On the Trinity 9.30–9.44

The Lord, praising their understanding, answered, not that he had been sent, but that he had come forth from God, testifying under the sign of a coming forth to the going out of his birth from the incorporeal God. For he himself had spoken of his birth under the showing of a coming forth, saying: "You love me and believe that I came forth from God, and I came from the Father into this world." For he had come from the Father into this world because he had come forth from God. For so that he might be understood to have signified his birth in the coming forth, he added that he had come from the Father. And since he came from the Father through having come forth from God, his coming forth from God is a complete birth, followed by the confession of the Father's name. To the apostles, then, who understood this mystery of the coming forth, he said: "Now you believe. Behold, the hour is coming, and now has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own, and will leave me alone; but I am not alone, because the Father is with me." To teach that that coming forth was not an estrangement from God the Father but a birth that kept in itself, by being born, the nature of God the Father, he added that he was not alone but the Father was with him, by power, of course, and unity of nature, since the Father abiding in him was with him, working and speaking in him who spoke and worked. Then, to show the cause of this whole discourse, he added: "I have spoken these things to you that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have tribulation; but be of good courage, because I have overcome the world." He said these things, then, that they might abide peaceable in him and not be at odds through zeal for dissension in disputes about the faith; since he who was to be left alone would not be alone, and he who had come forth from God had in himself God, from whom he had come forth; and then, harassed in the world, they would wait patiently for the promises of him who had overcome the world by coming forth from God and having God with him.

Finally, about to speak the faith of the whole mystery, lifting his eyes to heaven he said: "Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you. As you have given him power over all flesh, that to all you have given him he may give eternal life." Does he seem weak to you because he asks to be glorified? Let him be weak, by all means, unless he asks to be glorified so that he himself may glorify the one who glorifies him. We have treated of receiving and rendering glory in another book, and it is quite idle to go over the same things again. Certainly there is no doubt that glory is asked so that the giver may be glorified. But perhaps he is feeble in this, that he received power over all flesh. Let the receiving of power also be feeble, unless he is powerful to give eternity of life to those whom he received. But in the very fact that he received, some weakness of nature is charged. Let receiving be weakness, by all means, unless Christ is true God by birth rather than by being unbegotten. But if the receiving of power is only a sign of birth, in which he received what he is, the giving is not to be counted as weakness, since it brings it about that he who is born is wholly what God is. For since the unbegotten God is author for the only-begotten God of a perfect birth into divine blessedness, to be author of the birth is the Father's mystery. For the rest, a birth that perfects itself by genuine birth as the image of its author has no shame in it. For to have given power over all flesh, and to have given it so that he may give eternal life, holds both in the giver his being Father and in the receiver his being God: since the Father is signified in that he gave, and the Son remains God in that he took up the power of giving eternal life. All power, then, is natural and inborn to the Son of God; and since it was given, it does not estrange him from the author through the fact that it was given, since what belongs to the author is what was given, namely to give eternal life and to change corruption into incorruption. The Father, then, gave all things, and the Son received all things; nor is there doubt, since he said: "All that is the Father's is mine." And here the present saying does not signify kinds of created things or the various establishments of the elements; laying open to us the glory of blessed and perfect divinity, it shows that God is to be understood in the things that are his: in power, in eternity, in providence, in might; not that God has these as though he were to be believed something else outside them, but that in them he himself is signified, to some small extent of our sense, as what he has. So the Only-begotten, teaching that he had come to subsist in the things that are the Father's, after saying that the Holy Spirit would take from him, added: "All that is the Father's is mine; therefore I said, he will take of mine." All that is the Father's is his, handed over, of course, and received. But things given do not weaken the divinity; they establish him in being in the things by which the Father is.

He has used these steps of the understanding of himself set out beforehand, so that, having taught that he came forth from God, professed that the Father was with him, testified that he had overcome the world, and that, to be glorified by the Father, he would glorify the Father, and would use the power received in giving eternity of life to all flesh, he might then at last conclude all these things with this completion: "And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent." Learn, heretic, either to speak or to believe the faith of eternal life. And separate Christ from God, if you can, the Son from the Father, God over all from the true God, the one from the only one, if eternal life consists in having believed in the only true God without Christ. But if, Christ being separated from the only true God, eternal life is not gained in the confession of the only true God, I do not understand how he is to be separated from the true God for our faith, who is not separable from him for our salvation.

Although I know that the drawn-out resolution of difficult questions is burdensome to readers' wishes, yet, deferring for a little the demonstration of the whole truth, I think I may be indulged, not without some profit to faith, in wrestling with you, heretic, over these very gospel sayings. You hear the Lord's profession, saying: "And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent." I ask, what is there that moves your mind to deny that Christ is true God? For no other added signification now shows you what to believe about Christ. You have nothing but "Jesus Christ"; not "Son of Man," as he is accustomed to say of himself; not "Son of God," as it is usual for him to profess of himself; not "the living bread coming down from heaven," which he often says of himself, to the offence of many. But in saying, "you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent," he passed over all the usage of his names and titles, whether natural or assumed; so that, since confessing the only true God and Christ Jesus gives eternity, Jesus Christ is without doubt meant in that sense in which he is God.

But perhaps, in saying "you only," he separates his communion and unity from God. Let him separate it, by all means, if after saying "you, the only true God" he did not at once add, "and Jesus Christ whom you have sent." And I ask the hearer's sense: what is Jesus Christ to be believed to be, when, beside the Father being believed the only true God, Christ too is to be believed? But perhaps the Father as the only true God leaves Christ no room to be God. Let him leave none, by all means, if the one God the Father left Christ no room to be the one Lord. But if the one God the Father does not take from Christ his being the one Lord, so the Father as the only true God does not take away from Christ Jesus his being true God; since this is what avails for the merit of eternal life, that when the only true God is believed, Christ is believed too.

What now, I ask, heretic, do you in the sense of your folly assign to Christ, for him to be believed to be; to Christ who gives eternal life, who, to be glorified by the Father, glorified the Father, who overcame the world, who, to be left alone, is not alone but has the Father with him, who came forth from God and came from the Father? What do you grant him of nature and truth, born with such powers of God? For we believe in vain in the Father as the only true God unless we believe also in Jesus Christ whom he sent. Why do you hesitate? Teach what Christ is to be confessed to be. For you who deny what is written, what remains but that you believe what is not written? O unhappy will, and falsehood striving against truth! Since Christ is united in the faith and confession of the true God the Father, by what faith, I ask, will he be denied as true God and called a creature, when there is no faith in having believed in the only true God without Christ? But the sense of the heavenly sayings does not reach you, heretic, narrow and unable to receive the divine Spirit; and, inspired by viperous error, you do not know that Christ, true God, is to be confessed, for eternity of life, in the faith of the only true God.

But the faith of the church, confessing the Father as the only true God, confesses Christ too. In confessing Christ true God, it does not fail to confess the Father as the only true God; and again, confessing the Father as the only true God, it does not fail to confess Christ too. For through this it has confessed Christ as true God, that it has confessed the Father as the only true God. So the fact that God the Father alone is true God confirms that Christ also is true God. For his natural birth brought no change of nature to the only-begotten God; and he who subsists as God from God who subsists, according to the nature of divine generation, is not separable in truth of nature from him who alone is true God. Nature kept the order of its truth, so that natural truth brought in the truth of birth, and the one God did not bring forth from himself a God of another kind. And so the mystery of God consists neither in solitude nor in diversity: since he is not reckoned another God who came to subsist from God with the property of his nature, nor does he remain in a union whom the truth of birth teaches us to confess as Father. God, then, being born did not forsake the property of his nature; and he is by natural power in him whose nature he holds in himself by natural birth. For God in him is neither changed nor degenerate; since, if birth had brought any defect, it would rather bring shame on that nature through which the birth subsisted, since what is from it would cease to be its own; and so the change would corrupt not him who had come to subsist into a new substance by birth, but him who, unable in the birth of a son to keep the constancy of his nature, had begotten something external and foreign to himself.

But, as we have often recalled, in the unity of God the Father and God the Son there is not the defect of human opinions, so that there is an extension, a series, or a flow, as a spring pours a stream from its source, or a tree holds a branch on its trunk, or fire sends heat out into space. For these remain held fast by an extension inseparable from themselves rather than existing for themselves, since heat is in the fire, the branch in the tree, and the stream in the spring. And the thing itself is rather alone by itself than a thing established from a thing, because the tree can be nothing other than the branch, nor the fire than the heat, nor the spring than the stream. But the only-begotten God, subsisting from a perfect and unspeakable birth, is God, and the true offspring of the unbegotten God, the incorporeal generation of an incorporeal nature, living and true God from the living and true God, and God of a nature inseparable from God; since the birth that subsists did not make a God of another nature, nor did the generation that brought forth the substance change the nature of the substance in kind.

But by the dispensation of the flesh taken up, and through the obedience of him who emptied himself out of the form of God, Christ, born man, had brought a newness of nature upon himself, not by loss of power and nature but by change of condition. Emptying himself out of the form of God, then, he had taken, being born, the form of a servant; but the Father's nature, with which he had natural unity, had not experienced this taking up of flesh; and the temporal newness, although it remained in the power of the nature, had nevertheless lost, together with the form of God, the unity with the nature of God as regards the man taken up. But the sum of the dispensation was this: that the Son, now whole, namely man and God, by the favour of the Father's will, should be in the unity of the Father's nature; and that he who remained in the power of the nature should also remain in the kind of the nature. For this was being gained for man, that he should be God. But the man taken up could in no way remain in the unity of God unless, through the unity of God, he came out into natural unity with God; so that, since God the Word was in the nature of God, the Word made flesh should also again be in the nature of God; and thus the man Jesus Christ would remain in the glory of God the Father if the flesh were united into the glory of the Word; and the Word made flesh would then return, even as man, into the unity of the Father's nature, when the flesh taken up had held the glory of the Word. His own unity, then, was to be restored to the Father with himself, so that the birth of his nature should again rest in him, to be glorified; because the newness of the dispensation had brought an injury to the unity, and the unity, perfect as it had been before, could now be none at all unless the taking up of the flesh had been glorified with him.

And therefore, having long before prepared the mind for the understanding of this faith, when he had said: "And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent," he added, according to the obedience of his dispensation: "I have glorified you on earth; I have finished the work which you gave me to do." After which, so that we might understand the merit of the obedience and the mystery of the whole dispensation, he added: "And now glorify me, Father, with yourself, with the glory which I had with you before the world was." Let him who denies that Christ remains in the nature of God, and does not believe him inseparable and undifferenced from the only true God, answer what is the reason for this petition: "And now glorify me, Father, with yourself." For what cause is there for the Father to glorify him with himself? Or what is the meaning of this word? Or what is the effect of the meaning? For the Father does not need glory, nor had he emptied himself out of the form of his glory. How then is he to glorify the Son with himself, and with the glory which he had with him before the founding of the world? And what is the sense of "having with him"? For he does not say, "the glory which I had before the world was, when I was with you," but "the glory which I had with you." For "to be with you" signifies one existing; but "to have with you" teaches the mystery of the nature. And "glorify me with yourself" is not the same as "glorify me." For he does not ask only to be glorified himself, so that some glory may be his own; he prays to be glorified by the Father with the Father himself. For so that he might remain in his unity as he had remained, the Father was to glorify him with himself, because the unity of his glory had departed through the obedience of the dispensation; namely, so that through glorification he should again be in that nature in which he was united by the mystery of the divine birth, and should be glorified with the Father himself; so that what he had before with him might remain, and the taking up of the servile form might not estrange from him the nature of the form of God; but the Father would glorify the form of a servant with himself, so that it might remain the form of God, because he who had remained in the form of God was the same in the form of a servant. And since the form of a servant was to be glorified in the form of God, it was to be glorified with him in whose form the condition of the servile form was to be honoured.

This saying of the Lord is not new, nor set down now for the first time in the gospel teachings. He testified to this very mystery of the Son being glorified by God the Father with himself in that most beautiful rejoicing over his hope, when, as Judas went out to the betrayal, lifted up with joy at his dispensation about to be completed, he said: "Now the Son of Man is glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God also has glorified him in himself, and God has glorified him at once." Why are we, souls heavy with a body of clay, minds foul and filthy with a conscience stained by sins, inflamed even to judge God's profession about himself? Why do we make ourselves arbiters of the heavenly nature and rebel against God with the impious disputes of our slander? For the Lord spoke the gospel faith in words as simple as he could, and adapted his speech to our understanding as far as the weakness of our nature could bear, yet without saying anything less worthy of the majesty of his nature. The first meaning of his saying I think is not ambiguous, when he says: "Now the Son of Man is glorified." For all the glory was being gained not for the Word but for the flesh; that is, not for the birth of God but for the dispensation of the man born. But what does what follows signify, I ask: "And God is glorified in him"? For I hear that God is glorified in him; and what this is according to your understanding, heretic, I do not know. God is glorified in him, surely in the Son of Man; and I ask whether the Son of Man is the same as the Son of God. And since the Son of Man is not one and the Son of God another (for the Word became flesh), and since he who is the Son of God is himself also the Son of Man, I ask what God has been glorified in this Son of Man who is also the Son of God.

Since God has been glorified in the Son of Man, who is also the Son of God, let us see what this third clause is: "If God is glorified in him, God also has glorified him in himself." What mystery of the sacrament, I ask, is this? God glorifies in himself God who was glorified in the glorified Son of Man. In the Son of Man is the glory of God, and the glory of God is in the glory of the Son of Man. God glorifies in himself. Man, surely, is not glorified through himself. Nor again is God who is glorified in man, though he receives glory, anything other himself than God. But when, the Son of Man having been glorified, God glorifies God in himself, I find that the glory of a nature is taken up into the glory of the nature that glorifies the nature. For God does not glorify himself; he glorifies in himself God glorified in man. And what he glorifies in himself, though he does not glorify himself, he still takes up, glorifying the nature, into the glory of his own nature. And since God, glorifying God because he was glorified in man, glorifies him in himself, he shows that the God he glorified is in himself, since he glorifies him in himself. Bring forward now, heretic, whoever you are, the inextricable questions of your twisting teaching, which, though they entangle themselves in their own knots, will hold no troublesome grip at any point. For the Son of Man is glorified, and God is glorified in him; and God has glorified in himself him who was glorified in man. For it is not the same thing for the Son of Man to be glorified, as for God to be glorified in the Son of Man, or to glorify in himself God glorified in man. Say in your own words, according to the sense of your impiety, what you take it to mean that God is glorified in the Son of Man. Surely it must be either Christ who is glorified in the flesh, or the Father who is glorified in Christ. If it is Christ, Christ is certainly God, who is glorified in the flesh. If it is the Father, it is the mystery of unity, when the Father is glorified in the Son. Either by confessing Christ you speak of God even against your will, or by understanding God the Father you will not deny the nature of God the Father in Christ. Let this be said of the Son of Man glorified and of God glorified in him. But as to the fact that God glorifies in himself God glorified in the Son of Man, what opening do you think is left you at all for putting forth impiety, so that Christ is not true God according to the truth of nature? For God glorifies in himself Christ born man: is what he glorifies in himself outside himself? He restores to Christ in himself the glory which he had with him; and when the taking up of the servile form is taken up into the form of God, God glorified in man is glorified in him, who before the dispensation of the emptying was in him, and is united both through the form of a servant and through the nature of birth. For the birth had made God of no new or foreign nature; a natural Son had subsisted to the Father by natural generation. And since, after the birth of the man, he who was glorified in man shines again into the glory of his nature, God glorifies him in himself, when he is taken up into the glory of the Father's nature, from which he had been emptied through the dispensation.

The apostolic faith shuts in the most audacious madness of your impiety, so that you may not wander anywhere with the licence of free understanding, when it says: "And every tongue will confess that the Lord Jesus is in the glory of God the Father." For he whom the Father glorified in himself is to be confessed in his glory. And he who is to be confessed in the Father's glory, and whom the Father glorified in himself, is without doubt to be understood to be in those things by which the Father is, since the Father both glorified him in himself and he is to be confessed in his glory. For he is not now merely in the glory of God, but in the glory of God the Father. Nor did the Father glorify him with an outward glory, but glorified him in himself. Taking him back into that glory which is his own, the glory which he had with him, he glorifies him both with himself and in himself. And so he is understood to be inseparable from the bond of this faith even under the lowliness of man, when he says: "And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent"; since without Christ there is no eternal life in knowing God the Father alone, and Christ has been glorified in the Father. But if eternal life is precisely this, to know the only true God and Jesus Christ whom he sent, let Christ by all means not be thought true God, if there is life in having believed in God without Christ. And let the fact that God the Father alone is true God not pertain to Christ as God, unless all the glory of Christ is in the only true God the Father. For if the Father glorifies him in himself, and the Father alone is true God, Christ is not outside the only true God; because the Father, the only true God, glorifies in himself Christ glorified into God. And what is glorified in himself by the only true one is not estranged from the only true one, because it is glorified by the true one in himself alone.

But perhaps the assertion of your impious unbelief may oppose this pious faith of ours, claiming that this confession of necessity is foreign to the understanding of true God: "Amen, amen, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of himself except what he sees the Father doing." Unless the twofold indignation of the Jews demands a twofold answer, let this be, by all means, a profession of weakness, that the Son can do nothing of himself except what he sees the Father doing. But if, to the Jews who both charged him with violating the sabbath and could not bear the equality of God in Christ through his professing God as his Father, an answer was given to both under the same saying, do you think the truth of the sayings can be hidden by the profession of the answer? And although this passage has been treated by us in another book, yet, since to go over the faith again not only does no harm but even profits religion, let us take up the same passage again, since the case requires it.

The necessity of the answer first arose from this: "And for this reason the Jews persecuted Jesus and sought to kill him, because he did these things on the sabbath." Their anger, then, was kindled to the desire of killing him because of works done on the sabbath. But let us see what the Lord answered: "My Father is working until now, and I am working." Show, heretic, what this work of the Father is, I ask. For through the Son and in the Son are all things, both visible and invisible. And you, who are wise beyond the Gospels, must have gained knowledge of the Father's work from some other secret teachings, to show us the Father working. But the Father works in the Son, as he himself says: "The words that I speak to you I do not speak; but the Father who abides in me, he does his works." Do you see what this means, "My Father is working until now"? He said it so that the power of the Father's nature in him might be understood, having used the nature of his power in the sabbath work. For since the Father works in him as he works, he himself must work as the Father works; and so he says, "My Father is working until now," so that this very present work of his words and deeds done through himself might be reckoned the working of the Father's nature in him. For "is working until now" is one and the same moment of the saying and of the time, so that no other work of the Father should be believed than this which he is doing; since, through the fact that the Father is working until now, this very working of the Father took place at the same time as the speaking. And so that faith, left only within the knowledge of the Father, might not be cut off from the hope of eternal life, he at once added, "And I am working," so that the very thing the Father is now working, the Son also works. So he taught the perfect faith, since what is "now" is a work of the same time, and the fact that what the Father works the Son works is outside the union of a single one. But the hearers' resentment was doubled; for there follows: "For this reason the Jews sought all the more to kill him, because he not only broke the sabbath but also called God his own Father, making himself equal to God." And here again I will remind you, by both the judgment of the evangelist and the common assent of the human race, that a son is in equality with the father's nature, and that equality is only from the same nature; because birth has nothing from elsewhere by which it remains, and every generation is not foreign to what begets it, since, for what it remains, it subsists from the same. Let us see, then, what the Lord answered this doubled indignation: "Amen, amen, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of himself except what he sees the Father doing. For whatever he does, these the Son also does likewise."