On the Divine Generation (to Marius Victorinus)

Every begetting, my dear venerable Victorinus, is a kind of change. But everything divine, namely God, is unchangeable. And God, who is Father in all things, is also the first cause of all things. If, then, he is God, he is unalterable and unchangeable; and what is unalterable and unchangeable neither has been begotten nor begets anything. If this is so, God is unbegotten. For begetting is begetting through conversion and through change. For no substance nor substantiality, no existent nor existentity, no existence nor existentiality, nor power, existed before God was. For what is more powerful than God? Is power, or existence, or substance, or that which is (on)? For all these are either the very thing that God is, or after him. For he himself provides all things. But suppose these were prior. How then could they, when they willed, beget God? For they were neither perfect nor able to establish themselves. They were imperfect, then. How then, by their own power, could they have begotten or made God, who is perfect, when they were imperfect? But if God is imperfect, it is pointless to beget what already was. The same reasoning holds if perfect things begot a perfect one. Whether, then, they were perfect or imperfect, to beget God is either pointless, or superfluous, or impossible. First, power is said to be older than everything that is; but power does not attain by itself to being something without act and operation, since it is power, not action; and power that has not been made effective does not reach to the begetting of anything, much less of God. For power remains in this, that it is to be potentially, without action. From where, then, was God born?

Let us see, then, whether perhaps substance or substantiality existed before God was? Or existence, or existentiality? But substance, since it is a subject, is subject to something else, to what is in it; and it is distinct, as one thing from another, from what is in it. But “one thing and another” is not admitted in God. For God is not in something else as something other. For God is not one thing and God's being another. For God is something simple; therefore he is not from a pre-existing substance. So God is unbegotten. For God provides substance, rather than substance pre-existing before God. For substance is a subject, and the subject of something else, as another, made as a receptacle: plainly the thing whose receptacle it is is superior to it, and so it came to be later. The same must be understood of existence and existentiality. Existence differs from existentiality in that existence is already in this state, that being already belongs to it; but existentiality is a power, able to be what it is not yet. Existence differs much more from substance: for existence is being itself, and only that; not being in something else, or being the subject of something else, but only being itself, one and alone; whereas substance has not only being but also being of some quality and being something; for it underlies the qualities placed in it, and is therefore called a subject. How, then, could God have been born from a pre-existing existence or existentiality, or existential power or existence itself, which are only in the bare fact of being and have no action, nor power and force of acting?

These things being so, neither that which is (on) existed before God, nor entity (ontotes); for that is manifold and composed of substance and quality. If, then, neither power nor existence nor existentiality existed before him, which bear the image of simplicity, much less did that which is and entity, and substantiality and substance. For these were born after existentiality and existence. If all these were born after, then they were begotten; if they were begotten, there was something else from which they were begotten. That, then, from which all these were begotten is unbegotten. What is that, if not that from which all things are, God? God, then, is unbegotten, since God is the cause of all these. But what is God's being? Of what kind is he? By what cause does God himself exist? He is the first cause, and cause for himself; not a cause that is one thing for another, but this very thing that he is is the cause of his being: he is his own place and its inhabitant. Not so that an image of two arises: he is one and alone. For he is being alone. For being itself is the same as living itself and understanding. For in that he is, he lives and understands; and in that he lives, he is and understands; and in that he understands, he lives and is: according to one, three, and according to three, one, a simple quality and a simple one. And the simple is the beginning of composite things; and the beginning is without beginning, for it precedes, having no beginning before itself, because it is the beginning. And this is God. God, then, is without origin and unbegotten. What is unbegotten is without origin; what is without origin is without end. For an end belongs to what begins. If, then, he has these two attributes, he is infinite; if infinite, then incomprehensible, unknowable, invisible, unalterable, unchangeable. For alteration and change are beginning and end: the beginning of one thing, the end of another. But God is none of these. God, then, is unalterable and unchangeable. And if God is these, he neither begets nor is begotten. For to be begotten and to beget are a kind of alteration and change. Add to this that to beget is to give something to what is born, either the whole or a part of the one who begets. If he gives the whole, the begetter perishes; if a part, he is diminished. If, then, God always remains the same, he does not beget.

The same will appear if anyone says that begetting in God takes place in these modes: by effulgence, by the emission of a ray, by the flowing of a point, by emission, by image, by imprint, by procession, by overfullness, by motion, by action, by will, by what is called “type”, or by any other mode there may be for this. For none of these is without alteration. First, effulgence is both motion and marks out a time, and a kind of withdrawal departing into its own substance. This effulgence, even if it always remains, is a part distinguishable from the whole. And if the begetting is not empty, it is from what always is into what is not always. What follows? Is effulgence not alteration? For it is a splendour fleeing, as it were, and belched out from a luminous substance. For effulgence is something substantial, not a substance; and if it is a substance, it is not the same substance. So the second is already an alteration of the first.

Let us see, then, begetting by the emission of a ray. The ray is joined, and is joined to that from which the ray went forth. Nonetheless it is altered, if it is begotten; or else there is no begetting, if the ray always remains in its source. If the begetting there is by the flow of a point, how? For a point is immobile and the boundary of a line, having no part and not being part of anything else. If, then, it is so, it will not proceed from itself; for if it proceeds, it is no longer a point but a line. So it is changed. But God is unalterable; so God is not what a point is. And if the point remains, the line is not from it. For the point is immobile, but the line is in motion or from motion; and in this mode too there is no begetting in God nor from God. What next, about emission? How is there begetting in God by emission? For if something is emitted from himself, the first is diminished: either in substance, or in divinity, or in action. Next, what is emitted either is of his own power or is not. If it is of his own power, how are there then two gods, and equal? And to what end are there two, if they are equal? For what one can do, the other can do as well; and there is no need for the perfect fullness in one to be multiplied. But if what proceeds is not of the same power, God is both changed and the whole has suffered loss from a part, which is unfitting for God. So in this mode too there is no begetting in God.

Similarly by image. For an image differs greatly from what it images: the latter is as a substance, the former a phantasm outlined only in quality. For an image has its substance in something else and does not subsist of itself; nor is it, in any respect, the thing in which it is. So what is begotten from God is not an image. For an image is a kind of consequence of that whose image it is. The same reasoning holds for imprint. For an imprint is the seal-mark of a substance; it is nothing by itself, and it is in something else which is shaped by it. So there is nothing of this kind in God. For what is begotten from God must be consubstantial; but an imprint is not consubstantial. So begetting in God is not by imprint. But is begetting from God by procession and motion? Procession differs from motion. For every procession is from motion and in motion, yet not every motion is procession: inward motion is not procession but only motion. For procession is motion going outward. What, then, do we say: that begetting from God is by procession? Once, or often, or always? If once, what use is it? And if what proceeds is good, why is God stingy in proceeding? If often or always, what new thing did he beget? And the first procession was necessarily imperfect, if another was needed for its perfection.

From this it appears that what is begotten is not consubstantial, and that begetting from God is not without conversion. And if this is unfitting to God, there is no begetting from God. It seems to us still more unfitting if begetting is by motion. For motion is either inward or going forth: if inward, there is no begetting; if going forth, the same follows. It is change, then. And if it is motion going forth, it is not consubstantial. Next, if it is going forth, it went forth either into its own substance or into the making of something. First, if so, God has undergone motion into motion, and this is alteration. Next, if it went forth into its own substance, it did not have substance; if into the substance of another, there was something other than God which was worked by God, and it is a thing made rather than a begetting from God. So it is not consubstantial, and it is a conversion of the first into the second. So there is no begetting from God. Some say that begetting from God is by overflow, that the overfull is the begetting from God. They call it overfull as a fountain bubbling over has what overflows, pouring out and always full. So also from God, as from a fountain, what is surplus is poured out; and this is the begetting from God. But the same reasoning comes back again. For if he is overfull and always full, then there is always begetting from God; for the fountain does not fail. And what grows is poured out. Or does what is increased remain? What is overfull, then, is poured out, since it is unfitting that the surplus should not be poured out. But it pours out, and always pours out, for it always overflows. So there are new angels and new worlds as well; for it is unfitting that what always flows out should not be poured out. But if he was overfull only once, there is a change of God and an alteration of God, twofold. So this too is unfitting: in this mode there is no begetting in God. But if it is by overflow, then moreover what is poured out is not consubstantial with God himself; for God is superabundant, but what is poured out is only something poured out, not always abounding. So it is something else that after it superabounds: one thing after another, and another.

Some say that begetting is by will and by action. To take these two, will and action, as the same is more fitting in God, for in God to act and to will are at once. And yet there is a difference, even if in him to will and to act are one for God: for to will, in that it is willing, is the cause of action. For action is the carrying out of will. So will is other than action, and, so to speak, there is a prior and a posterior. It is impossible that both are the same. In God, then, will is first and action later; I do not mean in time, but in that one is the cause of the other's being. It is agreed, then, that will is not substance, nor is action. Next, the work itself is something other than action and will. For a work is the work of a worker, yet the worker himself is not the work. So the work is not consubstantial with the worker; so it is not a begetting; and what was made was not begotten; and a work is not begetting nor sonship, nor son, nor only-begotten, nor consubstantial; all the more since substance itself does not yet exist before God wills to beget something. For every substance is an effect of God. God, then, is not substance; for substance is through God. How then, since substance is later, do we call God substance? For if we call God substance, reason forces us to confess that substance is prior to God. For substance truly is a kind of subject; and what is a subject is not simple. For as soon as the mind hears “subject”, it takes something else to be in the subject. But God is something simple: God, then, is without substance. If, then, God is without substance, nothing is consubstantial with God, even if something appears to be born, or has been born, from God.

Some say that there is begetting in God by what is called “type”. For God is spirit. And spirit, when it strains toward its own nature, settles back into itself; a motion of this kind they call “type”. And then what? From a motion of this kind a sort of sonship suddenly bursts forth, and this is the begetting from God. How, then? As an outflow, or as an emission, or as effulgence, or as something else of these? What next? As a part from the whole, or as a whole from a whole? Whichever of these it is, either it is imperfect, if it pours out a part, and there is a diminution of the Father, since the Son is a part; or else the begetting is empty. But if a whole appeared from a whole, there is no reason for the same thing to be begotten from the very same. And if there was a need to be begotten twofold, both are imperfect, both the prior and the posterior in the conversion. But when spirit rises up toward itself, there appeared only another, without any effulgence. This is clear, since what is second is from things that once were not. So it was made, not born, and therefore not consubstantial. There is, then, no begetting from God.

What, then, is gathered from all this, my dear Victorinus? That the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the Word (logos) with God, through whom all things were made and without whom nothing was made, is not from God by begetting but from God by operation, the first and chief work of God; to whom he gave the name that is above every name, calling him Son and only-begotten, because he alone he made by his own working. And he made him from things that are not, since the power of God brings what is not into being. And this Jesus too, through whom all things were made, did: that is, he made the things that are from things that are not. But he differs in this: God makes so that what he makes is perfect in every way; Jesus made other things, not in the same way, although he made them perfect. In what, then, is Jesus the maker of the things that are from things that are not, according to operation? He too is in the Father, and the Father in him, and both are one. But in what he cannot do the same, he is taken as another. For another cannot work what is perfect in every way. And he does not work by his own operation, nor by his own will, but he wills the same things as the Father. He too has a will, yet he says: “Not as I will, but as you will.” And there are many things in the Father's will that he does not know, such as the day of judgment. And he is passible, but the Father impassible; the one is he who sent, the other he who was sent; and other things of this kind: that this one put on flesh, that he died, that he rose from the dead, all of which happened to the Son. These are unfitting for the Father, but not unfitting for his work, since it is a work in substance, and substance is receptive of diverse qualities, and even more of contraries.

That God made Jesus Christ, the sacred reading says in the Acts of the Apostles: “Let all the house of Israel know most certainly that God has made for us the Lord Jesus Christ, whom you crucified.” Likewise in Solomon: “You made me set over all the ways.” And he signifies this also in the Gospel according to John, when he says: “And what was made, in him was life.” If, then, something was made in him, he too was made, and all the more if he himself is life. Let no one, then, take it as distasteful that Jesus Christ is the work of God, perfect in every way by the power of God; but that God is unbegotten, the unbegotten Spirit above all spirits; and that the Only-begotten, by operation, by power, is Son, made as substance, not from substance. For Jesus is all substance and the first substance, all action, all Word (logos), the beginning and end of all things that are, bodily or bodiless, intelligibles and intellectual beings, those who understand and those that are understood, things perceived and the senses; the pre-principle, the pre-cause, the provider, the maker, the capacity, the fullness; through whom all things were made, and without whom nothing; our Saviour, the restorer of all things: as servant for our salvation, but as Lord for the punishment of sinners and the ungodly, and the glory and crown of the righteous and the holy. Amen.