things. But corruption means also the complete
resolution of the body into its constituent elements, and its utter
disappearance, which is spoken of by many preferably as destruction. The
body of our Lord did not experience this form of corruption, as the
prophet David says, For Thou will not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt
Thou suffer Thine holy one to see corruption.

Wherefore to say, with that foolish Julianus and Gaianus, that our Lord's
body was incorruptible, in the first sense of the word, before His
resurrection is impious. For if it were incorruptible it was not really, but
only apparently, of the same essence as ours, and what the Gospel tells us
happened, viz. the hunger, the thirst, the nails, the wound in His side, the
death, did not actually occur. But if they only apparently happened, then
the mystery of the dispensation is an imposture and a sham, and He
became man only in appearance, and not in actual fact, and we are saved
only in appearance, and not in actual fact. But God forbid, and may those
who so say have no part in the salvation. But we have obtained and shall
obtain the true salvation. But in the second meaning of the word
"corruption," we confess that our Lord's body is incorruptible, that is,
indestructible, for such is the tradition of the inspired Fathers. Indeed,
after the resurrection of our Savior from the dead, we say that our Lord's
body is incorruptible even in the first sense of the word. For our Lord by
His own body bestowed the gifts both of resurrection and of subsequent
incorruption even on our own body, He Himself having become to us the
firstfruits both of resurrection and incorruption, and of passionlessness.
For as the divine Apostle says, This corruptible must put an incorruption.

807

CHAPTER 29

Concerning the Descent to Hades.

The soul when it was deified descended into Hades, in order that, just as
the Sun of Righteousness rose for those upon the earth, so likewise He
might bring light to those who sit under the earth in darkness and shadow
of death: in order that just as He brought the message of peace to those
upon the earth, and of release to the prisoners, and of sight to the blind,
and became to those who believed the Author of everlasting salvation and
to those who did not believe a reproach of their unbelief, so He might
become the same to those in Hades: That every knee should bow to Him,
of things in heaven, and things in earth and things under the earth. And
thus after He had freed those who had been bound for ages, straightway
He rose again from the dead, shewing us the way of resurrection.

808

BOOK IV

CHAPTER 1

Concerning what followed the Resurrection.

After Christ was risen from the dead He laid aside all His passions, I mean
His corruption or hunger or thirst or sleep or weariness or such like. For,
although He did taste food after the resurrection, yet He did not do so
because it was a law of His nature (for He felt no hunger), but in the way
of economy, in order that He might convince us of the reality of the
resurrection, and that it was one and the same flesh which suffered and
rose again. But He laid aside none of the divisions of His nature, neither
body nor spirit, but possesses both the body and the soul intelligent and
reasonable, volitional and energetic, and in this wise He sits at the right
hand of the Father, using His will both as God and as man in behalf of our
salvation, energizing in His divine capacity to provide for and maintain and
govern all things, and remembering in His human capacity the time He
spent on earth, while all the time He both sees and knows that He is
adored by all rational creation. For His Holy Spirit knows that He is one in
substance with God the Word, and shares as Spirit of God and not simply
as Spirit the worship accorded to Him. Moreover, His ascent from earth to
heaven, and again, His descent from heaven to earth, are manifestations of
the energies of His circumscribed body. For He shall so come again to you,
saith he, in like manner as ye have seen Him go into Heaven.

CHAPTER 2

Concerning the sitting at the right hand of the Father.

We hold, moreover, that Christ sits in the body at the right hand of God
the Father, but we do not hold that the right hand of the Father is actual
place. For how could He that is uncircumscribed have a right hand limited
by place? Right hands and left hands belong to what is circumscribed. But
we understand the right hand of the Father to be the glory and honor of the
Godhead in which the Son of God, who existed as God before the ages, and
is of like essence to the Father, and in the end became flesh, has a seat in
the body, His flesh sharing in the glory. For He along with His flesh is
adored with one adoration by all creation.

810

CHAPTER 3

In reply to those who say "If Christ has two natures,

either ye do service to the creature in worshipping created nature,

or ye say that there is one nature to be worshipped,

and another not to be worshipped."

Along with the Father and the Holy Spirit we worship the Son of God,
Who was incorporeal before He took on humanity, and now in His own
person is incarnate and has become man though still being also God. His
flesh, then, in its own nature, if one were to make subtle mental
distinctions between what is seen and what is thought, is not deserving of
worship since it is created. But as it is united with God the Word, it is
worshipped on account of Him and in Him. For just as the king deserves
homage alike when unrobed and when robed, and just as the purple robe,
considered simply as a purple robe, is trampled upon and tossed about,
but after becoming the royal dress receives all honor and glory, and
whoever dishonors it is generally condemned to death: and again, just as
wood in itself is not of such a nature that it cannot be touched, but
becomes so when fire is applied to it, and it becomes charcoal, and yet this
is not because of its own nature, but because of the fire united to it, and
the nature of the wood is not such as cannot be touched, but rather the
charcoal or burning wood: so also the flesh, in its own nature, is not to be
worshipped, but is worshipped in the incarnate God Word, not because of
itself, but because of its union in subsistence with God the Word. And we
do not say that we worship mere flesh, but God's flesh, that is, God
incarnate.

811

CHAPTER 4

Why it was the Son of God, and not the Father or the Spirit, that
became man: and what having became man He achieved.

The Father is Father and not Son: the Son is Son and not Father: the Holy
Spirit is Spirit and not Father or Son. For the individuality is unchangeable.
How, indeed, could individuality continue to exist at all if it were ever
changing and altering? Wherefore the Son of God became Son of Man in
order that His individuality might endure. For since He was the Son of
God, He became Son of Man, being made flesh of the holy Virgin and not
losing the individuality of Sonship.

Further, the Son of God became man, in order that He might again bestow
on man that favor for the sake of which He created him. For He created
him after His own image, endowed with intellect and free-will, and after
His own likeness, that is to say, perfect in all virtue so far as it is possible
for man's nature to attain perfection. For the following properties are, so
to speak, marks of the divine nature: viz. absence of care and distraction
and guile, goodness, wisdom, justice, freedom from all vice. So then, after
He had placed man in communion with Himself (for having made him for
incorruption, He led him up through communion wills Himself to
incorruption), and when moreover, through the transgression of the
command we had confused and obliterated the marks of the divine image,
and had become evil, we were stripped of our communion with God (for
what communion hath light with darkness?): and having been shut out
from life we became subject to the corruption of death: yea, since He gave
us to share in the better part, and we did not keep it secure, He shares in
the inferior part, I mean our own nature, in order that through Himself and
in Himself He might renew that which was made after His image and
likeness, and might teach us, too, the conduct of a virtuous life, making
through Himself the way thither easy for us, and might by the
communication of life deliver us from corruption, becoming Himself the
firstfruits of our resurrection, and might renovate the useless and worn
vessel calling us to the knowledge of God that He might redeem us from

812

the tyranny of the devil, and might strengthen and teach us how to
overthrow the tyrant through patience and humility.

The worship of demons then has ceased: creation has been sanctified by
the divine blood: altars and temples of idols have been overthrown, the
knowledge of God has been implanted in men's minds, the co-essential
Trinity, the uncreate divinity, one true God, Creator and Lord of all
receives men's service: virtues are cultivated, the hope of resurrection has
been granted through the resurrection of Christ, the demons shudder at
those men who of old were under their subjection. And the marvel, indeed,
is that all this has been successfully brought about through His cross and
passion and death. Throughout all the earth the Gospel of the knowledge
of God has been preached; no wars or weapons or armies being used to
rout the enemy, but only a few, naked, poor, illiterate, persecuted and
tormented men, who with their lives in their hands, preached Him Who
was crucified in the flesh and died, and who became victors over the wise
and powerful. For the omnipotent power of the Cross accompanied them.
Death itself, which once was maws chiefest terror, has been overthrown,
and now that which was once the object of hate and loathing is preferred to
life. These are the achievements of Christ's presence: these are the tokens
of His power. For it was not one people that He saved, as when through
Moses He divided the sea and delivered Israel out of Egypt and the
bondage of Pharaoh; nay, rather He rescued all mankind from the
corruption of death and the bitter tyranny of sin: not leading them by force
to virtue, not overwhelming them with earth or burning them with fire, or
ordering the sinners to be stoned, but persuading men by gentleness and
long-suffering to choose virtue and vie with one another, and find pleasure
in the struggle to attain it. For, formerly, it was sinners who were
persecuted, and yet they clung all the closer to sin, and sin was looked
upon by them as their God: but now for the sake of piety and virtue men
choose persecutions and crucifixions and death.

Hail! O Christ, the Word and Wisdom and Power of God, and God
omnipotent! What can we helpless ones give Thee in return for all these
good gifts? For all are Thine, and Thou askest naught from us save our
salvation, Thou Who Thyself art the Giver of this, and yet art grateful to
those who receive it, through Thy unspeakable goodness. Thanks be to
Thee Who gave us life, and granted us the grace of a happy life, and

813

restored us to that, when we had gone astray, through Thy unspeakable
condescension.

814

CHAPTER 5

In reply to those who ask if Christ's subsistence
is create or uncreate.

The subsistence of God the Word before the Incarnation was simple and
uncompound, and incorporeal and uncreate: but after it became flesh, it
became also the subsistence of the flesh, and became compounded of
divinity which it always possessed, and of flesh which it had assumed: and
it bears the properties of the two natures, being made known in two
natures: so that the one same subsistence is both uncreate in divinity and
create in humanity, visible and invisible. For otherwise we are compelled
either to divide the one Christ and speak of two subsistences, or to deny
the distinction between the natures and thus introduce change and
confusion.

815

CHAPTER 6

Concerning the question, when Christ was called.

The mind was not united with God the Word, as some falsely assert,
before the Incarnation by the Virgin and from that time called Christ. That
is the absurd nonsense of Origen who lays down the doctrine of the
priority of the existence of souls. But we hold that the Son and Word of
God became Christ after He had dwelt in the womb of His holy ever- virgin
Mother, and became flesh without change, and that the flesh was anointed
with divinity. For this is the anointing of humanity, as Gregory the
Theologian says. And here are the words of the most holy Cyril of
Alexandria which he wrote to the Emperor Theodosius: "For I indeed hold
that one ought to give the name Jesus Christ neither to the Word that is of
God if He is without humanity, nor yet to the temple born of woman if it
is not united with the Word. For the Word that is of God is understood to
be Christ when united with humanity in ineffable manner in the union of
the oeconomy." And again, he writes to the Empresses thus: "Some hold
that the name 'Christ' is rightly given to the Word that is begotten of God
the Father, to Him alone, and regarded separately by Himself. But we have
not been taught so to think and speak. For when the Word became flesh,
then it was, we say, that He was called Christ Jesus. For since He was
anointed with the oil of gladness, that is the Spirit, by Him Who is God
and Father, He is for this reason called Christ. But that the anointing was
an act that concerned Him as man could be doubted by no one who is
accustomed to think rightly." Moreover, the celebrated Athanasius says
this in his discourse "Concerning the Saving Manifestation:" "The God
Who was before the sojourn in the flesh was not man, but God in God,
being invisible and without passion, but when He became man, He received
in addition the name of Christ because of the flesh, since, indeed, passion
and death follow in the train of this name."

And although the holy Scripture says, Therefore God, thy God, hath
anointed thee with the oil of gladness, it is to be observed that the holy
Scripture often uses the past tense instead of the future, as for example
here: Thereafter He was seen upon the earth and dwelt among men. For as

816

yet God was not seen nor did He dwell among men when this was said.
And here again: By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down; yea wept.
For as yet these things had not come to pass.

817

CHAPTER 7

In answer to those who enquire whether the holy Mother of God bore
two natures, and whether two natures hung upon the Crass.

ayevnrov and yevnrov, written with one V and meaning uncreated and
created, refer to nature: but ayevvnrov and yevvnrov, that is to say,
unbegotten and begotten, as the double V indicates, refer not to nature but
to subsistence. The divine nature then is 6cyevr|TO<;, that is to say, uncreate,
but all things that come after the divine nature are yevnra, that is, created.
In the divine and uncreated nature, therefore, the property of being
ayevvnrov or unbegotten is contemplated in the Father (for He was not
begotten), that of being yevvnrov or begotten in the Son (for He has been
eternally begotten of the Father), and that of procession in the Holy Spirit.
Moreover of each species of living creatures, the first members were
ocyevvnroc but not ayevnroc: for they were brought into being by their
Maker, but were not the offspring of creatures like themselves. For
yeveaiq is creation, while yevvn.ai<; or begetting is in the case of God the
origin of a co-essential Son arising from the Father alone, and in the case of
bodies, the origin of a co-essential subsistence arising from the contact of
male and female. And thus we perceive that begetting refers not to nature
but to subsistence. For if it did refer to nature, to yevvnrov and to
ocyevvnrov, i.e. the properties of being begotten and unbegotten, could not
be contemplated in one and the same nature. Accordingly the holy Mother
of God bore a subsistence revealed in two natures; being begotten on the
one hand, by reason of its divinity, of the Father tunelessly, and, at last,
on the other hand, being incarnated of her in time and born in the flesh.

But if our interrogators should hint that He Who is begotten of the holy
Mother of God is two natures, we reply, "Yea! He is two natures: for He
is in His own person God and man. And the same is to be said concerning
the crucifixion and resurrection and ascension. For these refer not to nature
but to subsistence. Christ then, since He is in two natures, suffered and
was crucified in the nature that was subject to passion. For it was in the
flesh and not in His divinity that He hung upon the Cross. Otherwise, let
them answer us, when we ask if two natures died. No, we shall say. And

818

so two natures Were not crucified but Christ was begotten, that is to say,
the divine Word having become man was begotten in the flesh, was
crucified in the flesh, suffered in the flesh, while His divinity continued to
be impossible."

819

CHAPTER 8

How the Only-begotten Son of God is called first-born.

He who is first begotten is called first-born, whether he is only-begotten or
the first of a number of brothers. If then the Son of God was called
first-born, but was not called Only-begotten, we could imagine that He
was the first-born of creatures, as being a creature. But since He is called
both first-born and Only-begotten, both senses must be preserved in His
case. We say that He is first-born of all creation since both He Himself is
of God and creation is of God, but as He Himself is born alone and
timelessly of the essence of God the Father, He may with reason be called
Only-begotten Son, first-born and not first-created. For the creation was
not brought into being out of the essence of the Father, but by His will out
of nothing. And He is called First-born among many brethren, for although
being Only -begotten, He was also born of a mother. Since, indeed, He
participated just as we ourselves do in blood and flesh and became man,
while we too through Him became sons of God, being adopted through the
baptism, He Who is by nature Son of God became first-born amongst us
who were made by adoption and grace sons of God, and stand to Him in
the relation of brothers. Wherefore He said, I ascend unto My Father and
your Father. He did not say "our Father," but "My Father," clearly in the
sense of Father by nature, and "your Father," in the sense of Father by
grace. And "My God and your God." He did not say "our God," but "My
God:" and if you distinguish with subtle thought that which is seen from
that which is thought, also "your God," as Maker and Lord.

820

CHAPTER 9

Concerning Faith and Baptism.

We confess one baptism for the remission of sins and for life eternal. For
baptism declares the Lord's death. We are indeed "buried with the Lord
through baptism," as saith the divine Apostle. So then, as our Lord died
once for all, we also must be baptized once for all, and baptized according
to the Word of the Lord, In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of
the Holy Spirit, being taught the confession in Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit. Those, then, who, after having been baptized into Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit, and having been taught that there is one divine nature in three
subsistences, are rebaptized, these, as the divine Apostle says, crucify the
Christ afresh. For it is impossible, he saith, for those who were once
enlightened, etc., to renew them again unto repentance: seeing they crucify
to themselves the Christ afresh, and put Him to an open shame. But those
who were not baptized into the Holy Trinity, these must be baptized
again. For although the divine Apostle says: Into Christ and into His death
were we baptized, he does not mean that the invocation of baptism must
be in these words, but that baptism is an image of the death of Christ. For
by the three immersions, baptism signifies the three days of our Lord's
entombment. The baptism then into Christ means that believers are
baptized into Him. We could not believe in Christ if we were not taught
confession in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. For Christ is the Son of the
Living God, Whom the Father anointed with the Holy Spirit: in the words
of the divine David, Therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the
oil of gladness above thy fellows. And Isaiah also speaking in the person
of the Lord says, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because He hath
anointed me. Christ, however, taught His own disciples the invocation and
said, Baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the
Holy Spirit. For since Christ made us for incorruption, and we
transgressed His saving command. He condemned us to the corruption of
death in order that that which is evil should not be immortal, and when in
His compassion He stooped to His servants and became like us, He
redeemed us from corruption through His own passion. He caused the

821

fountain of remission to well forth for us out of His holy and immaculate
side, water for our regeneration, and the washing away of sin and
corruption; and blood to drink as the hostage of life eternal. And He laid on
us the command to be born again of water and of the Spirit, through prayer
and invocation, the Holy Spirit drawing nigh unto the water. For since
man's nature is twofold, consisting of soul and body, He bestowed on us a
twofold purification, of water and of the Spirit the Spirit renewing that
part in us which is after His image and likeness, and the water by the grace
of the Spirit cleansing the body from sin and delivering it from corruption,
the water indeed expressing the image of death, but the Spirit affording the
earnest of life.

For from the beginning the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the
waters, and anew the Scripture witnesseth that water has the power of
purification. In the time of Noah God washed away the sin of the world
by water. By water every impure person is purified, according to the law,
even the very garments being washed with water. Elias shewed forth the
grace of the Spirit mingled with the water when he burned the holocaust by
pouring on water. And almost everything is purified by water according to
the law: for the things of sight are symbols of the things of thought. The
regeneration, however, takes place in the spirit: for faith has the power of
making us sons (of God), creatures as we are, by the Spirit, and of leading
us into our original blessedness.

The remission of sins, therefore, is granted alike to all through baptism: but
the grace of the Spirit is proportional to the faith and previous
purification. Now, indeed, we receive the firstfruits of the Holy Spirit
through baptism, and the second birth is for us the beginning and seal and
security and illumination s of another life.

It behooves as, then, with all our strength to steadfastly keep ourselves
pure from filthy works, that we may not, like the dog returning to his
vomit, make ourselves again the slaves of sin. For faith apart from works is
dead, and so likewise are works apart from faith. For the true faith is
attested by works.

Now we are baptized into the Holy Trinity because those things which are
baptized have need of the Holy Trinity for their maintenance and

822

continuance, and the three subsistences cannot be otherwise than present,
the one with the other. For the Holy Trinity is indivisible.

The first baptism was that of the flood for the eradication of sin. The
second was through the sea and the cloud: for the cloud is the symbol of
the Spirit and the sea of the water. The third baptism was that of the Law:
for every impure person washed himself with water, and even washed his
garments, and so entered into the camp. The fourth was that of John, being
preliminary and leading those who were baptized to repent-once, that they
might believe in Christ: I, certainly return unto thee at this time hereafter,
and Sarah thy wife shall have a son; and afterwards the Lord said to Him, I
will not conceal from Abraham My servant the things that I will do; and
again, Moreover the Lord said, The cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is filled
up, and their sins are exceeding great. Then after long discourse, which for
the sake of brevity shall be omitted, Abraham, distressed at the destruction
which awaited the innocent as well as the guilty, said, In no wise wilt
Thou, Who judgest the earth, execute this judgment. And the Lord said, If I
find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare all the place
for their sakes. Afterwards when the warning to Lot, Abraham's brother,
was ended, the Scripture says, And the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon
Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven; and, after a
while, And the Lord visited Sarah as He had said, and did unto Sarah as He
had spoken, and Sarah conceived and bare Abraham a son in his old age, at
the set time of which God had spoken to him. And afterwards, when the
handmaid with her son had been driven from Abraham's house, and was
dreading lest her child should die in the wilderness for want of water, the
same Scripture says, And the Lord God heard the voice of the lad, where
he was, and the Angel of God child to Hagar out of heaven, and said unto
her, What is it, Hagar? Fear not, for God hath heard the voice of the lad
from the place where he is. Arise, and take the lad, and hold his hand, for I
will make him a great nation.

26. What blind faithlessness it is, what dullness of an unbelieving heart,
what headstrong impiety, to abide in ignorance of all this, or else to know
and yet neglect it! Assuredly it is written for the very purpose that error
or oblivion may not hinder the recognition of the truth. If, as we shall
prove, it is impossible to escape knowledge of the facts, then it must be
nothing less than blasphemy to deny them. This record begins with the

823

speech of the Angel to Hagar, His promise to multiply Ishmael into a great
nation and to give him a countless offspring. She listens, and by her
confession reveals that He is Lord and God. The story begins with His
appearance as the Angel of God; at its termination He stands confessed as
God Himself. Thus He Who, while He executes the ministry of declaring
the great counsel is God's Angel, is Himself in name and nature God. The
name corresponds to the nature; the nature is not falsified to make it
conform to the name. Again, God speaks to Abraham of this same matter;
he is told that Ishmael has already received a blessing, and shall be
increased into a nation; I have blessed him, God says. This is no change
from the Person indicated before; He shews that it was He Who had
already given the blessing. The Scripture has obviously been consistent
throughout in its progress from mystery to clear revelation; it began with
the Angel of God, and proceeds to reveal that it was God Himself Who
had spoken in this same matter.

27. The course of the Divine narrative is accompanied by a progressive
development of doctrine. In the passage which we have discussed God
speaks to Abraham, and promises that Sarah shall bear a son. Afterwards
three men stand by him; he worships One and acknowledges Him as Lord.
After this worship and acknowledgment by Abraham, the One promises
that He will return hereafter at the same season, and that then Sarah shall
have her son. This One again is seen by Abraham in the guise of a man, and
salutes him with the same promise. The change is one of name only;
Abraham's acknowledgment in each ease is the same. It was a Man whom
he saw, yet Abraham worshipped Him as Lord; he beheld, no doubt, in a
mystery the coming Incarnation. Faith so strong has not missed its
recognition; the Lord says in the Gospel, Your father Abraham rejoiced to
see My day; and he saw it, and was glad. To continue the history; the
Man Whom he saw promised that He would return at the same season.
Mark the fulfillment of the promise, remembering meanwhile that it was a
Man Who made it. What says the Scripture? And the Lord visited Sarah.
So this Man is the Lord, fulfilling His own promise. What follows next?
And God did unto Sarah as He had said. The narrative calls His words
those of a Man, relates that Sarah was visited by the Lord, proclaims that
the result was the work of God. You are sure that it was a Man who
spoke, for Abraham not only heard, but saw Him. Can you be less certain

824

that He was God, when the same Scripture, which had called Him Man,
confesses Him God? For its words are, And Sarah conceived, and bare
Abraham a son in his old age, and at the set time of which God had spoken
to him. But it was the Man who had promised that He would come.
Believe that He was nothing more than man; unless, in fact, He Who came
was God and Lord. Connect the incidents. It was, confessedly, the Man
who promised that He would come that Sarah might conand omnipotence
and truth and wisdom and justice, he will find all things smooth and even,
and the way straight. But without faith it is impossible to be saved. For it
is by faith that all things, both human and spiritual, are sustained. For
without faith neither does the farmer cut his furrow, nor does the merchant
commit his life to the raging waves of the sea on a small piece of wood, nor
are marriages contracted nor any other step in life taken. By faith we
consider that all things were brought out of nothing into being by God's
power. And we direct all things, both divine and human, by faith. Further,
faith is assent free from all meddlesome inquisitiveness.

Every action, therefore, and performance of miracles by Christ are most
great and divine and marvelous: but the most marvelous of all is His
precious Cross. For no other thing has subdued death, expiated the sin of
the first parent, despoiled Hades, bestowed the resurrection, granted the
power to us of contemning the present and even death itself, prepared the
return to our former blessedness, opened the gates of Paradise, given our
nature a seat at the right hand of God, and made us the children and heirs
of God, save the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. For by the Cross s all
things have been made right. So many of us, the apostle says, as were
baptized into Christ, were baptized into His death, and as many of you as
have been baptized into Christ, have put on Christ. Further Christ is the
power of God and the wisdom of God. Lo! the death of Christ, that is, the
Cross, clothed us with the enhypostatic wisdom and power of God. And
the power of God is the Word of the Cross, either because God's might,
that is, the victory over death, has been revealed to us by it, or because,
just as the four extremities of the Cross are held fast and bound together
by the bolt in the middle, so also by God's power the height and the
depth, the length and the breadth, that is, every creature visible and
invisible, is maintained.

825

This was given to us as a sign on our forehead, just as the circumcision was
given to Israel: for by it we believers are separated and distinguished from
unbelievers. This is the shield and weapon against, and trophy over, the
devil. This is the seal that the destroyer may not touch you, as saith the
Scripture. This is the resurrection of those lying in death, the support of
the standing, the staff of the weak, the rod of the flock, the safe conduct of
the earnest, the perfection of those that press forwards, the salvation of
soul and body, the aversion of all things evil, the patron of all things good,
the taking away of sin, the plant of resurrection, the tree of eternal life.

So, then, this same truly precious and august tree, on which Christ hath
offered Himself as a sacrifice for our sakes, is to be worshipped as
sanctified by contact with His holy body and blood; likewise the nails, the
spear, the clothes, His sacred tabernacles which are the manger, the cave,
Golgotha, which bringeth salvation, the tomb which giveth life, Sion, the
chief stronghold of the churches and the like, are to be worshipped. In the
words of David, the father of God, We shall go into His tabernacles, we
shall worship at the place where His feet stood. And that it is the Cross
that is meant is made clear by what follows, Arise, O Lord, into Thy Rest
. For the resurrection comes after the Cross. For if of those things which
we love, house and couch and garment, are to be longed after, how much
the rather should we long after that which belonged to God, our Savior, by
means of which we are in truth saved.

Moreover we worship even the image of the precious and life-giving Cross,
although made of another tree, not honoring the tree (God forbid) but the
image as a symbol of Christ. For He said to His disciples, admonishing
them, Then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in Heaven, meaning
the Cross. And so also the angel of the resurrection said to the woman, Ye
seek Jesus of Nazareth which was crucified. And the Apostle said, We
preach Christ crucified. For there are many Christs and many Jesuses, but
one crucified. He does not say speared but crucified. It behooves us, then,
to worship the sign of Christ. For wherever the sign may be, there also will
He be. But it does not behoove us to worship the material of which the
image of the Cross is composed, even though it be gold or precious stones,
after it is destroyed, if that should happen. Everything, therefore, that is
dedicated to God we worship, conferring the adoration on Him.

826

The tree of life which was planted by God in Paradise pre-figured this
precious Cross. For since death was by a tree, it was fitting that life and
resurrection should be bestowed by a tree. Jacob, when He worshipped
the top of Joseph's staff, was the first to image the Cross, and when he
blessed his sons with crossed hands he made most clearly the sign of the
cross. Likewise also did Moses' rod, when it smote the sea in the figure of
the cross and saved Israel, while it overwhelmed Pharaoh in the depths;
likewise also the hands stretched out crosswise and routing Amalek; and
the bitter water made sweet by a tree, and the rock rent and pouring forth
streams of water, and the rod that meant for Aaron the dignity of the high
priesthood: and the serpent lifted in triumph on a tree as though it were
dead, the tree bringing salvation to those who in faith saw their enemy
dead, just as Christ was nailed to the tree in the flesh of sin which yet
knew no sin. The mighty Moses cried, You will see your life hanging on
the tree before your eyes, and Isaiah likewise, I have spread out my hands
all the day unto a faithless and rebellious people. But may we who
worship this obtain a part in Christ the crucified. Amen.

827

CHAPTER 12

Concerning Worship towards the East.

It is not without reason or by chance that we worship towards the East.
But seeing that we are composed of a visible and an invisible nature, that is
to say, of a nature partly of spirit and partly of sense, we render also a
twofold worship to the Creator; just as we sing both with our spirit and
our bodily lips, and are baptized with both water and Spirit, and are united
with the Lord in a twofold manner, being sharers in the mysteries and in
the grace of the Spirit.

Since, therefore, God is spiritual light, and Christ is called in the Scriptures
Sun of Righteousness and Dayspring, the East is the direction that must be
assigned to His worship. For everything good must be assigned to Him
from Whom every good thing arises. Indeed the divine David also says,
Sing unto God, ye kingdoms of the earth: O sing praises unto the Lord: to
Him that rideth upon the Heavens of heavens towards the East. Moreover
the Scripture also says, And God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and
there He put the man whom He had formed: and when he had transgressed
His command He expelled him and made him to dwell over against the
delights of Paradises, which clearly is the West. So, then, we worship God
seeking and striving after our old fatherland. Moreover the tent of Moses
had its veil and mercy seat towards the East. Also the tribe of Judah as the
most precious pitched their camp on the East. Also in the celebrated
temple of Solomon the Gate of the Lord was placed eastward. Moreover
Christ, when He hung on the Cross, had His face turned towards the West,
and so we worship, striving after Him. And when He was received again
into Heaven He was borne towards the East, and thus His apostles
worship Him, and thus He will come again in the way in which they
beheld Him going towards Heaven; as the Lord Himself said, As the
lightning cometh out of the East and shineth even unto the West, so also
shall the coming of the Son of Man be.

828

So, then, in expectation of His coming we worship towards the East. But
this tradition of the apostles is unwritten. For much that has been handed
down to us by tradition is unwritten.

829

CHAPTER 13

Concerning the holy and immaculate Mysteries of the Lord.

God Who is good and altogether good and more than good, Who is
goodness throughout, by reason of the exceeding riches of His goodness
did not suffer Himself, that is His nature, only to be good, with no other to
participate therein, but because of this He made first the spiritual and
heavenly powers: next the visible and sensible universe: next man with his
spiritual and sentient nature. All things, therefore, which he made, share in
His goodness in respect of their existence. For He Himself is existence to
all, since all things that are, are in Him, not only because it was He that
brought them out of nothing into being, but because His energy preserves
and maintains all that He made: and in especial the living creatures. For
both in that they exist and in that they enjoy life they share in His
goodness. But in truth those of them that have reason have a still greater
share in that, both because of what has been already said and also because
of the very reason which they possess. For they are somehow more dearly
akin to Him, even though He is incomparably higher than they.

Man, however, being endowed with reason and free will, received the
power of continuous union with God through his own choice, if indeed he
should abide in goodness, that is in obedience to his Maker. Since,
however, he transgressed the command of his Creator and became liable to
death and corruption, the Creator and Maker of our race, because of His
bowels of compassion, took on our likeness, becoming man in all things
but without sin, and was united to our nature. For since He bestowed on
us His own image and His own spirit and we did not keep them safe, He
took Himself a share in our poor and weak nature, in order that He might
cleanse us and make us incorruptible, and establish us once more as
partakers of His divinity.

For it was fitting that not only the first-fruits of our nature should partake
in the higher good but every man who wished it, and that a second birth
should take place and that the nourishment should be new and suitable to
the birth and thus the measure of perfection be attained. Through His

830

birth, that is, His incarnation, and baptism and passion and resurrection,
He delivered our nature from the sin of our first parent and death and
corruption, and became the first-fruits of the resurrection, and made
Himself the way and image and pattern, in order that we, too, following in
His footsteps, may become by adoption what He is Himself by nature,
sons and heirs of God and joint heirs with Him. He gave us therefore, as I
said, a second birth in order that, just as we who are born of Adam are in
his image and are the heirs of the curse and corruption, so also being born
of Him we may be in His likeness and heirs of His incorruption and
blessing and glory.

Now seeing that this Adam is spiritual, it was meet that both the birth and
likewise the food should be spiritual too, but since we are of a double and
compound nature, it is meet that both the birth should be double and
likewise the food compound. We were therefore given a birth by water and
Spirit: I mean, by the holy baptism: and the food is the very bread of life,
our Lord Jesus Christ, Who came down from heaven. For when He was
about to take on Himself a voluntary death for our sakes, on the night on
which He gave Himself up, He laid a new covenant on His holy disciples
and apostles, and through them on all who believe on Him. In the upper
chamber, then, of holy and illustrious Sion, after He had eaten the ancient
Passover with His disciples and had fulfilled the ancient covenant, He
washed His disciples' feet in token of the holy baptism. Then having
broken bread He gave it to them saying, Take, eat, this is My body broken
for you for the remission of sins. Likewise also He took the cup of wine
and water and gave it to them saying, Drink ye all of it: for this is My
blood, the blood of the New Testament which is shed for you for the
remission of sins. This do ye in remembrance of Me. For as often as ye eat
this bread and drink this cup, ye do shew the death of the Son of man and
confess His resurrection until He come.

If then the Word of God is quick and energizing, and the Lord did all that
He willed; if He said, Let there be light and there was light, let there be a
firmament and there was a firmament; if the heavens were established by
the Word of the Lord and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth;
if the heaven and the earth, water and fire and air and the whole glory of
these, and, in sooth, this most noble creature, man, were perfected by the
Word of the Lord; if God the Word of His own will became man and the

831

pure and undefiled blood of the holy and ever- virginal One made His flesh
without the aid of seed, can He not then make the bread His body and the
wine and water His blood? He said in the beginning, Let the earth bring
forth grass, and even until this present day, when the rain comes it brings
forth its proper fruits, urged on and strengthened by the divine command.
God said, This is My body, and This is My blood, and this do ye in
remembrance of Me. And so it is at His omnipotent command until He
come: for it was in this sense that He said until He come: and the
overshadowing power of the Holy Spirit becomes through the invocation
the rain to this new tillage. For just as God made all that He made by the
energy of the Holy Spirit, so also now the energy of the Spirit performs
those things that are supernatural and which it is not possible to
comprehend unless by faith alone. How shall this be, said the holy Virgin,
seeing I know not a man? And the archangel Gabriel answered her: The
Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall
overshadow thee. And now you ask, how the bread became Christ's body
and the wine and water Christ's blood. And I say unto thee, "The Holy
Spirit is present and does those things which surpass reason and thought."

Further, bread and wine s are employed: for God knoweth man's infirmity:
for in general man turns away discontentedly from what is not well-worn
by custom: and so with His usual indulgence H e performs His
supernatural works through familiar objects: and just as, in the case of
baptism, since it is man's custom to wash himself with water and anoint
himself with oil, He connected the grace of the Spirit with the oil and the
water and made it the water of regeneration, in like manner since it is man' s
custom to eat and to drink water and wine, He connected His divinity with
these and made them His body and blood in order that we may rise to
what is supernatural through what is familiar and natural.

The body which is born of the holy Virgin is in truth body united with
divinity, not that the body which was received up into the heavens
descends, but that the bread itself and the wine are changed into God's
body and blood. But if you enquire how this happens, it is enough for you
to learn that it was through the Holy Spirit, just as the Lord took on
Himself flesh that subsisted in Him and was born of the holy Mother of
God through the Spirit. And we know nothing further save that the Word
of God is true and energizes and is omnipotent, but the manner of this

832

cannot be searched out. But one can put it well thus, that just as in nature
the bread by the eating and the wine and the water by the drinking are
changed into the body and blood of the eater and drinker, and do not
become a different body from the former one, so the bread of the table and
the wine and water are supernaturally changed by the invocation and
presence of the Holy Spirit into the body and blood of Christ, and are not
two but one and the same.

Wherefore to those who partake worthily with faith, it is for the remission
of sins and for life everlasting and for the safeguarding of soul and body;
but to those who partake unworthily without faith, it is for chastisement
and punishment, just as also the death of the Lord became to those who
believe life and incorruption for the enjoyment of eternal blessedness,
while to those who do not believe and to the murderers of the Lord it is for
everlasting chastisement and punishment.

The bread and the wine are not merely figures of the body and blood of
Christ (God forbid!) but the deified body of the Lord itself: for the Lord
has said, "This is My body," not, this is a figure of My body: and "My
blood," not, a figure of My blood. And on a previous occasion He had said
to the Jews, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His
blood, ye have no life in you. For My flesh is meat indeed and My blood
is drink indeed. And again, He that eateth Me, shall live.

Wherefore with all fear and a pure conscience and certain faith let us draw
near and it will assuredly be to us as we believe, doubting nothing. Let us
pay homage to it in all purity both of soul and body: for it is twofold. Let
us draw near to it with an ardent desire, and with our hands held in the
form of the cross s let us receive the body of the Crucified One: and let us
apply our eyes and lips and brows and partake of the divine coal, in order
that the fire of the longing, that is in us, with the additional heat derived
from the coal may utterly consume our sins and illumine our hearts, and
that we may be inflamed and deified by the participation in the divine fire.
Isaiah saw the coal. But coal is not plain wood but wood united with fire:
in like manner also the bread of the communion is not plain bread but bread
united with divinity. But a body s which is united with divinity is not one
nature, but has one nature belonging to the body and another belonging to

833

the divinity that is united to it, so that the compound is not one nature but
two.

With bread and wine Melchisedek, the priest of the most high God,
received Abraham on his return from the slaughter of the Gentiles. That
table pre-imaged this mystical table, just as that priest was a type and
image of Christ, the true high-priest. For thou art a priest for ever after the
order of Melchisedek. Of this bread the show-bread was an image. This
surely is that pure and bloodless sacrifice which the Lord through the
prophet said is offered to Him from the rising to the setting of the sun.

The body and blood of Christ are making for the support of our soul and
body, without being consumed or suffering corruption, not making for the
draught (God forbid!) but for our being and preservation, a protection
against all kinds of injury, a purging from all uncleanness: should one
receive base gold, they purify it by the critical burning lest in the future we
be condemned with this world. They purify from diseases and all kinds of
calamities; according to the words of the divine Apostles, For if we would
judge ourselves, we should not be judged. But when we are judged, we are
chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world.
This too is what he says, So that he that partaketh of the body and blood
of Christ unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself. Being
purified by this, we are united to the body of Christ and to His Spirit and
become the body of Christ.

This bread is the first-fruits of the future bread which is ercioiJGiot;, i.e.
necessary for existence. For the word eTticuaiov signifies either the
future, that is Him Who is for a future age, or else Him of Whom we
partake for the preservation of our essence. Whether then it is in this sense
or that, it is fitting to speak so of the Lord's body. For the Lord's flesh is
life-giving spirit because it was conceived of the life-giving Spirit. For what
is born of the Spirit is spirit. But I do not say this to take away the nature
of the body, but I wish to make clear its life-giving and divine power.

But if some persons called the bread and the wine antitypes of the body
and blood of the Lord, as did the divinely inspired Basil, they said so not
after the consecration but before the consecration, so calling the offering
itself.

834

Participation is spoken of; for through it we partake of the divinity of
Jesus. Communion, too, is spoken of, and it is an actual communion,
because through it we have communion with Christ and share in His flesh
and His divinity: yea, we have communion and are united with one another
through it. For since we partake of one bread, we all become one body of
Christ and one blood, and members one of another, being of one body with
Christ.

With all our strength, therefore, let us beware lest we receive communion
from or grant it to heretics; Give not that which is holy unto the dogs,
saith the Lord, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest we become
partakers in their dishonor and condemnation. For if trojan is in truth with
Christ and with one another, we are assuredly voluntarily united also with
all those who partake with us. For this union is effected voluntarily and
not against our inclination. For we are all one body because we partake of
the one bread, as the divine Apostle says.

Further, antitypes of future things are spoken of, not as though they were
not in reality Christ' s body and blood, but that now through them we
partake of Christ's divinity, while then we shall partake mentally through
the vision alone.

835

CHAPTER 14

Concerning our Lord's genealogy and
concerning the holy Mother of God.

Concerning the holy and much-lauded ever- virgin one, Mary, the Mother
of God, we have said something in the preceding chapters, bringing
forward what was most opportune, viz., that strictly and truly she is and
is called the Mother of God. Now let us fill up the blanks. For she being
pre-ordained by the eternal prescient counsel of God and imaged forth and
proclaimed in diverse images and discourses of the prophets through the
Holy Spirit, sprang at the pre-determined time from the root of David,
according to the promises that were made to him. For the Lord hath sworn,
He saith in truth to David, He will not turn from it: of the fruit of Thy
body will I set upon Thy throne. And again, Once have I sworn by My
holiness, that I will not lie unto David. His seed shall endure for ever, and
His throne as the sun before Me. It shall be established for ever as the
moon, and as a faithful witness in heaven. And Isaiah says: And there shall
come out a rod out of the stem of Jesse and a branch shall grow out of his
roots.

But that Joseph is descended from the tribe of David is expressly
demonstrated by Matthew and Luke, the most holy evangelists. But
Matthew derives Joseph from David through Solomon, while Luke does so
through Nathan; while over the holy Virgin's origin both pass in silence.

One ought to remember that it was not the custom of the Hebrews nor of
the divine Scripture to give genealogies of women; and the law was to
prevent one tribe seeking wives from another. And so since Joseph was
descended from the tribe of David and was a just man (for this the divine
Gospel testifies), he would not have espoused the holy Virgin contrary to
the law; he would not have taken her unless she had been of the same tribe.
It was sufficient, therefore, to demonstrate the descent of Joseph.

One ought also to observe this, that the law was that when a man died
without seed, this maws brother should take to wife the wife of the dead

836

man and raise up seed to his brother. The offspring, therefore, belonged by
nature to the second, that is, to him that begat it, but by law to the dead.

Born then of the line of Nathan, the son of David, Levi begat Melchi and
Panther: Panther begat Barpanther, so called. This Barpanther begat
Joachim: Joachim begat the holy Mother of God. And of the line of
Solomon, the son of David, Mathan had a wife of whom he begat Jacob.
Now on the death of Mathan, Melchi, of the tribe of Nathan, the son of
Levi and brother of Panther, married the wife of Mathan, Jacob's mother,
of whom he begat Heli. Therefore Jacob and Hell became brothers on tile
mother' s side, Jacob being of the tribe of Solomon and Heli of the tribe of
Nathan. Then Heli of the tribe of Nathan died childless, and Jacob his
brother, of the tribe of Solomon, took his wife and raised up seed to his
brother and begat Joseph. Joseph, therefore, is by nature the son of Jacob,
of the line of Solomon, but by law he is the son of Hell of the line of
Nathan.

Joachim then took to wife that revered and praiseworthy woman, Anna.
But just as the earlier Anna, who was barren, bore Samuel by prayer and
by promise, so also this Anna by supplication and promise from God bare
the Mother of God in order that she might not even in this be behind the
matrons of fame. Accordingly it was grace (for this is the interpretation of
Anna) that bore the lady: (for she became truly the Lady of all created
things in becoming the Mother of the Creator). Further, Joachim was born
in the house of the Probatica, and was brought up to the temple. Then
planted in the House of God and increased by the Spirit, like a fruitful
olive tree, she became the home of every virtue, turning her mind away
from every secular and carnal desire, and thus keeping her soul as well as
her hotly virginal, as was meet for her who was to receive God into her
bosom: for as He is holy, He finds rest among the holy. Thus, therefore,
she strove after holiness, and was declared a holy and wonderful temple fit
for the most high God.

Moreover, since the enemy of our salvation was keeping a watchful eye on
virgins, according to the prophecy of Isaiah, who said, Behold a virgin shall
conceive and bare a Son and shall call His name Emmanuel, which is, being
interpreted, 'God with us,' in order that he who taketh the wise in their
own craftiness may deceive him who always glorieth in his wisdom, the

837

maiden is given in marriage to Joseph by the priests, a new book to him
who is versed in letters: but the marriage was both the protection of the
virgin and the delusion of him who was keeping a watchful eye on virgins.
But when the fullness of time was come, the messenger of the Lord was
sent to her, with the good news of our Lord's conception. And thus she
conceived the Son of God, the hypostatic power of the Father, not of the
will of the flesh nor of the will of man, that is to say, by connection and
seed, but by the good pleasure of the Father and co-operation of the Holy
Spirit. She ministered to the Creator in that He was created, to the
Fashioner in that He was fashioned, and to the Son of God and God in that
He was made flesh and became man from her pure and immaculate flesh
and blood, satisfying the debt of the first mother. For just as the latter was
formed from Adam without connection, so also did the former bring forth
the new Adam, who was brought forth in accordance with the laws of
parturition and above the nature of generation.

For He who was of the Father, yet without mother, was born of woman
without a father's co-operation. And so far as He was born of woman, His
birth was in accordance with the laws of parturition, while so far as He had
no father, His birth was above the nature of generation: and in that it was
at the usual time (for He was born on the completion of the ninth month
when the tenth was just beginning), His birth was in accordance with the
laws of parturition, while in that it was painless it was above the laws of
generation. For, as pleasure did not precede it, pain did not follow it,
according to the prophet who says, Before she travailed, she brought forth,
and again, before her pain came she was delivered of a man-child. The Son
of God incarnate, therefore, was born of her, not a divinely-inspired man
but God incarnate not a prophet anointed with energy but by the presence
of the anointing One in His completeness, so that the Anointer became
man and the Anointed God, not by a change of nature but by union in
subsistence. For the Anointer and the Anointed were one and the same,
anointing in the capacity of God Himself as man. Must there not therefore
be a Mother of God who bore God incarnate? Assuredly she who played
the part of the Creator's servant and mother is in all strictness and truth in
reality God's Mother and Lady and Queen over all created things. But just
as He who was conceived kept her who conceived still virgin, in like
manner also He who was born preserved her virginity intact, only passing

838

through her and keeping her closed. The conception, indeed, was through
the sense of hearing, but the birth through the usual path by which children
come, although some tell tales of His birth through the side of the Mother
of God. For it was not impossible for Him to have come by this gate,
without injuring her seal in any way.

The ever- virgin One thus remains even after the birth still virgin, having
never at any time up till death consorted with a man. For although it is
written, And knew her not till she had brought forth her first-born Son, yet
note that he who is first-begotten is first-born even if he is only -begotten.
For the word "first-born" means that he was born first but does not at all
suggest the birth of others. And the word "till" signifies the limit of the
appointed time but does not exclude the time thereafter. For the Lord says,
And lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world, not
meaning thereby that He will be separated from us after the completion of
the age. The divine apostle, indeed, says, And so shall we ever be with the
Lord, meaning after the general resurrection.

For could it be possible that she, who had borne God and from experience
of the subsequent events had come to know the miracle, should receive the
embrace of a man. God forbid! It is not the part of a chaste mind to think
such thoughts, far less to commit such acts

But this blessed woman, who was deemed worthy of gifts that are
supernatural, suffered those pains, which she escaped at the birth, in the
hour of the passion, enduring from motherly sympathy the rending of the
bowels, and when she beheld Him, Whom she knew to be God by the
manner of His generation, killed as a malefactor, her thoughts pierced her
as a sword, and this is the meaning of this verse: Yea, a sword shall pierce
through thy own soul also. But the joy of the resurrection transforms the
pain, proclaiming Him, Who died in the flesh, to be God.

839

CHAPTER 15

Concerning the honor due to the Saints and their remains.

To the saints honor must be paid as friends of Christ, as sons and heirs of
God: in the words of John the theologian and evangelist, As many as
received Him, to them gave He power to became sons of God. So that they
are no longer servants, but sons: and if sons, also heirs, heirs of God and
joint heirs with Christ: and the Lord in the holy Gospels says to His
apostles, Ye are My friends. Henceforth I call you not servants, for the
servant knoweth not what his Lord doeth. And further, if the Creator and
Lord of all things is called also King of Kings and Lord of Lords and God
of Gods, surely also the saints are gods and lords and kings. For of these
God is and is called God and Lord and King. For I am the God of
Abraham, He said to Moses, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. And
God made Moses a God to Pharaoh. Now I mean gods and kings and lords
not in nature, but as rulers and masters of their passions, and as preserving
a truthful likeness to the divine image according to which they were made
(for the image of a king is also called king), and as being united to God of
their own free-will and receiving Him as an indweller and becoming by
grace through participation with Him what He is Himself by nature.
Surely, then, the worshippers and friends and sons of God are to be held in
honor? For the honor shewn to the most thoughtful of fellow- servants is a
proof of good feeling towards the common Master.

These are made treasuries and pure habitations of God: For I will dwell in
them, said God, and walk in them, and I will be their God. The divine
Scripture likewise saith that the souls of the just are in God's hand and
death cannot lay hold of them. For death is rather the sleep of the saints
than their death. For they travailed in this life and shall to the end, and
Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints. What then, is
more precious than to be in the hand of God? For God is Life and Light,
and those who are in God's hand are in life and light.

Further, that God dwelt even in their bodies in spiritual wise, the Apostle
tells us, saying, Know ye not that your bodies are the temples of the Holy

840

Spirit dwelling in you?, and The Lord is that Spirit, and If any one destroy
the temple of God, him will God destroy. Surely, then, we must ascribe
honor to the living temples of God, the living tabernacles of God. These
while they lived stood with confidence before God.

The Master Christ made the remains of the saints to be fountains of
salvation to us, pouring forth manifold blessings and abounding in oil of
sweet fragrance: and let no one disbelieve this. For if water burst in the
desert from the steep and solid rock at God's will and from the jaw-bone
of an ass to quench Samson's thirst, is it incredible that fragrant oil should
burst forth from the martyrs' remains? By no means, at least to those who
know the power of God and the honor which He accords His saints.

In the law every one who toucheth a dead body was considered impure,
but these are not dead. For from the time when He that is Himself life and
the Author of life was reckoned among the dead, we do not call those dead
who have fallen asleep in the hope of the resurrection and in faith on Him.
For how could a dead body work miracles? How, therefore, are demons
driven off by them, diseases dispelled, sick persons made well, the blind
restored to sight, lepers purified, temptations and troubles overcome, and
how does every good gift from the Father of lights come down through
them to those who pray with sure faith? How much labor would you not
undergo to find a patron to introduce you to a mortal king and speak to
him on your behalf? Are not those, then, worthy of honor who are the
patrons of the whole race, and make intercession to God for us? Yea,
verily, we ought to give honor to them by raising temples to God in their
name, bringing them fruit-offerings, honoring their memories and taking
spiritual delight in them, in order that the joy of those who call on us may
be ours, that in our attempts at worship we may not on the contrary cause
them offense. For those who worship God will take pleasure in those
things whereby God is worshipped, while His shield-bearers will be wrath
at those things wherewith God is wroth. In psalms and hymns and
spiritual songs, in contrition and in pity for the needy, let us believers
worship the saints, as God also is most worshipped in such wise. Let us
raise monuments to them and visible images, and let us ourselves become,
through imitation of their virtues, living monuments and images of them.
Let us give honor to her who bore God as being strictly and truly the
Mother of God. Let us honor also the prophet John as forerunner and

841

baptist, as apostle and martyr, For among them that are born of women
there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist, as saith the Lord, and
he became the first to proclaim the Kingdom. Let us honor the apostles as
the Lord's brothers, who saw Him face to face and ministered to His
passion, for whom God the Father did foreknow He also did predestinate
to be conformed to the image of His Son, first apostles, second prophets,
third pastors end teachers. Let us also honor the martyrs of the Lord
chosen out of every class, as soldiers of Christ who have drunk His cup
and were then baptized with the baptism of His life-bringing death, to be
partakers of His passion and glory: of whom the leader is Stephen, the
first deacon of Christ and apostle and first martyr. Also let us honor our
holy fathers, the God-possessed ascetics, whose struggle was the longer
and more toilsome one of the conscience: who wandered about in
sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented; they
wandered in deserts and in mountains and in dens and caves of the earth, of
whom the world was not worthy. Let us honor those who were prophets
before grace, the patriarchs anti just men who foretold the Lord's coming.
Let us carefully review the life of these men, and let us emulate their faith
and love and hope and zeal and way of life, and endurance of sufferings
and patience even to blood, in order that we may be sharers with them in
their crowns of glory.

842

CHAPTER 16

Concerning Images.

But since some find fault with us for worshipping and honoring the image
of our Savior and that of our Lady, and those, too, of the rest of the saints
and servants of Christ, let them remember that in the beginning God
created man after His own image. On what grounds, then, do we shew
reverence to each other unless because we are made after God's image? For
as Basil, that much- versed expounder of divine things, says, the honor
given to the image passes over to the prototype. Now a prototype is that
which is imaged, from which the derivative is obtained. Why was it that
the Mosaic people honored on all hands the tabernacle which bore an
image and type of heavenly things, or rather of the whole creation? God
indeed said to Moses, Look that thou make them after their pattern which
was shewed thee in the mount. The Cherubim, too, which o'ershadow the
mercy seat, are they not the work of men's hands? What, further, is the
celebrated temple at Jerusalem? Is it not hand-made and fashioned by the
skill of men?

Moreover the divine Scripture blames those who worship graven images,
but also those who sacrifice to demons. The Greeks sacrificed and the
Jews also sacrificed: but the Greeks to demons and the Jews to God. And
the sacrifice of the Greeks was rejected and condemned, but the sacrifice of
the just was very acceptable to God. For Noah sacrificed, and God smelled
a sweet savor, receiving the fragrance of the right choice and good- will
towards Him. And so the graven images of the Greeks, since they were
images of deities, were rejected and forbidden.

But besides this who can make an imitation of the invisible, incorporeal,
uncircumscribed, formless God? Therefore to give form to the Deity is the
height of folly and impiety. And hence it is that in the Old Testament the
use of images was not common. But after God in His bowels of pity
became in truth man for our salvation, not as He was seen by Abraham in
the semblance of a man, nor as He was seen by the prophets, but in being
truly man, and after He lived upon the earth and dwelt among men, worked

843

miracles, suffered, was crucified, rose again and was taken back to Heaven,
since all these things actually took place and were seen by men, they were
written for the remembrance and instruction of us who were not alive at
that time in order that though we saw not, we may still, hearing and
believing, obtain the blessing of the Lord. But seeing that not every one has
a knowledge of letters nor time for reading, the Fathers gave their sanction
to depicting these events on images as being acts of great heroism, in order
that they should form a concise memorial of them. Often, doubtless, when
we have not the Lord's passion in mind and see the image of Christ's
crucifixion, His saving passion is brought back to remembrance, and we fall
down and worship not the material but that which is imaged: just as we do
not worship the material of which the Gospels are made, nor the material
of the Cross, but that which these typify. For wherein does the cross, that
typifies the Lord, differ from a cross that does not do so? It is just the
same also in the case of the Mother of the Lord. For the honor which we
give to her is referred to Him Who was made of her incarnate. And
similarly also the brave acts of holy men stir us up to be brave and to
emulate and imitate their valor and to glorify God. For as we said, the
honor that is given to the best of fellow- servants is a proof of good- will
towards our common Lady, and the honor rendered to the image passes
over to the prototype. But this is an unwritten tradition, just as is also the
worshipping towards the East and the worship of the Cross, and very
many other similar things.

A certain tale, too, is told, how that when Augarus was king over the city
of the Edessenes, he sent a portrait painter to paint a likeness of the Lord,
and when the painter could not paint because of the brightness that shone
from His countenance, the Lord Himself put a garment over His own
divine and life-giving face and impressed on it an image of Himself and sent
this to Augarus, to satisfy thus his desire.

Moreover that the Apostles handed down much that was unwritten, Paul,
the Apostle of the Gentiles, tells us in these words: Therefore, brethren,
stand fast and hold the traditions which ye have been taught of us, whether
by word or by epistle. And to the Corinthians he writes, Now I praise
you, brethren, that ye remember me in all things, and keep the traditions as
I have delivered them to you."

844

CHAPTER 17

Concerning Scripture.

It is one and the same God Whom both the Old and the New Testament
proclaim, Who is praised and glorified in the Trinity: I am come, saith the
Lord, not to destroy life law but to fulfill it. For He Himself worked out
our salvation for which all Scripture and all mystery exists. And again,
Search the Scriptures for they are they that testify of Me. And the
Apostle says, God, Who at sundry times and in diverse manners spake in
time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken
unto us by His Son. Through the Holy Spirit, therefore, both the law and
the prophets, the evangelists and apostles and pastors and teachers, spake.

All Scripture, then, is given by inspiration of God and is also assuredly
profitable. Wherefore to search the Scriptures is a work most fair and most
profitable for souls. For just as the tree planted by the channels of waters,
so also the soul watered by the divine Scripture is enriched and gives fruit
in its season, viz. orthodox belief, and is adorned with evergreen leafage, I
mean, actions pleasing to God. For through the Holy Scriptures we are
trained to action that is pleasing to God, and untroubled contemplation.
For in these we find both exhortation to every virtue and dissuasion from
every vice. If, therefore, we are lovers of learning, we shall also be learned
in many things. For by care and toil and the grace of God the Giver, all
things are accomplished. For every one that asketh receiveth, and he that
seeketh findeth, and to hint that knocketh it shall be opened. Wherefore let
us knock at that very fair garden of the Scriptures, so fragrant and sweet
and blooming, with its varied sounds of spiritual and divinely-inspired
birds ringing all round our ears, laying hold of our hearts, comforting the
mourner, pacifying the angry and filling him with joy everlasting: which
sets our mind on the gold-gleaming, brilliant back of the divine dove, whose
bright pinions bear up to the only-begotten Son and Heir of the
Husbandman of that spiritual Vineyard and bring us through Him to the
Father of Lights. But let us not knock carelessly but rather zealously and
constantly: lest knocking we grow weary. For thus it will be opened to us.
If we read once or twice and do not understand what we read, let us not

845

grow weary, but let us persist, let us talk much, let us enquire. For ask thy
Father, he saith, and He will shew thee: thy elders and they will tell thee.
For there is not in every man that knowledge. Let us draw of the fountain
of the garden perennial and purest waters springing into life eternal. Here
let us luxuriate, let us revel insatiate: for the Scriptures possess
inexhaustible grace. But if we are able to pluck anything profitable from
outside sources, there is nothing to forbid that. Let us become tried
money-dealers, heaping up the true and pure gold and discarding the
spurious. Let us keep the fairest sayings but let us throw to the dogs
absurd gods and strange myths: for we might prevail most mightily against
them through themselves.

Observe, further, that there are two and twenty books of the Old
Testament, one for each letter of the Hebrew tongue. For there are
twenty-two letters of which five are double, and so they come to be
twenty-seven. For the letters Caph, Mere, Nun, Pe, Sade are double. And
thus the number of the books in this way is twenty-two, but is found to
be twenty- seven because of the double character of five. For Ruth is joined
on to Judges, and the Hebrews count them one book: the first and second
books of Kings are counted one: and so are the third and fourth books of
Kings: and also the first and second of Paraleipomena: and the first and
second of Esdra. In this way, then, the books are collected together in four
Pentateuchs and two others remain over, to form thus the canonical books.
Five of them are of the Law, viz. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers,
Deuteronomy. This which is the code of the Law, constitutes the first
Pentateuch. Then comes another Pentateuch, the so-called Grapheia, or as
they are called by some, the Hagiographa, which are the following: Jesus
the Son of Nave, Judges along with Ruth, first and second Kings, which are
one book, third and fourth Kings, which are one book, and the two books
of the Paraleipomena which are one book. This is the second Pentateuch.
The third Pentateuch is the books in verse, viz. Job, Psalms, Proverbs of
Solomon, Ecclesiastes of Solomon and the Song of Songs of Solomon. The
fourth Pentateuch is the Prophetical books, viz the twelve prophets
constituting one book, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel. Then come the
two books of Esdra made into one, and Esther. There are also the
Panaretus, that is the Wisdom of Solomon, and the Wisdom of Jesus,
which was published in Hebrew by the father of Sirach, and afterwards

846

translated into Greek by his grandson, Jesus, the Son of Sirach. These are
virtuous and noble, but are not counted nor were they placed in the ark.

The New Testament contains four gospels, that according to Matthew,
that according to Mark, that according to Luke, that according to John: the
Acts of the Holy Apostles by Luke the Evangelist: seven catholic epistles,
viz. one of James, two of Peter, three of John, one of Jude: fourteen letters
of the Apostle Paul: the Revelation of John the Evangelist: the Canons of
the holy apostles, by Clement.

847

CHAPTER 18

Regarding the things said concerning Christ.

The things said concerning Christ fall into four generic modes. For some fit
Him even before the incarnation, others in the union, others after the
union, and others after the resurrection. Also of those that refer to the
period before the incarnation there are six modes: for some of them declare
the union of nature and the identity in essence with the Father, as this, I
and My Father are one: also this, He that hath seen Me hath seen the
Father: and this, Who being in the form of God, and so forth. Others
declare the perfection of subsistence, as these, Son of God, and the
Express Image of His person, and Messenger of great counsel, Wonderful
Counselor, and the like.

Again, others declare the indwelling of the subsistences in one another, as,
I am in the Father and the Father in Me; and the inseparable foundation,
as, for instance, the Word, Wisdom, Power, Effulgence. For the word is
inseparably established in the mind (and it is the essential mind that I
mean), and so also is wisdom, and power in him that is powerful, and
effulgence in the light, all springing forth from these.

And others make known the fact of His origin from the Father as cause, for
instance My Father is greater than I. For from Him He derives both His
being and all that He has: His being was by generative and not by creative
means, as, I came forth from the Father and am come, and I live by the
Father. But all that He hath is not His by free gift or by teaching, but in a
causal sense, as, The Son can do nothing of Himself but what He seeth the
Father do. For if the Father is not, neither is the Son. For the Son is of the
Father and in the Father and with the Father, and not after the Father. In
like manner also what He doeth is of Him and with Him. For there is one
and the same, not similar but the same, will and energy and power in the
Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Moreover, other things are said as though the Father's good- will was
fulfilled through His energy, and not as through an instrument or a servant,
but as through His essential and hypostatic Word and Wisdom and Power,

848

because but one action is observed in Father and Son, as for example, All
things were made by Him, and He sent His Word and healed them, and
That they may believe that Than hast sent Me.

Some, again, have a prophetic sense, and of these some are in the future
tense: for instance, He shall come openly, and this from Zechariah, Behold,
thy King cometh unto thee, and this from Micah, Behold, the Lord cometh
out of His place and will came down and tread upon the high places of the
earth. But others, though future, are put in the past tense, as, for instance,
This is our God: Therefore He was seen upon the earth and dwell among
men, and The Lord created me in the beginning of His ways for His works,
and Wherefore God, thy God, anointed thee with the oil of gladness above
thy fellows, and such like.

The things said, then, that refer to the period before the union will be
applicable to Him even after the union: but those that refer to the period
after the union will not be applicable at all before the union, unless indeed
in a prophetic sense, as we said. Those that refer to the time of the union
have three modes. For when our discourse dears with the higher aspect, we
speak of the deification of the flesh, and His assumption of the Word and
exceeding exaltation, and so forth, making manifest the riches that are
added to the flesh tram the union and natural conjunction with the most
high God the Word. And when our discourse deals with the lower aspect,
we speak of the incarnation of God the Word, His becoming man, His
emptying of Himself, His poverty, His humility. For these and such like
are imposed upon the Word and God through His admixture with
humanity. When again we keep both sides in view at the same time, we
speak of union, community, anointing, natural conjunction, conformation
and the like. The former two modes, then, have their reason in this third
mode. For through the union it is made clear what either has obtained from
the intimate junction with and permeation through the other. For through
the union in subsistence the flesh is said to be deified and to become God
and to be equally God with the Word; and God the Word is said to be
made flesh, and to become man, and is called creature and last: not in the
sense that the two natures are converted into one compound nature (for it
is not possible for the opposite natural qualities to exist at the same time
in one nature), but in the sense that the two natures are united in
subsistence and permeate one another without confusion or transmutation

849

The permeation moreover did not come of the flesh but of the divinity: for
it is impossible that the flesh should permeate through the divinity: but the
divine nature once permeating through the flesh gave also to the flesh the
same ineffable power of permeation; and this indeed is what we call union.

Note, too, that in the case of the first and second modes of those that
belong to the period of the union, reciprocation is observed. For when we
speak about the flesh, we use the terms deification and assumption of the
Word and exceeding exaltation and anointing. For these are derived from
divinity, but are observed in connection with the flesh. And when we
speak about the Word, we use the terms emptying, incarnation, becoming
man, humility and the like: and these, as we said, are imposed on the Word
and God through the flesh. For He endured these things in person of His
own free-will.

Of the things that refer to the period after the union there are three modes.
The first declares His divine nature, as, I am in the Father and the Father in
Me, and I and the Father are one: and all those things which are affirmed of
Him before His assumption of humanity, these will be affirmed of Him
even after His assumption of humanity, with this exception, that He did
not assume the flesh and its natural properties.

The second declares His human nature, as, Now ye seek to kill Me, a man
that hath told you the truth, and Even so must the Son of Man be lifted
up, and the like.

Further, of the statements made and written about Christ the Savior after
the manner of men, whether they deal with sayings or actions, there are six
modes. For some of them were done or said naturally in accordance with
the incarnation; for instance, His birth from a virgin, His growth and
progress with age, His hunger, thirst, weariness, fear, sleep, piercing with
nails, death and all such like natural and innocent passions. For in all these
there is a mixture of the divine and human, although they are held to belong
in reality to the body, the divine suffering none of these, but procuring
through them our salvation.

Others are of the nature of ascription, as Christ' s question, Where have ye
laid Lazarus? His running to the fig-tree, His shrinking, that is, His drawing
back, His praying, and His making as though He would have gone He in

850

need of these or similar things, but only because His form was that of a
man as necessity and expediency demanded. For example, the praying was
to shew that He is not opposed to God, for He gives honor to the Father
as the cause of Himself: and the question was not put in ignorance but to
shew that He is in truth man as well as God; and the drawing back is to
teach us not to be impetuous nor to give ourselves up.

Others again are said in the manner of association and relation, as, My
God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? and He hath made Him to be
sin for us, Who knew no sin, and being made a curse for us; also, Then
shall the Son also Himself be subject unto Him that put all things under
Him. For neither as God nor as man was He ever forsaken by the Father,
nor did He become sin or a curse, nor did He require to be made subject to
the Father. For as God He is equal to the Father and not opposed to Him
nor subjected to Him; and as God, He was never at any time disobedient to
His Begetter to make it necessary for Him to make Him subject.
Appropriating, then, our person and ranking Himself with us, He used
these words. For we are bound in the fetters of sin and the curse as
faithless and disobedient, and therefore forsaken.

Others are said by reason of distinction in thought. For if you divide in
thought things that are inseparable in actual truth, to cut the flesh from the
Word, the terms 'servant' and 'ignorant' are used of Him, for indeed He
was of a subject and ignorant nature, and except that it was united with
God the Word, His flesh was servile and ignorant. But because of the
union in subsistence with God the Word it was neither servile nor ignorant.
In this way, too, He called the Father His God.

Others again are for the purpose of revealing Him to us and strengthening
our faith, as, And now, O Father, glorify Thou Me with the glory which I
had with Thee, before the world was. For He Himself was glorified and is
glorified, but His glory was not manifested nor confirmed to us. Also that
which the apostle said, Declared to be the Son of God with power,
according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead. For
by the miracles and the resurrection and the coming of the Holy Spirit it
was manifested and confirmed to the world that He is the Son of God. And
this too, The Child grew in wisdom and grace.

851

Others again have reference to His appropriation of the personal life of the
Jews, in numbering Himself among the Jews, as He saith to the Samaritan
woman, Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship, far
salvation is of the Jews.

The third mode is one which declares the one subsistence and brings out
the dual nature: for instance, And I live by the Father: so he that eateth
Me, even he shall live by Me. And this: I go to My Father and ye see Me
no more. And this: They would not have crucified the Lord of Glory. And
this: And no man hath ascended up to heaven but He that came down from
heaven, even the Son of Man which is in heaven, and such like.

Again of the affirmations that refer to the period after the resurrection
some are suitable to God, as, Baptizing them in the name of the Father,
and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, for here 'Son' is clearly used as
God; also this, And lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the
world, and other similar ones. For He is with us as God. Others are
suitable to man, as, They held Him by the feet, and There they will see
Me, and so forth.

Further, of those referring to the period after the Resurrection that are
suitable to man there are different modes. For some did actually take place,
yet not according to nature, but according to dispensation, in order to
confirm the fact that the very body, which suffered, rose again; such are
the weals, the eating and the drinking after the resurrection. Others took
place actually and naturally, as changing from place to place without
trouble and passing in through closed gates. Others have the character of
simulation, as, He made as though He would have gone further. Others are
appropriate to the double nature, as, I ascend unto My Father and your
Father, and My God and our God, and The King of Glory shall carte in,
and He sat down on the right hand of the majesty on High. Finally others
are to be understood as though He were ranking Himself with us, in the
manner of separation in pure thought, as, My God and your God.

Those then that are sublime must be assigned to the divine nature, which is
superior to passion and body: and those that are humble must be ascribed
to the human nature; and those that are common must be attributed to the
compound, that is, the one Christ, Who is God and man. And it should be
understood that both belong to one and the same Jesus Christ, our Lord.

852

For if we know what is proper to each, and perceive that both are
performed by one and the same, we shall have the true faith and shall not
go astray. And from all these the difference between the united natures is
recognized, and the fact that, as the most godly Cyril says, they are not
identical in the natural quality of their divinity and humanity. But yet
there is but one Son and Christ and Lord: and as He is one, He has also but
one person, the unity in subsistence being in nowise broken up into parts
by the recognition of the difference of the natures.

853

CHAPTER 19

That God is not the cause of evils.

It is to be observed that it is the custom in the Holy Scripture to speak of
God's permission as His energy, as when the apostle says in the Epistle to
the Romans, Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to
make one vessel unto honor and another unto dishonor? And for this
reason, that He Himself makes this or that. For He is Himself alone the
Maker of all things; yet it is not He Himself that fashions noble or ignoble
things, but the personal choice of each one. And this is manifest from what
the same Apostle says in the Second Epistle to Timothy, In a great house
there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of
earth: and some to honor and some to dishonor. If a man therefore purge
himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honor sanctified, and meet for
the master' s use, and prepared unto every good work. And it is evident
that the purification must be voluntary: for if a man, he saith, purge
himself. And the consequent antistrophe responds, "If a man purge not
himself he will be a vessel to dishonor, unmeet for the master's use and fit
only to be broken in pieces." Wherefore this passage that we have quoted
and this, God hath concluded them all in unbelief, and this, God hath given
them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see, and ears that
they should not hear, all these must be understood not as though God
Himself were energizing, but as though God were permitting, both because
of free-will and because goodness knows no compulsion.

His permission, therefore, is usually spoken of in the Holy Scripture as
His energy and work. Nay, even when He says that God creates evil
things, and that there is no evil in a city that the Lord hath not done, he
does not mean by these words that the Lord is the cause of evil, but the
word 'evil' is used in two ways, with two meanings. For sometimes it
means what is evil by nature, and this is the opposite of virtue and the will
of God: and sometimes it means that which is evil and oppressive to our
sensation, that is to say, afflictions and calamities. Now these are
seemingly evil because they are painful, but in reality are good. For to

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those who understand they became ambassadors of conversion and
salvation. The Scripture says that of these God is the Author.

It is, moreover, to be observed that of these, too, we are the cause: for
involuntary evils are the offspring of voluntary ones.

This also should be recognized, that it is usual in the Scriptures for some
things that ought to be considered as effects to be stated in a causal sense,
as, Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned and done this evil in Thy sight,
that Than mightest be justified when Thou speakest, and prevail when
Thou judgest. For the sinner did not sin in order that God might prevail,
nor again did God require our sin in order that He might by it be revealed
as victor. For above comparison He wins the victor' s prize against all,
even against those who are sinless, being Maker, incomprehensible,
uncreated, and possessing natural and not adventitious glory. But it is
because when we sin God is not unjust in His anger against us; and when
He pardons the penitent He is shewn victor over our wickedness. But it is
not for this that we sin, but because the thing so turns out. It is just as if
one were sitting at work and a friend stood near by, and one said, My
friend came in order that I might do no work that day. The friend,
however, was not present in order that the man should do no work, but
such was the result. For being occupied with receiving his friend he did not
work. These things, too, are spoken of as effects because affairs so turned
out. Moreover, God does not wish that He alone should be just, but that
all should, so far as possible, be made like unto Him.

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CHAPTER 20

That there are not two Kingdoms.

That there are not two kingdoms, one good and one bad, we shall see from
this. For good and evil are opposed to one another and mutually
destructive, and cannot exist in one another or with one another. Each of
them, therefore, in its own division will belong to the whole, and first they
will he circumscribed, not by the whole alone but also each of them by
part of the whole.

Next I ask, who it is that assigns to each its place. For they will not affirm
that they have come to a friendly agreement with, or been reconciled to,
one another. For evil is not evil when it is at peace with, and reconciled to,
goodness, nor is goodness good when it is on amicable terms with evil. But
if He Who has marked off to each of these its own sphere of action is
something different from them, He must the rather be God.

One of two things indeed is necessary, either that they come in contact
with and destroy one another, or that there exists some intermediate place
where neither goodness nor evil exists, separating both from one another,
like a partition. And so there will be no longer two but three kingdoms.

Again, one of these alternatives is necessary, either that they are at peace,
which is quite incompatible with evil (for that which is at peace is not
evil), or they are at strife, which is incompatible with goodness (for that
which is at strife is not perfectly good), or the evil is at strife and the good
does not retaliate, but is destroyed by the evil, or they are ever in trouble
and distress, which is not a mark of goodness. There is, therefore, but one
kingdom, delivered from all evil.

But if this is so, they say, whence comes evil? For it is quite impossible
that evil should originate from goodness. We answer then, that evil is
nothing else than absence of goodness and a lapsing from what is natural
into what is unnatural: for nothing evil is natural. For all things,
whatsoever God made, are very good, so far as they were made: if,
therefore, they remain just as they were created, they are very good, but

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when they voluntarily depart from what is natural and turn to what is
unnatural, they slip into evil.

By nature, therefore, all things are servants of the Creator and obey Him.
Whenever, then, any of His creatures voluntarily rebels and becomes
disobedient to his Maker, he introduces evil into himself. For evil is not
any essence nor a property of essence, but an accident, that is, a voluntary
deviation from what is natural into what is unnatural, which is sin.

Whence, then, comes sin? It is an invention of the free-will of the devil. Is
the devil, then, evil? In so far as he was brought into existence he is not evil
but good. For he was created by his Maker a bright and very brilliant angel,
endowed with free-will as being rational. But he voluntarily departed from
the virtue that is natural and came into the darkness of evil, being far
removed from God, Who alone is good and can give life and light. For from
Him every good thing derives its goodness, and so far as it is separated
from Him in will (for it is not in place), it falls into evil.

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CHAPTER 21

The purpose for which God in His foreknowledge
created persons who would sin and not repent.

God in His goodness brought what exists into being out of nothing, and has
foreknowledge of what will exist in the future. If, therefore, they were not
to exist in the future, they would neither be evil in the future nor would
they be foreknown. For knowledge is of what exists and foreknowledge is
of what will surely exist in the future. For simple being comes first and
then good or evil being. But if the very existence of those, who through the
goodness of God are in the future to exist, were to be prevented by the fact
that they were to become evil of their own choice, evil would have
prevailed over the goodness of God. Wherefore God makes all His works
good, but each becomes of its own choice good or evil. Although, then, the
Lord said, Goad were it for that man that he had never been barn, He said
it in condemnation not of His own creation but of the evil which His own
creation had acquired by his own choice and through his own heedlessness.
For the heedlessness that marks man's judgment made His Creator's
beneficence of no profit to him. It is just as if any one, when he had
obtained riches and dominion from a king, were to Lord it over his
benefactor, who, when he has worsted him, will punish him as he deserves,
if he should see him keeping hold of the sovereignty to the end.

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CHAPTER 22

Concerning the law of God and the law of sin.

The Deity is good and more than good, and so is His will. For that which
God wishes is good. Moreover the precept, which teaches this, is law, that
we, holding by it, may walk in light: and the transgression of this precept
is sin, and this continues to exist on account of the assault of the devil and
our unconstrained and voluntary reception of it. And this, too, is called
law.

And so the law of God, settling in our mind, draws it towards itself and
pricks our conscience. And our conscience, too, is called a law of our mind.
Further, the assault of the wicked one, that is the law of sin, settling in the
members of our flesh, makes its assault upon us through it. For by once
voluntarily transgressing the law of God and receiving the assault of the
wicked one, we gave entrance to it, being sold by ourselves to sin.
Wherefore our body is readily impelled to it. And so the savor and
perception of sin that is stored up in our body, that is to say, lust and
pleasure of the body, is law in the members of our flesh.

Therefore the law of my mind, that is, the conscience, sympathizes with
the law of God, that is, the precept, and makes that its will. But the law of
sin, that is to say, the assault made through the law that is in our members,
or through the lust and inclination and movement of the body and of the
irrational part of the soul, is in opposition to the law of my mind, that is
to conscience, and takes me captive (even though I make the law of God
my will and set my love on it, and make not sin my will), by reason of
commixture: and through the softness of pleasure and the lust of the body
and of the irrational part of the soul, as I said, it leads me astray and
induces me to become the servant of sin. But what the law could not do, in
that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending His own Son in the
likeness of sinful flesh (for He assumed flesh but not sin) condemned sin in
the flesh, that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who
walk not after the flesh but in the Spirit. For the Spirit helpeth our
infirmities and affordeth power to the law of our mind, against the law that

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is in our members. For the verse, we know not what we should pray for as
we ought, but the Spirit itself maketh intercession with groanings that
cannot be uttered, itself teacheth us what to pray for. Hence it is
impossible to carry out the precepts of the Lord except by patience and
prayer.

860

CHAPTER 23

Against the Jews on the question Sabbath.

The seventh day is called the Sabbath and signifies rest. For in it God
rested from all His works, as the divine Scripture says: and so the number
of the days goes up to seven and then circles back again and begins at the
first. This is the precious number with the Jews. God having ordained that
it should be held in honor, and that in no chance fashion but with the
imposition of most heavy penalties for the transgression. And it was not
in a simple fashion that He ordained this, but for certain reasons
understood mystically by the spiritual and clear-sighted.

So far, indeed, as I in my ignorance know, to begin with inferior and more
dense things, God, knowing the denseness of the Israelites and their carnal
love and propensity towards matter in everything, made this law: first, in
order that the servant and the cattle should rest as it is written, for the
righteous man regardeth the life of his beast: next, in order that when they
take their ease from the distraction of material things, they may gather
together unto God, spending the whole of the seventh day in psalms and
hymns and spiritual songs and the study of the divine Scriptures and
resting in God. For when the law did not exist and there was no
divinely-inspired Scripture, the Sabbath was not consecrated to God. But
when the divinely-inspired Scripture was given by Moses, the Sabbath
was consecrated to God in order that on it they, who do not dedicate their
whole life to God, and who do not make their desire subservient to the as
though to a Father, but are like foolish servants, may on that day talk
much concerning the exercise of it, and may abstract a small, truly a most
insignificant, portion of their life for the service of God, and this from fear
of the chastisements and punishments which threaten transgressors. For
the law is not made for a righteous man but for the unrighteous. Moses, of
a truth, was the first to abide fasting with God for forty days and again for
another forty, and thus doubtless to afflict himself with hunger on the
Sabbaths although the law forbade self-affliction on the Sabbath. But if
they should object that this took place before the law, what will they say
about Elias the Thesbite who accomplished a journey of forty days on one

861

meal? For he, by thus afflicting himself on the Sabbaths not only with
hunger but with the forty days' journeying, broke the Sabbath: and yet
God, Who gave the law, was not wroth with him but shewed Himself to
him on Choreb as a reward for his virtue. And what will they say about
Daniel? Did he not spend three weeks without food? And again, did not all
Israel circumcise the child on the Sabbath, if it happened to be the eighth
day after birth? And do they not hold the great fast which the law enjoins
if it falls on the Sabbath? And further, do not the priests and the Levites
profane the Sabbath in the works of the tabernacle and yet are held
blameless? Yea, if an ox should fall into a pit on the Sabbath, he who draws
it forth is blameless, while he who neglects to do so is condemned. And did
not all the Israelites compass the walls of Jericho bearing the Ark of God
for seven days, in which assuredly the Sabbath was included.

As I said, therefore, for the purpose of securing leisure to worship God in
order that they might, both servant and beast of burden, devote a very
small share to Him and be at rest, the observance of the Sabbath was
devised for the carnal that were still childish and in the bonds of the
elements of the world, and unable to conceive of anything beyond the
body and the letter. But when the fullness of the time was come, God sent
forth His Only-begotten Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to
redeem them that were under the law that we might receive the adoption of
sons. For to as many of us as received Him, He gave power to become
sons of God, even to them that believe on Him. So that we are no longer
servants but sons: no longer under the law but under grace: no longer do we
serve God in part from fear, but we are bound to dedicate to Him the
whole span of our life, and cause that servant, I mean wrath and desire, to
cease from sin and bid it devote itself to the service of God, always
directing our whole desire towards God and arming our wrath against the
enemies of God: and likewise we hinder that beast of burden, that is the
body, from the servitude of sin, and urge it forwards to assist to the
uttermost the divine precepts.

These are the things which the spiritual law of Christ enjoins on us and
those who observe that become superior to the law of Moses. For when
that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done
away: and when the covering of the law, that is, the veil, is rent asunder
through the crucifixion of the Savior, and the Spirit shines forth with

862

tongues of fire, the letter shall be done away with, bodily things shall come
to an end, the law of servitude shall be fulfilled, and the law of liberty be
bestowed on us. Yea we shall celebrate the perfect rest of bureau nature, I
mean the day after the resurrection, on which the Lord Jesus, the Author
of Life and our Savior, shall lead us into the heritage promised to those
who serve God in the spirit, a heritage into which He entered Himself as
our forerunner after He rose from the dead, and whereon, the gates of
Heaven being opened to Him, He took His seat in bodily form at the right
hand of the Father, where those who keep the spiritual law shall also
come.

What belongs to us, therefore, who walk by the spirit and not by the
letter, is the complete abandonment of carnal things, the spiritual service
and communion with God. For circumcision is the abandonment of carnal
pleasure and of whatever is superfluous and unnecessary. For the foreskin
is nothing else than the skin which it superfluous to the organ of lust. And,
indeed, every pleasure which does not arise from God nor is in God is
superfluous to pleasure: and of that the foreskin is the type. The Sabbath,
moreover, is the cessation from sin; so that both things happen to be one,
and so both together, when observed by those who are spiritual, do not
bring about any breach of the law at all.

Further, observe that the number seven denotes all the present time, as the
most wise Solomon says, to give a portion to seven and also to eight. And
David, the divine singer when he composed the eighth psalm, sang of the
future restoration after the resurrection from the dead. Since the Law,
therefore, enjoined that the seventh day should be spent in rest from carnal
things and devoted to spiritual things, it was a mystic indication to the true
Israelite who had a mind to see God, that he should through all time offer
himself to God and rise higher than carnal things.

863

CHAPTER 24

Concerning Virginity.

Carnal men abuse virginity, and the pleasure-loving bring forward the
following verse in proof, Cursed be every one that raiseth not up seed in
Israel. But we, made confident by God the Word that was made flesh of
the Virgin, answer that virginity was implanted in man's nature from above
and in the beginning. For man was formed of virgin soil. From Adam alone
was Eve created. In Paradise virginity held sway. Indeed, Divine Scripture
tells that both Adam and Eve were naked and were not ashamed. But after
their transgression they knew that they were naked, and in their shame
they sewed aprons for themselves. And when, after the transgression,
Adam heard, dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return, when death
entered into the world by reason of the transgression, then Adam knew
Eve his wife, and she conceived and bare seed. So that to prevent the
wearing out and destruction of the race by death, marriage was devised that
the race of men may be preserved through the procreation of children.

But they will perhaps ask, what then is the meaning of "male and female,"
and "Be fruitful and multiply?" In answer we shall say that "Be fruitful
and multiply" does not altogether refer to the multiplying by the marriage
connection. For God had power to multiply the race also in different
ways, if they kept the precept unbroken to the end. But God, Who
knoweth all things before they have existence, knowing in His
foreknowledge that they would fall into transgression in the future and be
condemned to death, anticipated this and made "male and female," and
bade them "be fruitful and multiply." Let us, then, proceed on our way
and see the glories of virginity: and this also includes chastity.

Noah when he was commanded to enter the ark and was entrusted with the
preservation of the seed of the world received this command, Go in, saith
the Lord, thou and thy sons, and thy wife, and thy sons' wives. He
separated them from their wives in order that with purity they might
escape the flood and that shipwreck of the whole world. After the
cessation of the flood, however, He said, Go forth of the ark, thou and thy

864

sons, and thy wife, and thy sons' wives. Lo, again, marriage is granted for
the sake of the multiplication of the race. Next, Elias, the fire-breathing
charioteer and sojourner in heaven did not embrace celibacy, and yet was
not his virtue attested by his super-human ascension? Who closed the
heavens? Who raised the dead? Who divided Jordan? Was it not the
virginal Elias? And did not Elisha, his disciple, after he had given proof of
equal virtue, ask and obtain as an inheritance a double portion of the grace
of the Spirit? What of the three youths? Did they not by practicing
virginity become mightier than fire, their bodies through virginity being
made proof against the fire? And was it not Daniel's body that was so
hardened by virginity that the wild beasts' teeth could not fasten in it. Did
not God, when He wished the Israelites to see Him, bid them purify the
body? Did not the priests purify themselves and so approach the temple's
shrine and offer victims? And did not the law call chastity the great vow?

The precept of the law, therefore, is to be taken in a more spiritual sense.
For there is spiritual seed which is conceived through the love and fear of
God in the spiritual womb, travailing and bringing forth the spirit of
salvation. And in this sense must be understood this verse: Blessed is he
who hath seed in Zion and posterity in Jerusalem. For does it mean that,
although he be a whoremonger and a drunkard and an idolater, he is still
blessed if only he hath seed in Sion and posterity in Jerusalem? No one in
his senses will say this.

Virginity is the rule of life among the angels, the property of all incorporeal
nature. This we say without speaking ill of marriage: God forbid! (for we
know that the Lord blessed marriage by His presence, and we know him
who said, Marriage is and the bed undefiled), but knowing that virginity is
better than marriage, however good. For among the virtues, equally as
among the vices, there are higher and lower grades. We know that all
mortals after the first parents of the race are the offspring of marriage. For
the first parents were the work of virginity and not of marriage. But
celibacy is, as we said, an imitation of the angels. Wherefore virginity is as
much more honorable than marriage, as the angel is higher than man. But
why do I say angel? Christ Himself is the glory of virginity, who was not
only-begotten of the Father without beginning or emission or connection,
but also became man in our image, being made flesh for our sakes of the
Virgin without connection, and manifesting in Himself the true and perfect

865

virginity. Wherefore, although He did not enjoin that on us by law (for as
He said, all men cannot receive this saying), yet in actual fact He taught us
that and gave us strength for it. For it is surely clear to every one that
virginity now is flourishing among men.

Good indeed is the procreation of children enjoined by the law, and good is
marriage on account of fornications, for it does away with these, and by
lawful intercourse does not permit the madness of desire to he caromed
into unlawful acts. Good is marriage for those who have no continence: but
that virginity is better which increases the fruitfulness of the soul and
offers to God the seasonable fruit of prayer. Marriage is honorable and the
bed undefiled, but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.

866

CHAPTER 25

Concerning the Circumcision.

The Circumcision was given to Abraham before the law, after the
blessings, after the promise, as a sign separating him and his offspring and
his household from the Gentiles with whom he lived. And this is evident,
for when the Israelites passed forty years alone by themselves in the
desert, having no intercourse with any other race, all that were horn in the
desert were uncircumcised: but when Joshua led them across Jordan, they
were circumcised, and a second law of circumcision was instituted. For in
Abraham's time the law of circumcision was given, and for the forty years
in the desert it fell into abeyance. And again for the second time God gave
the law of Circumcision to Joshua, after the crossing of Jordan, according
as it is written in the book of Joshua, the son of Nun: At that time the
Lord said unto Joshua, Make thee knives of stone from the sharp rock, and
assemble and circumcise the sons of Israel a second time; and a little later:
For the children of Israel walked forty and two years in the wilderness of
Battaris, till all the people that were men of war, which came out of Egypt,
were uncircumcised, because they obeyed not the voice of the Lord: unto
whom the Lord sware that He would not shew them the goad land, which
the Lord swore unto their fathers that He would give them, a land that
floweth with milk and honey. And their children, whom He raised up in
their stead, them Joshua circumcised: for they were uncircumcised, because
they had not circumcised them by the way. So that the circumcision was a
sign, dividing Israel from the Gentiles with whom they dwelt.

It was, moreover, a figure of baptism. For just as the circumcision does not
cut off a useful member of the body but only a useless superfluity, so by
the holy baptism we are circumcised from sin, and sin clearly is, so to
speak, the superfluous part of desire and not useful desire. For it is quite
impossible that any one should have no desire at all nor ever experience the
taste of pleasure. But the useless part of pleasure, that is to say, useless
desire and pleasure, it is this that is sin from which holy baptism
circumcises us, giving us as a token the precious cross on the brow, not to
divide us from the Gentiles (for all the nations received baptism and were

867

sealed with the sign of the Cross), but to distinguish in each nation the
faithful from the Faithless. Wherefore, when the truth is revealed,
circumcision is a senseless figure and shade. So circumcision is now
superfluous and contrary to holy baptism. For he who is circumcised is a
debtor to do the whale law. Further, the Lord was circumcised that He
might fulfill the law: and He fulfilled the whole law and observed the
Sabbath that He might fulfill and establish the law. Moreover after He was
baptized and the Holy Spirit had appeared to men, descending on Him in
the form of a dove, from that time the spiritual service and conduct of life
and the Kingdom of Heaven was preached.

868

CHAPTER 26

Concerning the Antichrist.

It should be known that the Antichrist is hound to come. Every one,
therefore, who confesses not that the Son of God came in the flesh and is
perfect God and became perfect man, after being God, is Antichrist. But in
a peculiar and special sense he who comes at the consummation of the age
is called Antichrist. First, then, it is requisite that the Gospel should be
preached among all nations, as the Lord said, and then he will come to
refute the impious Jews. For the Lord said to them: I am come in My
Father's name and ye receive Me not: if another shall come in his own
name, him ye will receive. And the apostle says, Because they received not
the love of the truth that they might be saved, for this cause Gad shall send
them a strong delusion that they should believe a lie: that they all might be
damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
The Jews accordingly did not receive the Lord Jesus Christ who was the
Son of God and God, but receive the impostor who calls himself God. For
that he will assume the name of God, the angel teaches Daniel, saying these
words, Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers. And the apostle
says: Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come
except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the
son, of perdition: who opposeth and exalted himself above all that is called
Gad or that is worshipped, so that he sitteth in the temple of God,
shewing himself that he is God; in the temple of God he said; not our
temple, but the old Jewish temple. For he will come not to us but to the
Jews: not for Christ or the things of Christ: wherefore he is called
Antichrist.

First, therefore, it is necessary that the Gospel should be preached among
all nations: And then shall that wicked one be revealed, even him whose
coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying
wonders, with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish,
whom the Lord shall consume with the word of His mouth and shall
destroy with the brightness of His coming. The devil himself, therefore
does not become man in the way that the Lord was made man. God forbid!

but he becomes man as the offspring of fornication and receiveth all the
energy of Satan. For God, foreknowing the strangeness of the choice that
he would make, allows the devil to take up his abode in him.

He is, therefore, as we said, the offspring of fornication and is nurtured in
secret, and on a sudden he rises up and rebels and assumes rule. And in the
beginning of his rule, or rather tyranny, he assumes the role of sanctity.
But when he becomes master he persecutes the Church of God and
displays all his wickedness. But he will come with signs and lying
wonders, fictitious and not real, and he will deceive and lead away from the
living God those whose mind rests on an unsound and unstable foundation,
so that even the elect shall, if it be possible, be made to stumble.

But Enoch and Elias the Thesbite shall be sent and shall turn the hearts of
the fathers to the children, that is, the synagogue to our Lord Jesus Christ
and the preaching of the apostles: and they will be destroyed by him. And
the Lord shall come out of heaven, just as the holy apostles beheld Him
going into heaven perfect God and perfect man, with glory and power, and
will destroy the man of lawlessness, the son of destruction, with the
breath of His mouth. Let no one, therefore, look for the Lord to come from
earth, but out of Heaven, as He himself has made sure.

870

CHAPTER 27

Concerning the Resurrection.

We believe also in the resurrection of the dead. For there will be in truth,
there will be, a resurrection of the dead, and by resurrection we mean
resurrection of bodies. For resurrection is the second state of that which
has fallen. For the souls are immortal, and hence how can they rise again?
For if they define death as the separation of soul and body, resurrection
surely is the re-union of soul and body, and the second state of the living
creature that has suffered dissolution and downfall. It is, then, this very
body, which is corruptible and liable to dissolution, that will rise again
incorruptible. For He, who made it in the beginning of the sand of the
earth, does not lack the power to raise it up again after it has been
dissolved again and returned to the earth from which it was taken, in
accordance with the reversal of the Creator's judgment.

For if there is no resurrection, let us eat and drink: let us pursue a life of
pleasure and enjoyment. If there is no resurrection, wherein do we differ
from the irrational brutes? If there is no resurrection, let us hold the wild
beasts of the field happy who have a life free from sorrow. If there is no
resurrection, neither is there any God nor Providence, but all things are
driven and borne along of themselves. For observe how we see most
righteous men suffering hunger and injustice and receiving no help in the
present life, while sinners and unrighteous men abound in riches and every
delight. And who in his senses would take this for the work of a righteous
judgment or a wise providence? There must be, therefore, there must be, a
resurrection. For God is just and is the rewarder of those who submit
patiently to Him. Wherefore if it is the soul alone that engages in the
contests of virtue, it is also the soul alone that will receive the crown. And
if it were the soul alone that revels in pleasures, it would also be the soul
alone that would be justly punished. But since the soul does not pursue
either virtue or vice separate from the body, both together will obtain that
which is their just due.

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Nay, the divine Scripture bears witness that there will be a resurrection of
the body. God in truth says to Moses after the flood, Even as the green
herb have I given you all things. But flesh with the life thereof, which is
the blood thereof, shall ye not eat. And surely your blood of your lives
will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of
every man's brother will I require the life of man. Whoso sheddeth man's
blood, for his blood his own shall be shed, for in the image of God made I
man. How will He require the blood of man at the hand of every beast,
unless because the bodies of dead men will rise again? For not for man will
the beasts die.

And again to Moses, I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the
God of Jacob: God is not the God of the dead (that is, those who are dead
and will be no more), but of the living, whose souls indeed live in His hand,
but whose bodies will again come to life through the resurrection. And
David, sire of the Divine, says to God, Thou takest away their breath,
they die and return to their dust. See how he speaks about bodies. Then he
subjoins this, Thou sendest forth Thy Spirit, they are created: and Thou
renewest the face of the earth.

Further Isaiah says: The dead shall rise again, and they that are in the
graves shall awake. And it is clear that the souls do not lie in the graves,
but the bodies.

And again, the blessed Ezekiel says: And it was as I prophesied, and
behold a shaking and the bones came together, bone to his bone, each to its
own joint: and when I beheld, lo, the sinews came up upon them and the
flesh grew and rose up on them and the skin covered them above. And later
he teaches how the spirits came back when they were bidden.

And divine Daniel also says: And at that time shall Michael stand up, the
great prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall
be a time of trouble, such trouble as never was since there was a nation on
the earth even to that same time. And at that time thy people shall be
delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book. And many of
them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake: some to everlasting life
and some to shame and everlasting contempt. And they that be wise shall
shine as the brightness of the firmament, and out of the multitude of the
just shall shine like stars into the ages and beyond. The words, many of

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them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, clearly shew that there
will be a resurrection of bodies. For no one surely would say that the souls
sleep in the dust of the earth.

Moreover, even the Lord in the holy Gospels clearly allows that there is a
resurrection of the bodies. For they that are in the graves, He says, shall
hear His voice and shall come forth: they that have done good unto the
resurrection of life, and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of
damnation. Now no one in his senses would ever say that the souls are in
the graves.

But it was not only by word, but also by deed, that the Lord revealed the
resurrection of the bodies. First He raised up Lazarus, even after he had
been dead four days, and was stinking. For He did not raise the soul
without the body, but the body along with the soul: and not another body
but the very one that was corrupt. For how could the resurrection of the
dead man have been known or believed if it had not been established by his
characteristic properties? But it was in fact to make the divinity of His
own nature manifest and to confirm the belief in His own and our
resurrection, that He raised up Lazarus who was destined once more to
die. And the Lord became Himself the first-fruits of the perfect
resurrection that is no longer subject to death Wherefore also the divine
Apostle Paul said: If the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised. And if
Christ be not raised, our faith is vain: we are jet in our sins. And, Now, is
Christ risen from the dead and become the first-fruits of them that slept,
and the first-born pyre the dead; and again, For if we believe that Jesus
died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring
with Him. Even so, he said, as Christ rose again. Moreover, that the
resurrection of the Lord was the union of uncorrupted body and soul (for
it was these that had been divided) is manifest: for He said, Destroy this
temple, and in three days I will raise it up. And the holy Gospel is a
trustworthy witness that He spoke of His own body. Handle Me and see,
the Lord said to His own disciples when they were thinking that they saw
a spirit, that it is I Myself, and that I am not changed: for a spirit hath not
flesh or bones, as ye see Me have. And when He had said this He shewed
them His hands and His side, and stretched them forward for Thomas to
touch. Is not this sufficient to establish belief in the resurrection of bodies?

873

Again the divine apostle says, For this corruptible must put on
incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. And again: It is
sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption: it is sawn in weakness, it is
raised in power: it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory: it is sown a
natural body (that is to say, crass and mortal), it is raised a spiritual body,
such as was our Lord's body after the resurrection which passed through
closed doors, was unwearying, had no need of food, or sleep, or drink. For
they will be, saith the Lord, as the angels of God: there will no longer be
marriage nor procreation of children. The divine apostle, in truth, says, For
our conversation is in heaven, from whence also we look for the Savior, the
Lord Jesus, Who shall change our vile body that it may be fashioned like
unto His glorious body: not meaning change into another form (God
forbid!), but rather the change from corruption into incorruption.

But some one will say, How are the dead raised up? Oh, what disbelief!
Oh, what folly! Will He, Who at His solitary will changed earth into body,
Who commanded the little drop of seed to grow in the mother' s womb and
become in the end this varied and manifold organ of the body, not the
rather raise up again at His solitary will that which was and is dissolved?
And with what body do they come? Thou fool, if thy hardness will not
permit you to believe the words of God, at least believe His works. For
that which thou sowest is not quickened except it die. And that which
thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grain, it
may chance of wheat or of some other grain. But God giveth it a body as it
hath pleased Him, and to every seed his own body. Behold, therefore, how
the seed is buried in the furrows as in tombs. Who is it that giveth them
roots and stalk and leaves and ears and the most delicate beards? Is it not
the Maker of the universe? Is it not at the bidding of Him Who hath
contrived all things? Believe, therefore, in this wise, even that the
resurrection of the dead will come to pass at the divine will and sign. For
He has power that is able to keep pace with His will.

We shall therefore rise again, our souls being once more united with our
bodies, now made incorruptible and having put off corruption, and we
shall stand beside the awful judgment- seat of Christ: and the devil and his
demons and the man that is his, that is the Antichrist and the impious and
the sinful, will be given over to everlasting fire: not material fire like our
fire, but such fire as God would know. But those who have done good will

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shine forth as the sun with the angels into life eternal, with our Lord Jesus
Christ, ever seeing Him and being in His sight and deriving unceasing joy
from Him, praising Him with the Father and the Holy Spirit throughout
the limitless ages of ages. Amen.

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