On the Christian Faith 4.9–4.11

Hence, since they could not prove inequality from the objection about generation, let them understand that that widely spread false charge of their question also is exploded. For they are accustomed to propose: “How can the Son be equal to the Father? For if he is a Son, before he was begotten he was not; or if he was, why was he born?” And do those who propose the questions of Arius deny that they are Arians? So they demand an answer from us, so that if we say, “Before he was begotten, he was,” they may slyly reply: “Then before he was begotten he was created, and he does not differ from the other creatures, since he began to be created before he was Son.” And they add: “Why was he born who already was? Was it because he was imperfect, so as to become more perfect afterwards?” But if we answer that he was not, they object at once: “Then generation conferred on him that he should be, who was not before he was born”; so as to infer from this: “There was, then, when the Son was not.” But let those who propose this, and want to wrap the truth in obscurity, say themselves whether the Father begets temporally or non-temporally. For if they say temporally, they will ascribe to the Father what they object against the Son, so that the Father seems to have begun to be what he was not; if non-temporally, what remains but that they themselves should solve the question they proposed, so that, since they deny that the Father’s begetting is temporal, they confess that the Son’s generation too is not temporal? If, then, his generation is not from time, it may be concluded that nothing preceded the Son, who is not from time. For if anything was before the Son, then not all things that are in heaven or on earth were created in him, and the Apostle, who wrote this in his epistle, is refuted; but if nothing was before the generation, I do not see why he is asserted to be later, whom no one preceded. To this must be added another objection of theirs, full of impiety, which has a hidden trick by which to bind the senses and minds of the simple. For they ask whether everything that has an end began at some time. And if they receive such an answer, that what has an end began at some time, they ask whether the Father has ceased to beget the Son. When they have obtained this with our agreement, they connect: “Then the generation began.” If you do not deny this, it seems to follow that, if the generation began, it seems to have begun in him who was born, so that he is said to have been born who was not before; from which they conclude: “At some time, then, the Son was not.” They add other follies of their talkativeness, saying: “If the Son is the Word of the Father, and is therefore called begotten because he is the Word, and what is a word is not a work: the Father spoke in many ways; therefore he begot many sons, if he did not work but spoke the Word.” Senseless men! As though they did not understand the difference between uttered speech and the Word of God, born of the Father and abiding for ever: born, certainly, not uttered; in whom there is not a composed syllable but the fullness of eternal divinity and life without end. They add another impiety, asking whether the Father begot willingly or unwillingly; so that if we say willingly, we seem to confess that his will was older than the generation, and they may reply that the Son is not coeternal with the Father, since something went before him; or that he too is a creature, because it is written, “All that he willed, he made,” though this was said not of the Father and the Son but of the creatures which the Son made. But if we answer that the Father begot unwillingly, we seem to have called the Father powerless. But for me, in the everlasting generation neither willing nor not willing comes first; so I would say that he begot neither unwillingly nor willingly; because generation lies not in the capacity of the will but in a certain right and property of the Father’s secret. For just as the Father is good not from will or from necessity, but above both, that is, by nature, so the Father does not beget from will or from necessity. Yet suppose that the generation lies in the will of the begetter: when do they say this will existed? If in the beginning, then the Son was certainly in the beginning; if the will is everlasting, the Son too is everlasting; if the will began, then what he was as God the Father displeased him, so that he changed his state. Then he was displeased with himself without the Son, and began to be pleased with himself in the Son. Then this consequence follows, so that we may say: if he took up the desire of begetting in our manner, then he also took up in our manner the other things that usually precede generation; but in our usage of generation there is a wish, not a will. Those, then, betray their impiety who want Christ’s generation to have begun, so that it may seem to be not the generation of the abiding Word but the utterance of flowing speech; next, by bringing in many sons, they deny in Christ the property of the divine nature, so that he is reckoned neither only-begotten nor firstborn; finally, so that, if he is believed to have received a beginning, he may also seem to be going to have an end. But the Son of God, who was in the beginning, never took a beginning; nor will he have an end, who is the beginning and end of the universe. For since he is the beginning, how did he receive what he already had? Or how will he have an end of himself, when he is himself the end of all things, so that we may abide in him firmly without end? For since the generation of God is not temporal, it finds time neither before itself nor in itself. Their question, then, is cold and vain; it has no place even in created things; for even things that are temporal do not in some cases seem to have a distinction of time. Light, of course, begets radiance, and it cannot be understood that the radiance is later than the light, or the light older than the radiance; because where there is light there is radiance, and where radiance, light also. So neither can light be without radiance nor radiance without light; because light is in the radiance and radiance in the light. Hence the Apostle too called the Son the radiance of the Father’s glory; because the Son is the radiance of the Father’s light: coeternal, because of the eternity of power; inseparable, because of the unity of brightness. So if we cannot grasp and separate these temporal and airy things that we see, can we grasp God, whom we do not see, who is above all creation, in the very secret of his generation? Can we separate him from the Son by time, when all time is the work of the Son? Let them stop saying, then, “And before he was begotten he was not.” For “before” belongs to time, while the generation is before all times; and so what is later is not earlier, nor can a work be before its author, since works take their beginning from their maker. For how can the use of a work be reckoned before its maker, when all time is a work, and every work has received its being from its maker? I wish still to test these men who think themselves clever, so that they may answer from our human matters, they who slander divine things and shrink far back from the unsearchable secret of the heavenly generation: let them build their question on the example of human generation. They say of the Son of God that before he was begotten he was not; that is, of the wisdom of God, of the power of God, of the Word of God, whose generation knew nothing before itself. But if at some time, as they wish, he was not (which is wicked to say), then at some time the fullness of divine perfection was not in God, if afterwards he received the process of generation. Yet so that they may know how vain and easily solved their question is, although there is nothing common here between human and divine things, I will show that men existed before they were born. Let them deny that Jacob was holy before he was born, who supplanted his brother while still placed in the secret of his mother’s womb; let them deny that Jeremiah existed before he was born, to whom it is said: “Before I formed you in your mother’s womb I knew you, and before you came forth from the womb I sanctified you, and I appointed you a prophet among the nations.” What is plainer than the example of so great a prophet, who was sanctified before he was born and known before he was formed? What shall I say also of John, of whom his devout mother testifies that while still placed within his mother’s womb he recognized by the Spirit the presence of the Lord and marked it by leaping, as we remember it is written, when his mother says: “For behold, when the voice of your greeting came into my ears, the infant leapt for joy in my womb”? Did he who prophesied exist, then, or did he not? Certainly he existed; for he existed who worshiped his author, he existed who spoke in his mother. Indeed Elizabeth was filled with the spirit of her son, Mary was sanctified by the spirit of her Son; for so you have it, that “the infant leapt in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.” See the proper force of each word. Elizabeth heard Mary’s voice first, but John first perceived the Lord’s grace. Beautifully do oracles agree with oracles, woman with woman, child with child. The women speak of grace, the children work within, and through their mothers’ progress they take up the mystery of godliness; and by a twofold miracle, though of differing honor, the mothers prophesy by the spirit of their little ones. Who, then, is the author of this miracle? Is it not the Son of God, who made them to exist before they were born? If your question cannot hold for human things, can it hold for divine secrets? What is “Before he was begotten he was not”? Did the Father receive some times of conception, so that times should precede the Son? Or did he labor to bring forth his offspring in the manner of a female nature, so that the labor itself should be older than the Son? What is this? Why do we examine divine secrets? I have read of the property of the divine generation, not of its manner. It is an unworthy thing that some should measure heavenly things by themselves, who think that Christ could not be born but made, as though he were one of the eunuchs; or that the Father, like one of the eunuchs, adopted a Son whom he could not beget.

Many also raise a question from this, because it is written: “As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me”; and they say: “How is the Son equal to the Father, when he said that he lives because of the Father?” Let those who propose this first answer what kind of life the Son has: is it a life that the Father bestowed on him when he did not have it? But how could he ever have been without life, since he himself is life, as he says: “I am the way, the truth, and the life”? Life everlasting, certainly, as power is everlasting. Was there a time, then, when Life, so to speak, did not have itself? Consider what was read today of the Lord Jesus, that he died for us, so that whether we wake or sleep we may live together with him. He whose death is life, is his divinity not life, when divinity is life everlasting? Or is his life in the Father’s power? But he did not say that even the life of his body was in another’s power, as it is written: “I lay down my life, that I may take it again. No one takes 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 commandment I received from my Father.” Is his life according to divinity judged to be placed in another’s power, whose life according to the body was not subject to another’s power? For it would be another’s power if there were not unity of power. But as laying down his life signifies that it was in his own power and of his free will, so his laying it down according to the Father’s commandment signifies the unity of his will and the Father’s. If, then, the Son neither received life from some point of time nor has it subject to another’s power, let us see why he said: “As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father.” Let us explain it as we can; or rather, let him explain it. Consider, then, what he set before it; for he says: “Amen, amen I say to you.” First he instructs you how you ought to listen: “Truly,” he says, “truly I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you will not have life in you.” He said first that he was speaking as Son of Man; and do you think that what he said as Son of Man of his flesh and blood is to be referred to the divinity? Indeed he added: “For my flesh is truly food, and my blood is truly drink.” You hear of flesh, you hear of blood, you recognize the sacraments of the Lord’s death; and do you slander the divinity? Hear him saying: “For a spirit does not have flesh and bones.” And as often as we receive the sacraments, which through the mystery of the sacred prayer are transfigured into flesh and blood, we proclaim the death of the Lord. So after he declared that he was speaking as the Son of Man, and had repeated flesh and blood many times, he then added: “As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me.” How, then, do they think this should be taken? For the comparison can be seen in two ways. The first thus: “As the living Father sent me, so I live because of the Father.” The second thus: “As the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so too he who eats me lives because of me.” If they choose the first, it means: as I was sent by the Father and came down from the Father, so I live because of the Father. But as what was he sent, and as what did he come down, except as Son of Man, as he himself said above: “No one has ascended into heaven except he who came down from heaven, the Son of Man”? So as he was sent and came down as Son of Man, so as Son of Man he lives because of the Father. Indeed he who eats him as Son of Man also lives because of the Son of Man. He compared this act, then, to the coming of his incarnation. But if the second pleases them, do we not gather by a clear distinction both the equality of the Son with the Father and his likeness to man? For what is “As he lives because of the Father, so we live because of him,” but that the Son gives life to man as the Father gave life to human flesh in the Son? “For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will,” as the Lord himself said above. The equality of the Son with the Father, then, is established through the unity of giving life as well, since the Son gives life as the Father does. Recognize, then, his everlasting life and power. Our likeness to him also, and a certain unity according to the flesh, is declared; since, as the Son of God was given life in the flesh by the Father, so man is given life. For it is written that as God raised Jesus Christ from the dead, so we too, as men, are given life by the Son of God. According to this explanation, then, not only is the grace of his bounty extended to the human condition, but the eternity of the divinity is also proclaimed: of the divinity, because it gives life; of the human condition, because even in Christ it was given life. But if anyone refers both to the divinity of Christ, then the Son of God is compared to men, so that the Son lives because of the Father in the way that we live because of the Son of God. But the Son of God bestows eternal life, and we cannot bestow it; then, on the comparison with us, neither does he bestow it. Let the Arians, then, have the reward of their faith, that they may not obtain eternal life from the Son. Let us go further now; for if they like to refer this passage to the perpetuity of the divine substance, let them take a third explanation as well. Does he not plainly seem to say that as the Father is living, so the Son also lives? Who would not see that this is to be referred to the unity of life, that the life of the Father and of the Son is the same? “For as the Father has life in himself, so he has given to the Son also to have life in himself.” He gave it through unity; he gave not to take it away but to be glorified in the Son; he gave to be well pleased; he gave not so that the Father should keep it but so that the Son should possess it. But they think it must be objected that he said, “I live because of the Father.” Certainly, if they refer it to the divinity, the Son lives because of the Father: because the Son is from the Father; because of the Father, because he is of one substance with the Father; because of the Father, because the Word was uttered from the Father’s heart, because he proceeded from the Father, because he was begotten from the Father’s womb, because the Father is the fount of the Son, because the Father is the root of the Son. But perhaps they say: “If you think there is a unity of life of the Father and the Son, since the Son said, And I live because of the Father, is there then a unity of the life of the Son and of men, since the Son said, He who eats me also lives because of me?” Indeed there is: as I confess that there is a unity of heavenly life in the Father and the Son through the unity of the divine substance, so, excepting the privilege of the divine nature and of the Lord’s incarnation, I profess that we share a fellowship of spiritual life in the Son through the unity of human nature: “For as is the heavenly, such also are those who are heavenly.” Indeed, as we sit in him at the right hand of the Father, not because we sit beside him but because we sit in the body of Christ, of which we shall speak more fully later, as, I say, we sit in Christ through the unity of the body, so we also live in Christ through the unity of the body. Not only am I not afraid because it is written, “And I live because of the Father”; I would not be afraid even if he had said “through the Father.” For they are also accustomed to object that he said: “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that his Son may be glorified through it.” For not only is the Son glorified through the Father and by the Father, since it is written, “Glorify me, Father,” and elsewhere, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him, and God has glorified him”; but the Father too is glorified through the Son and by the Son, for the Truth said: “I have glorified you on earth.” As, then, he is glorified through the Father, so too he lives because of the Father. Hence some, too, have thought that doxa means “opinion” rather than “glory,” and so have interpreted it thus: “I have glorified you on earth; I have finished the work you gave me; and now glorify me, Father,” that is, doxason; so that the sense is: “I have instilled in men such an opinion of you that they know you as the true God; and you confirm in them this opinion of me, that they may believe me to be your Son and true God.”

It is ridiculous, too, that some make a distinction of power between the Father and the Son from that saying of the Apostle, because it is written: “Yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we through him.” For they say that there is no small distance of divine majesty, because it is said: “From him are all things,” and “through him are all things.” But nothing is more expressly shown than that in this place the Son is marked out as almighty by plain reasoning; for as all things are from the one, so all things are through the other. The Father is not among “all things,” for to him it is said: “For all things serve you.” The Son is not among “all things,” because all things were made through him, and all things hold together in him, and he is above all the heavens. The Son, then, is not among all things but above all things; according to the flesh he is indeed from the race of the Jews, yet the same is God over all, blessed for ever; his name is above every name, and of him it is said: “You have put all things under his feet.” And in subjecting all things, he left nothing not subject to him, as the Apostle said. But if he said this too according to the mystery of the incarnation, how can we doubt the incomparable majesty of the heavenly generation? It is certain, then, that there is no difference of power between the Father and the Son. Indeed so far is there no difference of power that the same Apostle said that all things are from the very one through whom are all things, as you have it: “For from him and through him and in him are all things.” If, then, as they think, only the Father is signified here, the same cannot be both almighty, because all things are from him, and not almighty, because all things are through him. So either they will call the Father powerless and not almighty by their own assertion, or certainly they will confess with their own voice, even unwillingly, that the Son too is almighty. Let them choose, however, whether they think the Father is spoken of here. If the Father, then all things are also through him; if the Son, then all things are also from him. But if all things are also through the Father, nothing is to be taken away from the Son; and if all things are from the Son, likewise honor is to be paid to the Son. And lest they think that we lay a trap by stealthily taking one verse, let us review the whole chapter: “O the depth,” he says, “of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor? Or who has first given to him, and it will be repaid to him? For from him and through him and in him are all things; to him be glory for ever.” Of whom, then, do they think it is said, of the Father or of the Son? If of the Father: but the Father is not the Wisdom of God; the Son is the Wisdom of God. And what is there that Wisdom cannot do, of which it is written: “Being one, she can do all things, and abiding in herself she renews all things”? We read, then, not that she is added to but that she abides. You have, then, according to Solomon, Wisdom almighty and abiding. You have her also good, for it is written: “But malice does not overcome wisdom.” But let us return to our subject. “How unsearchable,” he says, “are his judgments!” If, then, the Father has given all judgment to the Son, it seems to be the Son who is declared, since it is he who judges. Indeed, so that you may know that he is speaking not of the Father but of the Son, he added: “Who,” he says, “has first given to him?” For the Father did give to the Son, but he gave by right of generation, not by a gift of bounty. And so, since it cannot be denied that the Son received from the Father, according to what is written, “All things have been handed over to me by my Father,” yet by saying, “Who has first given to him?” he did not deny that the Son received from the Father by nature, but declared that neither of the Father and the Son can be called prior; because, although the Father gave to the Son, he did not give as to one who came later, for the uncreated and inestimable Trinity, which is of one eternity and glory, admits neither time nor rank, whether of later or of earlier. But if we think the Greek manuscripts are rather to be followed, which have “Who has given in addition to him?” (prosedōken), you see that he to whom nothing can be added is not unequal to the one who is full. So if this whole chapter of the Apostle fits the Son better, we see that we must believe of the Son also that all things are from him, as it is written: “For from him and through him and in him are all things.” But suppose they think it said of the Father. Then let us remember that as we read that all things are from him, so too all things are through him; for the authority of the Father and the Son is set forth over the whole universe of creation. And although we proved above by the Father’s example that the Son is almighty, yet since they are eager to disparage, let them consider that they disparage the Father too. For if the Son is weak because all things are through him, is the Father weak too, because all things are also through the Father? But so that they may recognize that there is no distinction between these phrases, I will show again that “from whom” something is and “through whom” something is belong to the same, and I will show that both are read of the Father. For we have it thus: “God is faithful, through whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son.” Let them consider what the Apostle said. We are called through the Father, and there is no question; we are created through the Son, and do they reckon this baser? The Father called us into the fellowship of his Son, and we receive this devoutly, as we ought; the Son created all things, and do they think that this was not the judgment of free will but the compliance of a forced and servile operation? And so that you may recognize more fully that there is no difference between the power of the Father and of the Son: although we are called through the Father into the fellowship of his Son, the fellowship itself is from the Son, as it is written: “For from his fullness we have all received,” although according to the Greek Gospel we should understand “out of his fullness.” See, the fellowship is both through the Father and from the Son; yet it is not discordant but one fellowship, as the same John said in his epistle: “And that our fellowship may be with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.” Take note also that Scripture has spoken of one fellowship for us not only from the Father and the Son but also from the Holy Spirit: “The grace,” it says, “of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” I ask, then, in what respect he through whom are all things seems less than he from whom are all things. Is it because he is said to be a worker? But the Father too works; for the Truth said: “My Father is working until now, and I am working.” As, then, the Father works, the Son also works. The worker, then, is not weak or base, since the Father too works; and so what the Son has in common with the Father ought not, for the Father’s sake at least, to be taken in an inferior sense, lest the heretics should rather disparage the Father in the Son. Nor is that of small weight which the same holy John says elsewhere, refuting the questions of Arian faithlessness: “If you know that he is righteous, know that everyone who does righteousness is born of him.” And who is righteous but the Lord, who has loved righteousness? Or whom, as the preceding words indicate, do we have as the promiser of eternal life, if we do not have the Son? If, then, the Son of God has promised us eternal life, and he is righteous, we are certainly born of him. Or if they deny that we are born of the Son by grace, they do not confess that the Son is righteous either. You must believe, then, that all things are also from the Son of God; for as the Father, so also the Son is the author and creator of all things. We see, then, that this question is empty, since it is fitting to believe of the Son also that from him and through him and in him are all things. We have said how “from him,” and how also “through him.” And who would doubt that all things are in him, when it is written elsewhere: “For in him all things in heaven were established, and in him they were created; and he is before all, and all things hold together in him”? You have, then, grace from him, him as the worker, and in him the foundation of all things.