Oration II Against the Arians 41–50

But let the other heresies and the Manichees hear that the Father of Christ is one, the Master and Maker of creation through his own Word; and let the Ariomaniacs in particular hear that the Word of God is one, being the only Son proper and genuine from his substance, and having an inseparable unity of Godhead with his own Father, as we have often said, having learned it from the Saviour himself. For if it is not so, why does the Father “create through him,” and “reveal himself” in him to whomever he wills, and enlighten them? Or why, in the completion of baptism too, is the Son named together with the Father? For if the Father is not sufficient, the statement is impious; but if he is sufficient (for this is what it is right to say), what need is there of the Son either for creation or for the holy washing? For what fellowship has the creature with the creator? Or why is the thing made numbered together with its maker for the completion of all? Or why, on your view, is faith handed down in one creator and one creature? For if it is so that we may be joined to the Godhead, what need is there of the creature? And if it is so that we may be united to the Son, who is a creature, then on your view the naming of the Son in baptism is superfluous; for God, who made him a son, is able to make us sons too. Besides, if the Son is a creature, then, since the nature of rational creatures is one, no help will come to creatures from a creature, because all need grace from God. We said a little earlier, in passing, how fittingly “all things came into being through him”; but since the course of the argument has made us mention holy baptism too, it is necessary to say, as I understand and have believed, that the Son is not named with the Father as though the Father were not sufficient, nor simply and at random; but since he is the Word of God and his own Wisdom, and being his radiance is always with the Father, therefore, when the Father bestows grace, it cannot be given otherwise than in the Son; for the Son is in the Father as the radiance is in the light. For not as one in need, but as Father, God “founded the earth by his own Wisdom,” and “made all things” by the “Word” that is from him, and he confirms the holy washing in the Son. For where the Father is, there the Son is too, as where the light is, there is the radiance too. And as what the Father works he works through the Son, and the Lord himself says, “What I see the Father doing, these things I also do,” so too when baptism is given, whom the Father baptizes, him the Son baptizes; and whom the Son baptizes, he is perfected in the Holy Spirit. And again, as when the sun shines one would say that the radiance too illuminates, for the light is one and cannot be divided or split off, so again, where the Father is or is named, there the Son surely is too; and the Father is named in baptism; so the Son must be named together with him.

That is why, when he made promises to the saints, he spoke thus: “I and the Father will come and make our dwelling with him,” and again, “that as I and you are one, so they too may be one in us.” And the grace given is one, given from the Father in the Son, as Paul writes in every letter: “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” For the light must be with its beam, and the radiance be seen together with its own light. Hence the Jews, along with these men, “denying the Son, do not have the Father either”; for “having forsaken the fountain of wisdom,” as Baruch said in reproach of them, they cast away from themselves also the Wisdom that is from it, our Lord Jesus Christ—for “Christ,” says the apostle, “is the power of God and the wisdom of God”—saying, “We have no king but Caesar.” The Jews, then, have the wages of their denial in their punishment; for together with their city they have lost their reason too. But these men are now in danger even concerning the very fullness of the mystery, I mean baptism. For if the completion is given into the name of the Father and of the Son, and they do not speak of a true Father, because they deny what is from him and like his substance, and they deny the true Son too, and fashioning for themselves another, created from nothing, they name him, how is what they give not entirely empty and unprofitable, having a pretense but in truth no help toward godliness? For the Arians do not give baptism “into the Father and the Son,” but into a creator and a creature, and into a maker and a work. And as a creature is other than the Son, so what they think they give would be other than the truth, even if they pretend to name the name of the Father and the Son because it is written. For it is not the one who simply says “Lord” who gives, but the one who along with the name also has the right faith. That is why the Saviour did not simply command them to baptize, but first says, “Make disciples,” and then, “baptize into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” so that from the learning faith might become right, and with faith the completion of baptism might be added.

Many other heresies too, at any rate, which say the names only but do not think rightly, as has been said, nor hold the sound faith, have the water they give unprofitable as well, since it lacks godliness; so that the one sprinkled by them is defiled in impiety rather than redeemed. So too the Greeks, though they say “God” with their lips, bear the charge of atheism, because they do not know the one who really is and is true God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ; so too the Manichees and the Phrygians and the disciples of the Samosatene, though they say the names, are none the less heretics; and so, in turn, those who hold the views of Arius, even if they read what is written and say the names, are themselves mocking those who receive baptism from them, being more impious than the other heresies, gradually going beyond them, and making them look righteous by their own unbridled tongue. For those others lie against the truth on some point: either they err about the body, saying that the Lord did not have flesh from Mary, or that there was no death at all, or that he did not become man at all but only appeared, and was not truly so, and seemed to have a body though he had none, and seemed to appear as a man, as in the fancy of a dream. But these men openly commit impiety against the Father himself. For hearing from the Scriptures that his Godhead is attested in the Son as in an image, they blaspheme, saying that it is a creature, and everywhere they carry this little phrase “he was not” about with them, like mud in a bag, and throw it out as a serpent throws its venom. Then, since their doctrine is nauseating to all, they at once put forward human patronage as a prop for their tottering heresy, so that the simpler person, seeing it, or else from fear, may not perceive the harm of their evil-mindedness. How then is it not right to pity those deceived by them? Or how is it not fitting to weep over them, because for the fancy of the moment, for the sake of pleasures, they betray their own good and fall away from the hope to come? For thinking to receive baptism into one who does not exist, they will have received nothing; and ranked with a creature, they will have no help from the creation. And believing in one unlike and foreign in substance to the Father, they will not be joined to the Father, since they do not have his own Son, by nature from him, who “is in the Father, and in whom the Father is,” as he himself said; but led astray by these men, the wretches remain thereafter destitute and bare of the Godhead. For the fancy of earthly things will not follow them when they die; nor, when they see the Lord whom they denied sitting on the throne of his Father and judging the living and the dead, will anyone be able to call on any of those who now deceived them for help; for they will see them too being judged and repenting of the wrongs and impieties they committed.

These things we have set out meanwhile, before coming to the saying of the Proverbs, in opposition to the irrational fictions that come from their own hearts, so that, knowing that it is not fitting to call the Son of God “a creature,” they too may learn to read rightly the saying in the Proverbs, which itself also has a correct sense. For it is written, “The Lord created me a beginning of his ways for his works”; but since these are proverbs, and it was said in proverbial fashion, one must not simply take the obvious wording as it stands, but seek the person, and so, with piety, fit the sense to that person. For what is said in proverbs is not said openly but is announced in a hidden way, as the Lord himself taught in the Gospel according to John, saying, “These things I have spoken to you in proverbs; but the hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in proverbs, but plainly.” So one must uncover the sense of the saying, and seek it as something hidden, and not simply take it as spoken plainly, lest by misinterpreting we stray from the truth. If, then, what is written is about an angel or some other originated being, as about one of us who are works, let “he created me” be taken so; but if it is the Wisdom of God, in which all originated things have been crafted, that speaks about itself, what must we understand but that in saying “he created” it says nothing contrary to “he begot”? Nor, as though forgetting that it is creator and craftsman, or not knowing the difference between the creator and the creatures, does it number itself among the creatures; but it signifies a certain sense, as in proverbs, not plainly but hidden, which it inspired the saints to prophesy; and a little later, signifying “he created” in parallel in other words, it says itself, “Wisdom has built herself a house.” And it is clear that Wisdom's house is our body, which he took up and so became man; and fittingly it is said by John, “The Word became flesh,” while through Solomon Wisdom says of itself, with care, not “I am a creature,” but only “The Lord created me a beginning of his ways for his works”—not “he created me so that I might be,” nor “I have the beginning and origin of a creature.”

For here too the Word, speaking through Solomon, is not signifying the substance of his Godhead, nor his eternal and genuine generation from the Father, but again his humanity and his economy toward us. That is why, as I said before, he did not say “I am a creature,” or “I became a creature,” but only “he created.” For “creatures,” having a created substance, are among originated things, and are said to be created, and a creature is certainly created; but the word “he created,” said by itself, does not necessarily signify the substance or the generation, but indicates that something else comes about concerning the one of whom it speaks; and what is said to be created is not necessarily, by that fact, a creature in nature and substance. The divine Scripture knows this difference, saying of the creatures, “The earth was filled with your creation,” and “Creation itself groans together and travails together”; and in the Revelation it says, “And a third of the creatures in the sea, those that had souls, died”; as Paul too says, “Every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving”; and in Wisdom it is written, “And by your Wisdom you formed man, to have dominion over the creatures made by you.” And that it says that these, being creatures, are created, one can hear again from the Lord, who says, “But he who created from the beginning made them male and female”; from Moses, writing in the song, “Ask of the days that were before you, from the day on which God created man upon the earth, and to the end of heaven”; and from Paul, who says in the letter to the Colossians, “who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things were created in the heavens and on the earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities; all things were created through him and for him, and he is before all.”

That things which by nature have a created substance are called creatures and are created, these examples suffice as a reminder, since Scripture is full of them. But that the word “he created,” said by itself, does not necessarily signify the substance and the origin, David sings: “Let this be written for another generation, and a people that is being created will praise the Lord,” and again, “Create in me a clean heart, O God”; and Paul says in the letter to the Ephesians, “having abolished the law of commandments in ordinances, that he might create in himself the two into one new man,” and again, “Put on the new man, created according to God in righteousness and holiness of the truth.” For neither did David speak of a people being created in substance, nor did he pray to receive another heart besides the one he had; he meant the renewal and renovation according to God. Nor did Paul indicate two persons being created in substance in the Lord, nor did he advise us to put on some other man; by the man according to God he meant the life of virtue, and by those created in Christ he meant the two peoples renewed in him. Such too is what is said in Jeremiah: “The Lord created a new salvation for planting, in which salvation men shall go about”; in saying this he does not signify some substance of a creature, but prophesies the salvation renewed among human beings, which came to us in Christ. Since, then, there is such a difference between the creatures and the bare expression “he created,” if you find the Lord anywhere called “a creature” in the divine Scripture, show it and fight; but if it is nowhere written that he is a creature, and he himself says of himself in the Proverbs, “The Lord created me,” be put to shame by the difference just stated and by what is said in proverbial fashion; and from now on do not hear “he created” as “creature,” but as referring to the humanity that came about in him; for to be created is proper to this. For how are you not unjust, that when you hear “he created” from David and Paul you do not understand the substance and the origin but the renewal, while when you hear “he created” from the Lord, you number his substance with the creatures? And again, hearing, “Wisdom has built herself a house and set up seven pillars,” you take the “house” allegorically, but taking “he created” literally you turn it into a creature; and neither did his being creator make you ashamed, nor did you fear his being the only proper offspring of the Father; but simply, as if you had signed on against him, you fight, and you think less of him than of human beings.

For the saying itself shows that calling the Lord a creature is your own invention. For the Lord, knowing his own substance to be the only-begotten Wisdom and offspring of the Father, other than originated things and things that are creatures by nature, now says out of love for humankind, “The Lord created me a beginning of his ways,” which is equal to saying, “The Father prepared a body for me, and created me for human beings, for the salvation of human beings.” For just as, hearing from John, “The Word became flesh,” we do not think that the Word himself is wholly flesh, but that he put on flesh and became man; and hearing, “Christ became a curse for us,” and “He made him who knew no sin to be sin for us,” we do not think that he became wholly this, a curse and sin, but that he took upon himself the curse that lay on us (as the apostle said, “he redeemed us from the curse”), and “our sins,” as Isaiah said, “he bore,” and as Peter wrote, “he carried them up in his body onto the tree”; so if we hear “he created” in the Proverbs, we must not think the Word wholly a creature by nature, but that he put on a created body, and God created him for our sake, preparing for him for us that created thing, “a body,” as it is written, so that in him we might be able to be renewed and deified. What, then, deceived you, you senseless ones, into calling the creator “a creature”? Or where did you buy this new idea for yourselves, that you parade in it? For the Proverbs say “he created,” but they do not call the Son “a creature,” but offspring; and according to the distinction drawn above from the Scriptures—I mean between “he created” and “creature”—they recognize what is proper by nature to the Son, that he is only-begotten Wisdom and creator of the creatures; and when they say “he created,” they do not say it of his substance, but signify that he becomes “a beginning of” many “ways,” so that “he created” stands over against “offspring,” and the phrase “beginning of ways” over against his being the only-begotten Word.

For if he is offspring, how do you call him a creature? No one says he begets what he creates, nor calls his own offspring creatures. And again, if he is only-begotten, how does he become “beginning of the ways”? For if he was created as beginning of all things, he would necessarily no longer be alone, having those who came into being after him. Reuben too, having become “the beginning of the children,” was not only-begotten, but was first in time, while in nature and kinship he was one of those after him. So if the Word too is “beginning of the ways,” he would be of the same kind as the ways, and the ways of the same kind as the Word, even if he is created first of them in time. For the beginning of a city too is of the same kind as the other parts of the city, and the parts, joined to the beginning, make up the city whole and one, like the many members of one body; one part of it is not among the makers and another among the things made, subject to the other part, but the whole city equally receives care from him who made it and is held together by him. If, then, the Lord too is created in this way as beginning of all, he must with all make up one creation, and neither differ from the others, even if he became the beginning of all, nor be Lord of the other parts of creation, even if he happens to be older in time; for he too, with all, has one principle of creation and one Master. And how at all, if he is a creature on your view, can he be created alone and first, so as to be the beginning of all, when it is clear from what was said earlier that among the creatures nothing exists that abides by itself and was made first, but each has its origin together with all, even if it “differs in glory” from the others? For of the stars, or of the great lights, one did not appear first and another second, but on one day and by the same command they were all called into being. So too the origin of four-footed beasts, birds, swimming things, cattle, and plants was fashioned; so too the race of human beings, made after the image, came to be; for even if Adam alone was fashioned from earth, yet in him were the principles of succession of the whole race.

From the visible creation of the world “we clearly see his invisible things, understood by the things made,” because there too we do not see them one by one, nor one first and another second, but all came to subsist together according to their kinds. For the apostle did not enumerate them one by one, so as to say, “whether an angel, or a throne, or a dominion, and an authority,” but he speaks of all together according to their order: “whether angels, or archangels, or principalities”; for such is the origin of creatures. If, then, as I said before, the Word were a creature, he would have had to come into being not first but together with the other powers, even if he surpassed the others in glory; for so one can find with the others too, that they came into being together, and there is no first or second, but they differ from one another in glory, some on the right, some round about, others on the left, and all together hymn and stand ministering to the Lord. So if the Word is a creature, he would not be first, nor the beginning of the others; but if he is “before all,” as indeed he is, and he alone is first and Son, then neither is he in substance the “beginning of all”; for the beginning of all is numbered among all. And if he is not a beginning, he is not a creature either; but it would be very clear that in substance and nature he stands apart from the creatures and is other than they, and is the likeness and image of the only and true God, being himself also alone. That is why the Scriptures do not rank him with the creatures; but David rebukes those who dare even to think him such, saying, “Who is like you among the gods, O Lord?” and “Who shall be likened to the Lord among the sons of God?” And Baruch says, “This is our God; no other shall be reckoned beside him.” For he creates, and they are created; and he is the Word and Wisdom proper to the Father's substance, while the things that came into being, not having existed before, have been made through this Word.

So the saying you have trumpeted so much, “The Son is a creature,” is not true, but only your fancy; and you stand accused by Solomon, because you have often lied against him. For he did not call him a creature but offspring and Wisdom of God, saying, “God by wisdom founded the earth,” and “Wisdom has built herself a house.” And the saying itself, when examined, refutes your impiety; for it is written, “The Lord created me a beginning of his ways for his works.” If, then, he himself is before all things, and yet he says “he created me,” not “so that I might make the works,” but “for the works,” then either “he created” comes later than he himself, or he will appear to be later than the works, finding them, when he is created, already existing before him—the works for which he also comes to be. And if so, how is he still “before all”? And how did “all things come into being through him,” and how do they “hold together in him”? For see, on your view the works had been established even before him, the works for which he is created and sent. But it is not so—God forbid!—the heretics' thinking is false. For the Word of God is not a creature but creator; and he says in proverbial fashion “he created me” at the time when he put on the created flesh. And this again can be understood from the saying itself. For being Son and having God as Father (for he is his own offspring), he nevertheless now names the Father “Lord”—not because he was a servant, but because he “took the form of the servant.” For it was fitting that, as being Word from the Father, he should call God “Father,” for this is proper to a son toward a father; and likewise that, having come “to accomplish the work” and having taken the form of a servant, he should name the Father “Lord.” He himself taught this difference with a fine distinction, saying in the Gospels, “I thank you, Father,” and then, “Lord of heaven and earth.” For he says that God is his own Father, but names him “Lord” of the creatures; so that it is clearly shown from this that when he put on what is created, then he calls the Father “Lord.” In David's prayer too the Holy Spirit signifies the same difference, saying through the Psalms, “Give your strength to your servant, and save the son of your handmaid.” For the one who is by nature and truly God's Child is one thing, and the children of the handmaid, who is the nature of originated things, are another. That is why the one, as Son, has the Father's strength, while the others need salvation.