To Ablabius: That There Are Not Three Gods 7

But what is seen outside these escapes outline by such means; and what is not outlined is not numbered; [and what is not numbered cannot be seen in multitude]. So we say that gold too, even if it is minted into many coins, both is and is called one; but we name many coins and many staters, finding no increase of the nature of gold in the multitude of staters. For this reason gold is said to be "much" when it is seen in a greater mass, or in vessels, or in coins; but it is not named "many golds" because of the quantity of the material, unless someone speaks of "many golds" as one speaks of Darics, the staters, in which case not the material but the coins have taken on the meaning of multitude; for properly one should call these not "golds" but "golden pieces." As, then, the golden staters are many but the gold is one, so too those shown individually in the nature of man are many, such as Peter and James and John, but the man in them is one.

And if Scripture extends the name in the plural sense, saying, "Men swear by the greater," and "sons of men," and the like, we must know that, using the usage of the prevailing speech, it does not lay down a law that words must be used in this way or that, nor does it go through these matters giving technical teaching about words; but it uses language according to the prevailing usage, looking only to this, that the word may be profitable to those who receive it, being in no way precise about wording in cases where no harm to the sense arises from the words. It would be long to list from Scripture the constructions of speech that look like solecisms to prove what has been said. But where there is danger that something of the truth may be harmed, then carelessness and indifference are no longer found in the words of Scripture. For this reason it allows men to be named in the plural, because no one by such a form of the word [is led] in his suppositions to a multitude of humanities, nor thinks that many human natures are signified because the name of the nature has been expressed in the plural. But the word "God" it carefully expresses in the singular form, taking forethought for this, that different natures may not be brought into the divine essence through the plural meaning of "gods." So it says, "The Lord our God is one Lord"; yet it also proclaims the only-begotten God by the name of Godhead, and does not break up the one into a dual meaning, so as to name the Father and the Son two Gods, (even though each [is proclaimed God by the saints: God is the Father, and God is the Son]); but God is one in the same proclamation, because no difference either of nature or of activity is seen in the Godhead.

For if the nature had varied in the Holy Trinity, according to the supposition of those who are deceived, the number would consequently have been extended to a multitude of gods, divided along with the otherness of the essence of the subjects. But since the divine, simple, and unchangeable nature rejects all otherness of essence, so as to be one, it does not admit the meaning of multitude in itself. But as it is called one nature, so all the other names are expressed in the singular: God, good, holy, Saviour, just, judge, and any other of the names fitting for God that is understood, whether one says it looks to nature or to activity.

If anyone should slander the argument, as though, by not admitting a difference of nature, it were establishing a mixture and confusion of the hypostases, we shall make this defence against such a charge: that while confessing the invariability of the nature, we do not deny the difference of cause and caused, in which alone we understand the one to be distinguished from the other, by believing that one is the cause and the other is from the cause. And in what is from the cause we again understand another difference. For one is directly from the first, and the other through the one that is directly from the first; so that the being only-begotten remains undoubted in the case of the Son, and there is no doubt that the Spirit is from the Father, the mediation of the Son both keeping for him his being only-begotten and not excluding the Spirit from his natural relation to the Father.

In speaking of cause and of what is from the cause, we do not signify nature by these names; for no one would give the same account of cause and of nature. Rather, we show the difference in the manner of being. For when we said that one is caused and the other is without cause, we did not separate the nature by the account of cause, but showed only that neither is the Son unbegotten nor the Father by begetting. We must first believe that something is, and then inquire how what is believed is. So the account of what it is is one thing, and the account of how it is another. To say that something is unbegotten suggests how it is; but what it is is not shown by this word. If you asked a farmer about a tree, whether it was planted or grew of itself, and he answered either that the tree was not planted or that it came from planting, did he show its nature by his answer? Not at all. By saying how it is, he left the account of its nature unclear and uninterpreted. So here too, learning that he is unbegotten, we have been taught how we should understand him to be; but what he is we have not heard through the word.

Since, then, we speak of such a difference in the Holy Trinity, believing that one is the cause and the other is from the cause, we could no longer be accused of fusing the account of the hypostases in the community of the nature. Since, then, the account of the cause distinguishes the hypostases of the Holy Trinity, holding that one is without cause and the other from the cause, while the divine nature is grasped as invariable and indivisible by every notion, for this reason the Godhead is properly one, and God one, and all the other names fitting for God are expressed in the singular.