On the Trinity 11.19–11.41

But since in the beginning God the Word was with God, anointing has no cause or account in his nature, which is announced as nothing other than being in the beginning. Nor did God surely need to be anointed with the Spirit and power of God, he who was himself the Spirit and Power of God. God, then, is anointed by his God above his fellows. And if before the dispensation of the flesh there were many christs from the law, the Christ who is now anointed above his fellows is later in time, while he is preferred to the anointed fellows. In fact, that word of prophecy shows this anointing to be later, coming in time, saying: "You have loved righteousness and hated iniquity; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your fellows." A consequent and later cause is never referred to as prior; because to have deserved something comes after being one who can deserve. For to deserve belongs to one who is himself the author of acquiring his desert. If, then, we ascribe to the birth of the only-begotten God an anointing granted for the merit of loving righteousness and hating iniquity, the only-begotten God will be understood rather as promoted through anointing than as begotten; and then God will be completed by increases and advances, being not born God but anointed into God by merit; and then Christ will be God through a cause, and not every cause through Christ God. And where will the apostle's saying be: "All things through him and in him, and he is before all, and all things hold together in him"? For the Lord Jesus Christ is God not on account of anything, nor through anything; he was born God. And he who is God by generation did not advance into God through a cause after his birth; but in being born he is, by being born, nothing other than God. But when he is anointed for a cause, the advance of anointing does not regard what needs no increase, but what, through the increase of the mystery, needed the advance of anointing; that is, that our man, Christ, might come to exist sanctified through anointing. If, then, now too the dispensation of the servant is shown through the prophet, for which he is anointed by his God above his fellows, and he is anointed because he loved righteousness and hated iniquity, why will the prophet's word not pertain to that nature of Christ in which he has fellows from the taking up of flesh? Especially since the Spirit of prophecy so tempered itself that, while God is anointed by his God, he has both, in the dispensation of anointing, his God, and, in nature, his being God. God, then, is anointed; but I ask whether that which in the beginning was God the Word was anointed? Not at all; for the anointing is later than God. And since the birth of the Word, by which in the beginning he was God with God, was not anointed, what must be anointed in God is what is later in the dispensation by which he is God. And when God is anointed by his God, what is anointed is whatever servile thing was taken up by him in the mystery of the flesh.

Let no one, then, violate with impious sense the mystery of great piety which was manifested in the flesh, and let no one make himself equal to the Only-begotten in the substance of divinity. Let him be to us both brother and fellow, according as the Word made flesh dwelt among us, according as the man Jesus Christ is the Mediator of God and men. Let him have with us, as servants, a common Father and a common God; and let him be anointed above his fellows in that nature, though anointed with privilege, in which the fellows are anointed. Let him be, in the mystery of the Mediator, as true man, so also true God, God himself from God, having a common Father and God with us in that fellowship in which he is brother.

But perhaps that subjection, and the handing over of the kingdom, and then the end, are to be understood as either an abolition of nature, a failure of power, or a weakness of divinity. For many hold that either, since he is subjected to God when all things have been subjected, he is not God by the condition of subjection; or, since he hands over the kingdom, he is not in the kingdom; or, since there is an end, failure follows his end.

It is fitting, then, to go through the whole sense of the apostle's speech on these things, so that, the reason of each several saying being set out and made plain, we may show ourselves capable of the whole mystery through understanding the whole. He says, then: "For since by a man came death, by a man also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all are made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then those who are Christ's, at his coming; then the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God and the Father, when he has made void every rule and every power. For he must reign until he puts all enemies under his feet. For God has subjected all things under his feet. The last enemy, death, has been conquered by him. But when he says, All things are subjected, it is evident that he is excepted who subjected all things to him. And when all things are subjected to him, then he himself will be subjected to him who subjected all things to him, that God may be all in all."

The apostle, chosen teacher of the Gentiles not by men nor through man but through Jesus Christ, shows the secrets of the heavenly dispensations with as much meaning of complete speech as he can. And he who, caught up to the third heaven, had heard things unspeakable, revealed to the sense of human understanding only those things of which human nature was capable; not unaware, however, that some things cannot at once be understood as they are heard, because our weakness would receive more slowly into the true and complete judgment of the mind what was poured into the ears; a longer time for pondering being left to the sense rather than to the hearing, since hearing belongs to the voice, understanding to reason, though God reveals understanding to those eager for it. For writing many things to Timothy, instructed in the holy letters from infancy through the glorious faith of his grandmother and mother, he also added this: "Understand what I say, for God will give you understanding in all things." The warning to understand arises from the difficulty of understanding. But the gift of understanding from God is the reward of faith, through which the weakness of sense earns the grace of revelation. If, then, Timothy, by the apostle's testimony a man of God and Paul's lawful son according to the faith, is warned to understand because the Lord will give him understanding in all things, let us remember that we too are warned by the apostle toward understanding, knowing that the Lord will grant us understanding of all things.

And if perhaps, through the error of the human condition, we hold some presumption in our sense, let us not refuse progress in understanding through the grace of revelation, lest having once understood something by one's own sense should prevail so far that one is ashamed to think more rightly by changing. For this reason, to be governed prudently and wisely, the same blessed apostle also writes this to the Philippians: "As many of us, then, as are perfect, let us think this; and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only, in what we have hastened toward, in that let us walk." An earlier view does not prejudge God's revelation. For the apostle told those who are perfectly wise what to think; and for those who think otherwise he waits for God's revelation, that they may think what is perfect. If, then, any have understood this deep dispensation of secret knowledge otherwise, and something right and acceptable is brought forward by us, let them not be ashamed, according to the apostle, to be perfectly wise through God's revelation; nor let them love more not to have known the truth than they hate having remained in what is untrue. For those who think otherwise, and to whom God has revealed it, he urges to hasten in that toward which they had set out; so that, leaving the sense of first ignorance, according to the setting out of the proposed haste, they may attain the revelation of perfect understanding. Let us walk, then, in what we have hastened toward. And if perhaps the error of a devious road delays our haste, yet, setting out again by God's revelation toward what we hastened to, let us not change the course of our haste. For we have hastened to Christ Jesus, the Lord of glory and King of the eternal ages, in whom all things in heaven and on earth have been restored, in whom all things hold together, in whom and with whom we shall always abide. Setting out in these, then, we think perfectly; and if in anything we think otherwise, God will reveal to us what is perfectly thought. Let us, then, according to the apostolic faith, go over again the mystery of the present sayings, and in the same way as all things were treated by us above, so that we may bring to light, from the very truth of the apostolic faith, every sense of impious will captured under the apostolic sayings.

Three things, then, according to the order of the sayings, are called into question: first the end, then the handing over, then the subjection; so that through these either Christ ceases at the end, or, by handing over the kingdom, does not hold it, or exists outside the nature of God, being subject to God.

And first we must recognize that this is not the order of the apostle's teaching. For first comes the handing over of the kingdom, then the subjection, last the end. But to each of the several causes the proper kinds of each cause are subjoined, so that, while each thing ends in another, the preceding cause always has a cause underlying it. For the end will be, but when he has handed over the kingdom to God. He will hand over the kingdom, but when he has made void every rule and every power. He will make void every rule and power because he must reign. He will reign until he puts all enemies under his feet. He will put the enemies under his feet because God has subjected all things under his feet. God subjected them in such a way that death, the last enemy, is conquered by him. Then, all things being subjected to him except him who subjected all things to him, he himself will then be subjected to him who subjects all things to him. The cause of the subjection is nothing other than that God may be all in all. The end, then, is that God be all in all.

And we must now ask before all else whether the end is a failing, whether the handing over is a loss, whether the subjection is weakness. If these are not subject to these contraries, they will be in that truth of understanding in which they were said.

Christ is the end of the law; and I ask whether Christ is the abolition of the law or its perfection? But if Christ, who is its end, does not destroy the law but fulfils it, according to what he says, "I have not come to destroy the law but to fulfil it," the end is not a failing but completed perfection. For all things tend to an end, not so as not to be, but so as to abide in that toward which they have tended. And all things are for the end; but the end is not referred to anything else. But since the end is all things, it abides wholly itself to itself. And because, not going out from itself, it serves no other time or thing rather than itself, the intention of all hope always stretches toward the end itself. And therefore the Lord encourages the patience of a religious faith that reserves itself for the end, thus: "Blessed is he who endures to the end"; not, surely, so that failing is blessed, and not being is the fruit, and the reward of each one's faith is set as abolition; but because the end is the unsurpassed measure of the proposed blessedness, they are blessed who have endured to the end of a blessedness to be completed, the expectation of faithful hope not stretching beyond it. The end, then, is the unmoving state of abiding toward which one tends. In fact, the apostle, warning beforehand of the end of impiety to inspire fear of ceasing, says: "Whose end is destruction; but our expectation is in heaven." If, then, there is an end both for the blessed and for the impious, and the end is understood to be a failing, the end makes religion and impiety equal, since through the appointed end both would alike cease to be. And where is our expectation in heaven, if through the end we cease to be, like the impious? But if expectation is said to be due to the saints and an end to the impious, not even so is the end believed to be a failing; for what punishment of impiety is it not to be at all, for the sense of avenging punishments, when in them, through their failing, there would be no cause of suffering? The end, then, is the abiding perfection of an unchangeable condition, which is both reserved for blessedness and prepared for impiety.

Now, then, since it can no longer be doubted that by the end is to be understood not a failing but a condition that will not be surpassed, although some things are still reserved in the very resolution of the saying, yet, having shown these things only to indicate the sense, let us see whether the handing over of the kingdom is to be understood as a failing of reigning; so that what the Son hands over to the Father he does not hold by handing it over. If anyone contends this with the madness of foolish impiety, he must confess that the Father, when he handed over all things to the Son, lost them by handing them over, if to have handed over means to lack what was handed over. For the Lord says: "All things have been handed over to me by my Father"; and again: "All power has been given to me in heaven and on earth." If, then, to have handed over is to have gone without, the Father too went without what he gave. But if the Father did not go without by handing over, neither can the Son be understood to lack what he hands over. If, then, the one who handed over all things is not seen to have lacked the very things he handed over, it remains that in the handing over the cause of a dispensation is to be recognized, why both the Father does not go without by handing over, and the Son does not lack by giving.

As for the subjection, so that nothing insulting may be ascribed to the Son in it, though some other things support our faith, this very passage chiefly helps itself. And first I ask common sense whether we think the subjection is now to be understood as when we subject servitude to lordship, weakness to strength, or dishonour to honour, by contrary qualities, so that accordingly the Son would be subject to God the Father by a difference of dissenting nature. If that is thought, the carefulness of the apostle's speech will forbid this error of human opinion. For he says that, when all things are subjected to him, then he is to be subjected to him who subjects all things to him; and by "then he will be subjected" he signified a dispensation in time. For if we understand the subjection otherwise, though "then he will be subjected," he is certainly not subject now; and we shall make him dissenting, insolent, and impious, one whom the necessity of time, as though the swelling of a tyrannical impiety had been broken and crushed, will at last subdue into belated obedience. And where will this be: "I did not come to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me"; and again: "For this reason the Father loves me, because I do all things that please him"; and this: "Father, your will be done"; or this of the apostle: "He humbled himself, becoming obedient even to death"? He who humbles himself has this in his nature, that he is not lowly; and he who becomes obedient takes up obedience by his will, since through humbling himself he becomes obedient. The only-begotten God, then, humbling himself and obedient to the Father even to the death of the cross, in what way will he be understood to be then subjected to the Father, when all things have been subjected to him? Unless this subjection is not of a new obedience but of a mystery to be dispensed; because obedience already remains, and the subjection is to be entered upon in time? The meaning of the subjection, then, is now nothing other than the showing of a mystery.

And what it is must be understood according to this same hope of our faith. For it is not unknown that the Lord Jesus Christ, rising from the dead, sits at the right hand of God, as the apostle too testifies when he says: "According to the working of the might of his strength, which he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and set him at his right hand in the heavens, above every principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that to come; and he subjected all things under his feet." For the apostolic speech, according to the power of God, signifies future things as done. For the things that are to be accomplished in the fullness of the times already stand in Christ, in whom is all fullness; and whatever will be, there is in them an order of dispensation rather than a novelty. For God has subjected all things under his feet, though they are still to be subjected: so that in their being subjected Christ's power is unchangeable, while in their being yet to be subjected there is an advance, according to the fullness of the succeeding times, toward the end of the ages.

That every hostile power is to be made void is no obscure knowledge, and that this prince of the air and power of spiritual wickedness is to be handed over to eternal destruction, according to the saying: "Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire which my Father has prepared for the devil and his angels." But making void is not the same as subjection. For to make void an opposing power is to take away the right of power so that it does not remain, and, through the making void of the power, to abolish the dominion of the kingdom. Of this the Lord too testified, saying: "My kingdom is not of this world," having before testified that the prince of this world is the master of this kingdom, whose power will cease when the dominion of his kingdom is made void. But subjection, which belongs to obedience and faith, is a sign either of yielding or of change.

When the rulers have been made void, then, his enemies will be subjected. And they will be subjected in such a way that he himself subjects them to himself. And he will subject them in such a way that God subjects them to him. Was the apostle ignorant of the force of the gospel saying, when he says: "No one comes to me unless the Father draws him to me"; while yet it is written: "No one goes to the Father except through me"? So that now he himself subjects the enemies to himself, and yet God has subjected them to him, testifying through this that all his work is the work of God in him. And though one must go to the Father only through him, yet one does not come to him unless the Father draws him. For when he is understood as the Son of God, the truth of the Father's nature in him is learned. And so, when the Son is known, God the Father calls; and when the Son is believed, the Father receives; because the signifying and knowledge of the Father is in the Son, through the signifying in himself of God the Father, who carries us, devout toward him, with a fatherly devotion. The Father draws, then, in this way, since what is principal, that he is Father, is believed. But no one goes to the Father except through the Son; because, when faith in the Son ceases in us, the Father is unknowable, for we will not come to the worship of the Father unless the veneration of the Son is first taken up. And so, when the Son is known, the Father draws and receives us to eternity of life; and both are through the Son, since, through the preaching of the Father by him, the Father both leads to him and he himself leads to the Father. For a more complete understanding of the present saying, then, the recalling of this mystery was necessary, so that it would be through the Son that the Father both draws and receives us; and through this we might understand how far what he himself subjected to himself, God subjected to him: the nature of God namely remaining in him by birth, and doing the things he himself does; since he does them in such a way that God does them, and yet he himself does what God has done; yet so that in what he himself does, the Son of God is understood to act, while in what God does, the property of the Father's nature is perceived to exist in him as in a Son.

When the rulers and powers have been made void, then, his enemies will be subjected to him under his feet. And who are to be understood as enemies the same apostle taught, saying: "As regards the gospel they are enemies for your sake, but as regards election they are beloved for the sake of the fathers." We remember, then, that these are enemies of the cross of Christ; but because they are beloved for the sake of the fathers, we know that they are reserved for subjection, according to what was said: "For I do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, of this mystery, so that you may not be wise in your own sight: that a hardening has come upon Israel in part, until the fullness of the nations comes in; and so all Israel will be delivered, as it is written: The deliverer will come from Zion and will turn away ungodliness from Jacob; and this is my covenant with them, when I take away their iniquities." The enemies, then, will be subjected under his feet.

But we must understand what follows that subjection: namely this, "Last of all death was conquered by him." And the conquering of death is nothing other than the resurrection from the dead, when, the corruption of destruction ceasing, the eternity of a living and now heavenly nature is established, according to what was said: "For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. And when this mortal has put on immortality, then the word that is written will come to pass: Death is swallowed up in the contest. Where, O death, is your sting? Where, O death, is your contest?" In the subjection of the enemies, then, death is conquered; and, death being conquered, the life of immortality follows. And what that perfect property of subjection is, after the subjection of faith, the same apostle testified when he says: "Who will transform the body of our lowliness to be conformed to the body of his glory, according to the working of his power by which he is able to subject all things to himself." Subjection, then, is also that which is a yielding from nature into nature, when one, ceasing from what one is, is subjected to him into whose form one yields. And one ceases, not so as not to be, but so as to advance; and becomes subject by change, passing into the likeness of another kind taken up.

Finally, so that the reason of this mystery might be complete, after death has been conquered last of all, he then says: "But when he says, All things are subjected, it is evident that he is excepted who subjected all things to him; then he himself will be subjected to him who subjected all things to him, that God may be all in all." The first step of the mystery, then, is that all things are subjected to him; and then that he himself becomes subject to him who subjects all things to him; so that, as we are subjected to the glory of his reigning body, by the same mystery he himself, reigning in the glory of the body, is in turn subjected to him who subjects all things to himself. And we are subjected to the glory of his body so that we may be in that brightness in which he reigns in the body, because we shall be conformed to his body.

And the Gospels do not keep silent about the glory of his body now reigning. For it is written thus, the Lord saying: "Amen I say to you, there are some of those standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom. And it came to pass after six days, Jesus took Peter and James and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain apart, and Jesus was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his garments became like snow." The glory of the body coming into the kingdom, then, was shown to the apostles. For the Lord stood in the condition of his glorious transformation, the brightness of his reigning body being laid open.

And promising the apostles a share in this glory of his, he says: "So will it be at the consummation of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all stumbling blocks and those who do iniquity, and will cast them into the furnace of fire; there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears to hear, let him hear." Are not natural and bodily ears open to all for hearing what is said, so that the Lord's admonition to hear was necessary? But the Lord, conveying the knowledge of a mystery, required the hearing of faithful teaching. At the consummation of the age, then, stumbling blocks are taken out of his kingdom. We have, then, the Lord reigning according to the brightness of the body until the stumbling blocks are taken away. We have, again, ourselves conformed to the glory of his body in the kingdom of the Father, shining as in the brightness of the sun, in which, transformed on the mountain, he showed the apostles the condition of his kingdom.

He will hand over the kingdom, then, to God the Father: not as though, by handing it over, he gives up his power, but because we, made conformed to the glory of his body, will be the kingdom of God. For he does not say, "He will hand over his kingdom," but "He will hand over the kingdom," being about to hand us over to God as the kingdom, made so through the glorification of his body. He will hand us over, then, into the kingdom, according to this saying in the Gospels: "Come, you blessed of my Father, possess the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." The righteous, then, will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. For the Son will hand over to God as the kingdom those whom he called into the kingdom, to whom he also pledged the blessedness of this mystery, saying: "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God." Reigning, then, he will remove the stumbling blocks, and then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of the Father. And he will hand over the kingdom to God the Father; and then those whom he has handed over to God as the kingdom will see God. And what the kingdom is he himself testified, saying to the apostles: "For the kingdom of God is within you." Reigning, then, he will hand over the kingdom. And if anyone asks who this is who hands over the kingdom, he will hear: "Christ has risen from the dead, the firstfruits of those who sleep; for since by a man came death, by a man also the resurrection of the dead." For the whole speech of the present question here concerns the mystery of the body, because Christ is the firstfruits from the dead. And in what mystery Christ rose from the dead let us learn from the apostle, who says: "Remember that Christ has risen from the dead, of the seed of David"; teaching that the death and resurrection are only from that dispensation by which he is flesh.

And he reigns in this same body of his, now glorious, until, the rulers having been made void and death conquered, he subjects his enemies to himself. And indeed this distinction was kept by the apostle, that making void was assigned to the rulers and powers, but subjection to the enemies. When these have been subjected, he, the Lord, will be subjected to him who subjects all things to himself, that God may be all in all, the nature of the Father's divinity being brought into the nature of our body which he took up. For through this God will be all in all: because, according to the dispensation, being from God and man the Mediator of men and God, having in himself from the dispensation what belongs to the flesh, he is to attain in all things from the subjection what belongs to God, so as to be God not in part but God wholly. There is, then, no other cause of the subjection than that God may be all in all, no nature of an earthly body remaining in him in any part; so that, having before contained two in himself, he may now be God only: not by casting off the body, but by its being transferred through subjection; not abolished by failing, but changed by glorification; gaining man for himself as God rather than losing God through man. And he is subjected for this reason, not so as not to be, but so that God may be all in all; having, in the mystery of the subjection, to be and to abide what he is not, not having, by a failing, so to lack himself as not to be.

And although the apostle's authority suffices us for the religious security of this understanding, that the Lord Jesus Christ, the firstfruits of those who sleep, is to be subjected in time and through the dispensation, that God may be all in all, through which there is no weakness of divinity but an advance of what was taken up, since he who is man and God is now wholly God; yet, so that we may not be thought, because we believe that he is glorified in the body while he reigns in it and is afterwards to be subjected that God may be all in all, to have presumed this without the Gospels as well, the testimony of our faith must be built up by the profession not only of the apostle's sayings but also of the Lord's; so that what Christ spoke when Paul was speaking, Christ himself had already spoken before Paul.