Apology 1–23

We know that to slander and accuse people out of an unbridled tongue and an unfeeling mind is the work of the wicked and quarrelsome; but that for those who have been made to seem wicked through slander to try with all eagerness to turn the falsehood aside by refutation is the work of sober men, who, along with their own prudence, care greatly for the safety of the many. Knowing both of these by reason, we prayed that we might never fall into the first class and might escape the experience of the second. But since the outcome has not been as we wished, a false ill report of us having been contrived in many and various ways, by words and deeds, among many people (painful to us, but harmful to those who believe it) by certain wicked men who shrink from saying or doing nothing, and by the more simple-minded, who measure the truth by the accusations of opponents and accept the slanders against us without judgment, we thought it would profit both ourselves, for our defense, and those who believe what is said without examination, for their safety, to set out for you in writing the confession of our own belief, in the hope that by it we might turn aside the blasphemy that has gone before, and for the future make the wicked less bold and the all too credulous more careful, showing the former that speaking falsehood is hazardous and the latter that believing is safe only with care, while the punishment awaiting both is shown along with the truth we present. For partnership in falsehood brings a common punishment on both.

We ask you above all, both those who will hear now and those who will read later, not to want to distinguish falsehood from truth by numbers, attaching the better to the larger party, nor to let your mind be darkened by attending to rank or to anyone's boasting, nor, giving more weight to the order of those who came first, to stop your ears to those who come later; but, preferring the teaching of our Savior Jesus Christ to every number of men, to all ambition or contentiousness, to custom and kinship as well, and, in a word, to everything that is accustomed to obscure the judgments of the soul, to judge what is said with goodwill toward the truth. For the greatest part in discerning the truth is affinity with it.

Besides this, do not be angry with us if, disregarding pride and fear, preferring confidence about what is to come to favor and safety in the present, and judging the threat appointed against the ungodly to be more fearful than every earthly hardship and temporal death, we set out the truth naked of every covering. For, to speak with the Apostle, "the sufferings of the present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is about to be revealed." Nor is the whole world, for enjoyment and dominion, an equal exchange for each person's own soul, since in both respects, enjoyment and punishment alike, what is expected far exceeds what is present.

But so that we may not dwell on this longer and draw out our speech beyond measure, let us turn now to the confession of faith itself, from which those who wish may easily and readily understand our view. It is perhaps necessary for those who speak about these matters and give account of their own belief not to surrender themselves carelessly to the opinions of the many, but to set out first, as a kind of rule and standard, the pious tradition that has prevailed from of old from the fathers, and to allow it to be used as an exact criterion for judging what is said.

We believe in one God, the Father almighty, from whom are all things; and in one only-begotten Son of God, God the Word, our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things; and in one Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, in whom the distribution of every grace is given in due measure to each of the saints for the common good.

This, then, is the simpler faith common to all who care to seem or to be Christians, stated summarily as in passing; the further points remain, which we think it superfluous to mention for the present because they are undisputed. If we saw that those who have once accepted these words must necessarily keep the true meaning together with the names unaltered, or that those who indicted us for impiety would, after this confession, release us from the charges, their minds being cleansed of all evil suspicion against us, we would have made this the limit and end of our words, since the confession would guarantee us a safe peace. But since it is neither sufficient to establish the truth against those who, through malice or some other evil disposition, attempt to pervert and corrupt its sense (for Sabellius the Libyan, Marcellus the Galatian, Photinus, or any other who has raved with the same madness as they, would not be shut out from priestly assemblies, from the communion of the mysteries, and from the precincts of the church), nor sufficient for us to dissolve the charges brought against us, but some more exact statements are needed to unfold our meaning, we shall try, as far as we are able, to bring into the open the view we ourselves hold about these matters, either setting out the expression first and afterward uncovering its sense, or fitting the words to the ideas already set out; the change in this order does no harm to the truth, since the same things suffice us both for our own defense and for the refutation of those who indicted us.

There is, then, one God, confessed by us both according to natural knowledge and according to the teaching of the fathers, who came into being neither from himself nor from another. Each of these is equally impossible, since in truth the maker must exist before what comes into being, and what is made must be second to the maker; and a thing cannot be before or after itself, nor can anything else be before God. Otherwise that thing, rather than the second, would have the dignity of Godhead. For the possibility of saying, truly, that something comes into being from another has its place among things that have come into being, and would rightly be ranked with what has come into being from God. If, then, it has been shown that neither he himself nor anything else exists before him, but he is before all things, the unbegotten follows from this; or rather, he himself is unbegotten substance. To some it will perhaps seem superfluous and needless to establish as doubtful what is agreed by many. Nevertheless, because of those who think that fighting against what is plain is wisdom, or who are prepared for blame and slander, we need some more exact observation.

When we say "unbegotten", we do not think we ought to honor God only in name, according to human conception, but to repay to him in truth the most necessary debt of all, the confession that he is what he is. For things said according to conception have their being only in names and utterance, and naturally dissolve along with the sounds. But God, whether men are silent or speak, and both after things came into being and before they came into being, was and is unbegotten. Nor is it said by way of privation, if indeed privations are privations of what belongs by nature, and are secondary to the corresponding states. There was no generation natural to God, nor did he have it first and then, deprived of it, become unbegotten. For it is exceedingly impious, as destructive of the true conception of God and of his perfection, or rather of the mind of those who invent it, to say that God is deprived of anything at all, that is, of what belongs to him by nature. For no one of sound mind would say that someone is deprived of something that did not exist in him before. If, then, as the argument has shown, "unbegotten" is said neither according to conception nor by privation, nor of a part of him (for he is without parts), nor as something else within him (for he is simple and uncompounded), nor as something else beside him (for he alone is one and unbegotten), it would be the unbegotten substance itself.

Being unbegotten, according to the preceding demonstration, he could never admit a begetting such as would share his own nature with the one begotten, and he would escape all comparison and communion with what is begotten. For if anyone should wish to make this substance common with another, or to share it with someone, he would have to bring this about either by separation and division or by comparison. Whichever of these is said, the argument will be carried into many absurdities, or rather blasphemies. For if he were divided and parted, he would no longer be unbegotten, becoming by the division what he was not before. Nor would he be incorruptible, since division destroys the dignity of incorruption. And if he admitted comparison with another, since comparison does not arise from things that have nothing in common, the dignity of the substance will be made common. And if this, then the name too; so that those who are forced by this argument must of necessity either, wishing to keep the title incommunicable, keep the substance incommunicable along with it, or, attempting to share the substance with someone, share the title also, as well as the substance. For otherwise their generosity would limp, offering a grace that falls short in one part, besides producing a difference unworthy of reason, while they quibble about the title, if indeed one were superior and the other inferior in name alone. But if the logic of consequence compels them to share the same word, let them more generously share equality also, since nothing will be found in which they can place the superiority.

For they will surely not say that the substance is common to both, but that by order and by seniority in time one is first and the other second; since the cause of superiority must altogether exist before those who are superior, and time is not joined to the substance of God, nor an age, nor order. For order is second to the one who orders, and nothing belonging to God has been ordered by another. And time is a certain kind of motion of the stars; and the stars came into being later not only than the unbegotten substance and all intelligible beings, but even than the first bodies. As for the ages, what need is there even to speak, since Scripture clearly declares that God exists before the ages, and common reasoning bears witness? For it is not only impious but altogether ridiculous for those who have accepted only one unbegotten to say either that something exists before him or that another exists with him. For if something existed before, that would rightly be called unbegotten, not the second; and if something existed with him, then by the communion of coexisting with the other, each would be robbed of being alone one and of being unbegotten, since both would introduce, along with the substance, a certain allotment and circumscription, and composition, and the cause of the composition.

Nor can anything exist within this substance, such as what we call form, or bulk and magnitude, because God is entirely free of composition. And if none of these or of such things either is or could ever be piously conceived as interwoven with the substance, what reasoning will still allow the begotten substance to be likened to the unbegotten? For likeness, comparison, or communion according to substance leaves no superiority or difference, but clearly produces equality, and with equality shows that the one likened or compared is also unbegotten. But no one is so senseless and so bold toward impiety as to call the Son equal to the Father, when the Lord himself said expressly, "The Father who sent me is greater than I"; or to yoke one of the names to the other, since each pulls toward itself and neither admits communion with the other. For if unbegotten, not Son; and if Son, not unbegotten. But that the God of all things is one, unbegotten and incomparable, I think what has been said is enough to demonstrate, though much more has been left out.

That there is also one Son (for he is only-begotten), we could have set out the words of the saints by which they proclaim him Son and offspring and thing made, and, having shown by the differences of the names the difference of substance also, been rid of worry and trouble. But because of those who suppose the begetting to be bodily and stumble over words used in more than one sense, it is perhaps necessary to speak briefly about these matters too. We call the Son an offspring, then, according to the teaching of the Scriptures, not understanding the substance to be one thing and what is signified to be something else beside it, but that the very hypostasis is what the name signifies, since the title is true of the substance. And this was begotten, not existing before its own constitution, but it exists, begotten before all things, by the will of the God and Father.

If what has been said seems bold to anyone, let him consider within himself whether it is true or false. If the former, the boldness is blameless by his own judgment, since nothing true said in season and in measure is blameworthy. But if false, it is altogether necessary to hold the opposite of this to be true; that is, that the Son was begotten while existing. This would contain the height not only of absurdity or blasphemy but of all foolishness. For what need of generation has what exists, unless it is being changed into something else, after the manner of the nature of animate and inanimate bodies, which may truly be said to come into being, existing as what they are, but not existing as what they become? For neither is the seed a man, nor the stone a house; but the one becomes a man, the other a house. And if each of these, which exist, becomes something it was not (for it does not become what it was before), what cure will he find who says that the Son was begotten while existing? For if he existed before the begetting, he was unbegotten.

But it has long been rightly agreed that nothing other than God is unbegotten. Either, then, let them retract the confession, introducing another unbegotten; or, abiding by it, let them refuse to say that the Son was begotten while existing; since the title of son and offspring does not even admit of the unbegotten. For there would be total confusion of names and things, if one substance both is and is called unbegotten, and then another is brought into the argument and this is named begotten, while, according to them, the Son was not begotten and the Father did not beget: names, if indeed he existed without being begotten. Unless someone, as the saying goes, curing evil with evil, the lesser with the greater, should devise a generation by growth or by change, failing, besides everything else, to reckon this well: that if something grows, it would grow by the addition of something from outside. Where, then, would what is added come from, unless we suppose another being also? But if so, it is necessary to conceive many beings, and these unbegotten, to make up one. And if the growth is from what does not exist, is it better to confess that all that did not exist was begotten by the will of the one who brought it forth, or to call the substance compounded of what exists and what does not? And if it were changed, since there is nothing into which it could be changed, it will of necessity be changed into what does not exist. And how is it not foolish, not to say impious, to say that what exists has passed into what does not exist? One ought rather to abandon this boundless foolishness, or rather madness, and soberly accept the truth.

But these men, being liable to these absurdities and many more, have deceived themselves, not justly bringing us to account for boldness, but bringing themselves under charges of impiety. We, abiding by what has been demonstrated by the saints of old and now by ourselves, say that the Son was begotten not existing, since the substance of God, being unbegotten, does not admit begetting, nor, being incorruptible, separation or division, nor does any other substance underlie the begetting of the Son. Nor do we make the substance of the Only-begotten common with the things that came into being from what does not exist, since what does not exist is not a substance. But, defining the difference from all things by the will of the one who made him, we assign him as much superiority as the maker must have over his own works. For we confess, with the blessed John, that all things came into being through him, the creative power having been begotten together with him from above, so that he is only-begotten God of all the things after him and of those that came into being through him. For he alone was begotten and created by the power of the unbegotten, and of old he became the most perfect minister for the whole creation and will of the Father.

But if, because the names are Father and Son, we must conceive the begetting as human and bodily, and, reasoning from human begettings, subject God to the names and passions of participation, then, since God is also creator, we must posit matter for the coming into being of what has been created, after the error of the Greeks. For a man who begets from his own substance could not create without matter. But if they refuse this, caring nothing for the utterance of names, but preserving the conception that befits God, and allow that he creates by authority alone, how could the passion of participation have a place in God because of the title Father? For who of those who think rightly would not agree that some names have communion in sound and utterance only, but no longer in meaning? Such is "eye", said both of man and of God: of the one it signifies a part, of the other sometimes the help and protection of the righteous, sometimes the knowledge of what is done.

But many names, distinct in sound, have the same meaning, such as "He who is" and "the only true God." So too, when "Father" is said, we must not think the activity common with that of men, conceiving along with it in both cases flux or passion, since the one is impassible and the other involves passion. Nor, when "Spirit" is said, does it have a nature common with the things called spirits. Keeping the analogy in all cases, we should not be offended to hear the Son called a thing made, as though the substance too were altogether made common by the communion of names. For he is the offspring and thing made of the unbegotten and unmade; but heaven and angels and every other thing made are the things made of this thing made, having come into being through him at the command of the Father. For so the truthfulness of the Scriptures would be preserved, which call the Son both a thing made and an offspring, and we would not depart from sound reasoning, neither attaching parts to God nor positing his own substance for begetting and matter for creation, from which the difference of names naturally arises.

If, then, God in begetting does not share his own nature with the one begotten, as men do (for he is unbegotten), nor in creating needs any matter, being without need and powerful, the refusal of the word "creature" is altogether unreasonable. From these and similar considerations it ought to have been shown that one should neither try to assimilate the meanings entirely to the names, nor, when the names differ, to make the meanings differ; but, attending to the concepts of the realities themselves, to fit the titles to them accordingly, since the nature of things does not naturally follow words, but the force of names is fitted to the things according to their worth. One might blame no less those who are persuaded that the Son is an offspring and a thing made, and who agree that God is unbegotten and uncreated, but who, by adding the second point, likeness in substance, contradict their earlier confessions. If they had any care for truth, they ought, since the names differ, to confess that the substances differ too. For so, and only so, would they keep the just order, giving to each of these the confession that befits it. And if they take no account of this, they ought at least to keep the consistency of their own conception, and not, while refusing to grant the same nature, estrange it from the naming that suits it; since it has been shown by us through all that has gone before that the titles signify the substances themselves.

Someone sharpened for contradiction may perhaps say that, if we must attend to the names and be led by them to the concepts of the realities, then insofar as we call them unbegotten and begotten we say they differ, but insofar as they are light and light, life and life, power and power, they are alike. To him we answer, not using a stick for an answer to the question, like the admirer of Diogenes (for Cynicism is far removed from Christianity), but imitating the blessed Paul, who says that we must instruct opponents with much patience: the one is unbegotten light, the other begotten. Does "light" said of the unbegotten signify something other than what it signifies of the begotten, or the same in each? If one thing and another, it is clear that what is composed of one thing and another is also composite; and the composite is not unbegotten. But if the same, then as much as the unbegotten differs from the begotten, so much must light differ from light, life from life, and power from power. For the same rule and manner serves for resolving all such cases. If, then, everything said as signifying the substance of the Father is equivalent in force of meaning to "unbegotten", because he is without parts and uncompounded, and by the same reasoning in the case of the Only-begotten it is equivalent to "offspring"; and they say that these differ, the begotten itself from the unbegotten; what reasoning will still allow anyone to bring in likeness of substance, or to define the superiority of either one by a "greater", when all bulk and all time and the like have been excluded, and the substance both is and is conceived as simple and alone?

From the beginning, it seems to me, those who have dared to compare the substance that is without master, superior to every cause and free of all laws, with the substance that is begotten and serves the Father's laws, have either not considered the nature of the universe at all, or not made their judgments about these things with a pure mind. For two roads have been cut for us toward finding what we seek: one, by which we examine the substances themselves and make our judgment of each by a pure account of them; the other, the examination through the activities, which we distinguish from the works and the effects. By neither of these is it possible to find likeness of substance appearing. For if one makes the substances the starting point of the inquiry, the one, being above kingship and wholly incapable of receiving generation, teaching by these things the mind that approaches it with understanding, bids it, by a law of nature, to thrust comparison with another as far away as possible, and lets it understand the activity also as consistent with and fitting to the dignity of the substance. And if one examines from the works and is led from them up to the substances, finding the Son the thing made of the unbegotten, and the Paraclete of the Only-begotten, and confirming from the superiority of the Only-begotten the difference of activity, he receives an indisputable proof of the difference in substance also; not to mention, as a third point, that the one who creates by authority differs greatly from the one who makes at the Father's nod and confesses that he does nothing of himself, and the one worshiped from the one who worships.

If, then, they think it no absurdity to give both equally the same things, such as substance, activity, authority, name, let them abolish the differences of names and things and plainly say there are two unbegottens. But if this is manifestly impious, let them not, under the cover of the name of likeness, contrive what all agree to be impiety. But so that we may not seem, as the blasphemy brought against us and noised abroad among many has it, to force the truth by our own fictions and arguments, we shall make the demonstration of these things from the Scriptures themselves. One God is proclaimed by the law and the prophets. He is confessed by the Savior himself to be God of the Only-begotten also: "For I am going," he says, "to my God and your God." He is the only true God, the only wise, the only good, the only powerful, the only one who has immortality. Let no one be disturbed or troubled in mind. For we do not use these words to abolish the Godhead of the Only-begotten, or his wisdom, or immortality, or goodness, but to distinguish the Father's superiority. For we confess the Only-begotten as God, and our Lord Jesus, incorruptible and immortal, wise, good. But of his very constitution, and of all that he is, we say that the Father is the cause, while he has no cause of his own substance or goodness, being unbegotten, since the texts set out give us this understanding …

So if God is alone true and wise because he is also alone unbegotten, and the Son is only-begotten because he alone is the offspring of the unbegotten, then nothing would be alone if the nature were made common with another through likeness. We must therefore abolish likeness according to substance, and accept the likeness of the Son to the Father according to its proper sense, and truly lead back the cause and principle of all things to one alone, the Son being, of course, subject to the Father; and, purifying our conception of these matters exactly, we must not think the manner of the activity human, but easy and divine; not, like those who think the activity a division or some motion of the substance, which those must suppose who are led by the sophisms of the Greeks, who unite the activity with the substance and therefore declare the world coeval with God, without escaping the absurdity any the more by this. For they ought to have looked to the ceasing of creation and not to lift their eyes up to its beginning. For what did not start from a beginning would not cease in an end.

But let these men be dismissed, who have neither discerned the difference of beings with healthy eyes nor become just judges of the matters, since because of their malice justice hides the truth from them. We, judging the activity from the works, as was said a little before, think it unsafe to unite it with the substance, knowing that the substance is without beginning, simple and without end, but that the activity is not without beginning. For otherwise the work too would be without beginning; nor is the activity without end, since it is not possible, when the works have ceased, for the activity to be unceasing. For it is exceedingly childish and the mark of an infant mind to call the activity unbegotten and without end, making it the same as the substance, when none of the works can come into being unbegottenly or without end. For from this one of two things would follow: either that God's activity is idle, or that the work is unbegotten. And if each of these is admittedly absurd, what remains is true: since the works begin, the activity is not without beginning, and since they cease, it is not unceasing. We must not, then, trusting the unexamined opinions of others, unite the activity with the substance, but hold the will to be the truest activity and the one most befitting God, sufficient both for the existence and the preservation of all things, as the prophetic voice also bears witness: "For all things whatever he willed, he made." For he needs nothing for the constitution of what he wills, but at once he wills, and what he willed has come to be. But toward the activity lying unbegottenly in the …