Oration III Against the Arians

The Ariomaniacs, it seems, having once decided to become apostates and transgressors of the truth, are eager to draw upon themselves the saying, “When the ungodly comes into the depth of evils, he despises”; for they neither stop when refuted nor feel shame when at a loss, but, like “the face of a harlot, they have become shameless toward all” in their impieties. For the sayings they put forward as pretexts—“The Lord created me,” and “having become better than the angels,” and “firstborn,” and “being faithful to him who made him”—have a correct sense and show piety toward Christ; yet, I do not know how, they again, as though drenched with the serpent's venom, not seeing what they ought to see nor understanding what they read, and as though belching it up from the depth of their impious heart, have now begun also to disparage what the Lord said, “I am in the Father and the Father in me,” saying, “How can this one be contained in that one, and that one in this one? Or how at all can the Father, who is greater, be contained in the Son, who is less? Or what is wonderful in the Son's being in the Father, when it is written of us too, ‘For in him we live and move and have our being’?” They suffer this in keeping with their ill will, thinking that God is a body, and not understanding what “true Father” and “true Son” are, nor what “light invisible” and “eternal” and “its invisible radiance” are, nor what an invisible “subsistence,” an incorporeal “impress,” and an incorporeal “image” are. For if they knew, they would not revile “the Lord of glory” with laughter, nor, taking incorporeal things in a bodily way, misinterpret what is well said. It should indeed have been enough, on hearing these words spoken by the Lord, simply to believe, since the faith of simplicity is better than the persuasiveness that comes from curious inquiry; but since they have attempted to profane this too for their own heresy, it is necessary to refute their ill will and to show the sense of the truth, at least for the security of the faithful. For it is not, as they think, that they are packed into each other when it is said, “I am in the Father and the Father in me,” as though they were filled from one another like empty vessels, so that the Son fills the Father's emptiness and the Father the Son's, and neither of them is full and perfect (this is proper to bodies, so that even to say it is beyond impiety); for the Father is full and perfect, and the Son is “the fullness of the Godhead.” Nor again is God in the Son in the way that he comes to be in the saints and strengthens them; for the Son himself is the Father's power and Wisdom; originated things are sanctified by participation in him in the Spirit, but the Son himself is not a son by participation; he is the Father's own offspring. Nor, again, is the Son in the Father as in the saying, “in him we live and move and have our being”; for he himself, as from the fountain of the Father, is the life in which all things are given life and hold together; for life does not live in life—otherwise it would not be life—but rather he himself gives life to all things.

Let us also look at what the advocate of the heresy, Asterius the sophist, says; for he too, emulating the Jews in this, has written as follows: “For it is quite clear that he said he is in the Father, and the Father again in himself, for this reason: that he says that neither the word which he was delivering is his own, but the Father's, nor are the works his own, but the Father's, who gave the power.” If a little child had said this in simplicity, he would have been excused because of his age; but since the one who wrote it is the so-called “sophist,” who professes to know everything, how much condemnation does such a man deserve? And how does he not show himself a stranger to the apostle, being puffed up in “persuasive words of wisdom,” and thinking he can deceive by them, “not understanding either what he says or the things about which he makes assertions”? For what the Son said as proper to and fitting only for the Son, who is Word and Wisdom and image of the Father's substance, this man brings down to all the creatures, and makes common to the Son and to them. And the lawless man says that the Father's power receives power, so that it follows from his impiety to say that the Son was made a son in a Son, and that the Word received the Word's authority; and he no longer wishes him to have said these things as Son, but ranks him too, like all the things made, as one who learned. For if it was because the words he delivered were not the Son's but the Father's, and likewise the works, that he said, “I am in the Father and the Father in me,” then—since David says, “I will hear what the Lord God will speak in me,” and Solomon, “My words have been spoken by God,” and Moses ministered the words that came from God, and each of the prophets spoke not his own words but those that came from God, “Thus says the Lord,” and the saints said that the works they did were not their own but those of God who gave the power (as Elijah and Elisha called on God that he himself might raise the dead, and Elisha, when he had cleansed Naaman of his leprosy, says to him, “that you may know that there is a God in Israel,” and Samuel too prayed God in the days of harvest “to give rain,” and the apostles said that they did the signs not “by their own power” but by the grace of the Lord)—then clearly, according to him, such a saying would be common to all, so that each could say, “I am in the Father and the Father in me”; and he would no longer be the one Son of God and Word and Wisdom, but would himself be one out of many.

But if the Lord had spoken in this sense, he ought not to have said, “I am in the Father and the Father in me,” but rather, “I too am in the Father, and the Father is also in me,” so that he would have nothing proper and exceptional toward the Father as Son, but would have the same grace in common with all. But it is not as they think; for not thinking that he is a genuine Son from the Father, they lie against the genuine one, to whom alone it is fitting to say, “I am in the Father and the Father in me.” For the Son is “in the Father,” so far as one may understand it, because the whole being of the Son is proper to the Father's substance, as radiance is from light and a river from a spring; so that whoever sees the Son sees what is proper to the Father, and understands that the Son's being, being from the Father, is thus in the Father. And the Father is “in the Son,” because what is proper to the Father and from him is what the Son is, as the sun is in its radiance, the mind in its word, and the spring in the river; for so whoever contemplates the Son contemplates what is proper to the Father's substance, and understands that the Father is in the Son. For since the form and Godhead of the Father is the being of the Son, it follows that the Son is in the Father and the Father in the Son. That is why, having first said, fittingly, “I and the Father are one,” he added, “I am in the Father and the Father in me,” so as to show both the identity of the Godhead and the unity of the substance.

For they are “one,” not as one thing divided into two parts and being nothing but one; nor as one thing named twice, so that the same one becomes at one time Father and at another his own Son—for Sabellius was judged a heretic for thinking this. But they are two, because the Father is Father and is not also Son, and the Son is Son and is not also Father; but the nature is one (for the offspring is not unlike the one who begot him, since he is his image), and all that is the Father's is the Son's. Therefore the Son is not another God either; for he was not devised from outside, since otherwise there would certainly be many gods, if a Godhead foreign to the Father's were devised. For although the Son is other as offspring, he is the same as God; and he and the Father are “one” in the propriety and kinship of nature and in the identity of the one Godhead, as has been said. For the radiance too is light, not second to the sun, nor another light, nor light by participation in it, but wholly its own offspring. And such an offspring is necessarily one light; and no one would say that these are two lights, but that sun and radiance are two, and one is the light from the sun that illuminates all things in the radiance. So too the Godhead of the Son is the Father's; hence it is also indivisible; and so “there is one God, and there is none other besides him.” Since, then, they are one, and the Godhead itself is one, the same things are said of the Son as are said of the Father, except for being called “Father.” For instance, “God”: “and the Word was God”; “Almighty”: “Thus says he who was and who is and who is to come, the Almighty”; “Lord”: “one Lord Jesus Christ”; being “light”: “I am the light”; wiping out sins: “But that you may know,” he says, “that the Son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins”; and whatever else you may find. For “all things,” says the Son himself, “that the Father has are mine,” and again, “Mine are yours.”

He who hears the things of the Father said of the Son will thus see the Father “in the Son”; and he will behold the Son “in the Father” when the things said of the Son are also said of the Father. And why are the things of the Father said of the Son, except because the Son is an offspring from him? And why are the things of the Son proper to the Father, except again because the Son is the proper offspring of his substance? And being the proper offspring of the Father's substance, the Son fittingly says that the things of the Father are his own; hence, fittingly and consistently, after saying, “I and the Father are one,” he added, “so that you may know that I am in the Father and the Father in me”; and to this again he has added, “He who has seen me has seen the Father”; and there is one and the same sense in these three sayings. For he who has thus known that the Son and the Father are one knows that he is in the Father and the Father in the Son; for the Godhead of the Son is the Father's, and it is in the Son; and he who has grasped this is persuaded that he who has seen the Son has seen the Father; for in the Son the Father's Godhead is contemplated. One may understand this more closely from the example of the king's image. For in the image are the form and shape of the king, and in the king is the form that is in the image. For the likeness of the king in the image is exact, so that whoever looks at the image sees the king in it, and again whoever sees the king recognizes that he is the one in the image. And because the likeness does not vary, the image might say to one who wished to see the king after seeing the image, “I and the king are one; for I am in him and he in me; and what you see in me you behold in him, and what you have seen in him you behold in me.” He who does homage to the image, at any rate, does homage in it to the king as well; for the image is his form and shape. Since, then, the Son too is the image of the Father, it must necessarily be understood that the Godhead and propriety of the Father is the being of the Son. And this is the meaning of “who, being in the form of God,” and “the Father in me.”

The form of the Godhead is not partial; the fullness of the Father's Godhead is the being of the Son, and the Son is wholly God. That is why, being equal to God, “he did not count it robbery to be equal to God”; and again, since the Godhead and form of the Son belong to none other than the Father, this is what he said: “I am in the Father.” So “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself”; for the Son is what is proper to the Father's substance, in whom creation was reconciled to God. So what the Son worked are the Father's works; for the Son is the form of the Father's Godhead, which worked the works; and so he who sees the Son sees the Father; for the Son is and is contemplated in the paternal Godhead, and the paternal form in him shows the Father in him; and so the Father is “in the Son.” And the propriety and Godhead from the Father in the Son shows the Son in the Father, and his being for ever undivided from him. And he who hears and sees that the things said of the Father are said of the Son, not as added to his substance by grace or participation, but because the very being of the Son is the proper offspring of the Father's substance, will rightly understand what is said, as I said before, “I am in the Father and the Father in me,” and “I and the Father are one.” For the Son is such as the Father is, by having all that is the Father's; that is why he is also signified together with the Father. For no one could say “Father” if there were no son. But one who calls God “maker” does not necessarily also indicate the things made; for he is maker even before the things made; but one who says “Father” at once signifies with the Father the existence of the Son as well. That is why he who believes in the Son believes in the Father, for he believes in what is proper to the Father's substance; and so the faith in one God is one; and he who worships and honors the Son worships and honors the Father in the Son. For the Godhead is one; and therefore the honor is one and the worship is one, which is given to the Father in the Son and through him; and he who worships thus worships one God; “for God is one, and there is none other besides him.” When, therefore, the Father is called the “only” God, and it is said that there is one God, and “I am,” and “besides me there is no God,” and “I am the first, and I am after these things,” it is rightly said; for God is one and only and first. But it is not said to do away with the Son—God forbid!—for he too is in the one and first and only, as being the only Word and Wisdom and radiance of the one and only and first. And he too is first, the fullness of the Godhead of the first and only, being whole and full God. So it was not said because of him, but to deny that there is another such as the Father and his Word; and the sense of the prophet is plain and evident to all.

But since the impious, bringing forward these texts too, blaspheme the Lord and reproach us, saying, “See, God is called ‘one,’ and ‘only,’ and ‘first’; how do you say that the Son is God? For if he were God, he would not have said, ‘I alone,’ nor that ‘God is one,’” it is necessary to state the sense of these sayings too, as far as possible, so that all may know from these as well that the Arians are truly fighters against God. If, then, there is rivalry between the Son and the Father, let him hear such words; and if the Father looks on the Son as David heard about Adonijah and Absalom, let him speak and utter such words to himself, lest the Son, calling himself God, lead some away from the Father. But he who knows the Son knows the Father all the more, since the Son reveals him to him, and in the Word he will see the Father all the more, as has been said; and the Son, when he came, glorified not himself but the Father, saying to the one who came to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but one, God,” and answering the one who asked which commandment in the law is greater, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one Lord,” and saying to the crowds, “I have come down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of the Father who sent me,” and teaching the disciples that “My Father is greater than I,” and “He who honors me honors him who sent me.” If the Son is such toward his own Father, what opposition is there, that anyone should draw such a suspicion from such sayings? Besides, if the Son is the Word of the Father, who is so senseless, except the Christ-fighters, as to think that God spoke such things to disparage and do away with his own Word? This is not the mind of Christians—God forbid! These things were not written because of the Son, but to do away with the falsely named gods fashioned by men; and the sense of such sayings has a reasonable cause.

For since those devoted to the falsely named gods turn away from the true God, therefore God, being good and caring for human beings, calling back those who had strayed, says, “I am God alone,” and “I am,” and “Besides me there is no God,” and similar sayings, so as to discredit the things that are not and turn all to himself. It is as if someone, when it is day and the sun is shining, were to paint a piece of wood, without even a semblance of light, and say that this image is the cause of light; and the sun, seeing this, were to say, “I alone am the light of day, and there is no other light of day besides me.” He would say this not with regard to his own radiance, but with regard to the error caused by the painted wood and the unlikeness of the vain semblance. So too with “I am,” and “I alone am God,” and “There is no other besides me”: they are said to draw men away from the falsely named gods, so that they might learn that he is henceforth the true God. Indeed, in saying these things God spoke through his own Word—unless the Jews of today add this too, that he did not speak these things through the Word; but so it has been said, however the devilish may rage. For “the word of the Lord came” to the prophet, and these things were heard. And if the Word was his, and these things were said through him, and there is nothing that God says and does which he does not say and do in the Word, then these things were not said because of him, you fighters against God, but because of things alien to him and not from him. For according to the image mentioned, if the sun spoke those words, he would refute the error not as having his radiance outside himself, but as showing his light in the radiance; and he would say such things. So such sayings are not meant to do away with the Son, nor are they said because of him, but for the rejection of falsehood. At any rate, God did not speak such words to Adam in the beginning, although the Word, “through whom all things came into being,” was with him; for there was no need, since idols had not yet come into being. But when men rose up against the truth and named for themselves as “gods” whom they would, then indeed there came to be need of such words for the doing away of the gods that are not. And I would add that such sayings were spoken beforehand also against the folly of the Christ-fighters, so that they may know that whatever “god” they devise outside the Father's substance is not true, nor the image and son of the only and first.

If, then, the Father is also called “the only true God,” this is said not to set aside him who says, “I am the truth,” but again to do away with those who are not by nature true, as the Father and his Word are. For so the Lord himself at once added, “and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” If he were a creature, he would not have added this and numbered himself with his creator; for what fellowship has the true with the untrue? But as it is, by joining himself to the Father, he showed that he is of the Father's nature, and gave us to know that he is the true offspring of the true Father. John, having learned this, taught it, writing in his letter, “And we are in the true one, in his Son Jesus Christ; this is the true God and eternal life.” And when the prophet says of creation, “who alone stretched out the heaven,” and God says, “I alone stretched out the heaven,” it has become clear to all that in the “alone” the Word of the Only one is also signified, in whom “all things came into being, and without him not one thing came into being.” So if the heaven came into being through the Word, and yet he says, “I alone,” then together with the Only one the Son too is understood, through whom the heaven came into being; so too, if it is said, “One God,” and “I alone,” and “I am the first,” the Word is understood as being with the one and only and first, as the radiance in the light. And this could not be understood of any other, but only of the Word. For all other things came to subsist from what is not, through the Son, and are separated from God by a great distance in nature; but the Son himself is from the Father, a natural and true offspring. And so the very saying which the senseless thought to put forward in defence of their heresy, “I am the first,” rather refutes their ill will. God says, “I am the first, and I am after these things.” If, then, he is called “first” of these things as numbered with those after him, so that they are second to him, then on your view he too will be among the works, preceding them only in time; but this alone exceeds all impiety. But if it was to show that he is not from anyone, nor anyone before him, but that he is the beginning and cause of all, and to do away with the myths of the Greeks, that he said, “I am the first,” it is clear that the Son too is called “firstborn” not because he is numbered with creation, but to show that all things are created and made sons through the Son. For as the Father is “first,” so he too is first, as image of the first and because the first is in him, but an offspring from the Father; and in him the whole creation is created and made sons.

But against these things too they again try to contend with their own fables, saying that the Son and the Father are not “one” or “like” in the way the church preaches, but as they themselves would have it. For they say, “Since what the Father wills the Son also wills, and he is not opposed to him either in thoughts or in judgments, but is in all things in harmony with him, rendering the identity of doctrines and a word consistent with and bound up with the Father's teaching, for this reason he and the Father are one.” Some of them have dared not only to say this but also to write it. What could one say more absurd or unreasonable than this? For if the Son and the Father are one for these reasons, and if the Word is like the Father in this way, it is time for the angels too, and the other beings above us—principalities and authorities, thrones and dominions—and the visible things—sun and moon and the stars—to be sons as the Son is, and for it to be said of them too that they and the Father are “one,” and that each is an image and Word of God. For what God wills, they will too; they disagree neither in judgments nor in doctrines, but in all things obey their maker. For they would not have remained in their own glory had they not wished what the Father willed. The one, at any rate, who did not remain but lost his mind heard, “How has the morning star fallen from heaven, who rose in the morning!” How then, if this is so, is this one alone only-begotten Son and Word and Wisdom? Or how, when so many are like the Father, is this one alone the image? For among human beings too many will be found like the Father: very many martyrs, and before them the apostles and prophets, and before these again the patriarchs; and many even now have kept the Saviour's command, becoming “merciful, as the Father in heaven,” and keeping the words, “Be imitators of God, as beloved children, and walk in love, as Christ also loved us.” Many too have become “imitators” of Paul, as he was “of Christ”; and yet none of these is “Word,” or “Wisdom,” or “only-begotten Son,” or “image,” nor did any of them dare to say, “I and the Father are one,” or “I am in the Father and the Father in me.” But of all it is said, “Who is like you among the gods, O Lord?” and “Who shall be likened to the Lord among the sons of God?” whereas of him it is said that he alone is the true and natural image of the Father. For even if we have been made “after the image,” and been called “the image and glory of God,” it is again not through ourselves, but because of the image and true glory of God that has dwelt in us, which is his Word, who afterwards became flesh for us, that we have the grace of this calling.

Since such thinking of theirs too appears unfitting and unreasonable, the likeness and the unity must be referred to the very substance of the Son; for if one does not take it so, he will not appear to have anything more than originated things, as has been said, nor will he be like the Father, but only like the Father's doctrines; and he differs from the Father in this, that the Father is Father, while the doctrines and the teaching are the Father's. If, then, the Son is like the Father in doctrines and teaching, the Father on their view will be Father in name only, and the Son will not be an exact image, or rather will be shown to have no propriety or likeness of the Father at all. For what likeness or propriety has one who differs altogether from the Father? For Paul too, teaching things like the Saviour's, was not like him in substance. They, then, thinking such things, lie; but the Son and the Father are one in the way that has been said; and the Son is like the Father, and from him, in the way one can see and understand a son to be toward a father, and the radiance toward the sun. For because the Son is so, when the Son works, the Father is the one who works; and when the Son comes to the saints, the Father is the one who comes in the Son, as he himself promised, saying, “I and the Father will come and make our dwelling with him.” For in the image the Father is contemplated, and in the radiance is the light. Therefore, as we said a little before, when the Father gives grace and peace, the Son gives it too, as Paul indicates, writing in every letter, “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” For the grace from the Father in the Son is one and the same, as the light of the sun and of the radiance is one, and the sun's illumining takes place through the radiance. So again, praying for the Thessalonians and saying, “Now may our God and Father himself and the Lord Jesus Christ direct our way to you,” he preserved the unity of the Father and the Son; for he did not say “may they direct,” as though a double grace were given from two, from this one and from that, but “may he direct,” to show that the Father gives it through the Son. At this the impious, though they could blush, do not wish to.

For if there were no unity, and the Word were not the proper offspring of the Father's substance, as the radiance is of the light, but the Son stood apart from the Father in nature, it would have sufficed for the Father alone to give, since none of the originated beings shares with the maker in giving; but as it is, such giving shows the unity of the Father and the Son. No one, at any rate, would pray to receive from God and the angels, or from any other creature, nor would anyone say, “May God and the angel give to you”; but one prays to receive from the Father and the Son, because of the unity and the single form of the giving. For the things given are given through the Son; and there is nothing that the Father works except through the Son; for so the one who receives has the grace secure. And if the patriarch Jacob, blessing his grandsons Ephraim and Manasseh, said, “The God who has fed me from my youth to this day, the angel who delivers me from all evils, bless these children,” he did not join one of the angels, who are created and angels by nature, to God who created them; nor, leaving aside the God who fed him, did he ask a blessing for his grandsons from an angel. But by saying, “who delivers me from all evils,” he showed that it was not one of the created angels but the Word of God whom he joined with the Father in his prayer, through whom God delivers whomever he wills. For knowing that he is also called the Father's “angel of great counsel,” he said that none other than he was the one who blesses and delivers from evils. For he did not ask to be blessed himself by God while wishing his grandsons to be blessed by an angel; but the one whom he himself had entreated, saying, “I will not let you go unless you bless me” (and this was God, as he himself says, “I have seen God face to face”), him he prayed to bless the sons of Joseph too. It is proper to an angel to minister at God's command; and often he “goes before” to drive out the Amorite, and is sent to guard the people on the way; but these things are not his, but belong to God who commanded and sent him, to whom it also belongs to deliver whomever he wills to deliver. That is why it was none other than the Lord God himself, who appeared to him, who said to him, “And behold, I am with you, keeping you in every way wherever you go”; and none other, but again the God who appeared, who checked Laban's plot, commanding him “not to speak evil to Jacob”; and Jacob himself entreated none other than God, saying, “Deliver me from the hand of my brother Esau, for I fear him”; and speaking with his wives he said, “God did not allow Laban to do me harm.”

That is why David too entreated none other than God himself for deliverance: “To you, Lord, in my distress I cried, and you heard me; Lord, deliver my soul from unjust lips and from a deceitful tongue.” To him too he ascribed the grace when “he spoke the words of the song” in the seventeenth psalm, “on the day the Lord delivered him from the hand of all his enemies and from the hand of Saul; and he said, I will love you, O Lord, my strength; the Lord is my firmament and my refuge and my deliverer.” And Paul, having endured many persecutions, gave thanks to no one but God, saying, “From them all the Lord delivered me, and will deliver, in whom we have hoped”; and none other than God blessed Abraham and Isaac; and Isaac, praying for Jacob, said, “May my God bless you and increase you and multiply you, and you shall become assemblies of nations; and may he give you the blessing of Abraham my father.” And if to bless and to deliver belongs to no one else but God, and the one who delivered Jacob was none other than the Lord himself, and the patriarch called on the one who delivered him for his grandsons, it is clear that in his prayer he joined with God none other than his Word, whom he called “angel” for this reason, that he alone is the one who reveals the Father. The apostle too did this, saying, “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ”; for so the blessing was secure, because the Son is undivided from the Father and because the grace given is one and the same. For even if the Father gives, what is given is through the Son; and even if the Son is said to bestow grace, it is the Father who supplies it through the Son and in the Son; “for I thank my God always for you,” says the apostle writing to the Corinthians, “for the grace of God given you in Christ Jesus.” One may see this also in light and radiance; for what the light illuminates, the radiance shines on; and what the radiance shines on, the illumination is from the light. So too, when the Son is seen, the Father is seen; for he is the Father's radiance; and so the Father and the Son “are one.”

One could not say this of originated things and creatures. For when the Father works, none of the angels or any other creature works the same things; for none of them is a productive cause, but they are among the things made. Besides, being separated and standing apart from the Only one, being other in nature and being works, they can neither work what God works nor, as I said before, bestow grace together with God when he bestows it; nor, when an angel is seen, would anyone say that he has seen the Father. For angels, as it is written, “are ministering spirits sent out for service,” and they announce to those who receive them the gifts given by him through the Word. And the angel himself, when he is seen, confesses that he has been sent by the Master, as Gabriel confessed in the case of Zechariah, and again in the case of Mary the God-bearer. And he who sees “a vision of angels” knows that he saw an angel and not God. Zechariah saw an angel; “Isaiah saw the Lord.” Manoah, Samson's father, saw an angel; but Moses beheld God. Gideon saw an angel; but “God appeared to Abraham.” And neither did the one who saw God see an angel, nor did the one who saw an angel think he saw God; for originated things differ greatly, or rather wholly, in nature from God who created them. And if ever, when an angel was seen, the one who saw heard God's voice, as happened at the bush—for “an angel of the Lord appeared in a flame of fire out of the bush; and the Lord called Moses out of the bush, saying, I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob”—yet the angel was not the God of Abraham, but God was speaking in the angel. What appeared was an angel, but God spoke in him. For as he spoke to Moses in the pillar of cloud in the tabernacle, so too God appears speaking in angels; so too he spoke to the son of Nun through an angel. And what God speaks, it is evident that he speaks through the Word and not through another. And since the Word is not separated from the Father, nor unlike and foreign to the Father's substance, what he works are the Father's works, and he makes the work of creation one; and what the Son gives is the Father's giving. And he who has seen the Son knows that, in seeing him, he has seen not an angel, nor one greater than the angels, nor any creature at all, but the Father himself; and he who hears the Word knows that he hears the Father, as he who is shone upon by the radiance knows that he is illuminated by the sun.

For wishing us to understand in this way, the divine Scripture has given such examples, as we also said earlier, from which we can shame the traitorous Jews and refute the charge of the Greeks, who claim and think that because of the Trinity we too speak of many gods. For, as the example also shows, we do not introduce three principles or three fathers, as the followers of Marcion and Mani do; for we did not propose the image of three suns, but of sun and radiance, and one light from the sun in the radiance; so we know one principle; and we say that the creating Word has no other mode of Godhead than that of the only God, because he is by nature from him. Rather, the Ariomaniacs might justly bear the charge of polytheism, or even atheism, because they babble that the Son is a creature from outside, and again that the Spirit is from what is not. For either they will say that the Word is not God; or, calling him “God” because it is written, but not proper to the Father's substance, they would introduce many gods, because of their difference in kind; unless indeed they dare to say that he too is called “God” by participation, as all things are. But in thinking this too they are equally impious, saying that the Word is one of all things. May this never enter our mind! For there is one form of Godhead, which is also in the Word; and one God, the Father, existing by himself inasmuch as he is over all, and appearing in the Son inasmuch as he pervades all things, and in the Spirit inasmuch as he works in all things through the Word in the Spirit. For so we confess that God is one through the Trinity, and we speak far more piously than the heretics with their many-formed and many-parted Godhead, because we hold the one Godhead in the Trinity.

For if it is not so, but “the Word is a creature and a work from things that are not,” either he is not true God, because he is one of the creatures; or, if they name him “God” out of shame before the Scriptures, they must say that there are two gods, one creator and the other created; and serve two lords, one unoriginate and the other originated and a creature; and have two faiths, one in the true God and the other in the one made and fashioned by them and called God. And, being so blinded, they must, when they worship the unoriginate, turn their backs on the originated one, and when they approach the creature, turn away from the creator. For one cannot see the one in the other, because their natures and activities are foreign and different. And thinking thus, they will certainly add still more gods; for this is the attempt of those who have fallen away from the one God. Why, then, do the Arians, reasoning and thinking such things, not count themselves among the Greeks? For they too, like these, “serve the creature rather than God who created all things.” But they flee the name of Greeks to deceive the senseless, while they feign a mind like theirs. For even their clever saying, as they are accustomed to put it, “We do not say two unoriginates,” they evidently say to deceive the simple; for in saying, “We do not say two unoriginates,” they say two gods, and these with different natures, one originated and the other unoriginate. And if the Greeks serve one unoriginate and many originated, while these serve one unoriginate and one originated, not even so do they differ from the Greeks. For the one they call “originated” is one of many; and the many gods of the Greeks, again, have the same nature as this one, for both he and they are creatures. Wretches, and the more harmed for thinking against Christ! For they have fallen from the truth, and have surpassed the treachery of the Jews in denying Christ, and they wallow with the Greeks, these God-haters, serving a creature and different gods. For God is one and not many, and his Word is one and not many; for “the Word is God,” and he alone has the Father's form. Being this, the Saviour himself put the Jews to shame, saying, “The Father who sent me has himself borne witness about me. You have never heard his voice nor seen his form; and you do not have his Word abiding in you, because you do not believe the one whom he has sent.” He fittingly joined “Word” to “form,” to show that the Word of God is himself the image and impress and form of his own Father; and that the Jews, not receiving the one who spoke, did not receive the Word, who is “the form of God.” The patriarch Jacob, having seen this form, was blessed, and was called “Israel” by him instead of Jacob, as the divine Scripture testifies, saying, “The sun rose upon him when the form of God passed by.” And this was he who says, “He who has seen me has seen the Father,” and “I am in the Father and the Father is in me; and I and the Father are one”; for so God is one, and the faith in the Father and Son is one. For even though the Word is God, still “the Lord our God is one Lord.” For the Son is proper to the One and undivided from him by the propriety and kinship of the substance.

But not even so put to shame, the Arians say: “Not as you say, but as we wish; for since you overturn our earlier notions, we have invented a newer one, and we say: the Son and the Father are one in this way, and the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father in this way, as we too might come to be in him. For this is written in the Gospel according to John, which Christ asked concerning us, saying, ‘Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, as we are’; and again a little after: ‘I do not ask for these only, but also for those who believe in me through their word, that they all may be one, as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be one in us, so that the world may believe that you sent me; and the glory which you have given me I have given them, that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may be perfected into one, and that the world may know that you sent me.’” Then, as though they had found a pretext, the crafty men add this: “If, as we become one in the Father, so he and the Father are one, and so he too is in the Father, how do you claim, from his saying, ‘I and the Father are one,’ and ‘I am in the Father and the Father in me,’ that he is proper to and like the Father's substance? For it must be either that we too are proper to the Father's substance, or that he too is foreign to it, as we are foreign.” So they babble their nonsense; but in such ill will of theirs I see nothing else than irrational daring and devilish madness, as they too say with him, “We will ascend into heaven, we will be like the Most High”; for they want what is given to human beings by grace to be equal to the Godhead of the giver. Hearing, at any rate, that human beings are called “sons,” they thought themselves equal to the true and natural Son; and now again, hearing the Saviour say, “that they may be one, as we are,” they deceive themselves, and in their boldness think that they will be as the Son is in the Father and the Father in the Son, not seeing the fall of their father the devil that came from such conceit.

If, then, as we have often said, the Word of God is the same as we are, and differs from us in nothing but time, let him be like us and have the same place with the Father as we have; and let him not be called only-begotten, nor the only Word or Wisdom of the Father; but let the same name be common to all of us who are alike. For it is just that those whose nature is one should have a common name, even if they differ from one another in time. Adam was a man, and Paul was a man, and he who is born now is a man; and time does not alter the nature of the race. If, then, the Word too differs from us only in time, we too ought to be as he is. But neither are we Word or Wisdom, nor is he a creature or a work; otherwise why have we all come from one, while he alone is Word? But even if it befits them to say such things, it is unfitting for us to dwell on their blasphemies; and even though there should be no need to examine any of the sayings curiously, given so evident and pious a sense and the right faith we hold, nevertheless, so that they may be shown impious from this too, come, let us briefly refute their heterodoxy from the saying, as we have learned from the fathers. It is the custom of the divine Scripture to take things that exist by nature as images and examples for human beings; and it does this so that from those natural things the movements of human beings that arise from free choice may be seen, and so their conduct may be shown to be either bad or righteous. In the case of the bad, as when it commands, “Do not be like the horse and the mule, which have no understanding”; or when, blaming those who have become so, it says, “Man, being in honor, did not understand; he was compared with the senseless cattle and became like them”; and again, “They became lusty horses.” And the Saviour, showing what sort of man Herod was, said, “Tell that fox”; and he charged the disciples, “Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; be therefore wise as serpents and innocent as doves.” He said this not so that we should become beasts by nature, or become serpents and doves—for he did not make us so, and therefore nature does not know this either—but so that we might flee the irrational impulses of the one, and, knowing the cunning of the other, not be deceived by it, and take up the gentleness of the dove.

And again, taking images for human beings from divine things, the Saviour says, “Be merciful, as your Father in heaven is merciful,” and “You shall be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” He said this too not so that we should become like the Father; for it is impossible for us to become like the Father, since we are creatures, brought from what is not into being. But just as, when he commanded, “Do not be like the horse,” it was not lest we become beasts but lest we imitate their irrationality, so it was not in order that we might become like God that he said, “Be merciful as the Father,” but so that, looking to his benefits, we might do the good we do not for the sake of men but for his sake, and so have our reward from him and not from men. For as, though there is one Son by nature, true and only-begotten, we too become “sons,” not as he is, by nature and in truth, but by the grace of him who called us; and, being men from the earth, we are called “gods,” not as the true God or his Word is, but as God who granted this has willed; so too we become merciful as God is, not by being made equal to God, nor by becoming benefactors by nature and in truth (for doing good is not our invention but God's), but so that what has come to us from God himself by grace we too may share with others, making no distinctions but simply extending our kindness to all. For only in this way can we somehow become his imitators, and not otherwise: by ministering to one another what comes from him. And as we understand these things well and rightly, so too the reading in John has the same sense. For he does not say that we should become as the Son is in the Father. How could we, when he is the Word and Wisdom of God, while we were fashioned from earth; and he is by nature and substance Word and true God (for so John too says, “We know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know the true God; and we are in the true one, in his Son Jesus Christ; this is the true God and eternal life”), while we are made sons by adoption and grace through him, partaking of his Spirit? For “as many as received him,” it says, “to them he gave power to become children of God, to those who believe in his name.” That is why he himself is the truth, saying, “I am the truth”; and speaking to his Father he said, “Sanctify them in your truth; your Word is truth”; but we become virtuous and sons by imitation.

So it was not that we should become as he is that he said, “that they may be one, as we are,” but that, as he, being Word, is in his “own Father,” so we too, taking a certain model and looking to him, might “become one” with one another in unity of soul and oneness of spirit, and not be at variance as the Corinthians were, but be of one mind, like the five thousand in the Acts, who were as one. For we are “sons,” but not as the Son is; and gods, but not as he is; and “merciful as the Father,” but not as the Father is. And, as has been said, in becoming one thus, as the Father and the Son are, we shall not be as the Father is by nature in the Son and the Son in the Father, but as befits our nature, and as far as it is possible for us to be moulded after that example and to learn how we ought to become one, just as we learned to show mercy. For like things naturally have union with like, since all flesh too is gathered according to kind. The Word, then, is unlike us but like the Father; therefore he is by nature and in truth one with his own Father. But we, being of one kind with one another (for we have all come from one, and the nature of all human beings is one), become one with one another in disposition, having as our pattern the natural unity of the Son with the Father. For just as he taught gentleness from his own example, saying, “Learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart,” not that we should be made equal to him (for that is impossible), but that, looking to him, we might remain gentle always; so here too, wishing us to have a true, firm, and indissoluble disposition toward one another, he takes the example from himself and says, “that they may be one, as we are”: “and our unity is indivisible; so that they too, learning from us the indivisible nature, may thus keep their concord with one another.” And imitation is taken more securely by human beings from things that are so by nature, as has been said; for since these remain and never change, while human conduct is changeable, one can, looking to what is unchangeable by nature, flee what is bad and reshape himself in what is best. And so too what is said, “that they also may be one in us,” again has a correct sense.

If, at any rate, it were possible for us to become as the Son is in the Father, he ought to have said, “that they also may be one in you,” as the Son is in the Father; but as it is, he did not say this, but by saying “in us” he showed the distance and the difference: that he alone is in the Father alone, as the only Word and Wisdom, while we are in the Son, and through him in the Father. And in saying this he meant nothing other than: “By our unity may they too become one with one another in the way that we are one by nature and in truth; otherwise they could not become one, unless they learn unity in us.” And that “in us” has this meaning one can hear from Paul, who says, “I have applied these things to myself and Apollos, so that you may learn in us not to be puffed up beyond what is written.” So “in us” is not “in the Father, as the Son is in him,” but an example and image, in place of saying, “let them learn from us.” For as Paul was to the Corinthians, so the unity of the Son and the Father is a pattern and lesson for all, by which they can learn, looking to the natural unity of the Father and the Son, how they too ought to become “one” with one another in mind. And if one must give another account of the saying as well, “in us” may again be equal to saying “by the power of the Father and the Son,” that they may become one, “saying the same thing”; for without God this cannot happen. This too can be found in the divine words, as “In God we shall do valiantly,” and “In you we shall push down our enemies.” It is clear, then, that in the name of the Father and the Son, having become one, we can hold firm “the bond” of love. For again, extending the same thought, the Lord says, “And the glory which you have given me I have given them, that they may be one, as we are one.” Here too he rightly did not say, “that they may be in you as I am,” but said, “as we are”; and one who says “as” shows not identity, but an image and example of what is said.

The Word, then, has the real and true identity of nature with the Father; but to us, as has been said, belongs imitation; for he at once added, saying, “I in them and you in me, that they may be perfected into one.” Here the Lord asks something greater and more perfect for us; for it is clear that the Word has come to be in us, since he put on our body. “And you in me, Father; for I am your Word; and since you are in me, because I am your Word, and I am in them because of the body, and because of you the salvation of human beings has been perfected in me, I ask that they too may become one, according to the body that is in me and according to its perfection; that they too may become perfect, having unity with it and having become one in it; so that, as though all were borne by me, all may be ‘one body and one spirit,’ and may ‘attain to a perfect man.’” For all of us, partaking of the same, become “one body,” having the one Lord in ourselves. The saying having this sense, the false belief of the Christ-fighters is refuted all the more; for I say it again. If he had said simply and without qualification, “that they may be one in you,” or “that they and I may be one in you,” the fighters against God would have had at least a shameless pretext; but as it is, he did not speak simply, but said, “as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they all may be one.” And saying “as” again, he shows that those who become so are far from being as he is in the Father—“far” not in place but in nature; for nothing is far from God in place, but all things are far from him in nature only; and, as I said before, one who uses the adverb “as” shows not identity nor equality, but an example of what is said, in some particular respect.

And this again can be learned from the Saviour himself, who says, “For as Jonah was in the belly of the sea-monster three days and three nights, so will the Son of man be in the heart of the earth.” But neither was Jonah as the Saviour, nor did Jonah go down into Hades; nor was the sea-monster Hades; nor did Jonah, when swallowed, bring up those whom the sea-monster had swallowed before him, but he alone came out when the sea-monster was commanded. So no identity or equality is signified by the word “as,” but one thing and another; but it shows a certain likeness to Jonah because of the three days. So too we, when the Lord says “as,” neither become as the Son is in the Father, nor as the Father is in the Son. For we become one, as the Father and the Son are, in mind and in harmony of spirit; and the Saviour will be in the earth as Jonah was; but as the Saviour is not Jonah, nor was he swallowed as Jonah was, but the Lord went down into Hades, it is one thing and another. So if we too become one as the Son is in the Father, we shall not be as the Son, nor equal to him; for we are one thing and he another. That is why “as” is used of us, since things that are not so by nature become like those things by looking to something else. Hence the Son himself is in the Father simply and without any qualification, for this belongs to him by nature; but we, not having it by nature, need an image and example, so that he may say of us, “as you are in me and I in you.” “And when these are thus perfected,” he says, “then the world knows that you sent me; for if I had not come and borne their body, none of them would have been perfected, but all would have remained corruptible. Work in them, then, Father; and as you have given me to bear this body, give them your Spirit, so that they too may become one in it and be perfected in me. For their perfection shows that your Word has come to dwell among them; and the world, seeing them perfect and bearing God, will surely believe that you sent me and that I have come. For from where would they have their perfection, unless I, your Word, taking their body, became man and completed the work which you gave me, Father? And the work has been completed, because human beings, redeemed from sin, no longer remain dead; but, being deified, they have in one another, looking to us, the bond of love.”

We, then, have said these things at length, as far as it was possible to consider the very words of the saying more simply; but blessed John, in his letter, will show the sense of what is written in few words and more perfectly than we, and will refute the thinking of the impious, and teach how we come to be in God and God in us, and again how we become one in him, and how far the Son stands apart from us in nature; and he will stop the Arians from thinking any longer that they will be as the Son is, lest they too hear, “But you are a man and not God,” and “Do not stretch yourself beside a rich man, being poor.” John, then, writes thus: “By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.” So it is because of the grace of the Spirit given to us that we come to be in him and he in us; and since the Spirit is God's, when it comes to be in us, we too, having the Spirit, are fittingly considered to be in God; and so God is in us. So it is not as the Son is in the Father that we too come to be in the Father; for the Son is not a partaker of the Spirit, so as to come to be in the Father through it; nor does he receive the Spirit, but rather he himself supplies it to all; and the Spirit does not join the Word to the Father, but rather the Spirit receives from the Word. The Son is in the Father as his own Word and radiance; but we, apart from the Spirit, are strangers and far from God, and by participation in the Spirit we are joined to the Godhead; so that our being in the Father is not ours, but the Spirit's, who is in us and abides in us as long as we keep it in us by our confession, as John says again, “Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.” What likeness, then, and what equality have we with the Son? Or how are the Arians not refuted from every side, and especially by John, since the Son is in the Father in one way, and we come to be in him in another; and neither shall we ever be as he is, nor is the Word as we are? Unless indeed they dare, as in everything, to say now too that the Son also came to be in the Father by participation in the Spirit and by improvement of conduct. But this again is exceedingly impious even to entertain in thought at all. For he himself, as has been said, gives to the Spirit; and whatever the Spirit has, it has from the Word.

So the Saviour, saying of us, “as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be one in us,” does not signify that we shall have identity with him—this too was shown from the example of Jonah—but it is a request to the Father, as John wrote, that he grant the Spirit through him to those who believe, through whom we are considered to come to be in God and in this way to be joined in him. For since the Word is in the Father, and the Spirit is given from the Word, he wills us to receive the Spirit, so that, when we receive it, having then the Spirit of the Word who is in the Father, we too may be considered, because of the Spirit, to become one in the Word, and through him in the Father. And if he says “as we are,” this again means nothing other than that such grace of the Spirit, given to the disciples, may be unfailing and irrevocable. For what belongs by nature, as I said, to the Word in the Father, he wills to be given to us irrevocably through the Spirit; knowing this, the apostle said, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” “for the gifts of God and the grace of the calling are irrevocable.” So it is the Spirit who is in God, and not we by ourselves; and as we are sons and gods because of the Word in us, so we shall be in the Son and in the Father, and shall be considered to have become one in the Son and in the Father, because the Spirit is in us, who is in the Word who is in the Father. When, at any rate, someone falls away from the Spirit through some wickedness, the grace remains irrevocable for those who are willing, if the one who has fallen repents; but the one who fell is no longer in God, because the holy Paraclete Spirit who is in God has departed from him; the sinner will be in him to whom he subjected himself, as happened with Saul: “for the Spirit of God departed from him,” and “an evil spirit troubled him.” Hearing these things, the fighters against God ought to be ashamed at last, and no longer fancy themselves equal to God. But they neither understand—“for the impious,” it says, “does not understand knowledge”—nor bear pious words; for these are burdensome to them even when spoken.

For see, as though they did not tire of their impieties but were hardened like Pharaoh, on hearing and seeing again the human things of the Saviour in the Gospels, they have completely forgotten, like the Samosatene, the Son's paternal Godhead, and, emboldened with daring tongue, they say: “How can the Son be from the Father by nature and like him in substance, who says, ‘All authority has been given to me,’ and ‘The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son,’ and ‘The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand; he who believes in the Son has eternal life,’ and again, ‘All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal him,’ and again, ‘All that the Father has given me will come to me’?” Then they add: “If he were, as you say, Son by nature, he would have no need to receive, but would have it by nature as a son. Or how can he be the natural and true power of the Father who at the time of the passion says, ‘Now my soul is troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour. But for this purpose I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name. Then a voice came from heaven: I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again’? And again he said something similar: ‘Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass’; and, ‘When Jesus had said this, he was troubled in spirit, and testified, and said, Truly, truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me.’” And on this the evil-minded say: “If he were power, he would not have been afraid, but would rather have supplied power to others.” Then they say: “If he were by nature the true and proper Wisdom of the Father, how is it written, ‘And Jesus advanced in wisdom and stature and grace with God and men’; and, when he came into the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked the disciples who men said he was; and when he arrived at Bethany he asked where Lazarus lay; and afterwards he said to the disciples, ‘How many loaves do you have?’ How then,” they say, “is he Wisdom, who advances in wisdom and was ignorant of what he asked to learn from others?” This too is said by them: “How can the Word be proper to the Father, without whom the Father never was, through whom he makes all things, as you think, when on the cross he says, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ and before that he prayed, ‘Glorify your name,’ and ‘Glorify me, Father, with the glory which I had with you before the world was’? And he prayed in desert places, and charged the disciples to pray that they might not enter into temptation; and he said, ‘The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak’; and ‘Concerning that day or that hour no one knows, not even the angels, nor the Son.’” Then again the wretches add: “If, according to your view, the Son existed eternally with God, he would not have been ignorant of the day, but would have known it as Word; nor would the one who coexists have been forsaken; nor would he have asked to receive glory, having it in the Father; nor would he have prayed at all; for being Word he would need nothing. But since he is a creature and one of the originated things, therefore he said such things and needed what he did not have; for it is proper to creatures to want and need what they do not have.”

Such things, then, the impious are carried away into saying; but if they reason so, they ought to have said even more daringly, “Why at all did the Word become flesh?” and to add, “For how could he, being God, become man? Or how could the incorporeal bear a body?” Or they ought to have said, more in the Jewish manner, with Caiaphas, “Why at all did Christ, being a man, make himself God?” For at these things and things like them the Jews grumbled then, when they saw them, and now the Ariomaniacs, reading them, disbelieve and have fallen into blasphemies. If, then, one were to examine side by side the words of the one group and the other, he would certainly find them meeting in the same unbelief, equal in their daring impiety, and sharing a common fight against us. For the Jews said, “How, being a man, can he be God?” and the Arians, “If he were true God from God, how could he become man?” And the Jews were scandalized and mocked, saying, “If this man were the Son of God, he would not have endured the cross”; while the Arians, standing directly opposite them, say to us, “How dare you say that one who has a body, so as to endure this, is the Word proper to the Father's substance?” Then, since the Jews sought to kill the Lord because “he called God his own Father and made himself equal” to God, doing the works the Father does, the Arians too have learned to say that he is neither equal to God, nor is God the proper and natural Father of the Word; and they even seek to kill those who think so. And again, when the Jews said, “Is not this the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How then does he say, ‘Before Abraham came to be, I am,’ and ‘I have come down from heaven’?”, the Arians too answer in the same way, saying, “How can he be Word or God who sleeps as a man, and weeps, and inquires?” For both deny the eternity and Godhead of the Word on account of the human things which the Saviour endured because of the flesh he bore.

Since, then, such madness is Jewish, and Jewish after the manner of Judas the traitor, let them either openly confess themselves disciples of Caiaphas and Herod, and not cover Judaism with the name of Christianity, and deny outright, as we said before, the Saviour's presence in the flesh (for this is the proper thought of their heresy); or, if they are afraid to Judaize openly and be circumcised, out of their wish to please Constantius and those they have deceived, let them not say the things of the Jews either; for it is right to turn away from the thought of those whose names one refuses. For we are Christians, Arians—we are Christians; and it is ours to understand the Gospels rightly concerning the Saviour, and neither to stone him with the Jews when we hear of his Godhead and eternity, nor to be scandalized with you at the lowly words he may utter for our sake as man. If, then, you too wish to become Christians, put off the madness of Arius, and wash with the words of piety your hearing that has been defiled by blasphemous words, knowing that by ceasing to be Arians you will also cease from the evil-mindedness of the Jews of today, and at once the truth will shine on you as out of darkness; and you will no longer reproach us for saying “two eternals,” but you too will recognize that the Lord is the true and natural Son of God, and is known not simply as eternal, but as coexisting in the eternity of the Father. For there are things called “eternal” of which he is the creator; for in the twenty-third psalm it is written, “Lift up your gates, O rulers, and be lifted up, O eternal gates.” And it is clear that these too came into being through him; and if he is the creator even of the eternal things, who among us will be able any longer to doubt that he is higher even than these eternal things, and that the Lord is known not so much from being eternal as from being the Son of God? For, being Son, he is inseparable from the Father, and “there was not when he was not,” but he always was; and being the image and radiance of the Father, he also has the Father's eternity. How, then, they were refuted as understanding wrongly the sayings they used as pretexts can be learned in some measure from what was said briefly above; and that in what they now allege from the Gospels too they are shown to have a rotten understanding is easy to see, especially if we now take the scope of the faith that we Christians hold, and, using this as a rule, “attend,” as the apostle said, “to the reading” of the inspired Scripture. For the Christ-fighters, ignorant of this, “have strayed from the way of truth,” and “stumbled over the stone of stumbling,” thinking “beyond what one ought to think.”

This, then, is the scope and character of the holy Scripture, as we have often said: that there is a twofold account of the Saviour in it: that he was always God and is Son, being the Word and radiance and wisdom of the Father; and that afterwards, for our sake, taking flesh from the Virgin Mary, the God-bearer, he became man. And this can be found signified throughout the whole inspired Scripture, as the Lord himself said, “Search the Scriptures, for it is they that bear witness about me.” But so that I may not become long-winded by collecting all the sayings, let us be content to mention, as representing all, John, who says, “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 came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being”; then, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, glory as of the only-begotten from the Father”; and Paul, who writes, “who, being in the form of God, did not count it robbery to be equal to God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men; and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.” For going through the whole Scripture with this understanding, one will see how in the beginning the Father said to him, “Let there be light,” and “Let there be a firmament,” and “Let us make man”; but at the consummation of the ages he sent him into the world, “not to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through him”; and it is written, “Behold, the virgin shall conceive in the womb and bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.”

Let whoever reads the divine Scripture, then, learn the sayings from the old books, and from the Gospels behold the Lord become man; for “the Word,” it says, “became flesh and dwelt among us.” And he became man; he did not come into a man. This must be known, lest the impious, falling into this error too, should deceive some, and they should think that, as in former times the word “came” to each of the saints, so now too the Word came to dwell in a man, sanctifying him too and being manifested as in the others. For if it were so, and he had only appeared in a man, there would have been nothing strange, nor would those who saw him have been startled, saying, “What sort of man is this?” and “Why do you, being a man, make yourself God?” For they were accustomed to hearing, “And the word of the Lord came to” each of the prophets. But as it is, since the Word of God, through whom all things came into being, submitted to become also Son of man, and “humbled himself, taking the form of a servant,” therefore the cross of Christ is “to the Jews a scandal, but to us Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” For “the Word,” as John said, “became flesh,” Scripture being accustomed to call man “flesh,” as it says through Joel the prophet, “I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh,” and as Daniel said to Astyages, “I do not worship idols made with hands, but the living God, who created the heaven and the earth and has lordship over all flesh”; for both he and Joel call the human race “flesh.”

In former times, then, the Word came to each of the saints and sanctified those who genuinely received him; but it was not said, when they were born, that “he himself has become man,” nor, when they suffered, that “he himself has suffered.” But when he came from Mary to dwell among us “once, at the consummation of the ages, for the putting away of sin” (for so the Father, well pleased, “sent his own Son, born of a woman, born under the law”), then it is said that, taking flesh, he became man and suffered in it for us, as Peter said, “Since, then, Christ suffered for us in the flesh”; so that it might be shown, and we all might believe, that, being always God, and sanctifying those to whom he came, and ordering all things according to the will of the Father, he afterwards also became man for our sake, and “bodily,” as the apostle says, “the Godhead dwelt” in the flesh; which is equal to saying, “Being God, he had his own body, and using it as an instrument he became man for our sake.” And for this reason the things proper to the flesh are said to be “his,” since he was in it—such as hungering, thirsting, suffering, growing weary, and the like, of which the flesh is capable; while the works proper to the Word himself, such as raising the dead, making the blind see again, and healing the woman with the flow of blood, he himself did through his own body. The Word bore the weaknesses of the flesh as his own, for the flesh was his; and the flesh served the works of the Godhead, because the Godhead was in it, for the body was God's. And the prophet spoke well in saying “he bore,” and not “he himself healed our weaknesses,” lest, as though he were outside the body and only healed it, as he had always done, he should leave human beings still subject to death. But he bears our weaknesses, and “he himself carries our sins,” so that it might be shown both that he has become man for our sake and that the body which bears them in him is his own; and he himself was not harmed, “carrying up our sins in his body onto the tree,” as Peter said, while we human beings were redeemed from our own passions and filled with the righteousness of the Word.

Hence, when the flesh suffered, the Word was not outside it; that is why the passion too is called “his.” And when he did the Father's works divinely, the flesh was not outside him, but the Lord did these things in the body itself. That is why, having become man, he said, “If I do not do the works of my Father, do not believe me; but if I do, even if you do not believe me, believe the works, so that you may know that the Father is in me and I in him.” Indeed, when there was need to raise Peter's mother-in-law, who had a fever, he stretched out his hand humanly, but it was divinely that he stopped the illness. And in the case of the man “blind from birth,” he spat from the flesh a human “spittle,” but divinely opened the eyes by means of the clay; and in the case of Lazarus he uttered a human voice, as man, but divinely, as God, raised Lazarus from the dead. These things were done in this way, and it was shown that he had a body not in appearance but truly. And it was fitting that the Lord, putting on human flesh, should put it on whole, with its own passions, so that, as we say that the body is his own, so the passions of the body too may be said to be his alone, even though they did not touch him in his Godhead. If, then, the body were another's, the passions too would be said to be that other's; but if the flesh is the Word's (“for the Word became flesh”), the passions of the flesh must also be said to be his, whose the flesh is. And he to whom the passions are ascribed—above all being condemned, being scourged, thirsting, the cross, death, and the other weaknesses of the body—his too is the triumph and the grace. For this reason, then, consistently and fittingly, such passions are said to be not another's but the Lord's, so that the grace too may be from him, and we may not become worshippers of another, but truly God-fearing, because it is not any originated being, nor some ordinary man, but the natural and true Son from God, the same one who has become man, whom we none the less call upon as Lord and God and Saviour.

Who would not marvel at this? Or who would not agree that the thing is truly divine? For if the works of the Word's Godhead had not come about through the body, man would not have been deified; and again, if the things proper to the flesh had not been said to be the Word's, man would not have been completely freed from them. Even if he had found rest for a little while, as I said before, sin and corruption would have remained in him again, as happened with the men of earlier times; and this is shown. Many, at any rate, have become holy and pure of all sin; Jeremiah was even sanctified from the womb; and John, while still carried in the womb, “leaped for joy” at the voice of Mary the God-bearer; and yet “death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of Adam's transgression”; and so human beings remained none the less mortal and corruptible, subject to the passions proper to their nature. But now, since the Word has become man and made his own the things of the flesh, these no longer touch the body, because of the Word who has come to be in it; they have been destroyed by him, and henceforth human beings no longer remain sinners and dead according to their own passions, but, rising by the power of the Word, remain immortal and incorruptible for ever. Hence, when the flesh was born from Mary the God-bearer, he himself is said to have been born, he who gives others their coming into being; so that he might transfer our birth to himself, and we might no longer return to earth as being earth only, but, joined to the Word from heaven, be brought up by him into the heavens. So in the same way he fittingly transferred to himself the other passions of the body too, so that we might partake of eternal life no longer as mere human beings, but as belonging to the Word. For we no longer die “in Adam” according to our former birth; but henceforth, since our birth and all fleshly weakness have been transferred to the Word, we are raised from the earth, the curse due to sin having been undone because of him who is in us and “became a curse for us”; and fittingly so. For as, being all from earth, we die in Adam, so, “being born again from above of water and Spirit, we are all made alive in Christ,” the flesh being no longer earthly but henceforth made Word-like because of God's Word, who for our sake “became flesh.”

So that one may know more precisely both the impassibility of the Word's nature and the weaknesses said to be “his” because of the flesh, it is well to hear the blessed Peter; for he would be a trustworthy witness about the Saviour. He writes in his letter, then, saying, “Since, then, Christ suffered for us in the flesh.” So also, when he is said to hunger, and thirst, and toil, and not know, and sleep, and weep, and ask, and flee, and be born, and ask to be spared the cup, and in short all the things of the flesh, it might consistently be said in each case: “Since, then, Christ hungered and thirsted for us in the flesh”; and said he did not know, and was struck, and toiled “for us in the flesh”; and was lifted up, and born, and grew “in the flesh”; and feared, and hid himself “in the flesh”; and said, “If it is possible, let this cup pass from me,” and was beaten, and received “for us in the flesh”; and in short all such things “for us in the flesh.” For this is why the apostle himself said, “Since, then, Christ suffered”—not in the Godhead, but “for us in the flesh”—so that the passions might be recognized as proper by nature not to the Word himself but to the flesh itself. So let no one be scandalized at the human things, but rather know that the Word himself is impassible in nature, and yet these things are said of him because of the flesh he put on, since these things are proper to the flesh, and the body itself is proper to the Saviour. He himself remains, as he is, impassible in nature, not harmed by these things, but rather abolishing and destroying them; while human beings, since the passions have passed over to the impassible one and been wiped out, henceforth themselves also become impassible and free from them for ever, as John taught, saying, “And you know that he was manifested to take away our sins, and in him there is no sin.” This being so, no heretic will complain, “Why does the flesh rise, being by nature mortal? And if it does rise, why does it not hunger and thirst again, and suffer, and remain mortal? For it came from the earth, and how could what is natural to it cease?” For the flesh can then answer so contentious a heretic: “I am by nature mortal, from the earth; but afterwards I became the flesh of the Word, and he bore my passions, though he is impassible; and I have become free of them, no longer left to serve them, because of the Lord who freed me from them. If you complain that I have been released from natural corruption, see that you do not complain that the Word of God took my servile form. For as the Lord, putting on the body, became man, so we human beings are deified by the Word, being taken up through his flesh, and henceforth we inherit eternal life.”

We have examined these things beforehand of necessity, so that, if we see him doing or saying something divinely through the instrument of his own body, we may know that he works these things as God; and again, if we see him speaking or suffering humanly, we may not be unaware that, bearing flesh, he became man, and so does and says these things. For knowing what is proper to each, and seeing and understanding that both are done by one, we believe rightly and shall never go astray. But if anyone, seeing what is done divinely by the Word, denies the body, or, seeing what is proper to the body, denies the Word's presence in the flesh, or from the human things thinks lowly of the Word, such a person, like a Jewish tavern-keeper mixing his wine with water, will consider the cross a “scandal,” or like a Greek will count the preaching “folly”—which is just what has happened to the God-fighting Arians. For seeing the human things of the Saviour, they thought him a creature. Then, seeing the divine works of the Word, they ought also to have denied the birth of his body, and thereafter to count themselves among the Manichees. But let them learn, even at this late hour, that “the Word became flesh”; and let us, holding the scope of the faith, recognize that what these men understand wrongly has a correct sense. For “The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand,” and “All things have been handed over to me by my Father,” and “I can do nothing of myself; but as I hear, I judge,” and similar sayings, do not show that the Son once did not have these things. (For how could the only Word and Wisdom of the Father by substance not have eternally what the Father has, he who also says, “All that the Father has is mine,” and “Mine are the Father's”? For if the things of the Father are the Son's, and the Father always has them, it is clear that what the Son has, being the Father's, is always in him.) So he did not say these things because he once did not have them, but because the Son, eternally having what he has, has it from the Father.

For lest anyone, seeing the Son having all that the Father has, should, because of the exact likeness and identity of what he has, go astray like Sabellius and fall into impiety, thinking him to be the Father, he said “was given to me,” and “I received,” and “was handed over to me,” only to show that he is not himself the Father, but the Father's Word and the eternal Son, who, because of his likeness to the Father, has eternally what he has from him, and because he is Son, has from the Father what he has eternally. For that “was given” and “was handed over” and the like do not lessen the Son's Godhead, but rather show him to be truly Son, can be learned from the sayings themselves. For if “all things” were handed over to him, first, he is other than all the things he received; then, being “heir of all things,” he alone is Son and proper to the Father by substance. For if he were one of all things, he would not be heir of all things; each would receive as the Father willed and gave. But as it is, receiving all things himself, he is other than all things and alone proper to the Father. And again, that “was given” and “was handed over” do not show that he once did not have them, one can see from a similar saying about all these things. For the Saviour himself says, “As the Father has life in himself, so he has given to the Son also to have life in himself.” By saying “he has given” he signifies that he himself is not the Father; but by saying “so” he shows the Son's natural likeness and propriety toward the Father. If, then, there was once a time when the Father did not have life, clearly the Son too once did not have it; for as the Father has, so the Son has too. But if it is impious to say this, and rather pious to say that the Father always has it, how is it not absurd, when the Son says that as the Father has, so the Son also has, for these men to say that he does not have it so, but otherwise? Rather, then, the Word is to be believed, and all things which he says he has received, always having them, he has from the Father; the Father has them from no one, but the Son from the Father. For as with the radiance: if the radiance itself were to say, “The light has given me to illuminate every place; and I do not illuminate of myself, but as the light wills,” in saying this it does not show that it once did not have this, but means, “I am proper to the light, and all that is its is mine.” So too, and much more, one can understand of the Son. For the Father, having given all things to the Son, again has all things in the Son; and when the Son has them, the Father again has them. For the Godhead of the Son is the Godhead of the Father; and so the Father exercises providence over all things in the Son.

Such, then, is the sense of such sayings; and as for what is said of the Saviour in human terms, these things too have a pious meaning. For this is why we examined such matters beforehand: so that, if we hear him asking where Lazarus lies, and, when he comes into the region of Caesarea, inquiring, “Who do men say that I am?” and “How many loaves do you have?” and “What do you want me to do for you?”, we may know the right sense of these sayings from what has been said, and not be scandalized like the Christ-fighting Arians. First, then, this must be said to the impious: from where do they get the idea that he was ignorant? For one who asks does not necessarily ask because he is ignorant; one who knows may also ask about what he knows. Indeed, John knows that Christ, when he asked, “How many loaves do you have?”, was not ignorant but knew; for he says, “He said this to test Philip; for he himself knew what he was going to do.” And if he knew what he was doing, then he asked not in ignorance but knowing. From this one can understand the similar cases too: that when the Lord asks, he asks not because he is ignorant where Lazarus lies or who men say he is, but knowing what he himself was asking, and knowing what he was about to do; and so their cleverness is quickly thrown out. But if they still contend because of his asking, let them hear that in the Godhead there is no ignorance, but that ignorance is proper to the flesh, as has been said. And that this is true, see how the Lord who inquired where Lazarus lay himself said, when he was not present but far away, “Lazarus has died,” and where he had died. And he who according to them is supposed to be ignorant is the very one who foreknows the reasonings of the disciples, and knows what is in each one's heart, and “what is in man”; and, what is greater, he alone knows the Father, and says, “I am in the Father and the Father in me.”

So it is clear to all that ignorance belongs to the flesh, while the Word himself, as Word, knows all things even before they come to be. For he did not cease to be God because he became man; nor, because he is God, does he shun what is human—God forbid!—but rather, being God, he took the flesh to himself, and being in the flesh he deified the flesh. For as he inquired in it, so too in it he raised the dead man; and he showed all that he who gives life to the dead and calls back the soul knows much more the hidden things of all; and he knew where Lazarus lay, yet he inquired. For the all-holy Word of God, who endured all things for our sake, did this too, so that, bearing our ignorance in this way as well, he might grant us to know his own only true Father, and himself, sent for our sake for the salvation of all—a grace than which none greater could be. When, then, concerning the sayings they allege as pretexts, the Saviour says, “Authority has been given to me,” and “Glorify your Son,” and Peter says, “Authority was given to him,” we understand all these in the same sense: that he says all these things humanly because of the body. For though he had no need, nevertheless he himself is said to have received what he received in human fashion, so that again, since it was the Lord who received and the gift rests in him, the grace might remain secure. For a mere man who receives is liable also to have it taken away; and this was shown in Adam, for having received he lost. But so that the grace might become irremovable and be kept secure for human beings, he makes the gift his own, and says that as man he has received authority which as God he always has; and he who glorifies others says, “Glorify me,” to show that he has flesh which needs these things. So, when the flesh received, since that which received is in him, and by taking it he became man, he himself is said to have received.

If, then, as has often been said, the Word did not become man, let receiving, needing glory, and being ignorant belong, on your view, to the Word; but if he became man (and he did), and it belongs to man to receive, to need, and to be ignorant, why do we think of the giver as receiving, and suspect that he who supplies others has need, and divide the Word from the Father as imperfect and in need, and strip humanity of grace? For if the Word himself, as Word, received and was glorified for his own sake, and if it is he in his Godhead who was sanctified and rose, what hope is there for human beings? For they remain as they were, naked and wretched and dead, having nothing in common with what was given to the Son. And why did the Word come among us and become flesh? If it was to receive these things which he says he has received, he was empty of them before; and of necessity he would rather owe thanks to the body, because when he came into it he then received from the Father these things which he did not have before his descent into the flesh. For then he would appear rather to have been improved because of the body than the body improved because of him. But this is a Jewish way of thinking. But if the Word came to redeem the human race, and the Word became flesh to sanctify and deify them (for this is why he came), to whom is it not evident that the things he says he received when he became flesh he says not for his own sake but for the flesh's? For the gifts given through him from the Father belonged to the flesh in which he was speaking. Let us see what it was that he asked, and what in general he said he had received, so that even so they may be able to perceive it. He asked for glory, then, and said, “All things have been handed over to me”; and after the resurrection he says he has received “all authority.” But even before he said, “All things have been handed over to me,” he was Lord of all things, for “all things came into being through him,” and he was “one Lord, through whom are all things”; and when he asked for glory, he was and is “the Lord of glory,” as Paul says, “For if they had known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.” For he had the glory he asked for, saying, “with the glory which I had with you before the world was.”

And the authority which he said he received after the resurrection he had also before receiving it, and before the resurrection. For he himself rebuked Satan in his own person, saying, “Get behind me, Satan”; and he “gave” the disciples “authority” against him, when, as they returned, he said, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.” And again, what he said he had received he is shown to have had before receiving it; for he drove out demons, and what “Satan had bound” he loosed, as he did for “the daughter of Abraham”; and he forgave sins, saying to the paralytic and to the woman who anointed his feet, “Your sins are forgiven.” He raised the dead, and restored the blind man's birth, granting him sight. And he did these things not waiting until he received, but being “one with authority.” So from these things it is clear that what he had as Word, this, having become man and after the resurrection, he says in human fashion that he received, so that through him human beings, on earth, as “partakers of the divine nature,” might henceforth have authority against demons, and in the heavens, as “set free from corruption,” might reign eternally. For in general one must know this: that nothing of what he says he received did he receive as not having it; for the Word, being God, always had these things. But it is now said in human fashion that he received, so that, since the flesh in him receives, it might henceforth pass securely from it to us as well. For what Peter says too, “having received from God honor and glory, angels being subjected to him,” has such a sense. As he inquired humanly but raised Lazarus divinely, so “he received” is said humanly, while the subjection of the angels shows the Godhead of the Word.

Stop, then, you God-haters, and do not humble the Word; do not take away his Godhead, which is the Father's, as though he were in need or ignorant, lest you cast your own failings upon Christ, as the Jews did who stoned him then. For these things do not belong to the Word as Word, but are proper to human beings. And just as, when he spat, and stretched out his hand, and called Lazarus, we did not say the mighty deeds were human, even though they were done through the body, but God's; so, if human things are said of the Saviour in the Gospel, let us again look to the nature of what is said, and, since these things are foreign to God, let us not reckon them to the Godhead of the Word but to his humanity. For even though “the Word became flesh,” the passions are proper to the flesh; and even though the flesh bears God in the Word, the grace and the power are the Word's. He did the Father's works, at any rate, through the flesh; and none the less the passions of the flesh were shown in him; for instance, he inquired, and he raised Lazarus; he checked his mother, saying, “My hour has not yet come,” and at once made the water wine. For he was true God in the flesh, and true flesh in the Word. That is why he made himself known as Son of God, and made his Father known, from the works; and from the passions of the flesh he showed that he bore a true body, and that it was his own.

These things being so, come, let us examine also the saying, “But concerning the day and the hour no one knows, not even the angels, nor the Son.” For, being especially ignorant about this and growing dizzy over it, they think they have in it a great pretext for their heresy. But I see these heretics, alleging this too as a pretext and arming themselves with it, fighting against God again like the giants. For the Lord of heaven and earth, through whom all things came into being, is being judged by them about a day and an hour; and the Word who knows all things is accused by them of being ignorant about a day; and the Son who knows the Father is said to be ignorant of an hour of a day. What could one call more senseless than this, or what madness could one compare with it? Through the Word all things came into being—times, seasons, night and day, and the whole creation; and is the creator said to be ignorant of his own work? Indeed, the very sequence of the reading shows that the Son of God knows the hour and the day, even if the Arians fall into ignorance. For having said, “nor the Son,” he tells the disciples what comes before the day, saying, “This and this will happen, and then the end.” And he who tells what comes before the day surely knows the day too, which will appear after the things foretold. But if he did not know the hour, he would not have indicated what comes before it, not knowing when the hour will be. And as someone who wishes to point out a house or a city to those who do not know it describes what comes before the house or the city, and when he has indicated everything says, “Then at once comes the city,” or “the house,” the one pointing it out surely knows where the house or the city is (for if he did not know, he would not have described what comes before them, lest through ignorance he either lead his hearers far astray or, while speaking, himself overlook and pass by what he is pointing out); so the Lord, telling what comes before the day and the hour, knows exactly, and is not ignorant, when the hour and the day are at hand.

Why, then, though he knew, he did not tell the disciples plainly at that time, no one may inquire curiously, since he himself kept silent about it. “For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?” But why, though he knew, he said that “not even the Son knows,” I think no believer is ignorant: that he said this too, no less, as man, because of the flesh. For this too is not a defect of the Word, but of human nature, to which ignorance is proper. And one may see this well again if one examines, with a good conscience, the occasion too: when and to whom the Saviour said these things. He did not say them when the heaven came into being through him, nor when the Word was with the Father himself “harmonizing” all things, nor before he became man, but when “the Word became flesh.” That is why it is just to ascribe to his humanity everything that he says in human fashion after he became man. For it is proper to the Word to know the things that have been made, and not to be ignorant of their beginning and end; for they are his works; and he knows how many they are, and until when he has wrought their continuance. And knowing the beginning and end of each, he surely knows also the general and common end of all. Indeed, when he says in the Gospel, with respect to his humanity, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son,” it is clear that he knows the hour of the end of all things as Word, but as man is ignorant of it; for ignorance is proper to man, and especially of these things. But this too belongs to the Saviour's love for humankind. For since he has become man, he is not ashamed, because of the flesh that is ignorant, to say, “I do not know,” so as to show that, knowing as God, he is ignorant according to the flesh. At any rate, he did not say, “not even the Son of God knows,” lest the Godhead should appear ignorant, but simply, “nor the Son,” so that the ignorance might belong to the Son who was born of human beings.

That is why, when speaking of the angels, he did not go on to say, “nor the Holy Spirit,” but kept silent, showing by this two things: that if the Spirit knows, much more does the Word, as Word, know, from whom the Spirit too receives; and that, by keeping silent about the Spirit, he has made it plain that it was with respect to his human ministry that he said, “nor the Son.” And a proof of this is that, having said humanly, “not even the Son knows,” he nevertheless shows divinely that he knows all things. For the Son whom he says does not know the day he says knows the Father; “for no one,” he says, “knows the Father except the Son.” And everyone except the Arians would agree that he who knows the Father knows much more the whole of creation, and the whole includes its end. And if the day and the hour have already been determined by the Father, it is clear that they have been determined through the Son, and that he himself knows what was determined through him. For there is nothing that did not come into being and was not determined through the Son; so he, being the creator of the universe, knows of what kind and how great the Father has willed it to be, and until when; and in the “how great” and “until when” lies its change. And again, if “all that is the Father's is the Son's” (for he himself said this), and knowing the day belongs to the Father, it is clear that the Son too knows it, having this too as his own from the Father. And again, if the Son is “in the Father and the Father in the Son,” and the Father knows the day and the hour, it is evident that the Son too, being in the Father and knowing what is in the Father, himself knows the day and the hour. And if the Son is the true image of the Father, and the Father knows the day and the hour, it is clear that the Son has the likeness of the Father in knowing these things too. And it is not wonderful that he through whom “all things came into being,” and in whom the universe “holds together,” himself knows the things that came into being, and when the end of each of them and of all in common will be; what is wonderful is that this rashness, befitting the madness of the Ariomaniacs, has forced us to come to so long a defence. For by numbering the Son of God, the eternal Word, with originated things, they are gradually practising to say that the Father himself is less than creation. For if he who knows the Father does not know the day or the hour, I fear lest knowledge of creation, or rather of the lesser part of creation, should be greater, as those madmen might say, than knowledge of the Father.

But let them, blaspheming thus against the Spirit, expect never to receive “forgiveness” for this impiety, as the Lord said; but we who love Christ and bear Christ know that the Word said “I do not know” not as being ignorant, as Word (for he knows), but showing his humanity: that ignorance is proper to human beings, and that he had put on flesh that is ignorant, and, being in it, he said according to the flesh, “I do not know.” At any rate, having then said that “not even the Son knows,” and having set out the ignorance of the people in Noah's time, he at once added, “Watch, therefore, for you do not know at what hour your Lord is coming,” and again, “The Son of man is coming at an hour you do not expect”—“for I too, having become like you for your sake, said, ‘nor the Son.’” But if he were ignorant divinely, he ought to have said, “Watch, therefore, for I do not know,” and “at an hour I do not expect”; but as it is, he did not say this, but by saying “you do not know” and “you do not expect” he showed that ignorance belongs to human beings; and it was for their sake that he too, having flesh like theirs and having become man, said, “not even the Son knows”; for he does not know in the flesh, though as Word he knows. And the example of Noah again refutes the shamelessness of the Christ-fighters; for there too he did not say, “I did not know,” but “they did not know until the flood came.” For the people did not know; but he who brought the flood (and that was the Saviour) knew the day and the hour in which he opened “the floodgates of heaven” and broke open “the deeps,” and said to Noah, “Go in, you and your sons, into the ark.” If he had been ignorant, he would not have foretold to Noah, “For in seven more days I will bring the flood upon the earth.” And if he signifies the day by the image of Noah's time, and knew the day of the flood, then he knows the day of his own coming as well.

And having told the parable of the virgins, he again showed more plainly who they are who do not know the day and the hour, saying, “Watch, therefore, for you do not know the day or the hour.” He who a little before said, “No one knows, not even the Son,” now did not say, “I do not know,” but “you do not know.” So when the disciples asked about the end, he fittingly said then too, “nor the Son,” according to the flesh, because of the body, to show that as man he does not know; for ignorance is proper to human beings. But since he is the Word, and he himself is “the one who is coming,” and himself the judge, and himself the bridegroom, he knows when and at what hour he is coming, and when he will say, “Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” For as, having become man, he hungers and thirsts and suffers with human beings, so with human beings, as man, he does not know; but divinely, being Word and Wisdom in the Father, he knows, and there is nothing of which he is ignorant. So too, again, about Lazarus he inquires in human fashion, he who went to raise him and knew from where he would call back Lazarus's soul; and it is a greater thing to know where the soul was than to know where the body lay; but he asked humanly in order to raise him divinely. So too he inquires of the disciples when he came into the region of Caesarea, although he knew even before Peter answered. For if the Father revealed to Peter the things about which the Lord was inquiring, it is clear that the revelation came through the Son; “for no one knows the Son,” he says, “except the Father, nor the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal him.” And if the knowledge both of the Father and of the Son is revealed through the Son, there is no doubt that the Lord who inquired, having first revealed it to Peter from the Father, afterwards inquired in human fashion, to show this too: that, inquiring according to the flesh, he knew divinely what Peter was going to say. So the Son knows, since he knows all things and knows his own Father, than which knowledge nothing could be greater or more perfect.

These things are sufficient to refute them; but I wanted to ask them a question, so that even so they may be shown still more to be enemies of the truth and Christ-fighters. The apostle, writing in the second letter to the Corinthians, says, “I know a man in Christ fourteen years ago—whether in the body I do not know, or out of the body I do not know; God knows.” What, then, do you say? Does the apostle know what he experienced in the vision, even though he says “I do not know,” or does he not know? If he does not know, take care lest, having learned to fall, you fall also into the lawlessness of the Phrygians, who say that the prophets and the others who ministered the Word did not know either what they were doing or what they were proclaiming. But if he knows, while saying, “I do not know” (for he had Christ in himself revealing all things to him), how is the heart of the fighters against God not truly perverted and self-condemned, when they say that the apostle, who says “I do not know,” knows, but that the Lord, who says “I do not know,” does not know? For if, because Christ was in him, Paul knows what he says he does not know, how much more does Christ himself know, even if he says, “I do not know”? The apostle, then, knows what he experienced, since the Lord revealed it to him; for this is why he also says, “I know a man in Christ”; and knowing the man, he knows also how the man was caught up. Elisha, at any rate, seeing Elijah, knew also how he was taken up; but although he knew, yet when the sons of the prophets thought that Elijah had been “cast by the Spirit onto one of the mountains,” he at first, knowing what he had seen, tried to persuade the men; but when they pressed him, he fell silent and let them go. Did he, then, not know, because he fell silent? He did know; but he gave way as though he did not know, so that they, once persuaded, might no longer doubt about the taking up of Elijah. Much more, then, does Paul, being himself the one who was caught up, know also how he was caught up. For Elijah too knew, and if anyone had asked, he would have said how he was taken up. Yet Paul says, “I do not know,” for two reasons, as I think: one, as he himself said, so that no one might “think of him more than what he sees” “because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations”; the other, that, since the Saviour had said, “I do not know,” it was fitting that he too should say, “I do not know,” lest he seem, “being a servant, to be above his Lord, and a disciple above the teacher.”

So he who gave Paul to know knows much more himself. For in telling what comes before the day he knows, as I said before, both when the day and when the hour will be; and yet, knowing, he says, “not even the Son knows.” Why, then, did he say at that time, “I do not know,” about what he, as Master, knows? As far as one who searches may conjecture, he did this, as I think, for our profit (may he himself grant my attempt the mind of truth). In both respects the Saviour preserved what is useful for us. For he made known what will happen before the end, so that, as he himself said, we might not be startled or “troubled” when these things happen, but from them might expect the end that follows; but about the day and the hour he did not wish to say divinely, “I know,” but said according to the flesh, because of the flesh that is ignorant, as I said before, “I do not know,” so that they might not ask him further, and so that he would neither grieve the disciples by not telling nor, by telling, act against what was profitable for them and for all of us. For whatever he does is surely for our sake, since it was for us too that “the Word became flesh.” For our sake, then, he also said, “not even the Son knows”; and he neither lied in saying this (for he said humanly, as man, “I do not know”), nor let the disciples force him to tell; for by saying, “I do not know,” he stopped their questioning. In the Acts of the Apostles, at any rate, it is written that when he mounted up above the angels, ascending as man and carrying up into heaven the flesh he bore, and the disciples, seeing this, asked again, “When will the end be, and when will you come?”, he said to them more plainly, “It is not for you to know times or seasons, which the Father has set by his own authority.” And he did not then say, “nor the Son,” as he had said before in human fashion, but “it is not for you to know.” For by then the flesh had risen, and had put off mortality, and had been deified; and it was no longer fitting for him, as he was going up into the heavens, to answer according to the flesh, but thenceforth to teach divinely: “It is not for you to know times or seasons, which the Father has set by his own authority; but you will receive power.” And what is the power of the Father but the Son? “For Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God.”

So the Son knows, being Word; for in saying this he meant: “I know, but it is not for you to know; for it was for your sake too that, sitting on the mountain, I said according to the flesh, ‘not even the Son knows,’ for your good and the good of all. For it is good for you to hear this about the angels and about the Son, because of the deceivers who will come later; so that, even if demons ‘disguise themselves as angels’ and attempt to speak about the consummation, you may not believe them, since they do not know. And if the Antichrist too, disguising himself, says, ‘I am the Christ,’ and he too tries to speak about the day and the consummation in order to deceive those who hear, you, having from me the saying ‘not even the Son,’ may not believe him either.” Besides, again, it is not good for human beings to know when the end is, or when the day of the end will be, lest, knowing it, they become careless of the time in between, waiting for the days near the end; for they will make that their excuse for caring for themselves only then. That is why he also kept silent about each one's end in death, lest human beings, puffed up by the knowledge, begin to neglect themselves for most of their time. Both, then—the general end and each one's own limit—the Word has hidden from us (for each one's end is contained in the general end, and in each one's end the general is summed up), so that, since it is unknown and always awaited, we may advance day by day as those who are called, “reaching forward to what lies ahead and forgetting what lies behind.” For who, if he knew the day of the end, would not put off using the time in between; but not knowing it, who would not make himself ready day by day? That is why the Saviour added to these words, saying, “Watch, therefore, for you do not know at what hour your Lord is coming,” and “The Son of man is coming at an hour you do not expect.” So he said this for the profit that comes from not knowing. For in saying this too he wills us to be always ready: “For you,” he says, “do not know; but I, the Lord, know when I am coming, even if the Arians do not expect me as the Word of the Father.”

The Lord, then, knowing our profit better than we do, made the disciples secure in this way; and they, having learned these things, corrected the Thessalonians, who were about to go astray on this point. But since the Christ-fighters are not put down even so, I wish, although I know that their heart is harder than Pharaoh's, to question them again about this too. In paradise God inquires, saying, “Adam, where are you?” and he questions Cain too: “Where is Abel your brother?” What, then, do you say about this? If you think that he was ignorant and therefore inquired, you have already joined the Manichees; for such daring is theirs. But if, fearing to be openly called Manichees, you force yourselves to say that he inquired though he knew, what absurdity or strangeness do you see, that you have fallen so, if the Son, in whom God inquired then, the same Son, now clothed with flesh, inquires of the disciples as man? Unless indeed, having become Manichees, you wish to find fault also with the question put to Adam then, simply so that you may run wild in your ill will. For, refuted on every point, you mutter again because of what is said by Luke, which is well said but ill understood by you. What this is must be set out, so that even so their corrupt understanding may be shown.

Luke, then, says, “And Jesus advanced in wisdom and stature, and in grace with God and men.” This is the saying; but since they stumble over this too, it is necessary again to question them, as the Pharisees and Sadducees were questioned, about the one of whom Luke speaks. The question is this: Is Jesus Christ a man like all other men, or is he God bearing flesh? If he too is an ordinary man like other men, then let him advance, as a man. This, however, is the thought of the Samosatene, which you too hold in effect, though you deny it in name only because of what people would say. But if he is God bearing flesh, as he truly is, and the Word became flesh, and being God he came down to earth, what advance could he have who is “equal to God”? Or where could the Son grow, being always in the Father? For if he who is always in the Father advances, what then is there beyond the Father from which he could advance? Then, it is well to say here the same as about receiving and being glorified: if, having become man, he advanced, it is clear that before becoming man he was imperfect; and the flesh has rather become the cause of his perfection than he of the flesh's. And again, if he advances as Word, what greater thing can he become than Word and Wisdom and Son and Power of God? For the Word is all these; and if anyone could somehow partake of them, as of a ray, such a one becomes all-perfect among human beings and equal to the angels. For angels and archangels and dominions and all the powers and thrones, partaking of the Word, “always behold the face of his Father.” How, then, does he who supplied perfection to others himself advance after them? For angels ministered even at his human birth; and what is said by Luke is said after the ministry of the angels. How, then, can it even enter a man's mind at all? Or how did Wisdom advance in wisdom? Or how did he who gives grace to others (as Paul, knowing that grace is given through him, says in every letter, “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all”) himself advance in grace? Let them either say that the apostle lies, or not dare to say that the Son is Wisdom. Or if he is Wisdom, as Solomon said, and Paul wrote, “Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God,” what advance did Wisdom admit?

For human beings, being creatures, can in some way reach forward and advance in virtue. Enoch, at any rate, was “translated” in this way, and Moses was perfected as he grew, and Isaac, advancing, “became great,” and the apostle said he was “reaching forward” day by day to what lies ahead; for each had somewhere to advance, looking to the step before him. But the Son of God, who alone is, where had he to reach forward? For all things advance by looking to him; but he, being alone, is in the only Father, from whom he does not reach forward, but in whom he remains always. Advancing, then, belongs to human beings; but the Son of God, since he could not advance, being perfect in the Father, “humbled himself” for us, so that in his lowliness we might rather be able to grow. And our growth is nothing other than to withdraw from the things of sense and come to the Word himself; since his lowliness too is nothing other than taking our flesh. So it was not the Word, as Word, who advanced, he who is perfect from the perfect Father, who needs nothing, but rather leads others to advance. But here too “advancing” is said in human fashion, since advance again belongs to human beings. For the evangelist too, speaking with precise care, joined “stature” to “advancing”; but the Word, who is God, is not measured by stature; statures belong to bodies. So the advance belongs to the body; for as it advanced, the manifestation of the Godhead advanced in it for those who saw; and the more the Godhead was revealed, the more the grace grew, as of a man, before all men. For as a baby he was carried; having become a boy, he stayed behind in the temple and questioned the priests about the law; and as the body grew little by little, and the Word manifested himself in it, he was thereafter confessed, first by Peter and then by all, “Truly this is the Son of God”—even though the Jews, both those of old and these new ones, willfully “close their eyes, so that they may not see” that “advancing in wisdom” is not Wisdom itself advancing, but rather the human advancing in it. For “Jesus advanced in wisdom and grace”; and if one may speak plausibly as well as truly, he himself advanced in himself. For “Wisdom built herself a house,” and made the house advance in herself.

(And what is the advance spoken of, except, as I said before, the deification and grace imparted by Wisdom to human beings, sin and the corruption in them being abolished according to the likeness and kinship of the flesh of the Word?) For so, as the body grew in stature, the manifestation of the Godhead also increased in it, and it was shown to all that it is a temple of God, and that God was in the body. And if they contend that it was “the Word who became flesh” who was called “Jesus,” and refer the saying “advanced” to him, let them hear that neither does this diminish the Father's light (for this is what the Son is), but rather shows again that the Word became man and bore true flesh. And as we said that he suffered “in the flesh,” and hungered “in the flesh,” and toiled “in the flesh,” so too it might fittingly be said that he advanced “in the flesh.” For the advance of which we have spoken did not happen with the Word outside; for the flesh that advanced was in him, and is called his; and this, again, so that the advance of human beings might remain unfailing because of the Word who is with it. So neither was the advance the Word's, nor was the flesh Wisdom; but the flesh became Wisdom's body. Therefore, as we said before, it was not Wisdom, as Wisdom, that advanced by itself; but the human advanced in Wisdom, gradually rising above human nature and being deified, and becoming and appearing to all as Wisdom's instrument for the working of the Godhead and its shining forth. That is why he did not say, “The Word advanced,” but “Jesus,” which is the name by which the Lord was called when he became man; so that the advance belongs to human nature, as we said above.

So, as, when the flesh advanced, he himself is said to advance because of his possessing the body as his own, so too the things said about the time of his death, his being troubled and his weeping, must be taken in the same sense. For, going round up and down, and as though constructing their heresy again from these things, they say, “See, he wept, and said, ‘Now my soul is troubled,’ and he entreated that ‘the cup might pass’; how, then, if he said these things, is he God and Word of the Father?” Yes, it is written that “he wept,” you fighters against God, and that he said, “I am troubled,” and on the cross he said, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani,” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”; and he entreated that the cup might pass; for these things are written. But I would like you to answer again (for it is necessary to counter each of your objections in the same way): if the one speaking is a mere man, let him weep and fear death, as a man; but if he is the Word in flesh (for one must not shrink from always saying the same things), whom, being God, had he to fear? Or why did he fear death, being himself life and delivering others from death? Or how, saying, “Do not fear those who kill the body,” did he himself fear? And how did he who says to Abraham, “Do not fear, for I am with you,” and encourages Moses against Pharaoh, and says to the son of Nun, “Be strong and of good courage,” himself shrink from Herod and Pilate? Then, becoming a helper to others so that they should not fear (“The Lord,” it says, “is my helper; I will not fear what man shall do to me”), did he himself fear governors, mortal men? Did he who came against death himself shrink from death? And how is it not absurd and impious to say that he shrank from death or Hades, he at whom “the gatekeepers of Hades cowered when they saw him”? But if, on your view, the Word shrank, why, having spoken long before about the plot of the Jews, did he not flee, but when sought said, “I am he”? For he could have not died, as he said: “I have authority to lay down my life, and I have authority to take it again,” and “No one takes it from me.”

But these things were not proper by nature to the Word, as Word; rather, the Word was in the flesh that suffered such things, you Christ-fighters and ungrateful Jews. For these things were not said before the flesh; but when the Word became flesh and became man, then these things are written as said in human fashion. Indeed, he about whom these things are written himself raised Lazarus from the dead, and made the water wine, and granted sight to the man blind from birth, and said, “I and the Father are one.” If, then, they make the human things a pretext for thinking lowly of the Son of God, or rather for thinking him wholly a man from earth and not from heaven, why do they not also recognize from the divine works the Word who is in the Father, and henceforth renounce their own impiety? For they can see how the one who does the works is the same one who shows his body to be passible, by allowing it to weep and hunger and letting the properties of the body appear in him. For by such things he made known that, being impassible God, he had taken passible flesh; and by the works he showed himself to be the Word of God, who afterwards became man, saying, “‘Even if you do not believe me,’ seeing me clothed with a human body, yet ‘believe the works, so that you may know that I am in the Father and the Father in me.’” The Christ-fighters seem to me to have reached utter shamelessness and blasphemy. For when they hear, “I and the Father are one,” they force themselves to misinterpret the sense and to divide the unity of the Father and the Son; but when they hear that he wept, sweated, suffered, they do not look to the body, but on that account number with creation him through whom creation came to be. How, then, do these men differ any longer from the Jews? For as those, blaspheming, ascribed the works of God to Beelzebul, so these too, numbering with the creatures the Lord who did these works, will undergo the same unpardonable condemnation.

They ought, when they hear, “I and the Father are one,” to see the one Godhead and what is proper to the Father's substance; and when they hear “he wept” and the like, to say that these are proper to the body, especially since in each case they have a reasonable ground: the one is written as of God, the other is said because of his human body. For the things of the body would not have happened in one without a body, had he not taken a body that was corruptible and mortal; for holy Mary, from whom the body came, was mortal. That is why, since he came to be in a body that suffered, wept, and toiled, these things too, which are proper to the flesh, must be said of him together with the body. If, then, he wept and was troubled, it was not the Word, as Word, who wept and was troubled, but this was proper to the flesh; and if he entreated that the cup might pass, it was not the Godhead that shrank, but this passion too was proper to the humanity. And the saying, “Why have you forsaken me?”—the evangelists have recorded these things nevertheless as his, according to what was said before, although he suffered nothing (for the Word was impassible); since the Lord became man, and these things are done and said as by a man, so that he himself, lightening these sufferings of the flesh, might make it free of them. Hence the Lord cannot be forsaken by the Father, since he is always in him, both before he spoke and when he uttered this cry. Nor, again, is it right to say that the Lord shrank, he at whom “the gatekeepers of Hades cowered” and let Hades go; and “the tombs were opened, and many bodies of the saints arose, and appeared” to their own people. Let every heretic, then, be muzzled, and fear to say that the Lord shrank, he from whom death flees like a serpent, before whom demons tremble and the sea is afraid; because of whom the heavens are rent and all the powers are shaken. For see, when he said, “Why have you forsaken me?”, the Father showed that he was in him then too, as always. For the earth, recognizing its Master who spoke, at once trembled, and the veil was rent, and the sun was hidden, and the rocks were split, and the tombs, as I said before, were opened, and the dead in them were raised; and, what is wonderful, those who were present then and had denied him before, seeing these things afterwards, confess that “truly this is the Son of God.”

And as for his saying, “If it is possible, let the cup pass,” learn how, having said this, he rebuked Peter, saying, “You are not thinking the things of God, but the things of men.” For he willed what he asked to be spared, and it was for this that he had come; but the willing was his (for he came for this), while the shrinking belonged to the flesh; that is why he spoke such a word as man. And again, both were said by the same one, to show that he was God, himself willing, but that, having become man, he had flesh that shrank, and because of it he mingled his own will with human weakness, so that, doing away with this too, he might once more make man courageous in the face of death. See, then, a truly paradoxical thing: he whom the Christ-fighters think spoke from cowardice, by this supposed cowardice made human beings courageous and fearless. The blessed apostles after him, at any rate, came so to despise death through such words that they did not even care about those who “examined” them, but said, “We must obey God rather than men”; and the other holy martyrs were so courageous that they thought they were passing into life rather than enduring death. How, then, is it not absurd to admire the courage of the Word's servants, and yet say that the Word himself shrank, he because of whom they despised death? From the most steadfast purpose and courage of the holy martyrs it is shown that it was not the Godhead that shrank, but that the Saviour was taking away our shrinking. For as he “destroyed” death by death, and in human fashion all human things, so by his supposed shrinking he took away our shrinking and made human beings no longer fear death. He said these things, then, and at the same time acted. For to say, “Let the cup pass,” and “Why have you forsaken me?” was human; but divinely the same one made the sun fail and the dead rise. And again, while saying humanly, “Now my soul is troubled,” he also said divinely, “I have authority to lay down my life, and I have authority to take it again.” For to be troubled was proper to the flesh; but to have authority to lay down the life and take it up when he wills is no longer proper to human beings but belongs to the power of the Word. For a man dies not by his own authority, but by necessity of nature and unwillingly; but the Lord, being himself immortal but having mortal flesh, had it in his power, as God, to be separated from the body and to take it up again when he willed. Of this David too sings: “You will not abandon my soul to Hades, nor let your holy one see corruption.” For it was fitting that the flesh, being corruptible, should no longer remain mortal according to its own nature, but should remain incorruptible because of the Word who put it on. For as he, having come to be in our body, took on what is ours, so we, receiving him, partake of the immortality that comes from him.

In vain, then, do the Ariomaniacs pretend to be scandalized and think little of the Word because it is written “he was troubled” and “he wept.” For they seem not even to have human sense, since they are ignorant of human nature and its properties; for these very things they ought rather to marvel that the Word was in such suffering flesh, and neither hindered those who plotted against him nor took vengeance on those who killed him, though he could—he who prevented others from dying and raised the dead from the dead—but allowed his own body to suffer. For this is why he came, as I said before: to suffer in the flesh, so that thereafter the flesh might be made impassible and immortal; and so that, as we have often said, these outrages and happenings, reaching him, might no longer touch human beings, but be completely abolished by him; and so that thereafter they might remain incorruptible for ever, as a temple of the Word. If the Christ-fighters had understood these things in this way, and had recognized the church's scope as an anchor of the faith, they would not have “made shipwreck concerning the faith,” nor been so shameless as to resist those who wish to raise them from their fall, and rather to consider as enemies those who admonish them toward piety. But, as it seems, the heretic is truly a wicked thing, and has a heart corrupted in every way toward impiety. For see, refuted on every point and shown to be destitute of all understanding, they are not ashamed; but as the beast called the hydra in the Greek myths, when the first serpents were killed, brought forth other serpents, contending against the one who killed them by putting forth others, in the same way the fighters against God and God-haters, like hydras, falling in soul over the objections they put forward, invent for themselves other Jewish and foolish questions; and as though they held the truth as an enemy, they devise newer things, so as to show themselves Christ-fighters in everything.

For after so many refutations of them, at which even the devil himself, their father, would have gone back ashamed, again, as though devising from their crooked heart, they grumble, whispering to some and buzzing around others like gnats, saying, “Granted, you interpret these things so, and you prevail in arguments and proofs; but one must say that the Son came into being by the Father's counsel and will.” For by this too they deceive many, putting forward God's counsel and will. If one of those who believe rightly said this in simplicity, there would be nothing to suspect in what was said, since the orthodox mind would prevail over the simpler wording; but since the phrase comes from heretics, and the words of heretics are suspect, and, as it is written, “the impious steer deceits,” and “their words are deceitful,” even if they only nod, since their heart is corrupt, come, let us examine this saying too, lest, refuted on every point, they have now, like hydras, devised a newer phrase, so as by such fine talk and plausible stealth to sow their impiety again in another way. For he who says “the Son came into being by will” means the same as he who says “there was once when he was not,” and “the Son came into being from nothing,” and “he is a creature.” But since they were ashamed to say these things, the crafty men tried to signify them again in another way, putting forward “will,” as cuttlefish put forth their ink, so as to darken the simple by it, while they themselves do not forget their own heresy. For from where do they get “by counsel and will,” or from what Scripture do they put forward such things again? Let those tell us whose words are suspect and who are inventors of impiety. For the Father, revealing his own Word from heaven, showed that “this is my beloved Son”; and through David he said, “My heart has uttered a good Word”; and he commanded John to say, “In the beginning was the Word”; and David, singing, says, “For with you is the fountain of life, and in your light we shall see light”; and the apostle writes, “who, being the radiance of glory,” and again, “who, being in the form of God,” and “who is the image of the invisible God.”

Everywhere all of them speak of the Word's “being,” and nowhere do they say that he was “made” from “will,” or made at all; where, then, did these men find “a will or wish preceding” the Word of God—unless indeed, abandoning the Scriptures, they are playing the part of Valentinus's ill will too? For Ptolemy, the disciple of Valentinus, said that the unoriginate has two consorts, Thought and Will; that first he thought, then he willed; and that what he thought he could not put forth until the power of will came upon him. From there the Arians learned it, and want will and counsel to precede the Word. Let them, then, emulate the teachings of Valentinus; but we, reading the divine words, found “was” said of the Son, and heard that he alone is in the Father and is the Father's image; but only of originated things, since by nature they once were not but came to be afterwards, have we read of a preceding counsel and will, David singing in the hundred and thirteenth psalm thus: “But our God is in heaven and on earth; he has done whatever he willed”; and in the hundred and tenth: “Great are the works of the Lord, sought out in all his wills”; and again in the hundred and thirty-fourth: “Whatever the Lord willed he did, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and in all the deeps.” If, then, he is a work and a thing made, and one of all things, let him too be said to have come into being “by will”; for so Scripture has shown that things made come into being. And Asterius, the advocate of the heresy, agreeing with this, writes thus: “For if it is unworthy of the Creator to make by willing, let willing be removed equally in every case, so that his dignity may be kept intact; or if it befits God to will, let the better thing belong also to the first offspring. For it is not possible for one and the same God that willing should be fitting in the case of the things made, and not willing also be suitable.” The sophist, having packed a great deal of impiety into his words—that offspring and thing made are the same, and that the Son is one out of all the offspring that exist—concluded this: that it is fitting to speak of things made as coming by counsel and will.

If, then, he is other than all things, as was shown in what came before, and rather the works came into being through him, let him not be said to be “by will,” lest he too come into being in the way the things that came into being through him came to subsist. For Paul, not existing before, afterwards became “an apostle through the will of God”; and our calling, since it too once was not but has now come about, has a will that preceded it, and, as Paul himself says again, it came about “according to the good pleasure of his will.” And what is said through Moses, “Let there be light,” and “Let the earth bring forth,” and “Let us make man,” signifies, I think, as was also said before, the will of the maker. For the things that once were not but come to be from outside, the Creator deliberates to make; but his own Word, begotten from him by nature, he does not deliberate beforehand; for in him the Father makes the other things that he deliberates, and in him he creates; as James the apostle too taught, saying, “Having willed, he brought us forth by the Word of truth.” So God's will concerning all things, both those “born again” and those made once for all, is in the Word, in whom he both makes and regenerates what he has resolved; and this again the apostle indicates, writing to Thessalonica, “For this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” And if the will is in him in whom God makes, and the will of the Father is in Christ, how can he himself come into being by counsel and will? For if he too came into being by will, on your view, the will concerning him must also subsist in some other Word, through whom he too comes into being; for it has been shown that God's will is not in the things that come into being, but in him “through whom” and “in whom” all things made come into being. Then, since it is the same to say “by will” and “there was once when he was not,” let them be content to say “there was once when he was not,” so that, ashamed because times are signified by it, they may know that in saying “by will” too they signify times before the Son; for deliberation precedes the things that once were not, as with all creatures. But if the Word is the creator of the creatures, and himself coexists with the Father, how can deliberation precede him who is eternally, as though he were not? For if counsel precedes, how are “all things through him”? Rather, he too would be one of all things, a Son “brought forth” by will, as we too became sons “by the Word of truth”; and then we must, as has been said, seek another Word, through whom this one too came into being and was brought forth together with all the things that God willed.

If, then, there is another Word of God, let this one too have come into being by a Word; but if there is no other (and there is not), but “all things came into being through him” that the Father has willed, how is the many-headed knavery of these men not exposed? For, put to shame at saying that the Word of God is “a work” and “a creature” and “was not before he was begotten,” they say again in another way that he is a creature, putting forward “will,” and saying, “If he did not come into being by will, then God had a Son by necessity and unwillingly.” And who imposed the necessity on him, you most wicked men, who drag everything toward your heresy? For they have seen what is opposed to will, but have not perceived what is greater and lies above it. For as what is against one's inclination is opposed to will, so what is by nature lies above and precedes deliberation. A man builds a house by deliberating, but begets a son by nature; what is built by will began to come into being and is outside its maker, but the son is the proper offspring of the father's substance and is not outside him; that is why he does not deliberate about him, lest he seem to deliberate about himself. As far, then, as the son is above the creature, so far is what is by nature above what is by will; and on hearing this they ought not to reckon what is by nature under will. But they, forgetting that it is about the Son of God that they are hearing, dare to speak of human opposites in the case of God, “necessity” and “against one's inclination,” so as to deny that the Son of God is true Son. For let them tell us themselves: does God's being good and merciful belong to him from will, or not by will? If from will, one must consider that he began to be good, and that his not being good is possible; for deliberating and choosing can lean either way, and this is a property of a rational nature. But if, because of the absurdity that follows, he is good and merciful not from will, let them hear what they themselves said: “then he is good by necessity and unwillingly.” And who imposed the necessity on him? But if it is absurd to speak of necessity in God, and for this reason he is good by nature, much more, and more truly, would he be Father of the Son by nature and not from will.

Let them tell us this too (for against their shamelessness I wish to bring yet another question, a bolder one, but one that nevertheless looks to piety—be gracious, O Master): does the Father himself exist in this way, having first deliberated and then willed, or does he exist even before deliberating? For since they dare such things about the Word, they must also hear such things, so that they may know that such rashness of theirs reaches even to the Father himself. If, then, they say (having once deliberated about will) that he too exists from will, what then was he before deliberating? Or what more did he gain, as you say, after deliberating? But if such a question is absurd and incoherent, and it is not at all right to say such things (for it is enough for us, merely hearing about God, to know and understand that he is “He who is”), how would it not be irrational to entertain such thoughts about the Word of God, and to put forward “counsel and will”? For it is enough for us, merely hearing about the Word too, to know and understand that God, who does not exist from will, has his own Word not by will but by nature. And how does it not exceed all madness even to imagine that God himself deliberates, and considers, and chooses, and urges himself to will, so that he may not be without Word and without wisdom, but may have Word and Wisdom? For he who deliberates about what is proper to his own substance seems to deliberate about himself. Since, then, there is great blasphemy in such thinking, it would be piously said that originated things came into being by good pleasure and will, but that the Son is not a product of will that came into being afterwards, like creation, but by nature the proper offspring of the substance. For being the Father's own Word, he does not allow anyone to reckon any “will” before himself, since he himself is the living counsel of the Father, and power, and creator of the things that seem good to the Father. And this he says of himself in the Proverbs: “Mine are counsel and security, mine is understanding, and mine is strength.” For as, being himself the understanding in which “he prepared the heavens,” and being himself strength and power (for “Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God”), he now, with a change of phrase, said, “mine is understanding, and mine is strength,” so in saying “mine is counsel” he would himself be the living counsel of the Father; as we have also learned from the prophet that he becomes “the angel of great counsel,” and he himself was called the will of the Father. For so one must refute them, since they think human thoughts about God.

If, then, things made came to subsist “by will and good pleasure,” and all creation came into being by will, and Paul was called an apostle “through the will of God,” and our calling came about “by good pleasure and will,” and “all things came into being through the Word,” then he is outside the things that came into being by will, and is rather himself the living counsel of the Father, in which all these things came into being; the counsel in which holy David too, giving thanks, said in the seventy-second psalm, “You held my right hand, and in your counsel you guided me.” How, then, can the Word, being counsel and will of the Father, himself come into being “by will and counsel,” like each thing, unless, as I said before, in their madness they say again that he came into being through himself or through some other? Who, then, is it through whom he came into being? Let them fashion another Word, and, emulating the teachings of Valentinus, let them name another “Christ”; for it is not written. But even if they fashion one, that one too certainly comes into being through someone; and so, as we reason further and examine the consequences, the many-headed heresy of the godless is found falling into polytheism and measureless madness, in which, wishing the Son to be “a creature” and “from nothing,” they signify the same things in another way, putting forward “counsel and will,” which could reasonably be said above all of originated and created things. How, then, is it not impious to refer the things of originated beings to the Creator? Or how is it not blasphemous to say that there is a will in the Father before the Word? For if will precedes in the Father, the Son does not speak the truth in saying, “I am in the Father”; or if he too is in the Father, he will be reckoned second, and it would not have been fitting for him to say, “I am in the Father,” since there would be a will before him, in which all things came into being and he himself came to subsist, on your view; for even if he differs in glory, he is none the less one of those that come into being by will. And, as we said before, if it is so, how is he Lord and the others servants? But he is Lord of all because he is united to the Father's lordship; and creation is surely servant, since it is outside the Father's unity and, once not being, came to be.

When they say that the Son is “by will,” they ought also to have said that he came into being “by understanding”; for I consider understanding and will to be the same; for what one deliberates, this he surely also understands, and what he understands, this he also deliberates. The Saviour himself, at any rate, joined these together as sisters by analogy, saying at once, “Mine are counsel and security, mine is understanding, and mine is strength.” For as strength and security are the same (for it is the same power), so it is the same to say understanding and counsel, which the Lord is. But the impious do not want the Son to be Word and living counsel; instead they tell the fable that understanding, counsel, and wisdom arise in God as a habit that comes and goes, in human fashion; and they move everything and put forward Valentinus's “Thought and Will,” only so as to separate the Son from the Father and not call him the Father's own Word, but a creature. Let them, then, hear what Simon the sorcerer heard: “The impiety of Valentinus perish with you”; but let each rather be persuaded by Solomon, who says that the Word himself is wisdom and understanding; for he says, “God by wisdom founded the earth, and prepared the heavens by understanding”; and as here it says “by understanding,” so in the Psalms, “By the Word of the Lord the heavens were established.” And as the heavens were established by the Word, so “he did whatever he willed”; and as the apostle writes to the Thessalonians, “the will of God is in Christ Jesus.” So the Son of God is himself the Word and the Wisdom, himself the understanding and the living counsel; and in him is the will of the Father; he is the truth and light and power of the Father. And if the will of God is the Wisdom and understanding, and the Son is the Wisdom, then he who says that the Son is “by will” is in effect saying that Wisdom came into being “in wisdom,” and the Son was made “in a Son,” and the Word created “through the Word.” This fights against God and contradicts the Scriptures that come from him; for the apostle too proclaims the Son to be the proper “radiance and impress” not of a will, but of the Father's very substance, saying, “who, being the radiance of glory and the impress of his subsistence.” And if, as we said before, the Father's substance and subsistence are not from will, it is very clear that neither would what is proper to the Father's subsistence be from will; for of whatever kind and however that blessed subsistence is, of such a kind and in such a way must its proper offspring from it be. The Father himself, at any rate, did not say, “This is the Son who came into being by my will,” nor “the Son whom I have by good pleasure,” but simply, “my Son,” and rather, “in whom I am well pleased,” showing by these words that “he is Son by nature, and in him is laid up the will of what pleases me.”

Is it, then, that since the Son is by nature and not from will, he is already unwilled by the Father, and the Son exists “without the Father's willing”? By no means! Rather, the Son is willed by the Father, and, as he himself says, “The Father loves the Son and shows him all things.” For as God's being good did not begin from will, yet he is not good without willing or wishing it (for what he is, this he also wills), so too the Son's existence, even if it did not begin from will, is not unwilled by him nor against his inclination. For as he wills his own subsistence, so too the Son, being proper to his substance, is not unwilled by him. Let the Son, then, be willed and loved by the Father; and so let one piously reckon God's “willing” and “not being unwilling.” For the Son, with the same willing with which he is willed by the Father, himself too loves and wills and honors the Father; and the will from the Father in the Son is one, so that from this too the Son is seen in the Father and the Father in the Son. But let no one, after Valentinus, bring in a preceding “will,” nor let anyone thrust himself between the only Father and the only Word on the pretext of “deliberating”; for one would be mad to place “will” and consideration between Father and Son. For it is one thing to say, “he came into being by will,” and another to say, “he loves and wills his Son, who is his own by nature.” For to say “he came into being from will” signifies, first, that he once was not; and then it can lean both ways, as has been said, so that one might think that he could also not have willed the Son. But to say of the Son, “he could also not have been,” is impious, and the daring reaches to the Father's substance, if indeed what is proper to it could not have been; for it is as if one said, “the Father could also not have been good.” But as the Father is always good, and by nature, so he is always begetting by nature; and to say, “The Father wills the Son,” and “The Word wills the Father,” shows not “a preceding will,” but makes known the genuineness of nature and the propriety and likeness of substance. For as one might say in the case of the radiance and the light, that the radiance has no “preceding will” in the light, but is its offspring by nature, willed by the light that begot it, not by consideration of will but by nature and in truth; so too in the case of the Father and the Son one would rightly say that the Father loves and wills the Son, and the Son loves and wills the Father.

So let the Son not be called a product of will (nor let the doctrines of Valentinus be brought into the church), but living counsel, and truly offspring by nature, as the radiance is of the light. For so the Father too said, “My heart has uttered a good Word,” and the Son correspondingly, “I am in the Father and the Father in me.” And if the Word is in the heart, where is the will? And if the Son is in the Father, where is the wishing? And if he himself is the will, how is the counsel “in a will”? It is absurd; lest the Word too come to be in a word, and the Son in a son, and the Wisdom in a wisdom, as has often been said. For the Son is everything that is the Father's; and there is nothing in the Father before the Word; but the will too is in the Word, and through him the things of the will are brought to completion in deed, as the divine Scriptures have shown. I would like to ask the impious, who have thus fallen into unreason and deliberate about “will,” no longer the women who give birth among them, whom they questioned before, saying, “Did you have a son before you gave birth?”, but the fathers, and to say to them, “Do you become fathers by deliberating, or by nature and apart from your will? Or are your children like your nature and substance?” so that at least they may be put to shame by the parents from whom they demanded the premise about “generation,” and from whom they hoped to gain knowledge. For they will answer them, “What we beget is like not our will but ourselves; nor do we become parents by deliberating beforehand, but begetting is proper to nature; since we too are images of those who bore us.” Either, then, let them condemn themselves and stop questioning women about the Son of God, or let them learn from them that a son is begotten not “by will” but by nature and in truth. And this refutation from human examples is fitting and suitable for them, since the evil-minded reason in human terms about the Godhead. Why, then, do the Christ-fighters still rage? For this too, like their other propositions, has been shown and proved to be only fancy and fable; and therefore they ought, even at this late hour, seeing into how deep a precipice of folly they have fallen, to rise up and flee from “the snare of the devil,” being admonished by us. For the truth loves humankind, crying out always: “If you do not believe me” because I am clothed with the body, yet “believe the works, so that you may know that I am in the Father and the Father in me,” and “I and the Father are one,” and “He who has seen me has seen the Father.” But the Lord, as is his way, shows his love for humankind, and wills all “those who are bowed down to be raised up,” as the “praise” of David says; but the impious, not willing to hear the Lord's voice, nor bearing to see the Lord confessed by all as God and Son of God, go about, the wretches, like dung beetles, seeking with their father the devil pretexts for impiety. What pretexts, then, will they be able to find after this, or from where—unless they borrow blasphemies from the Jews and Caiaphas, and take their atheism from the Greeks? For the divine Scriptures have been closed to them, and from them they have been refuted on every side as senseless and Christ-fighters.