Catechetical Lectures 11.1–12.3

That we hope in Jesus Christ has been said to you sufficiently, as far as we were able, in what was handed on to you yesterday. But we must not simply believe in Christ Jesus, nor receive him as one of the many who are loosely called christs. For they were christs in figure, but he is the true Christ, who did not rise from among men to the priesthood by advancement, but always has the dignity of the priesthood from the Father. And for this reason the Creed, guarding us beforehand lest we suspect him to be one of the mere christs, adds to the profession of faith that we believe “in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of …”

And again, when you hear “Son,” do not think of an adopted son, but a Son by nature, an only-begotten Son, having no other brother. For this is why he is called Only-begotten: because in the dignity of the Godhead and in his begetting from the Father he has no brother. And we call him Son of God not on our own account, but because the Father himself named Christ his Son; and a true name is the one that fathers give their children.

Our Lord Jesus Christ had then become man, but by the many he was not known. Wishing to teach what was not known, he gathered his disciples and asked, “Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?”: not from vainglory, but wishing to show them the truth, so that while living with God, the only-begotten of God, they might not despise him as though he were a mere man. And when they said, “Some say Elijah, others Jeremiah,” he said to them, “They may be pardoned, since they do not know; but you, the apostles, who in my name cleanse lepers and cast out demons and raise the dead, ought not to be ignorant of him through whom you work these wonders.” And when all fell silent (for the lesson was beyond man), Peter, the foremost of the apostles and chief herald of the Church, using no clever invention and not persuaded by human reasoning, but with his mind enlightened by the Father, says to him, “You are the Christ,” and not only that, but “the Son of the living God.” And a blessing follows the word (for it truly was beyond man), and a seal on what was said, that it was the Father who had revealed it. For the Saviour says, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.” He, then, who acknowledges our Lord Jesus Christ as the Son of God shares in the blessedness; but he who denies the Son of God is wretched and miserable. [4] Again, when you hear “Son,” do not take it only in a loose sense, but as Son in truth, a Son by nature, without beginning: not one who passed from servitude to the advancement of adoption, but a Son eternally begotten by an inscrutable and incomprehensible begetting. And likewise, when you hear “firstborn,” do not think it is as among men. For the firstborn among men also have other brothers. And it is written somewhere, “Israel is my firstborn son”; but Israel, like Reuben, was a firstborn who fell from his place. For Reuben went up to his father's bed; and Israel cast the Son of the Father out of the vineyard and crucified him. And to others too the Scripture says, “You are sons of the Lord your God”; and elsewhere, “I said, You are gods, and all of you sons of the Most High.”

… not “I begot.” They, when God spoke, received a sonship which they did not have; but he was not begotten something other than what he was: he was begotten Son of the Father from the beginning, being above every beginning and all ages, Son of the Father, like in all things to him who begot him; eternal from an eternal Father, life begotten from life, and light from light, and truth from truth, and wisdom from wisdom, and king from king, and God from God, and power from power.

If, then, you hear the Gospel saying, “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, son of David, son of Abraham,” understand it according to the flesh. For he is Son of David at the end of the ages, but Son of God before all ages, without beginning. The one he took on, which he did not have; the other, which he has, he has eternally, being begotten of the Father. He has two fathers: one, David, according to the flesh, and one, God the Father, in a divine way. What is according to David is subject to time, can be touched, and is traced by genealogy; but what is according to the Godhead is subject neither to time nor to place, nor is it traced by genealogy: “for who shall declare his generation?” God is spirit; he who is spirit begot spiritually, as incorporeal, by an inscrutable and incomprehensible begetting. The Son himself says of the Father, “The Lord said to me, You are my Son; today I have begotten you.” And this “today” is not recent but eternal: a timeless today, before all ages. “From the womb, before the morning star, I begot you.”

Believe, then, in Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, and only-begotten Son, according to the Gospel which says, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, so that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life”; and again, “He who believes in the Son is not judged, but has passed from death to life; but he who disobeys the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him, because he has not believed in the only-begotten Son of God.” John bears witness concerning him, saying, “And we beheld his glory, glory as of the only-begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth”; and trembling before him the demons said, “Ah, what have we to do with you, Jesus, Son of the living God?” [7] He is, then, the Son of God by nature, and not by adoption, begotten of the Father. And he who loves the begetter loves also the one begotten of him; but he who rejects the begotten sends the insult back to the begetter. And when you hear of God begetting, do not sink down to bodies, and do not suppose a corruptible begetting, lest you fall into impiety. God is spirit; the begetting is spiritual. For bodies beget bodies, and in the begetting of bodies time must intervene; but no time intervenes in the begetting of the Son from the Father. And here below what is begotten is begotten imperfect; but the Son of God was begotten perfect, for what he is now, that he is from the beginning, begotten without beginning. We are begotten and pass from childish ignorance to reason; your begetting, O man, is imperfect, for your growth comes by advancement. But do not think it is so there, and do not accuse the begetter of weakness. For if what he begot was imperfect, and acquired its perfection in time, you accuse the begetter of weakness; since, by your account, the begetter did not grant from the beginning what time granted afterwards.

Do not think, then, that the begetting is human, nor as Abraham begot Isaac. For Abraham begot Isaac, but he begot not whom he wished, but whom another granted. But when God the Father begets, there is neither ignorance nor deliberation in between. For to say that he did not know what was being begotten is the greatest impiety; and to say that after deliberating over a time he afterwards became Father belongs to the same impiety. For God was not first childless and afterwards in time became Father; he always has the Son, having begotten him not as men beget men, but as he alone knows, who begot him before all ages, true God.

For the Father, being true God, begot the Son like himself, true God; not as teachers beget disciples, not as Paul says to some, “For in Christ Jesus I begot you through the gospel.” For there one who was not a son by nature became a son through discipleship; but here he is a natural son, a true son. Not as you who are being enlightened now become sons of God; for you too become sons, but by adoption, by grace, as it is written, “But as many as received him, to them he gave power to become children of God, to those who believe in his name; who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” And we are born of water and Spirit; but Christ was not so begotten of the Father. For at the time of the baptism, when he spoke to him and said, “This is my Son,” he did not say, “This has now become my Son,” but “This is my Son,” to show that he was Son even before the working of baptism.

The Father begot the Son, not as among men the mind begets a word. For the mind in us has real subsistence, but the word, once spoken and scattered into the air, perishes. But we know Christ to have been begotten as a Word, not uttered, but a Word subsisting and living; not spoken by lips and scattered, but begotten of the Father eternally and ineffably, and in subsistence. For “in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”: seated at the right hand; the Word who understands the Father's will and creates all things at his assent; the Word who came down and went up (for the uttered word, when spoken, neither comes down nor goes up); the Word who speaks and says, “What I have seen with my Father, these things I speak”; the Word who has authority and reigns over all things; for the Father has handed all things over to the Son.

The Father, then, begot him, not in such a way as any man might conceive, but as he alone knows. For we do not undertake to say how he begot him; we affirm only that it was not in this way. And not only are we ignorant of the begetting of the Son from the Father, but so is every created nature. “Speak to the earth, if it will tell you”; and even if you inquire of all the things that are on the earth, they will not be able to tell. For the earth cannot tell the substance of its own potter and fashioner. And not only does the earth not know, but neither does the sun; for the sun was created on the fourth day, without knowing what was made in the three days before it; and he who does not know what was made in the three days before him will not be able to declare the Maker himself. The heaven will not declare this; for at the Father's assent the heaven too was established like smoke by Christ. Nor will the heavens of heavens declare it, nor will the waters above the heavens declare this. Why, then, are you downcast, O man, at being ignorant of what even the heavens do not know? And not only are the heavens ignorant of the begetting, but the whole angelic nature as well. For if someone, were it possible, went up to the first heaven and, observing the order of the angels there, approached and asked how God begot his own Son, they would perhaps say, “We have above us greater and higher ones; ask them.” Go up to the second heaven and reach the third; attain, if you can, to thrones and dominions, principalities and powers; even if someone should reach them, which is impossible, they too will decline to explain, for they do not know.

And I have always wondered at the curiosity of the rash, who through what they take for reverence fall into impiety. For while they are ignorant of thrones and dominions, principalities and powers, the works of Christ, they undertake to pry into the Maker himself. Tell me first, most rash man, how a throne differs from a dominion, and then pry into what concerns Christ. Tell me what a principality is, what a power, what a virtue, what an angel; and then pry into their Maker, for all things were made through him. … or you cannot. What else knows the depths of God but the Holy Spirit alone, who spoke the divine Scriptures? But not even the Holy Spirit himself has spoken in the Scriptures about the begetting of the Son from the Father. Why, then, do you pry into what not even the Holy Spirit has written in the Scriptures? You who do not know what is written, do you pry into what is not written? There are many questions in the divine Scriptures; we do not comprehend what is written; why do we pry into what is not written? It is enough for us to know that God begot one only Son. [13] … gives life. Neither did the begetter suffer any loss, nor is anything lacking to the begotten (I know that I have often said this, but it is said often for your safety); neither has the begetter a father, nor the begotten a brother; neither was the begetter changed into a son, nor did the begotten become a father. From one only Father, one only-begotten Son. There are neither two unbegotten nor two only-begotten; but there is one Father, unbegotten (for he is unbegotten who has no father), and there is one Son, eternally begotten of the Father: not begotten in time, but begotten before the ages; not grown by advancement, but begotten what he now is. [14] We believe, then, in the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father, true God. For the true God does not beget a false one, as has been said. Nor did he deliberate and afterwards beget, but he begot eternally, and far more swiftly than our words or thoughts. For we, speaking in time, spend time; but with the divine power the begetting is timeless. And, as has often been said, he did not bring the Son from non-being into being, nor bring one who did not exist into sonship; but the Father, being eternal, eternally and ineffably begot one only Son, who has no brother. Nor are there two first principles; but the head of the Son is the Father: the principle is one. For the Father begot the Son, true God, called Emmanuel; and Emmanuel is interpreted “God with us.”

And would you know that he who was begotten of the Father and afterwards became man is God? Hear the prophet saying, “This is our God; no other shall be reckoned beside him. He found out every way of knowledge and gave it to Jacob his servant and to Israel who is loved by him. After this he appeared on earth and lived among men.” Do you see God become man after the lawgiving of Moses? Receive also a second testimony to the Godhead of Christ, the one just read: “Your throne, O God, is for ever and ever.” For lest, because of his coming here in the flesh, he should be thought to have come afterwards to Godhead by advancement, it says plainly, “Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your fellows.” Do you see Christ, God, anointed by God the Father?

Would you also receive a third testimony to the Godhead of Christ? Hear Isaiah saying, “Egypt has laboured, and the merchandise of the Ethiopians,” and a little later, “And in you they shall pray, because God is in you, and there is no God besides you. For you are God, and we did not know it, the God of Israel, the Saviour.” You see the Son as God, having God the Father in himself, saying almost the same as he said in the Gospels: “The Father is in me, and I in the Father.” He did not say, “I am the Father,” but “The Father is in me, and I in the Father.” And again he did not say, “I and the Father am one,” but “I and the Father are one”: so that we may neither estrange them nor bring about a fusion of Son and Father. One, because of the dignity of the Godhead, since God begot God. One, because of the kingdom: for the Father does not reign over some and the Son over others, as Absalom rose up against his father; but over whom the Father reigns, over them the Son reigns too. One, because there is no disagreement or division at all: for the Father's wills are not one thing and the Son's another. One, because Christ's works are not one thing and the Father's another: for the creation of all things is one, the Father having made them through the Son. “For he spoke, and they were made; he commanded, and they were created,” says the Psalmist. For he who speaks speaks to one who hears, and he who commands gives his command to one who is present with him.

The Son, then, is true God, having the Father in himself, not changed into the Father. For it was not the Father who became man, but the Son; let the truth be spoken freely. The Father did not suffer for us; the Father sent the one who suffered for us. Let us never say, “There was a time when the Son was not”; nor let us accept a fusion of Son and Father; but let us walk on the royal road, turning aside neither to the left nor to the right. Let us not, thinking to honour the Son, proclaim him the Father;

nor, thinking to honour the Father, suspect the Son to be one of the creatures. But let the one Father be worshipped through the one Son, and let not the worship be divided …

… before the ages, seated at the right hand of the Father, having obtained his sitting with him not in time after the passion, by advancement, but possessing it eternally.

He who has seen the Son has seen the Father. For the Son is like in all things to the one who begot him: life begotten from life, and light from light, power from power, God from God. And the features of the Godhead are unchanged in the Son; and he who is counted worthy to see the Godhead of the Son comes to the enjoyment of the begetter. The word is not mine, but the only-begotten Son's: “Have I been so long a time with you, and you have not known me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father.” And to put it more briefly, let us neither separate them nor bring about a fusion; and never say that the Son is foreign to the Father, nor accept those who say that the Father is sometimes Father and sometimes Son. These things are foreign and impious, and not the teachings of the Church. But the Father, having begotten the Son, remained Father and is not changed. He begot Wisdom, but did not himself become unwise; and having begotten Power, he did not become weak; having begotten God, he was not himself deprived of the Godhead. Neither did he lose anything himself, being diminished or changed, nor does the begotten lack anything. Perfect is he who begot, perfect what was begotten; God is he who begot, God he who was begotten: God of all things, yet entitling the Father his own God. For he is not ashamed to say, “I go up to my Father and your Father, and my God and your God.”

But lest you think that he is Father of the Son and of the creatures in the same way, he made a distinction in what follows. For he did not say, “I go up to our Father,” lest the creatures should have fellowship with the Only-begotten, but he said, “my Father and your Father”: in one way mine, by nature, and in another way yours, by adoption. And again, “to my God and your God”: in one way mine, as of the true and only-begotten Son, and in another way yours, as of creatures. The Son of God, then, is true God, begotten ineffably before all ages; for I say the same thing to you often, so that it may be stamped on your mind. That God has a Son, believe; but how, do not pry, for seeking you will not find. “Do not exalt yourself, lest you fall.” “What has been commanded you, think on these things only.” Tell me first who the begetter is, and then learn what he begot; but if you cannot conceive the nature of the begetter, do not pry into the manner of the begotten.

It is enough for your piety to know, as we said, that God has one only Son, one naturally begotten, who did not begin to be when he was born in Bethlehem, but before all ages. For hear the prophet Micah saying, “And you, Bethlehem, house of Ephrathah, are you too few to be among the thousands of Judah? For from you shall come forth for me a ruler who shall shepherd my people Israel; and his goings forth are from the beginning, from the days of eternity.” Do not look, then, only to him who is now from Bethlehem, but worship him who was eternally begotten of the Father. Do not accept anyone who speaks of a beginning of the Son in time, but know the Father as his timeless beginning. For the beginning of the Son is timeless, incomprehensible, without beginning: the Father, the fount of the river of righteousness, of the Only-begotten, who begot him as he alone knows. And would you know that our Lord Jesus Christ is also an eternal king? Hear him again saying, “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day; and he saw it and was glad.” Then, when the Jews took this hard, he says what was harder still for them: “Before Abraham came to be, I am.” And again he says to the Father, “And now, Father, glorify me with yourself, with the glory which I had with you before the world was”; for he said plainly, “Before the world came to be I had the glory with you.” And again, by saying, “For you loved me before the foundation of the world,” he says plainly, “I have the glory with you eternally.”

Let us believe, then, in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father, true God, before all ages, through whom all things were made. For whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers, all things were made through him, and none of the things that came to be is exempt from his authority. Let every heresy be silenced that brings in different makers and world-creators; let the tongue be silenced that blasphemes Christ the Son of God; let those be silenced who say that the sun is the Christ, for he is the Maker of the sun, not the sun that appears. Let those be silenced who say that the world is the work of angels, wishing to snatch away the dignity of the Only-begotten. For whether things visible or invisible, whether thrones or dominions or anything that is named, all things were made through Christ. He reigns over what was made by him, not having seized another's spoil, but reigning over his own works, as John the evangelist has said: “All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made.” All things were made through him, the Father working through the Son.

I wish to give some illustration of what has been said, but I know that it is weak; for what visible thing will be an exact illustration of the divine and invisible power? Yet let it be said, weak as it is, by the weak to the weak. Just as a king who has a son who is a king, wishing to build a city, might propose the building of the city to his son who reigns with him, and he, taking the plan, brings the design to completion; so, when the Father willed all things to be made, the Son created all things at the Father's assent: so that the assent may keep for the Father his sovereign authority, and the Son in turn may have authority over his own works; and so that neither the Father may be estranged from the lordship of his own works, nor the Son reign over what was made by another, but over what was made by himself. For, as has been said, angels did not create the world, but the only-begotten Son, begotten before all ages, as has been said, through whom all things were made, nothing being exempted from his making. And let these things be said by us for the present, by the grace of Christ.

Returning to the profession of faith, let us bring our discourse to a close for the present. Christ made all things, whether you speak of angels or archangels, of dominions or of thrones; not that the Father lacked strength for the making of his works, but because he willed that the Son should reign over what he himself had made, himself giving him the plan of what was being made. For, honouring his own Father, the Only-begotten says, “The Son can do …” … “… seeing you they cowered”: showing that he who went down into Hades out of love for mankind is the same who in the beginning fashioned man out of clay.

Christ, then, the only-begotten Son of God, is also the Maker of the world. For “he was in the world, and the world was made through him,” and “he came to his own,” as the Gospel teaches us. And Christ is Maker, at the Father's assent, not only of the things that appear but also of those that do not appear. For “in him all things were created,” according to the Apostle, “things in the heavens and things on the earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; all things were created through him and for him; and he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” Even if you speak of the ages themselves, of these too Jesus Christ is the Maker at the Father's assent. For “in the last days he has spoken to us in … whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the ages.” … Spirit, now and always and to the ages of ages. Amen.

… let us sing the praises of God born of the Virgin with lips full of … Counted worthy to partake of the flesh of the spiritual Lamb, let us take the head together with the feet: the head being understood as the Godhead, and the feet taken as the humanity. Hearers of the holy Gospels, let us heed John the Theologian. For he who said, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,” went on to say, “And the Word became flesh.” For it is neither holy to worship a mere man, nor godly to call him God only, apart from the humanity. For if Christ is God, as indeed he is, but did not take on humanity, we are strangers to salvation. Let him be worshipped as God, but let it be believed that he also became man. For neither is it profitable to call him man without Godhead, nor is it saving not to confess the humanity together with the Godhead. Let us confess the coming of the King and Physician. For Jesus the King, about to heal, girded himself with the linen cloth of humanity and cured what was sick; the perfect teacher of infants became an infant with the infants, to make the foolish wise; the bread of heaven came down upon the earth, to feed the hungry.

But the sons of the Jews, rejecting him who came and expecting him who comes in wickedness, refused the true Christ and, being deceived, await the deceiver; the Saviour being found true in this too, who said, “I have come in my Father's name, and you do not receive me; if another comes in his own name, him you will receive.” It is good also to put a question to the Jews: Is the prophet Isaiah, who says that Emmanuel will be born of a virgin, true or false? If they accuse him of falsehood, it is no wonder; for it is their custom not only to accuse the prophets of falsehood but even to stone them. But if the prophet is true, show us the Emmanuel. And is the one you expect to come born of a virgin, or not? If he is not born of a virgin, you accuse the prophet of falsehood; but if you expect this of the one to come, why do you reject what has already happened?

Let the Jews, then, go astray, since they so wish; but let the Church of God be glorified. For we receive God the Word truly made man: not of the will of man and woman, as heretics say, but of the Virgin and the Holy Spirit according to the Gospel, made man not in appearance but in truth. And that he truly became man from the Virgin, wait for the proper time of the teaching, and you will receive the proofs; for the error of the heretics is manifold. Some have said that he was not born of the Virgin at all; others that he was born, but not of a virgin, but of a woman living with a husband. Others say that Christ is not God made man, but a man made God. For they dared to say that it was not the pre-existent Word who became man, but a certain man who by advancement was crowned.