On the Trinity 2

I. David, striking Goliath's forehead with a single blow of a stone, laid low a strong enemy of great body. But it is not within our strength to win with one stone, for two reasons, I think: because we do not have such strength as David had, and because these people carry before them a forehead too much hardened by the impieties of impudence. So, although we have already thrown many stones not in vain, yet we must throw again, by the grace of God, and that impudent forehead of theirs, which is without the sign of the Lord, must be crushed by frequent stones of testimonies; so that, even if their flesh does not pour out blood, yet, dug into by many wounds, at least shame may blush with the suffusion of blood, if they are overwhelmed even by the things you had written were theirs. You say these are the heretics' words: "God made himself a Son out of nothing. If he made him out of nothing, he is a creature, and not a son." And what is it that you call him son whom you affirm to be a creature, when you say he was made out of nothing? You cannot, then, call him both son and creature; for a son consists by birth, but a creature by making. Why do you profess contrary things? Choose one of the two: call him either son, truly son, or creature, truly creature. If you call him son in such a way as to call him truly son, you have denied that he is a creature; and how do you say that he was made from nothing, whom you confess truly son? But if you say he is truly a creature, why do you name him son, when you deny in him the truth of that name?

II. But let us strike the impudence of his forehead with the living stones of the divine voice. You say he is a creature; I say he is a son: who shall pronounce between us on the truth of our profession? I think you will gladly accept that he should judge by whom you say, against our denial, Christ was made from nothing. Let us hear, then, what he himself declares from heaven: "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." Did he say, "This is he whom I made from nothing"? And see that he said this for the first time when Jesus came as a man to baptism—for no other reason, I think, than that he who appeared bodily, and who also came to baptism like a sinful man among other men, though he had no sins of his own, could be believed not to be the Son of God. So that, then, when Jesus fulfilled the mystery of baptism in the man he had taken, he might not be believed not truly the Son of God, the Father cries from heaven: "This is my beloved Son." John indeed had understood that he was his Lord, when he said to him as he came to baptism, "I ought to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?" But lest John's testimony seem to others not great enough to overcome the evidence of flesh and humility in Christ, and all that was done through his flesh, he himself, than whom none is greater, he than whom none knows better, gives testimony from heaven, saying: "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." For as plain as was the evidence concerning the Saviour's flesh, so plain ought the evidence to be concerning the Saviour's deity: for then he is truly God if he is also truly Son. His flesh—or rather, let me say, the man—no one doubted, for it could not be doubted; but that which was in the man and born with the man, because it could not be seen by its nature, is shown, lest it be uncertain, by the voice and, as it were, the finger of the Father, saying: "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased"; and so with equal authority belief in both substances, that is, of God and of man, is commended in Christ. For the Son of God himself marked the belief in the man in himself by the conception and childbearing of the Virgin, by the wailing of infancy, by the cradle and swaddling clothes, by his mother's very breasts, by the nourishment of his mother's milk, by the growth of bodily age, by the very fact that he came to be baptized. You see how, up to his baptism, he expressed in himself the truth of the man, doing this the more emphatically the harder it could be believed that God became man. And lest you think he was forced to it, and that the Son of God did not of his own will become also son of man, hear the apostle saying of him: "Who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant." If, then, he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, he was not forced, but of his own will became son of man, existing in the form of God, equal to God. You have, then, the Son expressing in himself belief in the man.

III. Likewise let us see belief in his divinity expressed in him; and although enough has been said above about belief in his divinity, and there are still many other, richer things by which belief in his divinity appears, I pass them over now; for it is enough for me if, for the present, the Father alone shows belief in the divinity in Christ, saying: "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." What do you say, heretic? You believe Christ without doubt that he made himself son of man: what do you think of the Father? Is he truthful in your eyes when he testifies that Christ is his Son? If you do not believe the Father when he testifies that Christ is his Son, then Christ is of greater authority with you, whom you believe about belief in the man in him, and the Father less trustworthy, whom you do not believe about his testimony to the Son. And how do you claim the Father as the greater God, whose voice you disparage as that of the least? Or how do you assert Christ the lesser God, whom you believe so much more than him whom you proclaim greater? Great indeed is this honour you pay the Father, not to believe him when he declares his Son! Yet he declares him again elsewhere to be his Son, when the Lord went up the mountain with the apostles Peter and James and John, and his face shone like the sun. Let the divine testimony strike the impudence of your forehead again: "And behold," it says, "a bright cloud overshadowed them, and behold, a voice from the cloud, saying: This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; listen to him." Certainly Moses and Elijah were seen speaking with him together, whom you cannot deny were made sons of God by adoption; and how does the divine voice testify of Christ alone, saying, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; listen to him"? For if Christ too is son by adoption, since he stood between two adopted sons, it would certainly have said, "And this one is my son," lest Christ alone be believed to be the Son; but when it said, "This is my beloved Son," it set apart the sons of adoption, so that the property of true birth might be believed in Christ alone as Son. And it was not enough for him merely to declare Christ his Son; he added also what was due to a true Son, saying, "listen to him." He showed great—indeed equal—authority with himself in the Son, since the Son is to be listened to as the Father is to be listened to: "Listen to him," he says. Whatever Christ has said, then, is to be listened to. And let us see whether he nowhere says that he is the Son of God, nowhere professes to have God as Father. His is the saying: "Every plant which my Father has not planted will be uprooted"; and again: "You have made my Father's house a house of trade"; elsewhere too: "And do you believe in the Son of God?" He would never have presumed to say "My Father," "my Father's," and "do you believe in the Son of God?" unless he had the confidence of a nature which, from the consciousness of its own birth, claims the word of truth in the Father. For why would he speak arrogantly, who humbled himself, becoming obedient even to the death of the cross?

IV. There are many other testimonies too; but we are not now writing a book so as to pursue them all, but for brevity's sake we bring the headings to a close with a few testimonies, so that the voice which denies that Christ is the Son of God may be overwhelmed. Christ indeed says that he is also son of man, when he says, "And you will see the Son of Man," and, "Whom do they say the Son of Man is?" For this is the mystery of faith in Christ: that, having believed him to be the Son of God, you also believe that he was made son of man. For what he is as Son of God he possesses by nature; but that he was made son of man is the kindness he showed us; and therefore whoever does not believe Christ to be the Son of God is impious, but whoever disdains to confess that Christ was made son of man is ungrateful. You, however, heretic, believe that Christ was also made son of man, and when the Saviour says this of himself you do not refuse it. But when the Father has said, "This is my Son," and the Son has said, "My Father," do you harden your heart like Pharaoh and not believe? It remains for your impudence, like a melancholic who does not see true things, to say that the Father and the Son have lied. "I do not deny the Son," he says, "but I deny a true Son." Then Peter, too, earned the word of blessedness because he did not believe Christ to be a true Son, though he confessed him Son of the living God! A great mystery of confessed faith, truly, in Peter's conscience, that he should say with his lips, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God," yet hold in his heart that he is not the true Son of the living God! I am a man: I hear words, I understand words; I cannot hear the silent interpretation of the heart. He called Christ the Son of the living God: unless he added "adopted," I understand nothing other than what he says. Christ may see to it, who, as Lord and God, looks on the heart; but for me, who hear only with my ears, the confession of his heart ought to have been made plain by his voice too—for it was on my account that Peter was questioned. For Peter was not questioned for himself alone, but for all of us, so that, as he confesses rightly about Christ, we too might likewise learn to come to blessedness by an equal confession. Meanwhile let us see whether Peter worthily obtains the proclamation of blessedness while believing in his heart that he is not a true son but an adopted one; whether this is a revelation worthy of the Father, and not rather of flesh and blood. Very many, certainly, are sons of God by adoption—not only Jeremiah, who was sanctified while still in his mother's womb; nor only John the Baptist, who as an infant leapt in the Spirit in his mother's womb; nor only Elijah, who to this day has not suffered death; or any of the number of the prophets, one of whom, as the gospel relates, Christ was thought to be: but even harlots and tax collectors, though by amendment, have come to this name of adoption. And lest anyone think I blaspheme, let him hear it said in the gospel: "Harlots and tax collectors will go before you into the kingdom of heaven," where there are none but sons of adoption. Since, then, the grace of adoption is not denied even to the blasphemous and the shameful if they correct themselves—did the Father reveal to Peter as a great mystery that he is indeed the Son of the living God, but rather by adoption and not by birth, and in name only, not also in the truth of the name? Plainly, whoever believes this is not blessed but the most miserable of all men, having not only the understanding of flesh and blood but also the spirit of the devil. But I beg you, Queen, to perceive that many things could be said in this place which I pass over, hastening to what follows, believing that, given the occasion, as one of the wisest of women you can perceive more than we say, according to the saying of Solomon: "Give occasion to a wise man, and he will be wiser."

V. This is your doctrine, Arians, this your singular interpretation, this the secret mystery of your faith: "Christ is son by adoption, and not a true son." Let us question John too; he too can have learned the truth, either because he was present when Peter's confession was praised, or from the Saviour's special love, by which he was so close to him that he even reclined upon his breast. Let us see what he drew in as he clung to his breast: "No one has ever seen God, except the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father." No creature sees God as he is God; and therefore he says, "No one has ever seen God." But he goes on and says, "except the only-begotten Son"; therefore the only-begotten Son, who sees God whom no creature has seen, is not a creature. And lest you believe him one of the adopted sons, he cut off the occasion for the impious sense when he called him not only Son but only-begotten Son. This name has no partners: and although others are called sons, they are sons by adoption, not by nature. But Christ alone is the only-begotten Son, because he alone is the true Son—not by adoption but by nature, not by naming only but by birth; he alone, I say, is the true Son, who is even in the bosom of the Father. The adopted sons are in the bosom of Abraham; but he who is the true Son, and the only-begotten Son, is in the bosom of the Father. Understand in this too that the Son is inseparable from the Father's substance, since he is said to be in the Father's bosom. Likewise we read: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life." I do not see how God's love toward the world is commended if he whom he gave for the world's redemption is not a true and only-begotten Son. The world without doubt is a creature: if Christ is a creature, what did he give the world, giving a creature for a creature? Every creature is reckoned in the condition of a slave: if Christ is a creature, he is a slave; how did he redeem to freedom, when a slave can by no right confer freedom? And yet Abraham, to commend the love he had toward God, offered as a burnt offering his own, true, only-begotten and most beloved son, when God had commanded this very thing to prove to all his love toward himself. And you say, impious man, that God, wishing to commend his love to the world, had no true son to give, but, like the barren, acted out of necessity, so that, since he did not by nature have a true son begotten of himself, he gave at least one made out of nothing?

VI. Say, then, impious man, that Abraham commended his love with greater power, offering his own only-begotten son, than God, who did not have his own and did not give one truly only-begotten. And there is something God especially wishes to commend, and he commends it less than a man has commended it! And that God whom you proclaim greater is less than a man in commending love: for he commended love less if he did not give a true and only-begotten Son for love of the world, and Abraham commended it more, who offered his own and only-begotten son. But far be this impiety, that God, who is in all things beyond estimation, should be less even in commending love: for, loving the world, he gave a true and only-begotten Son. This is what Paul, the vessel of election, pursues, wishing to commend God's love toward us, saying: "He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all"; when he says "his own Son," he expressed the property of truth in the name. And see what word he used, saying: "He who did not spare his own Son." You have certainly read God saying to Abraham, when he wished to kill his son for love of God: "Do not lay your hand on the boy, do not do anything to him; for now I know that you fear your God, and you have not spared your beloved son for my sake." Paul too says: "He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all"; the apostle uses God's own voice to show how he commended his love; he would have used the divine words improperly if here too he were not speaking of a true son. And yet who does not know that in the father Abraham and Isaac his son an image of the future truth went before? The apostle showed in God the Father and Christ his only-begotten Son the mystery of the preceding figure, sealing the truth with the very words with which the figure was first marked, saying: "He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all." If, then, the figure was in Abraham when he offered his son, but the truth in God the Father when he gave up his Son, what do you say, teacher of impiety? Where ought the greater power to lie, in the figure or in the truth? Without doubt in the truth. And how do you present the truth as lesser and the figure as fuller? For the figure is fuller, where a true son is offered, and the truth lesser, where, according to you, a son not true is given up. But plainly the truth is greater and the figure lesser. If you want this proved, believe that the only-begotten Son of God is true, and you will understand that God did far more than Abraham, giving his only-begotten Son for love of the world, according to the gospel, or, according to Paul, not sparing his own Son but giving him up for us all. For although Abraham offered his son, he offered him for love of God, to whom, whatever you offer, you do not equal what he is worthy of; and he offered a son whom, after he could no longer have one by nature, he had obtained through God against nature: he offered to God, then, what God had given him against the hope of nature—and he offered a son.

VII. It bears on the case if I say that the son was lesser, and would in any case at some time have died by the law of mortality, even without that present circumstance. On the other hand, examine what God gave: he gave his only-begotten Son, whom he did not obtain late from anyone's favour, but always has, without beginning, born of himself by the property of nature, such as the Father himself is who begot him—invisible, inestimable, everlasting, impassible and immortal and almighty, as the Father himself is, and finally in all things, as he is God, equal to him who begot him. You see what kind of Son the Father gave. Here already God is found inestimably superior in the Son: and now consider that he gave such an only-begotten Son for love of the world; and weigh now what the world is: certainly a creature; likewise weigh what God is: certainly the creator; and now compare whom Abraham loved and whom God loved. Abraham indeed loved God. But reckon how much God had given Abraham, and you will find that Abraham paid God much less of the debt of love than he owed, even though he paid as much as he could. But God loves the world for no favour given him by it. You see that the love of God, which is given not from debt, is far more to be commended than that of Abraham, which is given from debt. But see further the surpassing greatness of the love with which God loves the world, not only commended to him who made it by no merit of righteousness, but even sinful and impious against him. God loved the world, then, guilty of sins and impieties—not because he loved the world's sins and impieties, but he loved the world so that the world itself might be freed from sins and impieties. And hear the apostle wonderfully commending God's love by these things, when he writes to the Romans: "For why did Christ, while we were still weak, at the right time die for the ungodly? For scarcely will anyone die for a righteous man; though perhaps for a good man someone might dare to die. But God commends his love toward us in that, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us; much more, then, being now justified by his blood, shall we be saved from wrath through him."

VIII. I understand indeed that this testimony asks to be discussed; but now we briefly set out what bears on the case. Interpreting the world as the inhabitants of the world, the apostle shows that Christ died for the ungodly and sinners, to commend his love toward us who are in the world: and Christ dies, he says, for the ungodly and sinners, since scarcely will anyone die for a righteous man, though perhaps for a good man someone might dare to die. Do you now understand how unspeakably the love of God surpasses where the expression of the truth is, and how much less is the love of Abraham, where the figure was marked? I do not say this as though Abraham did not love much; indeed he loved God as much as he could, as much as no one born of women can surpass. But although he loved God much, with his whole heart and with all the strength of his soul, he is yet infinitely surpassed by the unspeakable superiority of the divine love. For who could explain the love that God showed the world, giving his only-begotten Son in such a way that he who is God should be born a man; and should have, according to the flesh, a beginning of birth by the human lot, he who was born of the Father without beginning; and that he, equal to God, always existing in the form of God, having taken the form of a servant, should become less not only than the Father but also than the angels—indeed than men, and, I do not know whether not far below, even in comparison with a worm; and finally that, according to the nature of the soul he had taken, he should suffer sorrow even unto death, he who is wholly joy, not only for Abraham, who, longing to see his day, saw it and rejoiced, but for all holy men. He gave, then, his only-begotten Son to the world, so that he who is true life, hanging on the tree according to the flesh, should suffer the death of the cross, his everlasting and inviolable divinity, which is one with his Father, being meanwhile hidden. See the love: that for the world's salvation the Lord of majesty should be crucified on earth, who gives eternal life in heaven to those who believe him to be the Son of God. O most blessed patriarch Abraham, whose very great love toward God is overwhelmed only by the flood of the inexplicable divine love! And I do not know whether God did not grant all this to an impious world out of regard for your love and faith. For God had promised to you and to your seed that you would be heir of the world through the righteousness of faith, as the apostle Paul teaches.

IX. But I delay too long if I wish to pursue this passage more fully. I will turn to you, heretic, warning you to consider how God, loving the world, gave his only-begotten Son—or, as the apostle says, how he did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all. If you recognized the mystery of this unspeakable divine love, you would never compose impious questions against the Son of God—questions which whoever is of pious mind understands to be answered by what we have said above. But let us see the remaining part of the testimony set out, so that the impudence of your forehead may be crushed much more firmly. For having said, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son," he continues and says, "that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life." I say again: he is the only-begotten Son; how does he who believes in him not perish but have eternal life, if to believe in a creature is an offence against the Godhead? Look at the apostle Paul; consider what reproaches, what obscenities he reports of those who, as he says, "exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator." If you so believe, and so worship and serve the only-begotten Son of God, that you say he is a creature, those evils await you, wretch, with which they are punished who exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the creator. "Christ," he says, "is Son of God by adoption, and not a true son." All the gospels are read, and nowhere is it written that Christ is son by adoption and not a true son. And well did John—that John who reclined on the Lord's breast—giving the reason for the gospel he wrote, set it down, saying: "Jesus did many other signs before his disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Son of God, and that believing you may have eternal life in his name." Is there need to explain more plainly? "Jesus did many other signs," he says; and although not all are written, since the infinite abundance of things could not be written, yet these were written for this purpose, that we may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and to rouse the faith of each, he shows the reward too, saying, "that believing you may have eternal life in his name." If he were truly Son of God by adoption and not by nature, by naming only and not also what is understood in the naming, he would have explained this nowhere more than at the end of his writing, lest faith left in doubt should lose eternal life through the uncertainty of belief. But the evangelist, who was appointed for this, that, having the grace of the Holy Spirit, he might set out most clearly the things that belong to the rewards of eternal life, did not close his gospel ambiguously but expressed it most plainly: the gospels were written "that you may believe," he says, "that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have eternal life in his name." Is there here any suspicion of a creature in the Son of God, where he who believes that Christ is the Son of God possesses eternal life, and in no other way than in his name? He is certainly not a creature but creator, and not son by adoption but true Son of God: for in the name of a creature no one can obtain even temporal life—unless someone is said to grant it by not taking it away.

X. "God made himself a Son out of nothing," he says. I pass over many testimonies: let John speak, distinguished by the love of Christ the Lord. Writing his letter he says: "Everyone who loves the Father loves him who was born of him." Did he say, "loves him whom God made from nothing"? He would not have named the Father at all unless he had known a Son born of him. And suppose now that it is to be understood as you, heretic, interpret it—namely, that he whom John says was born of the Father was made by him from nothing: then I ask, according to you, was Christ alone made from nothing? Was not, to say nothing of other things, the world itself made from nothing? Then the world too is to be loved by us, if the Father is to be loved. But the same John cries: "Do not love the world." Is John so fickle as to preach contradictions? Far be the impiety of saying that John, who spoke in the Holy Spirit, contradicts himself. He knows the difference between made and born at the very beginning of his gospel, as was explained above when that chapter was treated; and therefore he does not understand as a thing made him whom he says was born of the Father—for he would not have put it in the singular if he had wished what was born of the Father to be understood as a thing made, knowing that many things were made from nothing; but putting it in the singular, he put it of the true Son alone, saying that he was born of the Father, because he alone was born of the Father, while all others were made as by a maker. Do not, then, do violence to the divine words: why do you bring in what he does not say? Why do you teach what he did not teach? If you are a Christian, and if John is a true teacher for you, believe what he taught. "He was born of the Father," he says: if you believe this, you love the Father, and by loving the Father you love the Son who was born of him; but if you do not believe that he was born of the Father, you love neither the Father nor him who was born of him: you do not love in this way, since you deny in the Father what is the Father's, that is, to beget, and you deny in the Son what is the Son's, that is, to be born. And hear now what name blessed John gave you, saying: "This is the antichrist, who denies the Father and the Son." You falsely give yourself the surname of Christian; but by truthful John you are called antichrist, as your sect deserves. I lie if you do not understand the creator in the word "Father," and assert a creature in the name "Son." John names Father and Son, and you interpret in these names creator and creature. Rightly, then, are you called antichrist, who deny the Father and the Son under an impious interpretation.

XI. But hear further, whoever you are, insolent and defiant toward the Son, who boast about the person of the Father: understand that you cannot have the Father if you do not confess the Son too. The same John continues: "Whoever denies the Son does not (have) the Father either; whoever confesses the Son has (both the Son and) the Father." You see that everywhere John sets down the names themselves, so that nothing else may be understood than what is in the nature of the names. And yet, if the forehead of your impudence can still bear the blows of stones, and if the obstinacy of your hardness is so great that, when you hear Father and Son, you still do not believe a true Father and a true Son, see: the same John who was loved by the Lord, returning the Lord's love, with a stronger stone crushes now not only the forehead but the very serpent's head of your impiety, writing at the end of his letter: "We know that the Son of God has come, and became flesh for our sake, and suffered, and rising from the dead took us up, and gave us a good understanding, that we may know him who is true, and that we may be in his true Son Jesus Christ. This is the true (God) and eternal life, and our resurrection is in him." It cannot be explained how many stones and rocks of words he has heaped up against you in this one testimony. "We know," he says, "that the Son of God has come." You have one confession concerning the Son; and a little later, after the mysteries of his incarnation, passion, and resurrection, which he certainly performed for our sake, he goes on to say: "and gave us a good understanding"—without doubt because he himself is a good giver, giving a good understanding. We do not understand impiously if we say that this good understanding is the Holy Spirit, who is also called the Spirit of understanding, in whom we know him who is true. For without the Holy Spirit the truth cannot be known: you have the testimony in the gospel, where God promises the Holy Spirit himself and says of him, "He will bear witness to me"—certainly through the apostles, or through any preachers of the Son of God, giving them understanding as the Spirit of understanding for knowing the truth. Hence the apostle Paul too, writing to the Corinthians, says: "But we have not received the spirit of this world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we may know the things given us by God." He gave, then, a good understanding, that is, the Holy Spirit, that we may know him who is true.

XII. If you still do not understand from so many sayings set out above, at least from what follows notice that all suspicions of impious interpretation are excluded: "that we may be," he says, "in his true Son Jesus Christ." And he makes the pious faith still denser, saying: "This is the true God"; and he is not yet silent, but heaps it up and adds to it, so that the impious sense, trusting in sophistical arguments, may be overwhelmed; for he continues: "and eternal life, and our resurrection is in him." Where now are those impious sophisms of yours that you learned under the teaching of your bishop Aristotle, saying: "He is son, but not a true son; he is God, but not true God"? See, in one testimony the true name of the Son is expressed in so many ways—indeed that he is also true God. For how is he not true God who is true Son? Since the true God is proved not only from the name of true Son but also by the fact that he is eternal life. For eternal life has neither beginning nor end; therefore Christ is true God, having neither beginning nor end, being himself eternal life, which is without beginning and end. And since he is our resurrection, the power of true divinity is recognized in him, since he shuts out death by the power of resurrection, by the example of the man whom he took, in whom he deigned to be born of the Virgin, and in whom we too have already risen—each of us to have his own resurrection according to the merit of faith and life, either to refreshment or to burning. See, wretch, lest you still not believe him to be the true Son and begin to have a resurrection to the perpetual punishment of hell in the outer darkness, where there will be weeping of eyes and gnashing of teeth—if indeed something still more dreadful does not await those impious toward the Son.

XIII. It has been sufficiently proved, I think, though with very few testimonies, that he is the true Son of God, born of the Father, not made from nothing. But still, I beg, show untiring patience, so that we may prove this same thing from the old Scripture by even one testimony. You say, heretic, that the Son was made from nothing, though you have read this nowhere; you deny what is written, that he was born of the Father. Tell me, whose are the words: "From the womb before the morning star I begot you"? If you doubt, look at the beginning of his psalm and read what is written: "The Lord said to my Lord: Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies the footstool of your feet." The Saviour himself used this testimony when he wished to be believed Lord, speaking to those who thought him only a man born of the seed of David, and not also God as Son of God. And the apostle Paul, believing this same thing which the Holy Spirit long ago spoke in David and later explained, says in his letter: "To which of the angels did he ever say, Sit at my right hand?"—explaining that none of the angels is such as the Son is; for all the angels were made, but the Son alone was born, to whom also he says, "Sit at my right hand," because he alone is the only-begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father. An exposition of the whole psalm is not now necessary, but only this is to be proved: that the Lord, the Father, says to the Son, "to my Lord: Sit at my right hand," so that what is said in what follows may be believed to have been said by none other than the Father, that is: "From the womb before the morning star I begot you." Is it not most truly proved by this testimony too that the impious voice of those who say God made the Son from nothing is buried? For how from nothing, when the Father himself cries, "From the womb before the morning star I begot you"? And see that you do not think we understand that God consists of a composition of members or parts. Far be this impiety. For God, whatever he is, is simple; wholly the same according to substance, not part and part, not member and member, but, as we said, something simple, which is whole and perfect, and yet inestimable and inexplicable. Although, then, he is such as not to subsist in members or parts, yet divine Scripture, when it wishes to commend to us a true understanding of the maker, speaks from what we know, saying that the heavens are the works of his hands, or each creature; for among men a work or construction is truly and properly understood as what is done with the hands; so when something is seen made by art, it is referred to the hands of the craftsman. Likewise, when we wish among ourselves to designate the nature of a son, we mention the womb; for no true son is born otherwise than from the womb. God, then, wishing to show a Son born of himself, said that he begot him from the womb, lest you, heretic, should slander that it was from nothing. But just as, when God is said to have made with his hands, it is to be understood in a way worthy of God, so too when he begot from the womb, let us not think anything contrary to what is worthy of God. This, however, must be most certainly confessed: that he is truly creator in the signification of the work of hands, and truly Father in the signification of the begetting womb, even though he has no members in himself.

XIV. But since you are accustomed to say, Arians, "In God to make is the same as to beget," I will fittingly refute this perversity of yours too on the present occasion. There are many works of the hands, certainly, but there is one only-begotten Son of the womb: so to make is not the same as to beget. All things indeed were made through the Word and in wisdom; but the Word, or wisdom, was born not through anyone but from God; hence to make is not the same as to beget. For unless there were a difference between making and begetting, nothing prevented saying, "My hands begot you, and the heavens are the works of my womb." But as the expression has much difference, so too have the things that the expression determines. "From the womb," he says, "before the morning star I begot you." The Father says this to the Son, not because the Son did not know it, but so that we might know the property of the Father toward the Son, and of the Son toward the Father; therefore it is written so, as the only-begotten Son himself, being wisdom, says: "Before all the hills he begot me." Hence in this place too he is said to have been begotten before the morning star. In the word "morning star" every brighter creature is signified; so when it is said, "From the womb before the morning star" he was begotten, it is specially taught that he was truly born of the Father and not made; and "before the morning star" signifies before every creature, according to what is said: "And he is before all."