Theological Oration 4: On the Son

We have now, by the power of the Spirit, sufficiently shaken your twists and tangles drawn from reasoning. As for the objections and counter-arguments from the divine Scriptures, by which the temple-robbers of the letter, who steal the sense of what is written, win over the many and confuse the way of truth, we have already resolved them in summary, and not obscurely, as I persuade myself, for the fair-minded: we assigned the loftier and more godlike expressions to the Godhead, and the lowlier and more human ones to the new Adam, who for our sake became God capable of suffering against sin. We did not go through them one by one, since the discourse was pressing on. But since you ask for brief solutions to these as well, so as not to be carried away by plausible arguments, we will sum these up too, dividing them into numbered points so that they are easy to remember.

One of their texts is this, very ready to hand: “The Lord created me as the beginning of his ways for his works.” How shall we meet it? Shall we accuse Solomon? Shall we reject his earlier writings because of his final fall? Shall we say that the words belong to Wisdom herself, that is, to knowledge and the artificer principle by which all things were made? For Scripture often personifies even lifeless things, as in “The sea said this and that,” and “The abyss said, It is not in me,” and “The heavens declare the glory of God”; and again a sword is given a command, and mountains and hills are asked the reason for their skipping. We say none of these things, even though some before us have held them to be strong arguments. Rather, let the words be those of the Saviour himself, the true Wisdom. But let us consider together a little. What among beings is without cause? The Godhead. For no one can name a cause of God; otherwise that would be older than God. And what is the cause of the humanity that God assumed for our sake? Surely that we might be saved; what else? Since, then, we clearly find here both “created” and “he begets me,” the explanation is simple. Whatever we find stated with its cause, let us assign to the humanity; whatever is stated simply and without cause, let us reckon to the Godhead. Is not “created” said with its cause? “He created me,” it says, “as the beginning of his ways for his works.” And the works of his hands are truth and judgment, for the sake of which he was anointed with the Godhead; for this is the anointing of the humanity. But “he begets me” is said without cause; or show me anything attached to it. What argument, then, will deny that Wisdom is called a creature with reference to the lower birth, and offspring with reference to the first and more incomprehensible one?

From this it follows that he is called a servant who serves many well, and that it is a great thing for him to be called the child of God. For in truth he served flesh and birth and our passions for the sake of our freedom, and for all those whom he saved when they were held captive by sin. What greater thing can befall the lowliness of man than to be interwoven with God and to become God by the mingling, and to be so visited by the dayspring from on high that the holy thing born is called Son of the Most High, and is given the name that is above every name? And what else is this but God? And that every knee should bow to him who was emptied for our sake and blended the divine image with the form of a servant, and that all the house of Israel should know that God has made him both Lord and Christ? For these things came about by the action of the Begotten and the good pleasure of the Begetter.

Second, what is one of their greatest and most invincible texts? “He must reign until” a certain time, and “be received by heaven until the times of restoration,” and hold the seat at the right hand until he has prevailed over his enemies. And after that, what? Will he cease from his kingship, or be thrust out of heaven? Who will make him stop, or for what reason? What a bold interpreter you are, and one who wants no king! You hear, surely, that of his kingdom there will be no end. You suffer this because you do not know that “until” is not always opposed to what comes after, but sets a time up to which, without denying what lies beyond. Or how will you understand, not to mention other texts, “I will be with you until the end of the age”? As though he would not be with us after it? What reasoning is that? Not only that, but you also fail to distinguish the meanings. He is said to reign in one sense as the Almighty, King of the willing and the unwilling; in another, as bringing about our subjection and placing us under his kingship, as we willingly accept his rule. Of the kingship understood in the first sense there will be no end. But of the second, what? It ends when he has taken us under his hand and we are saved. For why should he bring about the subjection of those already subject? After that he rises to judge the earth and to separate the saved from the lost; after that God stands in the midst of gods, the saved, judging and distinguishing of what honour and dwelling each is worthy.

Join to this the subjection by which you subject the Son to the Father. What do you mean? As though he were not subject now? Does one who is God need to be made subject to God at all? You speak as if of some bandit or rival god. But look at it this way. Just as he who releases me from my curse was called a curse for my sake, and he who takes away the sin of the world was called sin, and becomes a new Adam in place of the old, so too he makes my insubordination his own, as head of the whole body. As long as I am insubordinate and rebellious, by denying God and by my passions, Christ too is called insubordinate on my account. But when all things are subjected to him (and they will be subjected by knowing him and being transformed), then he too will have fulfilled his subjection, bringing me, saved, to God. For this, on my account, is the subjection of Christ: the fulfilment of the Father’s will. The Son subjects to the Father, and the Father to the Son, the one by acting, the other by being well pleased, as we said before. And so he who has subjected presents what is subjected to God, making our condition his own. Such, it seems to me, is also the meaning of “O God, my God, attend to me; why have you forsaken me?” For he himself was not forsaken, either by the Father or by his own Godhead, as some think, as though it feared the suffering and therefore withdrew from the one who suffered. For who compelled him either to be born on earth in the first place or to go up on the cross? But, as I said, he represents our condition in himself. For we were the forsaken and overlooked before, and now are taken up and saved by the sufferings of the one who cannot suffer; just as, making our folly and our offences his own, he says what follows in the psalm, since the twenty-first psalm clearly refers to Christ.

The same explanation holds for his learning obedience from what he suffered, and for the cry, the tears, the supplication, being heard, and the reverent fear, which are wonderfully acted out and woven together for our sake. As the Word, he was neither obedient nor disobedient; for these belong to those who are under authority and in second rank, the one to the more fair-minded, the other to those who deserve punishment. But as the form of a servant, he comes down to his fellow servants and servants, and takes on a form not his own, bearing me wholly in himself with all that is mine, so that he may consume in himself what is worse, as fire consumes wax or the sun the vapour of the earth, and I may share in what is his through the mingling. For this reason he honours obedience by deed and makes trial of it by suffering. For disposition is not enough, as it is not for us either, unless we also prove it by action; for action is the proof of disposition. It is perhaps not wrong to suppose this too: that he tests our obedience and measures everything by his own sufferings, by the art of his love for mankind, so that he may know our condition by his own, how much is required of us and how much is forgiven us, when our weakness is taken into account along with our suffering. For if the Light, shining in the darkness of this life, was persecuted by the other darkness, the evil one and tempter, because of the veil of flesh, how much more the darkness, being weaker? And what wonder if, when he escaped entirely, we are to some extent overtaken? For it is a greater thing for him to have been pursued than for us to be caught, in the judgment of those who reason rightly. I will add one more thing to what has been said, having in mind the words “For because he himself has suffered and been tempted, he is able to help those who are tempted,” which clearly bear the same meaning. God will be all in all at the time of restoration: not the Father, as if the Son were wholly resolved into him, like a torch drawn off for a time from a great fire and then rejoined to it (let not the Sabellians corrupt this text), but God as a whole, when we are no longer many, as we are now in our impulses and passions, bearing nothing of God in ourselves, or little, but wholly godlike, receptive of God wholly and alone. This is the perfection toward which we hasten. Paul himself is the best witness; for what he says here of God indefinitely, he elsewhere clearly restricts to Christ. With what words? “Where there is no Greek or Jew, circumcision or uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all and in all.”

Count as third the word “greater,” and as fourth “my God and your God.” If he had been called greater but not equal, perhaps this would count for something with them. But if we clearly find both, what will these fine fellows say? What is their strong point? How will they reconcile the irreconcilable? For the same thing cannot be at once greater than and equal to the same thing. Is it not plain that “greater” refers to the cause, and “equal” to the nature? And this we acknowledge with great goodwill. Someone else, arguing further for our position, might perhaps say that to be from such a cause is not less than to be uncaused. For he would share the glory of the one without beginning, since he is from the one without beginning; and there is added his begetting, a thing so great and venerable to those who have sense. To say that the Father is greater than the Son considered as man is true, but not much of a point; for what is surprising in God being greater than man? Let this be our answer to those who boast about “greater.”

He would be called God, not of the Word, but of the visible man; for how could there be a God of him who is properly God? Just as he is Father not of the visible man but of the Word. For he was twofold; so that one term applies properly to both, and the other improperly, the reverse of our case. For of us he is properly God but not properly Father. And this is what causes the heretics’ error: the linking of names, which are interchanged because of the union. A sign of this: when the natures are distinguished in thought, the names are divided along with them. Hear Paul say, “that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory.” God of Christ, but Father of glory. For although the two together are one, it is not by nature but by their coming together. What could be clearer?

Let the fifth be his receiving life, judgment, the inheritance of the nations, authority over all flesh, glory, disciples, and all the other things said to be given. This too belongs to the humanity. But if you attribute it to God as well, there is nothing absurd in it; for you will not attribute them as acquired, but as belonging to him from the beginning, by reason of nature and not of grace.

Let the sixth be that the Son can do nothing of himself unless he sees the Father doing it. This is how it is. “Can” and “cannot” are not said in one sense only; they have many meanings. Sometimes it is said with reference to lack of power, at a certain time and in relation to something: a child cannot compete as an athlete, a puppy cannot see, or someone cannot fight against a particular opponent. The child will perhaps compete one day, the puppy will see, and the man will fight that opponent, though he may be unable to fight another. Sometimes it refers to what usually happens, as in “A city set on a hill cannot be hidden”; for one might perhaps be hidden if something larger stood in front of it. Sometimes it means what is not reasonable: “The sons of the bridechamber cannot fast while the bridegroom is with them,” whether the bridegroom seen in the body (for the time of his presence was not a time for hardship but for joy), or the one understood as the Word (for why should those purified by the Word fast bodily?). Sometimes it means what is not willed, as when he could not do signs there because of the unbelief of those who received him. For since healing requires both, the faith of those being healed and the power of the healer, the one was not possible when its partner was lacking. I do not know whether this should not also be put under the head of the unreasonable; for healing is not reasonable for those who would be harmed by it through unbelief. The same applies to “The world cannot not hate you,” and “How can you speak good things, being evil?” How is any of these impossible, except in that it is not willed? There is also in Scripture something impossible by nature but possible to God if he wills, such as the same man being unable to be born a second time, and a needle not admitting a camel. For what could prevent these things from happening if God willed it?

Beyond all these is what is utterly impossible and inadmissible, as is the case we are now examining. Just as we say it is impossible for God to be evil or not to exist (for this would be a sign of God’s weakness rather than his power), or for what is not to be, or for twice two to be both four and ten, so it is impossible and inconceivable for the Son to do anything that the Father does not do. For all that the Father has is the Son’s, just as, conversely, what is the Son’s is the Father’s. Nothing, then, is peculiar, because all is common. For even being itself is common and equal in honour, although the Son has it from the Father. It is in this sense that it is said, “I live because of the Father”: not as though his life and being were held together from there, but as existing from there timelessly and without cause. How does he see the Father doing, and do likewise? Like those who copy forms and letters, because they cannot hit on the truth except by looking at the original and being guided by it? And how does Wisdom need a teacher, or not act unless taught? How does the Father do or how has he done? Did he make another world before the present one, and will he make the future one, and did the Son, looking at those, make the one and will he make the other? Then there are four worlds by this reasoning, two the works of the Father and two of the Son. What absurdity! He cleanses lepers, frees people from demons and diseases, gives life to the dead, walks on the sea, and does all the other things he has done: in whose case, or when, did the Father do these first? Is it not plain that the Father impresses the patterns of these same deeds and the Word brings them to completion, not slavishly or ignorantly, but with knowledge and authority, or, to put it more fittingly, as a Father does? That is how I understand “whatever is done by the Father, these the Son also does likewise”: not by a likeness of the things done, but by equality of honour in authority. And this may be the meaning of the Father and the Son working until now; and not only that, but also the governance and preservation of what they have made, as shown by his making his angels spirits, and the earth being founded on its stability, things once established and made; and by his making thunder firm and creating wind, which were brought into being once for all, while their activity continues even now.

Let the seventh be that the Son came down from heaven not to do his own will but the will of him who sent him. If these words were not spoken by the one who came down himself, we would say that the expression is shaped as from a man, not the man understood in the Saviour (for his will is not opposed to God at all, being wholly deified), but a man like us; since the human will does not always follow the divine but often opposes and struggles against it. That is how we understood the words, “Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not what I will, but let your will prevail.” For it is not likely that he did not know whether it was possible or not, nor that he set will against will. But since the words are spoken by the one who assumed (for that is who came down), not by what was assumed, we will answer like this. The words do not mean that the Son has a will of his own besides the Father’s, but that he has none; so that the sense would be: “Not to do my own will, for mine is not separate from yours, but the will common to me and you, since as we have one Godhead, so we have one will.” For many statements of this kind are made in general and not positively but negatively, as in “For God does not give the Spirit by measure”: he does not give, nor is it measured, for God is not measured by God. And “Neither my sin nor my iniquity”: the words do not mean that there is sin, but that there is none. And again, “Not because of the righteous deeds we have done,” for we have done none. This is clear from what follows too. For what, he says, is the will of the Father? That everyone who believes in the Son may be saved and attain the final resurrection, that is, restoration. Is this, then, the Father’s will, but not the Son’s at all? Or is he preached and believed in against his will? Who could believe that? Similarly, the statement that the word which is heard is not the Son’s but the Father’s has the same force. How what is common can belong to one alone, I cannot see, however much I consider it, and I think no one else can either. If you understand “willing” in this way, you will understand it rightly and very piously, in my view and that of every fair-minded person.

Their eighth text is “That they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent”; and “No one is good but one, God.” This seems to me very easy to answer. If you apply “only true” to the Father, where will you put the Truth itself? And if you understand in the same way “to the only wise God,” or “who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light,” or “to the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only wise God,” your Son will be gone, condemned to death or darkness, or to being neither wise nor king nor invisible nor God at all, which is the sum of all these. And how will he not also lose his goodness with the rest, which belongs above all to God alone? But I think that “that they may know you, the only true God” is said to exclude those who are not gods but are called gods. For “and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” would not have been added if “only true” were set in contrast to him, and the words did not refer to the Godhead in common. “No one is good” answers the lawyer who was testing him and who attributed goodness to him as a man. What is supremely good, he says, belongs to God alone, even if a man too is called good, as in “The good man brings good out of his good treasure,” and “I will give the kingdom to one better than you,” God said to Saul about David, and “Do good, O Lord, to the good,” and all other such things said of those among us who are praised, to whom the outflow of the first Good has reached in a secondary way. If we persuade you of this, excellent. If not, what will you say to those who argue that elsewhere, on your assumptions, the Son alone is called God? In what words? In these: “This is your God; no other shall be reckoned beside him”; and a little later, “After this he appeared on earth and lived among men.” That this is said not of the Father but of the Son, the addition clearly shows; for he is the one who dwelt with us bodily and was among those below. If it prevails that this is said against the Father and not against the reputed gods, we have lost the Father by the very means by which we attacked the Son. What could be more wretched or more harmful than such a victory?

They will name as ninth the text “He always lives to intercede for us.” Well said, and very mystically and lovingly. For to intercede does not mean, as it commonly does, to seek vengeance (that would be somewhat lowly), but to plead for us as mediator, just as the Spirit too is said to intercede for us. “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” For he still pleads even now, as man, for my salvation, because he is with the body that he assumed, until he makes me God by the power of his incarnation; even though he is no longer known according to the flesh, I mean the passions of the flesh, which are ours, sin excepted. So too we have Jesus as advocate, not as one who prostrates himself before the Father on our behalf and falls down like a slave. Away with a suspicion truly slavish and unworthy of the Spirit! It is not right for the Father to demand this, or for the Son to submit to it, or to think such things of God. Rather, by what he suffered as man, he persuades us to endure, as Word and exhorter. This is what I understand by his advocacy.

Their tenth point is ignorance, and the statement that no one knows the last day or hour, not even the Son himself, but only the Father. And yet how can Wisdom be ignorant of anything that exists, the maker of the ages, the one who completes and transforms them, the end of all that has come to be, who knows the things of God as the spirit of a man knows what is in him? What knowledge is more perfect than this? How can he know exactly what comes before the hour, and what is, so to speak, at the very edge of the end, and yet not know the hour itself? The thing is like a riddle, as if someone said he knew exactly everything in front of a wall but did not know the wall itself; or knew well the end of the day but not the beginning of the night, where knowledge of the one necessarily brings in the other. Is it not plain to everyone that he knows as God, but says he does not know as man, if one separates what is seen from what is understood? For the fact that the title “Son” is used absolutely and without relation, with no “of whom” attached to it, gives us this idea: that we should take the ignorance in the more reverent sense, attributing it to the human, not to the divine.

If this explanation is sufficient, let us stop here and look for nothing more. If not, let the second be this: that, as with each of the other things, so the knowledge of the greatest matters is referred to the cause, out of honour to the Begetter. And it seems to me that even someone who did not read it as one of our scholars does might soon see that the Son too knows the day or the hour in no other way than as the Father does. For what is the conclusion? Since the Father knows, therefore the Son does too; so that it is plain that this is known and grasped by no one except the first nature. It remained for us to discuss his being commanded, keeping the commandments, and always doing what pleases the Father; and further, his being made perfect, his exaltation, his learning obedience from what he suffered, his high priesthood and offering, his being betrayed, his prayer to the one who could save him from death, his agony, the drops of blood, his prayer, and anything else of the kind; were it not plain to everyone that such words concern what suffers, not the unchangeable nature that is above suffering. So much, then, for the objections: enough to serve as a root and reminder for more careful inquirers to work out more fully. But it is perhaps worthwhile, and follows from what has been said, not to pass over the titles of the Son without consideration, since they are many and apply to many things understood about him, but to show what each of them means and to set forth the mystery of the names.

We must begin from here. The divine cannot be named. This is shown not only by reasoning but also by the wisest and most ancient of the Hebrews, so far as they have given us grounds to guess. For they honoured the divine with special characters, and would not even allow the same letters to be used for writing anything that comes after God and for God, as though the divine should not share with what is ours even to that extent; how then would they have allowed the indissoluble and unique nature to be expressed by a dissoluble word? No one has ever breathed in the whole air, nor has any mind fully contained, or any word comprehended, the substance of God. Rather, sketching what concerns him from what surrounds him, we gather a dim, weak image, one from one thing and another from another. And the best theologian among us is not the one who has found the whole (for this bond of flesh cannot receive the whole), but the one who has pictured more than another and gathered in himself more of the image or shadow of the truth, or whatever we should call it.

So far as we can reach, however, “He who is” and “God” are in a way more names of the substance, and of these “He who is” the more so. Not only because, when he gave his oracles to Moses on the mountain and was asked what his name was, he called himself this, telling him to say to the people, “He who is has sent me”; but also because we find this name more proper. For the name “God,” even if it has been derived from θέειν (“to run”) or αἴθειν (“to burn”) by those clever in such matters, because of his ever-moving nature and his consuming of evil dispositions (for he is also called a consuming fire from this), is nevertheless relative and not absolute; as is the word “Lord,” which is also said to be a name of God: “I am the Lord your God,” he says, “this is my name,” and “The Lord is his name.” But we are looking for a nature whose being is in itself and not bound to anything else. And being is truly proper to God, and wholly so, not limited or cut short by anything before him or after him; for he neither was nor will be.

Of the other titles, some plainly belong to his authority, others to his economy, and this twofold: one above the body, the other in the body. For example, “the Almighty,” and “the King” of glory, or of the ages, or of the powers of the Beloved, or of those who reign; and “the Lord,” or “Sabaoth,” that is, of hosts, or of powers, or of those who rule. These plainly belong to his authority. But “God” of salvation, or of vengeance, or of peace, or of righteousness, or of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and of all the spiritual Israel that sees God: these belong to the economy. For since we are governed by these three things, fear of punishment, hope of salvation and also of glory, and the practice of the virtues from which these come, the name of vengeance governs fear, the name of salvation hope, and the name of the virtues their practice; so that anyone who achieves any of these, as bearing God within himself, may press on more eagerly toward perfection and the kinship that comes from the virtues. These names are still common to the Godhead. The name proper to the one without beginning is “Father”; to the one begotten without beginning, “Son”; to the one who came forth, or proceeds, without being begotten, “the Holy Spirit.” But let us come to the titles of the Son, which is what our discourse set out to discuss.

He seems to me to be called “Son” because he is the same as the Father in substance, and not only that, but also from him. “Only-begotten,” not because he alone is from the only one and is only this, but because it is in a unique manner, not like bodies. “Word,” because he is to the Father as word to mind; not only because the begetting is free from passion, but also because of the close union and the function of making known. One might also say, as definition to the thing defined, since this too is called logos. For “he who has understood the Son,” it says (for that is what “has seen” means), “has understood the Father”; and the Son is a concise and easy demonstration of the Father’s nature, for every offspring is a silent word of its begetter. And if anyone should say it is because he is present in all things that exist, he will not miss the mark; for what is there that does not consist by the Word? “Wisdom,” as the knowledge of things divine and human; for how could the maker be ignorant of the principles of what he has made? “Power,” as the preserver of what has come to be, supplying the power by which they hold together. “Truth,” as being one and not many by nature (for truth is one, but falsehood is manifold), and as the pure seal of the Father and his most truthful imprint. “Image,” as consubstantial, and because he is from the Father, not the Father from him. For this is the nature of an image, to be a copy of the archetype and of that whose image it is called, except that here there is more. There, an unmoving image of what moves; here, a living image of the living, and more exactly alike than Seth to Adam or any offspring to its begetter. For such is the nature of simple beings, not to be like in one respect and unlike in another, but to be the whole impress of the whole, and the same rather than a likeness. “Light,” as the brightness of souls purified in word and life. For if ignorance and sin are darkness, knowledge and a godly life would be light. “Life,” because he is light, and the constitution and substance of every rational nature. “For in him we live and move and have our being,” according to the twofold power of the breathing-in: we all receive breath from him, and all who have room for it receive the Holy Spirit, and in the measure in which we open the mouth of our mind. “Righteousness,” because he distributes according to worth, and judges justly between those under the law and those under grace, between soul and body, so that the one rules and the other is ruled, and the better has command over the worse, so that the worse does not rebel against the better. “Sanctification,” as purity, so that the pure may be contained by purity. “Redemption,” as setting us free when we were held captive by sin, and giving himself as a ransom for us, a cleansing for the world. “Resurrection,” as raising us up from here and bringing us back to life when we were dead through sin.

These titles are still common to him who is above us and him who is for us. But those that are properly ours, and belong to what he assumed from here, are these. “Man,” not only so that he might be contained by bodies through a body, since otherwise he could not be contained because of the incomprehensibility of his nature, but also so that he might sanctify man through himself, becoming like leaven for the whole lump, and uniting to himself all that was condemned, free it from condemnation, becoming for all everything that we are, except sin: body, soul, mind, all that death reaches. What is common to these is man, God made visible because of what is understood. “Son of Man,” both because of Adam and because of the Virgin, from whom he came: of the one as forefather, of the other as mother, by the law of birth and not by the law of birth. “Christ,” because of the Godhead; for this is the anointing of the humanity, sanctifying it not by an operation, as with the other anointed ones, but by the presence of the whole Anointer; and the effect of this anointing is that the Anointer is called man and the anointed is made God. “Way,” as bringing us through himself. “Door,” as the one who leads in. “Shepherd,” as making us dwell in a green pasture, feeding us by the water of rest, guiding us from there, and fighting for us against wild beasts; turning back the wandering, bringing back the lost, binding up the broken, guarding the strong, and gathering them into the fold above with words of pastoral skill. “Sheep,” as the victim; “Lamb,” as perfect. “High Priest,” as the one who brings us near. “Melchizedek,” as without mother in what is above us and without father in what is ours; and as without genealogy in what is above (“for who,” it says, “shall declare his generation?”); and as King of Salem, which means peace, and King of righteousness, and as receiving tithes from patriarchs who excel against the powers of evil. There you have the titles of the Son. Walk through them, the lofty ones in a godlike way, and the bodily ones with sympathy; or rather, all of them in a godlike way, so that you may become God, rising from below, because of him who came down from above for our sake. Above all and before all, keep this, and you will not go wrong with either the loftier or the lowlier names: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today” bodily, and spiritually “for ever.” Amen.