On the Trinity

As I looked about for the proper and religious duty of human life, a duty which, whether flowing from nature or proceeding from the studies of the wise, might attain something worthy of the divine gift of understanding granted to it, many things presented themselves which in common opinion seemed to make life useful and desirable; above all, those things which now, as always before, are held most important among mortals: leisure together with wealth. Yet either without the other is rather the material of evil than the occasion of good. For leisure without means is understood to be almost a kind of exile from life itself, and wealth without rest brings all the more calamity, the more humiliating it is to go without the very things most desired and sought for enjoyment. And these, though they contain in themselves the highest and best allurements of life, do not seem very far removed from the habit of a beast's pleasure: for beasts that roam through wooded places, especially those rich in pasture, enjoy both freedom from labor and fullness from grazing. For if the best and most perfect use of human life is to be judged to be rest and abundance, this same use must be common, according to the sense of each kind, to us and to all the beasts that lack reason: for all of them, with nature herself serving them in the greatest plenty and security, have an overflowing abundance to enjoy without any care for possessing.

And it seems to me that most mortals have rejected for themselves and censured in others this habit of a foolish and beastlike life for no other reason than this: moved by nature herself, they judged it unworthy of a human being to think himself born only for the service of his belly and of idleness, and brought into this life not for the pursuit of some splendid deed or good art; or to think that this very life was granted with no advance toward eternity (a life which, surely, no one would doubt should not be reckoned a gift of God, since, afflicted by so much anguish and hindered by so many troubles, it wears itself away by itself and within itself, from the ignorance of childhood to the dotage of old age). And therefore they turned, in teaching and in practice, to the virtues of patience, self-control, and forbearance, because they held that to do well and to understand well was, in the end, to live well; and they judged that life must not be thought to have been given by the immortal God only for death, since it would not be understood as the act of a good giver to have granted the most delightful sense of living for the sake of the saddest fear of dying.

And although I did not judge this view of theirs foolish or useless, namely to keep the conscience free from all guilt, and to foresee prudently, avoid wisely, or bear patiently all the troubles of human life, yet these very men did not seem to me fit enough guides to living well and happily, since they laid down only the common precepts of teaching, suited to human sense: precepts which it would be beastlike not to understand, and which, once understood, it would seem a madness beyond even a beast's savagery not to practice. But my mind was eager not only to do these things, the neglect of which would be full both of crimes and of sorrows, but to know the God and Father of so great a gift, to whom it owed its whole self, in whose service it thought itself ennobled, to whom it might refer every expectation of its hope, and in whose goodness, amid such great calamities of present affairs, it might rest as in a most safe and familiar harbor. To understand him, then, or to know him, my mind was kindled with the most burning zeal.

For many of them brought in numerous families of uncertain gods, and, thinking that male and female sex operate in divine natures, asserted births and successions of gods from gods. Others proclaimed gods greater and lesser, differing in power. Some, affirming that there is no God at all, worshipped only nature, which came into being by chance motions and collisions. Most, indeed, following public opinion, spoke of there being a God, but declared that this same God was unconcerned with and neglectful of human affairs. Some, again, worshipped the very bodily and visible forms of creatures in the earthly and heavenly elements. Finally, some placed their gods in images of men, cattle, wild beasts, birds, and serpents, and confined the Lord of the universe and Father of infinity within the narrow bounds of metals, stones, and logs. And it was no longer fitting that those should be authorities for the truth who, following ridiculous, foul, and irreligious things, disagreed among themselves even in the opinions of their most empty views. But amid all this my anxious mind, striving along a useful and necessary road toward the knowledge of its Lord, judged neither that indifference toward the things he had made was worthy of God, nor that sex and successions of begetters and begotten befit a powerful and incorruptible nature. Further, it held for certain that what is divine and eternal can only be one and without difference; because that which was for itself the author of its own being necessarily left nothing outside itself that was superior to itself; and so omnipotence and eternity belong to one alone, since neither stronger and weaker fits with omnipotence, nor later and earlier with eternity; and in God nothing is to be worshipped but what is eternal and powerful.

Pondering these and many other such things in my mind, I came upon those books which the religion of the Hebrews held to have been written by Moses and the prophets. In them, God the Creator himself bearing witness of himself, these words were found: “I am who I am”; and again: “Thus you shall say to the children of Israel: He who is has sent me to you.” I was filled with wonder at so perfect a description of God, which expressed the incomprehensible knowledge of the divine nature in words most suited to human understanding. For nothing is understood to be more proper to God than to be; because that which is neither ever ceases nor ever began. What is everlasting, with the power of incorruptible blessedness, could not, and never can, not be; for everything divine is subject neither to abolition nor to a beginning. And since God's eternity is in no respect lacking to him, he fittingly showed this alone, that he is, as the witness of his incorruptible eternity.

For this description of his infinity the words of the speaker, “I am who I am,” seemed enough; but we still had to understand the work of his majesty and power. For since being is proper to him who, always abiding, did not also begin at some time, this word worthy of the eternal and incorruptible God was again heard concerning himself: “Who holds the heaven in his palm, and the earth in his fist”; and again: “Heaven is my throne, and earth the footstool of my feet. What house will you build me, or what will be the place of my rest? Has not my hand made all these things?” The whole of heaven is held in the palm of God, and the whole of the earth is enclosed in his fist. But the word of God, though it profits the opinion of a religious understanding, contains more meaning when examined by the mind than when received by the ear. For the heaven enclosed in his palm is in turn God's throne, and the earth, which is held in his fist, is also the footstool of his feet. This is so that no bodily extension of form, as in the posture of one seated, might be understood in the throne and footstool, since that infinite power encloses, in the grasp of palm and fist, the very thing that is its throne and footstool; but so that in all these origins of creatures God might be known as within and without, both above and within, that is, surrounding all things and poured into all things: since the palm and fist that hold show the power of a nature that is outside, and throne and footstool, set beneath, show that outward things are subject to one within, since he, sitting within, is over his outward things, and he in turn, outside, encloses the things within. And so, wholly containing all things within and without himself, being infinite he is absent from nothing, and all things are in him who is infinite. In these most religious views of God, then, my mind, held fast by the pursuit of truth, took delight. For it judged nothing else worthy of God than that he should be so far beyond the understanding of things that, however far the mind, even a boundless one, might stretch itself toward some measure of opinion, however presumptuous, so far would the infinity of boundless eternity exceed all the infinity of the nature that pursued it. And though we understood this in piety, it was clearly confirmed by the prophet when he said: “Where shall I go from your Spirit, or where shall I flee from your face? If I ascend into heaven, you are there; if I descend into hell, you are present there also. If I take my wings before the dawn and dwell in the farthest parts of the sea, even there your hand will lead me and your right hand will hold me.” There is no place without God, and no place that is not in God. He is in the heavens, he is in hell, he is beyond the seas. He dwells within as the inner one, he goes beyond as the outer one. So he holds and is held; he is neither confined in any one thing, nor absent from all things.

Although, then, my mind rejoiced in the sense of this excellent and inexplicable understanding, because it could worship this infinity of boundless eternity in its Father and Creator, yet with still more intent zeal it sought the very beauty of its infinite and eternal Lord, so that it might believe that his uncircumscribed immensity was clothed in some adornment befitting a beautiful understanding. And while the religious mind was shut within the error of its own weakness, it grasped this measure of a most beautiful view of God from the voices of the prophets: “For from the greatness of the works and the beauty of creatures the maker of generations is correspondingly seen.” The Creator of great things is in the greatest, and the maker of the most beautiful is in the most beautiful. And since the work itself goes beyond perception, the worker must far exceed all perception. Beautiful, then, are the heaven, the air, the earth, the seas, and the whole universe, which, as the Greeks also hold, seems fittingly called κόσμος, that is, “world,” from its adornment. But if perception measures this beauty of things by natural instinct, as happens even with certain birds and cattle, so that, while their voice falls below thought, their perception still understands the very thing without expressing it; and yet again, since all speech comes from perception, perception speaks to itself in understanding: must not the Lord of this very beauty be understood to be the most beautiful of all beauty? So that, although the form of his eternal adornment escapes every perception of the understanding, the adornment still does not leave perception without some idea of him. And so God must be confessed as most beautiful, in such a way that he is neither contained within our power to comprehend nor outside our power to perceive.

My mind, then, imbued with these pursuits of pious opinion and teaching, rested in a kind of retreat and watchtower of this most beautiful conviction, understanding that nothing else was left to its nature by which it could render a greater or a lesser service to its Maker than to understand that he is so great that he cannot be understood, yet can be believed: since faith takes to itself the understanding that religion requires, and the infinity of eternal power goes beyond it.

Underlying all this, however, there was still a natural sense, that the profession of piety should be nourished by some hope of incorruptible blessedness, which holy thoughts about God and good conduct might earn as the pay of a victorious campaign. For there would be no profit in thinking well of God if death destroyed all perception and a kind of setting of failing nature abolished it. Moreover, reason itself persuaded me that it was not worthy of God to have brought man into this life, sharing in counsel and wisdom, under the condition of failing in life and dying for eternity: as though, not existing, he was put in place only so that, once put in place, he should not exist; whereas the only reason for our creation is understood to be that what was not should begin to be, not that what had begun should cease to be.

Yet my mind was wearied, partly by fear for itself, partly by fear for the body. While it kept its firm conviction in a pious confession of God, it had taken on an anxious care for itself and for this dwelling of its own which would, as it thought, perish with it. After learning the Law and the Prophets, it also came to know the teachings of the gospel and apostolic doctrine in these words: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him nothing was made. What was made in him is life, and the life was the light of men, and the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not grasp it. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to bear witness concerning the light. He was not the light, but came to bear witness concerning the light. The true light was that which enlightens every man coming into this world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, and the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own did not receive him. But as many as received him, to them he gave power to become sons of God, to those who believe in his name: who were born not of blood, nor of the will of man, nor of the will of the flesh, but of God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt in us; and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only-begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.” The mind advances beyond the understanding of natural sense, and is taught more about God than it had supposed. For it learns that its Creator is God from God; it hears that the Word is God and was with God in the beginning. It understands that the light of the world remained in the world and was not recognized by the world. It learns, too, that he came to his own and was not received by his own; but that those who receive him advance, by the merit of their faith, to be sons of God, born not from the embrace of flesh, nor from the conception of blood, nor from the will of bodies, but from God. Then it learns that the Word became flesh and dwelt in us, and that his glory was seen, which, as of the only one from the Father, is perfect with grace and truth.

Here the fearful and anxious mind finds more hope than it expected. First it is instructed in the knowledge of God the Father. And what it had formerly supposed by natural sense about the eternity, infinity, and beauty of its Creator, it now accepts as belonging also to the only-begotten God: not loosening its faith toward many gods, for it hears of God from God; not falling away into a difference of nature in God from God, for it learns that God from God is full of grace and truth; nor thinking of God from God as later in time, for it finds that God was in the beginning with God. Then it learns that faith in this saving knowledge is very rare, but its reward very great: for his own did not receive him, and those who receive him are raised to be sons of God, by a birth not of flesh but of faith. And it learns that to be sons of God is not a necessity but a power: for since God's gift is set before all, it is not conferred by the nature of parents, but the will obtains the reward. And lest this very thing, that each one is given the power to be a son of God, should be hindered in anyone by the weakness of a fearful faith (since what is both more desired and less believed is hoped for with the greatest difficulty, because it is hard), God the Word became flesh, so that through God the Word made flesh the flesh might advance into God the Word. And lest the Word made flesh should be either anything other than God the Word, or flesh not of our body, he dwelt in us: so that while he dwells he should remain nothing other than God, and while he dwells in us he, God, should have become flesh that is nothing other than our flesh. By his condescension in taking flesh he is not deprived of what is his own; for as the only-begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth, he is both perfect in what is his and true in what is ours.

This teaching of the divine mystery, then, my mind received with joy: advancing toward God through the flesh, called to a new birth through faith, and entrusted with the power to obtain heavenly regeneration; recognizing the care of its Parent and Creator for it, and judging that it would not be reduced to nothing by him through whom it had come out of nothing into this very being. And it measured all these things as beyond the sense of human understanding, because the reasoning of common opinion, incapable of heavenly counsel, thinks that only that exists in the nature of things which it either understands within itself or can accomplish of itself. But it weighed the mighty works of God, according to the magnificence of his eternal power, not by sense but by the boundlessness of faith: so that it would not refuse to believe that God was in the beginning with God, and that the Word made flesh dwelt in us, because it did not understand it; but would remember that it could understand if it believed.

And lest it be slowed by any error of worldly wisdom, it is further taught, through the Apostle, by divine words, toward the most perfect faith of this pious confession: “See that no one despoils you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elements of the world, and not according to Christ: for in him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and you have been filled in him, who is the head of every principality and power: in whom you were also circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands, in the stripping off of the body of the flesh, but with the circumcision of Christ, buried with him in baptism, in which you also rose again through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead. And you, when you were dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, he made alive together with him, forgiving you all your sins, blotting out the handwriting of the decrees that was against us, which was contrary to us; and he took it out of the way, nailing it to the cross; having put off the flesh, he made a public show of the powers, triumphing over them with confidence in himself.” Steadfast faith rejects the captious and useless questions of philosophy; truth does not yield to the deceits of human follies or offer itself as spoil to falsehood. It does not hold God according to the sense of common understanding, nor judge about Christ according to the elements of the world, Christ in whom the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily: so that, since the infinity of eternal power is in him, the power of eternal infinity exceeds every grasp of the earthly mind. Drawing us to the nature of his divinity, he has no longer bound us by a bodily observance of precepts, nor trained us, through the shadow of the Law, in the rites of cutting the flesh; but willed that the spirit, circumcised from vices, should cleanse every natural necessity of the body by purification from sins: so that we might be buried with his death in baptism and return to the life of eternity; regeneration to life being a death out of the former life, and we, dying to vices, being reborn to immortality; he himself, from immortality, dying for us, so that we might be raised together with him from death to immortality. For he took the flesh of sin, so that by assuming our flesh he might forgive sins, becoming a sharer in it by assumption, not by guilt; blotting out by death the sentence of death, so that by a new creation of our race in himself he might abolish the ordinance of the former decree; allowing himself to be nailed to the cross, so that by the curse of the cross he might nail up and blot out all the curses of earthly condemnation; and finally suffering as man, so as to put the powers to shame: since God, who was to die according to the Scriptures, would triumph in these things with the confidence of a victor in himself; since he, immortal and not to be conquered by death, would die for the eternal life of the dying. These things, then, done by God beyond the understanding of human nature, do not in turn submit to the natural perceptions of minds, for the work of infinite eternity requires an infinite way of judging: so that when God became man, when the immortal died, when the eternal was buried, this is not a matter for the reasoning of the understanding but an exception made by power; and so, conversely, it is a measure not of perception but of might that God should come from man, the immortal from the dead, the eternal from the buried. We are raised together, then, by God in Christ through his death. But since the fullness of the Godhead is in Christ, we have both the sign of God the Father raising us together in him who died, and the confession that Christ Jesus is nothing other than God in the fullness of the Godhead.

In this leisure, then, conscious of its security, my mind had rested, glad in its hopes, so far from fearing the interruption of this death that it even counted it as a passage into eternal life. And the life of this body of its own it thought not only not burdensome or sickly to itself, but held it to be what letters are to childhood, medicine to the sick, swimming to the shipwrecked, training to young men, and military service to those who will one day command: namely, the endurance of present things, advancing toward the reward of blessed immortality. Moreover, what it believed for itself it also preached to others through the ministry of the priesthood laid upon it, extending its office to the service of the salvation of all.

But amid these things there arose minds of impious rashness, desperate in themselves and savage toward all, who measure the mighty nature of God by the weakness of their own nature: not so that they themselves might rise to an infinite way of thinking about infinite things, but so that they might shut what is unbounded within the limits of their own understanding, and make themselves judges of religion, although the work of religion is the duty of obedience; forgetful of themselves, neglectful of divine things, correctors of the commandments.

For, to say nothing of the other most foolish pursuits of the heretics (about which, however, we shall not be silent wherever the argument gives occasion), some so corrupt the mystery of the gospel faith that, under a profession of one God that is only seemingly pious, they deny the birth of the only-begotten God; so that there is an extension into man rather than a descent; and so that he who was Son of Man in the times of the flesh he took was not the same who before was always, and is, the Son of God; so that there is no birth of God in him, but he is the same out of the same; so that a continuous sequence drawn out from the solid Godhead into flesh might preserve, as they think, an inviolable faith in one God, while the Father, extended as far as the Virgin, was himself born to himself as Son. Others, however (since there is no salvation without Christ, who in the beginning was God the Word with God), denying the birth, have professed only a creation: so that a birth would not admit him as true God, but a creation would teach a false one, which, while it counterfeited faith in one God as regards kind, would not shut him out of the mystery. And so, subjecting the true birth to the name and belief of a creation, they would make him separable from the truth of the one God, so that a creation put in his place would not claim for itself the perfection of divinity, which a true birth had not given him.

My mind, then, burned to answer the madness of these men, recalling that this above all was saving for it: to have believed not only in God, but in God the Father; to have hoped not only in Christ, but in Christ the Son of God; not in a creature, but in God the Creator, born from God. We hasten therefore above all to confound, from the proclamations of the prophets and the Gospels, the madness and ignorance of those who, under the preaching of one God (a preaching indeed alone useful and religious), either deny that Christ is God born, or contend that he is not true God: so that the creation of a powerful creature may leave the mystery of the faith within one God, since, they say, the birth of God would draw the religion of those who confess it outside faith in one God. But we, taught by God to preach neither two gods nor a solitary one, will set forth this account of the gospel and prophetic proclamation in confessing God the Father and God the Son: that in our faith both are one thing, not one person; confessing neither that both are the same, nor something between true and false; because, since God is born from God, the birth allows him to be neither the same nor something else.

And you whom the warmth of faith and zeal for a truth unknown to the world and to the wise of the world have called to read must remember that the weak and feeble opinions of earthly minds are to be cast off, and all the narrow limits of imperfect judgment widened by a religious expectation of learning. For there is need of the new perceptions of a regenerate mind, so that each one's own conscience may enlighten him according to the gift of his heavenly origin. One must first stand, then, by faith, as holy Jeremiah warns, in the substance of God: so that, being about to hear of the substance of God, he may temper his understanding to what is worthy of God's substance; and temper it not by any measure of understanding, but by infinity. Moreover, conscious that he has been made a sharer in the divine nature, as the blessed apostle Peter says in his second letter, let him not measure the nature of God by the laws of his own nature, but weigh the divine declarations according to the magnificence of God's testimony about himself. For the best reader is one who waits for the meaning of what is said from the words rather than imposing it on them, who carries away more than he brings, and does not force the words to seem to contain what he had presumed before reading that they must mean. When, then, the discussion concerns the things of God, let us grant God the knowledge of himself, and serve his words with pious reverence. For he is a fit witness to himself who is not known except through himself.

But if, in treating of the nature and birth of God, we bring forward examples by way of comparison, let no one think that they contain in themselves the perfection of a complete account. For there is no comparison between earthly things and God; but the weakness of our understanding compels us to seek certain likenesses from lower things as pointers to higher ones, so that, prompted by the familiarity of everyday things, we may be led from what our own perception knows to an idea of what lies beyond ordinary perception. Let every comparison, then, be held useful to man rather than fitting to God, since it suggests understanding rather than fills it; nor let it be thought presumptuous for setting side by side the natures of flesh and spirit, of the invisible and the tangible, since it declares itself both necessary to the weakness of human understanding and free from blame for an example that falls short. We proceed, then, to speak of God in the words of God, yet steeping our understanding in likenesses drawn from our own things.

First, we have so arranged the plan of the whole work that its connected books follow in the order best suited to the progress of readers. For we did not wish to offer anything confused or undigested, lest a disordered heap of a work should produce a kind of rustic uproar of jumbled clamor. But since there is no climbing steep places unless the foot is carried to the top on steps laid gradually beneath it, we too, setting in order certain starting points for the climb, have eased this arduous road of understanding with what is, as it were, a gentler slope, not cut into steps but rising gradually on a level path, so that the ascent of those walking it may advance almost without the climbers feeling it.

After this book of our first discourse, the next teaches the mystery of the divine generation in such a way that those who are to be baptized in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit may not be ignorant of the truth of the names, nor confuse the understanding through the words, but may conceive each in their mind as it is and as it is named; so that they may recognize most fully, in what has been said, that the reality belongs to the name and the name to the reality.

After this gentle and brief discourse demonstrating the Trinity, the third book advances, gradually indeed, but now with progress. For what the Lord professed of himself beyond the understanding of human sense, it fits to the faith of understanding by as many examples of power as it can, when he says, “I am in the Father, and the Father in me”: so that what man does not grasp through his dull nature, faith, now a reasonable knowledge, may attain; for God must not be disbelieved about himself, nor must it be thought that understanding his power lies outside the reasoning of faith.

The fourth book then takes its start from the teachings of the heretics, clearing itself of the faults by which the faith of the church is defamed. It brings forward that very exposition of their faithlessness published by many not long ago, and convicts them of having defended one God from the Law deceitfully, and therefore most impiously, by setting out all the testimonies of the Law and the Prophets in such a way as to show that to confess one God without Christ as God is irreligion, and that, once the only-begotten God Christ is confessed, not to preach one God is faithlessness.

The fifth book kept to the order of reply that the heretics had set by their profession. For since they had falsely claimed to preach one God according to the Law, they also put forward from the same Law that there is one true God: so that by the restriction of God as both one and true they might take away from the Lord Christ his birth, because where there is birth, there truth also must be understood. But we, teaching by the same steps by which this was denied, have preached from the Law and the Prophets neither two gods nor a solitary true God, but the Father as true God in such a way that we neither corrupted faith in one God nor denied the birth. And since, according to them, the name of God would be ascribed to the Lord Jesus Christ as created rather than born, rather than belonging to him, the truth of his divinity has been so demonstrated from the prophetic authorities that, the Lord Jesus Christ being preached as true God, the truth of the divinity native to him would be contained, for us, within the understanding of the one true God.

The sixth book now lays open all the deceit of the heretical assertion. For, to win belief for their statements by condemning the sayings and faults of heretics, namely Valentinus, Sabellius, Mani, and Hieracas, they stole the pious preaching of the church to cloak an impious profession: so that, by correcting for the better the words of irreligious men and toning them down with ambiguous meaning, they might extinguish the doctrine of piety under the guise of condemning impiety. But we, setting out the sayings and professions of each, have cleared the holy preaching of the church, and have not allowed it to have anything in common with the condemned heretics; so that, condemning what is to be condemned, we might follow with reverence only what is to be followed. We have taught that the Lord Jesus Christ is the Son of God, which they most of all denied, by these means: the Father bears witness of him, he himself professes it of himself, the apostles preach it, the devout believe it, the demons cry it out, the Jews confess it while denying it, the Gentiles who did not know him understand it; so that what had not been left open to ignorance might no longer be allowed to be doubted.

The seventh book next tempered the discourse of the debate it took up according to the step of perfect faith. For first, by a sound and uncorrupted demonstration of the inviolable faith, it fought in the quarrel among Sabellius, Ebion, and these men who do not preach him as true God: why Sabellius denied that he subsisted before the ages, whom the others confessed as created. For Sabellius did not know the Son as subsisting, though he does not doubt that true God worked in the body. These men, on the other hand, denied the birth and affirmed a creature, since they do not understand that his works are the works of true God. Their quarrel is our faith. For while Sabellius denies the Son, he wins in this, that it was true God who worked; and the church conquers those who denied true God in Christ. But when these men demonstrate against him that Christ subsisted before the ages and always worked, they triumph, for our benefit, over Sabellius, condemned along with themselves, who knows true God but does not know the Son of God. Ebion, however, is so conquered by both, that the one proves that he subsisted before the ages, the other that it was true God who worked. And all are conquered by conquering one another: for the church, against Sabellius, against the preachers of a creature, and against Ebion, bears witness that the Lord Jesus Christ is true God from true God, both born before the ages and afterward begotten as man.

No one doubts that it was most fitting for pious teaching that, since we had preached from the Law and the Prophets first the Son of God, and then also true God, together with the mystery of unity, we should in turn, confirming the Law and the Prophets by the Gospels, teach from them first the Son of God, and then also true God. It was most appropriate, then, after the name of Son, to show its truth, although by common sense the name of Son would already carry full assurance of its truth. But lest any occasion for deceiving and mocking be left to those who oppose the truth of the only-begotten God, we built up that very faith in his being the Son in the proper sense through the truth of his divinity: teaching that he who could not be denied to be the Son of God is God, by these ways: name, birth, nature, power, and profession; so that he would not be other than he was called, nor the name fail to belong to a birth, nor the birth have lost the nature, nor the nature not have kept the power, nor the power fail to be made known by a profession conscious of its own truth. We have therefore set out all the grounds of each kind, drawn from the Gospels, so that the profession did not pass over the power in silence, nor the power fail to show the nature, nor the nature fail to belong to its birth, nor the birth fail to belong to its name: so that no room would be left for impious slander, since the Lord Jesus Christ himself had also taught, by the declaration of his native truth, the divinity of true God from true God according to name, birth, nature, and power.

The eighth book, now that the two preceding books on the Son of God and true God have greatly advanced the faith of believers, is wholly occupied with demonstrating one God; not taking the birth away from the Son of God, nor introducing through it the divinity of two gods. First it showed by what means the heretics, since they could not deny the truth of God the Father and God the Son, still tried to evade it; refuting their foolish and ridiculous pretexts, by which, through what is said: “The multitude of believers had one soul and one heart”; and again: “He who plants and he who waters are one”; and again: “I do not pray for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that all may be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they too may be in us,” they assert a unity of will and harmony rather than the truth of divinity. But we, treating these very passages according to their own force, showed that they contain faith in the divine birth; and, going over all the declarations of the Lord's sayings, we taught the whole and complete mystery of the majesty both of the Father and of the only-begotten, from the proclamations of the apostles and the properties of the Holy Spirit: since by the Son being understood in the Father and the Father known in the Son, I showed the birth of the only-begotten God and the truth of perfect God in him.

But in matters most necessary for salvation, it is not enough to bring forward, to satisfy faith, only what is our own: for unexamined assertions of our own statements often flatter and deceive the mind, unless the demonstrated emptiness of the opposing propositions also confirms our faith by the very fact that they are shown to be ridiculous. The ninth book, therefore, is wholly intent on repelling what the impious seize upon to weaken the birth of the only-begotten God: men who, forgetful of the dispensation of the mystery hidden from the ages, do not remember that the gospel faith preaches him as God and man. For when they deny that our Lord Jesus Christ is God, like God and equal to God as God the Son to God the Father, born from God, and subsisting, according to the property of his birth, in the truth of Spirit, they usually rely on these declarations from the Lord's sayings: “Why do you call me good? No one is good but the one God”: so that, since he rebukes being called good and testifies that only the one God is good, he would be outside the goodness of God, who is good, and not within the truth of God, who is one. To these sayings they also join, as arguments for their impiety: “This is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent”: so that, having confessed the Father as the only true God, he himself would be neither true nor God, because the restriction “the only true God” does not go beyond the author of the property so designated. And they say this must be understood as said without ambiguity, because he also said: “The Son can do nothing of himself, except what he has seen the Father doing”: so that, since he can do nothing except from the pattern of a work, a weakness of nature is understood in him; for what is subject to the necessity of another's working is in no way to be compared with omnipotence, and reason tells us that to be able to do all things of oneself and not to be able are different. And they differ so far, they say, that he professed this of God the Father: “The Father is greater than I,” and before so absolute a profession the slander of contradiction should cease, since it would be impious madness to ascribe the honor and nature of God to one who refuses it. And in every way, they say, he is so far removed from the property of true God that he even testified: “But of that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone”: so that, since the Son does not know what the Father alone knows, the one who does not know is far removed from the one who knows; because a nature liable to ignorance does not have the strength and power that is exempt from the dominion of ignorance.

Showing, then, that these things have been understood most impiously with a corrupt and depraved sense, we have brought forward all the reasons for the sayings from these very kinds of questions, times, and dispensations, fitting the words to their reasons rather than assigning reasons to the words. Thus, since “The Father is greater than I” differs from “I and the Father are one”; and “No one is good but the one God” is not the same as “He who has seen me has seen the Father also”; or since these are certainly so opposed in their difference: “Father, all that is yours is mine, and mine is yours” and “that they may know you, the only true God”; or again, “I am in the Father, and the Father in me” and “But of the day and hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone”: in each of them may be understood both the proclamations of the dispensation and the declarations of a power conscious of its nature. And though the author of both sayings is the same, yet, once the force of each kind has been shown, what is preached, for the mystery of the gospel faith, under the dispensation of reason, time, birth, and name does not tend to dishonor his true divinity.

The tenth book follows the same course as faith. For since, through the sense of a foolish understanding, they seized on certain things from the manner and the words of his passion to dishonor the divine nature and power in the Lord Jesus Christ, these very things had to be shown both to have been understood most impiously by them and to have been spoken by the Lord as a declaration of the true and perfect majesty in himself. For they flatter themselves, so as to be impious in the name of religion, with these sayings: “My soul is sorrowful even to death”: so that he would be far from the blessedness and incorruption of God, whose soul was seized by the ruling fear of impending sorrow; who was even so dismayed by the necessity of the passion as to pray: “Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me”; and without doubt he would seem to fear to suffer what he prayed not to suffer, since the dread of suffering supplied the reason for entreating. And the force of pain, they say, so took hold of his weakness that at the very time of the cross he said: “God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”; and he, moved by the bitterness of the passion even to complaining of his desolation, lacking his Father's help, breathed out his spirit with this cry, when he said: “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit”; and, troubled by dread at breathing out his spirit, he commended it to God the Father to keep, because despair of safety forced the necessity of commending it.

But these most foolish and impious men, not understanding that the same person said nothing contradictory about the same things, clinging only to the words, abandoned the very reasons for the sayings. For although “My soul is sorrowful even to death” is very far different from “Hereafter you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power”; and “Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me” is not the same as “The cup which my Father has given me, shall I not drink it?”; and “God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” is far different from “Truly I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise”; and “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit” disagrees greatly with “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do”: they fell back into impiety, incapable of grasping the divine sayings. And though dread and freedom, haste and excuse, complaint and encouragement, distrust and intercession do not fit together, forgetting the divine profession and nature, they held fast to the deeds and words of the dispensation as an argument for their impiety. We therefore, setting out everything that belongs to the mystery of the soul and body of the Lord Jesus Christ, have left nothing unexamined and nothing unspoken; but, fitting a peaceable understanding of all the sayings to each kind of reason, we have shown that his confidence did not tremble, his will did not shrink back, his security did not complain, and that he who prayed in commending himself had desired pardon for others; confirming the trustworthiness of all the sayings by a complete preaching of the gospel mystery.

Since, then, not even the glory of the resurrection restrained these most desperate men within a religious understanding, but they either took the weapons of their impiety from the profession of his condescension or turned the revelation of the mystery to the dishonor of God: so that, through the saying, “I ascend to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God,” since the Father is Father and God is God in common to us and to him, he would, by this shared profession, be outside the restriction to the true God; and, like us, the necessity of being created would subject him to God the Creator, and adoption would take him up as a son; and no property of the divine nature would now be thought to be in him, according to the Apostle's saying: “But when it says, All things are subjected, he is excepted who subjected all things to him. And when all things have been subjected to him, then the Son himself also will be subjected to him who subjected all things to him, that God may be all in all.” For subjection, they say, both declares the weakness of the one subjected and signifies the power of the one ruling. The eleventh book is occupied in treating these things too, with the fullest demonstration of religion, showing from these very apostolic sayings not only that subjection does not lead to weakness of divinity, but that through this very subjection the truth that he is God, because born from God, is shown; and that, through the fact that the Father is Father and God is God both to him and to us, much is gained for us and nothing taken from him; since, born as man and having undergone all the sufferings of our flesh, he ascended to our God and Father, so that, as our man, he might be glorified into God.

We have always remembered what is observed in every kind of training: those who have first been trained for a long time by light exercise and long practice in a humbler study are then sent to the real trials of the things in which they have been instructed. So those who are to serve in wars, once they have played well at war, are drawn into military service; or those who have tried forensic suits on school material are then sent to the battles of the courts; or a sailor who has handled a ship fearlessly on home ponds is then entrusted to the storms of a great and foreign sea. We have taken care to do this very thing in this greatest and weightiest understanding of the whole faith. For after first instructing a tender faith from light beginnings concerning the birth, the name, the divinity, and the truth, and raising the zeal of readers by gentle progress even to the uprooting of all the heretics' pretexts, we then led them out into the very arena of the glorious and great contest: so that, as far as the human mind, relying on the opinion of common sense, falls short in grasping the eternal birth, so far they might strive, by divine studies, to perceive what is beyond the opinion of our nature. Above all we resolve this question, which, growing strong through the dullness of worldly wisdom, thinks it speaks with reason when it says of the Lord Jesus: “There was when he was not,” and, “He was not before he was born,” and, “He was made from things that did not exist”: so that, since birth seems to bring with it this reason, that he who was not came to be, and was born when he did not exist, they also subject the only-begotten God by this to the sense of time (as if faith itself and the very account of birth showed that he at some time had not been), and so they say that he was born from what he was not, because birth grants being to what was not. But we, preaching from the apostolic and gospel testimonies the Father always and the Son always, will teach that he is not the God of all things after anything, but before all things; and that the rashness of this irreligious understanding does not apply to him, that he was born from things that did not exist and was not before he was born; but that he always was in such a way that we also preach him as born, and was born in such a way that we make plain that he always was; and that in him there is not the exemption of being unbegotten, but the eternity of birth; because birth has an author, and divinity does not lack eternity.

And because they are ignorant of the prophetic saying and unskilled in heavenly teaching, with a corrupted sense and propriety of meaning they try to assert from it that God was created rather than born, because it is said: “The Lord created me in the beginning of his ways for his works”: so that he would be of the common nature of created things, though more excellent within the class of creation; and in him there would be not the glory of a divine birth but the strength of a powerful creature. But we, bringing nothing new and nothing presumed from outside, will set forth from that very testimony of Wisdom the truth and meaning of the saying, and show that his being created in the beginning of God's ways and for his works cannot be drawn into the understanding of the divine and eternal birth; because to have been created for these things and to have been born before all things are not the same. For where birth is meant, there is a profession of birth alone; but where the name of creation is used, there the reason for that creation comes first. And though Wisdom was born before all things, yet because she was also created for certain things, what is before all things and what began to be after certain things are not the same.

Next it seemed to follow, once the name of creation had been rejected from our faith concerning the only-begotten God, to teach also what is fitting and religious for the confession of the Holy Spirit: so that, with the earlier books confirmed by long and careful treatment, nothing would be lacking for the completeness of the whole faith, when, the irreligious errors of faulty preaching about the Holy Spirit also having been removed, the apostolic and gospel authority would keep the mystery of the regenerating Trinity unharmed and undefiled within a saving definition; and no one would any longer dare, by the judgment of human sense, to count among creatures the Spirit of God, whom we have received as the pledge of immortality and for a share in the divine and incorruptible nature.

For my part, I am conscious that I owe you, almighty God the Father, this as the chief duty of my life, that all my speech and thought should speak of you. For this very use of speech that you have granted me can bring me no greater reward than to serve you by preaching you, and to show you as you are, Father, Father namely of the only-begotten God, either to a world that does not know it or to a heretic who denies it. In this, indeed, there is only the profession of my will; for the rest, the gift of your help and mercy must be prayed for, that you may fill with the breath of your Spirit the sails of our faith and confession spread out to you, and drive us forward on the course of preaching we have begun. For he who made this promise is not unfaithful to us, when he says: “Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.” We in our poverty will pray for what we lack, bring unwearied zeal to searching the sayings of your prophets and apostles, and knock at every door of closed understanding; but it is yours to grant what is prayed for, to be present when sought, and to open when knocked. For we are numb with a certain sluggish torpor of our nature, and through the weakness of our mind we are held within the necessity of ignorance in understanding your things; but the study of your teaching trains us toward a sense of divine knowledge, and the obedience of faith carries us beyond natural opinion.

We wait, then, for you to stir up the beginnings of this anxious undertaking, to strengthen it as it grows, and to call us to a share in the spirit of the prophets or of the apostles: so that we may grasp their sayings in no other sense than that in which they spoke them, and follow out the proper meanings of the words with the same significations of things. For we are going to speak of what they preached in mystery: you, the eternal God, Father of the eternal only-begotten God; you alone without birth, and the one Lord Jesus Christ from you by an eternal birth; not to be counted in the number of gods by a difference of truth, nor to be preached as not begotten from you, who are the one God, nor to be confessed as anything but true God, born from you, the true God and Father. Grant us, then, the meaning of the words, the light of understanding, honor in what is said, and faith in the truth; and grant that we may also speak what we believe: namely, that, knowing from the Prophets and Apostles you the one God the Father and one Lord Jesus Christ, it may be given us now, against the heretics who deny it, so to celebrate you as God as not to make you solitary, and so to preach him as not to make him false.

For believers the word of God was sufficient, the word poured into our ears by the evangelist's testimony with the very power of its truth, when the Lord says: “Go now, teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to keep all things whatever I command you; and behold, I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the age.” For what concerning the mystery of human salvation is not contained in this? Or what is left over or obscure? All is full, as coming from the full, and perfect, as coming from the perfect. For these words include the meaning of the terms, the efficacy of the acts, the order of the works, and the understanding of the nature. He commanded them to baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, that is, in the confession of the Author, of the Only-begotten, and of the Gift. There is one Author of all things. For there is one God the Father, from whom are all things; and one Only-begotten, our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things; and one Spirit, the gift in all. All things, then, are set in order according to their powers and merits: one power from which are all things, one offspring through whom are all things, one gift of perfect hope. Nor will anything be found lacking to so great a completeness, within which there is, in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, infinity in the Eternal, form in the Image, and enjoyment in the Gift.

But we are compelled by the faults of heretics and blasphemers to do what is not lawful, to climb heights, to speak what cannot be spoken, to presume what is not permitted. And though what has been commanded ought to be fulfilled by faith alone, namely to adore the Father, to venerate the Son with him, and to abound in the Holy Spirit, we are forced to stretch the lowliness of our speech to things that cannot be told, and are pressed into a fault by another's fault: so that what ought to have been kept within the reverence of our minds must now be brought out into the peril of human language.

For many have arisen who took the simplicity of the heavenly words according to the sense of their own will, not according to the plain meaning of the truth itself, interpreting otherwise than the force of the sayings required. For heresy comes from the understanding, not from Scripture; it is the sense, not the word, that becomes the crime. Can the truth be corrupted? When the name of father is heard, is not the nature of a son contained in the name? Will the Holy Spirit not be what he is called? For what a father is cannot be absent in the Father, nor can what a son is be lacking in the Son, nor can what is received fail to exist in the Holy Spirit. But men perverse in mind confuse and entangle everything, and by the perversity of their own sense they contend even for a change of nature: so that they take away from the Father what the Father is, while they wish to take from the Son what a son is. And they take it away when, as they hold, the son is not from the father's nature. And he is not from his nature when the one born and the one begetting do not have the same things in themselves. For he is not a son whose substance is other than his father's and unlike it. And how will he be a father, if he has not begotten in the son what is in himself of substance and nature?

Although, then, these things can in no way be changed from what they are, they nevertheless bring in new doctrines and human inventions. So Sabellius extends the Father into the Son, and thinks this should be confessed in names rather than in realities, since he presents the same one to himself as Son and as Father. So Ebion, granting the Son of God every beginning from Mary, presents not man from God but God from man; and holds that the Virgin did not receive one already subsisting, God the Word, who was in the beginning with God, but bore flesh through the word; for he says that in the Word there was before not the nature of an existing only-begotten God, but the sound of an uttered voice. So too some preachers of this present time bring forth the form and wisdom and power of God from nothing and in time, lest, if the Son is from the Father, God should be diminished into the Son; they are too anxious lest the Son born from him should empty the Father. And so they come to God's aid in the creation of the Son, providing him from things that did not exist, so that the Father may remain within the perfection of his nature, because nothing has been begotten from him. What wonder, then, that they hold different views about the Holy Spirit, when they are such rash authors of the creation, change, and abolition of the very giver of the Spirit? And so they dissolve the truth of this perfect mystery, while they contrive substances of difference in things so common to both: denying the Father, while they take from the Son what a son is; denying the Holy Spirit, while they know neither his use nor his author. So they both destroy the unlearned, while they assert the reasonableness of this preaching, and deceive their hearers, while they take the nature away from the names, since they cannot take the names away from the nature. I pass over the other names of human peril, the Valentinians, Marcionites, Manichees, and the other plagues, which at times seize the minds of the unlearned and infect them by the very contagion of their company; and one pestilence comes upon all, while the disease of the preachers is poured into the minds of the hearers.

The unbelief of these men, then, drags us into a doubtful and dangerous position, so that it becomes necessary to say something about such great and hidden things beyond the heavenly prescription. The Lord had said that the nations were to be baptized “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” The form of faith is certain; but as far as the heretics are concerned, every meaning has been made uncertain. Nothing, therefore, is to be added to the commands, but a limit must be set to audacity: so that, since malice, roused by the prompting of the devil's deceit, evades the truth of things through the names of the nature, we may set forth the nature of the names; and, declaring the dignity and office of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit as we find them in the words, the names may not be cheated of the properties of the nature, but be held by the names within the meaning of the nature. I do not know what mind there is in those who think otherwise about these things, corrupting the truth, bringing darkness on the light, cutting what cannot be cut, tearing the incorrupt, dividing the undivided. If it is so easy for them to tear apart what is perfect, to lay down law for power, to draw a boundary around the infinite, for me at least, as I answer them, there is turmoil in my cares, faltering in my perception, stupor in my understanding; and in speech I will confess not weakness now, but silence. And yet the will to do it is wrung from me, so as to resist audacity, to help those in error, and to provide for the ignorant. But what is demanded is immense, what is dared is incomprehensible: that there should be speech about God beyond the bounds God has set. He has laid down the names of the nature: Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Whatever is sought beyond this is beyond the meaning of language, beyond the reach of perception, beyond the conception of understanding: it is not uttered, not attained, not held. The nature of the thing itself exhausts the meaning of words; an impenetrable light blinds the contemplation of perception; whatever is contained by no limit exceeds the capacity of understanding. But we, begging pardon for this necessity from him who is all these things, will dare, will seek, will speak; and, the only thing we promise in so great a question, we will believe whatever shall be shown us.

There is the Father, from whom everything that exists has come to be. He, in Christ and through Christ, is the origin of all things. Moreover, his being is in himself: he does not take what he is from elsewhere, but holds what he is from himself and in himself. He is infinite, because he is not himself in anything, but all things are within him; always beyond place, because he is not contained; always before the ages, because time is from him. Run on in thought, if you think there is some furthest point of him: you will always find him, because however far you strain, there is always further to strain. Always to strain toward his place is as much your condition as being without end is his. Speech will fail in him, but his nature will not be enclosed. Again, unroll the ages: you will find that he always is; and when the reckoning of numbers fails in speech, being still does not fail God. Rouse your understanding and embrace the whole with your mind: you hold nothing. What you hold as the whole still has a remainder, and that remainder is always within the whole. So that is not the whole which has a remainder; nor is the remainder all, which is the whole. For a remainder is a portion, but “all” is what is whole. But God is both everywhere and wholly wherever he is. So he exceeds the region of understanding, he outside of whom there is nothing, and to whom it belongs always to be. This is the truth of the mystery of God; this is the name of the impenetrable nature in the Father. God is invisible, ineffable, infinite: to speak of him speech falls silent, to search for him perception is dulled, to embrace him understanding is confined. Yet, as we said, he has the name of his nature in “Father”; but he is Father only. For he does not, in the human way, have from elsewhere the fact that he is Father. He is unbegotten, eternal, having in himself always that he always is. He is known to the Son alone: for no one knows the Father except the Son, and he to whom the Son wills to reveal him; nor the Son except the Father. Theirs is a mutual knowledge, theirs in turn a perfect understanding. And since no one knows the Father except the Son, let us think about the Father together with the Son who reveals him, who alone is a faithful witness.

And I would rather have thought these things about the Father than said them: for I am well aware that all speech is weak for expressing what is his. He must be thought of as invisible, incomprehensible, eternal. But to say that he is in himself and from himself and through himself, that he is invisible, incomprehensible, and immortal: in these there is indeed a confession of honor, an indication of thought, and a kind of outline of opinion; but speech gives way before his nature, and words do not unfold the thing as it is. For when you hear that he is in himself, human reason finds no solution; for to have and to be had are distinguished, and what is will be one thing and that in which it is another. If again you take it that he is from himself, no one is both giver and gift to himself. If that he is immortal, then there is something not derived from him to which he is not subject; and what this word claims for him over against another is not his alone. If that he is incomprehensible, then what is said to be beyond reach will be nowhere. If that he is invisible, whatever does not appear to sight lacks its own existence. Confession therefore fails in naming him; whatever words are fitted to him will not express God as he is and how great he is. Perfect knowledge is so to know God that you know him to be, not unknowable, yet beyond telling. He is to be believed, understood, and adored; and by these acts of devotion he is to be expressed.

We have been carried out from harborless places into the deep on a troubled sea, and can neither go back nor go forward without danger; yet there is more difficulty in what remains to be crossed than in what has been crossed. The Father is as he is, and must be believed to be as he is. The mind is dismayed at touching upon the Son, and all speech trembles to venture forth. For he is the offspring of the unbegotten, one from one, true from true, living from living, perfect from perfect, power of power, wisdom of wisdom, glory of glory, the image of the invisible God, the form of the unbegotten Father. But what kind of offspring shall we think the only-begotten is, from the unbegotten? For the Father cries again and again from heaven: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” It is not a cutting off or a division: for he who begot is impassible, and he who was born is the image of the invisible God; and he testifies: “The Father is in me, and I in the Father.” It is not an adoption: for he is the true Son of God, and cries out: “He who has seen me has seen the Father also.” Nor was he commanded to exist, as other things were: for the Only-begotten is from the one, and has life in himself, as he who begot him has life in himself; for he says: “As the Father has life in himself, so he has given the Son to have life in himself.” Nor is there a part of the Father in the Son; for the Son testifies: “All that the Father has is mine”; and again: “And all mine are yours, and yours mine”; and: “Whatever the Father has, he has given to the Son”; and the Apostle testifies: “For in him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.” And what is a portion does not by nature have all things. He is perfect from perfect, because he who has all has given all. Nor must he be thought not to have given because he still has, or not to have because he has given.

Each of them, then, holds the secret of this birth. And if anyone perhaps blames his own understanding because he cannot attain the mystery of this generation, though both the Father and the Son are understood without qualification, he will hear from me, with still greater sorrow, that I too do not know it. I do not know it; I do not inquire; and yet I will console myself. Archangels do not know it, angels have not heard it, the ages do not hold it, the prophet did not perceive it, the apostle did not ask it, the Son himself has not disclosed it. Let the sorrow of complaint cease. Whoever you are who inquire into these things, I do not call you back to the heights, I do not stretch you toward the breadth, I do not lead you down into the depth: will you not calmly be ignorant of the Creator's birth, when you are ignorant of the origin of the creature? This at least I ask: do you perceive that you were begotten, and do you understand what is begotten from you? I do not ask from where you drew perception, from where you received life, from where you obtained understanding, what it is in you that gives smell, perception, sight, and hearing; surely no one is ignorant of what he himself does. I ask from where you give these things to those whom you beget, how you implant perception, kindle the eyes, fix the heart. Explain these things, if you can. You have, then, what you do not know, and you give what you do not understand: calmly unskilled in your own affairs, insolently ignorant in the affairs of God.

Hear, then, of the unbegotten Father; hear of the only-begotten Son. Hear: “The Father is greater than I”; hear: “I and the Father are one”; hear: “He who has seen me has seen the Father also”; hear: “The Father is in me, and I in the Father”; hear: “I came out from the Father”; and, “Who is in the bosom of the Father”; and, “All that the Father has he has handed over to the Son”; and, “The Son has life in himself, as the Father also has in himself.” Hear that the Son is the image, wisdom, power, and glory of God; and understand the Holy Spirit proclaiming: “Who will tell his generation?”; and rebuke, if you will, the Lord when he testifies: “No one knows the Son except the Father, nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and he to whom the Son wills to reveal him.” Then thrust yourself into this secret, and, between the one unbegotten God and the one only-begotten God, plunge yourself into the hidden depth of an inconceivable birth. Begin, run on, persevere: although I know you will not arrive, I will still congratulate you on your progress. For he who piously pursues infinite things, though he never reaches them, will still advance by going forward. Here understanding comes to a stand, at the end of words.

The Son is from that Father who is: only-begotten from unbegotten, offspring from parent, living from living. As the Father has life in himself, so to the Son also has been given life in himself. Perfect from perfect, because whole from whole; not a division or cutting, because each is in the other, and the fullness of divinity is in the Son. Incomprehensible from incomprehensible; for no one knows them except each other. Invisible from invisible: because he is the image of the invisible God, and because he who has seen the Son has seen the Father also. One from another, because they are Father and Son; not one nature of divinity and another, because both are one. God from God: from one unbegotten God, one only-begotten God; not two gods, but one from one; not two unbegotten, because he was born from the unborn; the one differing in nothing from the other, because the life of the living one is in the living one. These things we have touched on concerning the nature of the divinity, not grasping the height of understanding, but understanding that what we speak of is incomprehensible. Then, you say, faith has no task, if nothing can be comprehended. On the contrary, faith professes this as its task: to know that what it inquires into is incomprehensible to it.

There remains still something to say about the unspeakable generation of the Son; or rather, that something is still the whole. I am in turmoil, I am torn, I grow dull, and I do not know where to begin. For I do not know when the Son was born; and yet it is wrong for me not to know that he was born. Whom shall I entreat? Whom shall I implore? From what books shall I take words to explain such great difficulties? Shall I unroll all the schools of Greece? But I have read: “Where is the wise man? Where is the debater of this age?” In this matter, then, the sophists of the world and the wise of the age are mute; for they have rejected the wisdom of God. Shall I consult, then, the scribe of the Law? But he does not know; for the cross of Christ is a stumbling block to him. Shall I perhaps urge you to shut your eyes and be silent, because it is enough for the veneration of the one preached that lepers were cleansed, the deaf heard, the lame ran, paralytics stood, the blind received light, a man blind from the womb gained his eyes, demons were put to flight, the sick recovered, the dead lived? But the heretics confess these things, and perish.

Expect, then, nothing less than the running of the lame, the sight of the blind, the flight of demons, the life of the dead. For there stands with me, to defend me in the difficulties set out above, a fisherman, poor, ignorant, unlearned, his hands busy with the net, his clothes wet, his feet smeared with mud, a boatman through and through. Ask and understand whether it was more wonderful to raise the dead or to impart to an unlearned man the knowledge of this teaching. For he says: “In the beginning was the Word.” What is this, “In the beginning was”? Times are passed over, ages crossed, eras taken away. Posit whatever beginning you like in your own thinking: you do not hold him in time, for he of whom we treat already was. Look at the world; understand what is written of it: “In the beginning God made heaven and earth.” What is created, then, is made in the beginning, and what is held in the beginning so as to be made is contained by time. But my fisherman, unlettered and unlearned, is free from time, released from the ages; he has overcome every beginning: for he was, the one who is, and he is not shut within any time so as to have begun, since he rather was in the beginning than was being made.

But perhaps we shall find that our fisherman has strayed from the order of the plan he set out: for he has freed the Word from time, and what is free belongs to itself and is for itself, solitary and obedient to no one. Let us prick up our ears for the rest. He says: “And the Word was with God.” Now that which was before the beginning is with God, without beginning. He who was, then, is with God; and he who is beyond the time of our knowing is not apart from his author. Our fisherman has escaped; but perhaps he will be caught on what follows.

For you will say: a word is the sound of a voice, the declaring of matters, the utterance of thoughts. This was with God and was in the beginning, because the speech of thought is eternal, since he who thinks is eternal. For the moment I answer you briefly on behalf of my fisherman, while we see how he defends his own rusticity. A word has it in its nature that it can be, and what follows for it is that it has been; but it exists only while it is heard. And how was that in the beginning which exists neither before time nor after time? And I do not know whether it can even exist in time itself: for the word of speakers does not exist before they speak, and when they have spoken it will not exist; and in the very act of speaking, by the time they finish, the part with which they began no longer exists. So much from me, as one among others. But the fisherman will speak otherwise for himself; and first he will rebuke you for having listened carelessly. For even if, as an untrained hearer, you had missed the first sentence, “In the beginning was the Word,” why do you complain about the next, “And the Word was with God”? Had you heard “in God” and not “with God,” so as to take it as the word of a hidden thought? Or had the rustic not known the difference between being in and being with? For what was in the beginning is declared to be, not in another, but with another. But I take nothing from what goes before; let what follows stand by itself. Wait for the standing and the name of the Word. For he says: “And the Word was God.” The sound of a voice ceases, and so does the utterance of thought. This Word is a reality, not a sound; a nature, not speech; God, not emptiness.

But I tremble at the saying, and the unaccustomed language disturbs me. I hear: “And the Word was God,” I to whom the prophets announced one God. But lest my trembling go any further, explain, my fisherman, the plan of so great a mystery, and refer all things to the one God without insult, without abolition, without time. He says: “He was in the beginning with God.” Since he was in the beginning, he is not held in time; since he is God, he is not reduced to a voice; since he is with God, nothing is wronged and nothing taken away: for he is not dissolved into another, and he is declared to be with the one unbegotten God, from whom he himself is the one only-begotten God.

We still wait, fisherman, for the fullness of the Word from you. He was indeed in the beginning, but he could have not been before the beginning. Here too I offer you something on behalf of my fisherman: what was could not have not been; for “was” does not allow of a time when he was not. But what does he say for himself? “All things were made through him.” If, then, nothing exists without him through whom all things began, he through whom everything that is was made is himself without limit. For time is the measured indication of an extent, not in place but in duration. And since all things are from him, nothing is not from him; and therefore time is from him.

But someone says to you, my fisherman: “You have been too easy and indiscriminate here; ‘all things were made through him’ has no limit. There is the unbegotten, who was made by no one; there is also he who is begotten from the unborn. ‘All things’ is without exception and leaves nothing outside.” But while we dare to say nothing further, or perhaps while we are trying to say it, you come to meet us: “And without him nothing was made.” You have restored the Author, while professing a partner. For since nothing is without him, I understand that he is not alone; for one is he through whom, another he without whom: the two expressions distinguish the meaning of the one who mediates and the one who acts.

But when I was anxious for the Author, who alone is unbegotten, lest nothing should be excepted when you said “all things,” you removed my fear by saying, “And without him nothing was made.” Yet I am confused and troubled by this very phrase, that without him nothing was made. So there is something made through another, which nevertheless was not made without him; and if something is through another, though not without him, then not all things are through him; for it is one thing to have made, another to have stood by the maker. Here, my fisherman, I have nothing of my own to offer, as I had on the other points; the answer must come at once from your own words: “All things were made through him.” I understand. For the Apostle taught: “Things visible and invisible, whether thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers, all things through him and in him.”

Since, then, all things are through him, come to my aid and tell what it is that was not made without him. “What was made in him is life.” This, then, is what was not made without him: what was made in him. For what was made in him was also made through him; for all things were created through him and in him. And they were created in him because he was born as God the Creator. But further, nothing that was made in him was made without him for this reason, that God in being born was life; and he who was life did not become life after he was born; for in him what was born is not one thing and what he received when born another. In him there is no time between birth and growth. Nothing, then, of what was being made in him was made without him, because he in whom they were made is life, and God who was born from God came to be God not after he was born, but in being born. For, born living from the living, true from the true, perfect from the perfect, he was not born without the power of his birth: not perceiving his birth afterward, but understanding himself as God in the very fact that he was being born God from God. This is the Only-begotten from the Unbegotten; this is “I and the Father are one”; this is one God in the confession of the Father and the Son; this is the Father in the Son and the Son in the Father. Hence: “He who has seen me has seen the Father also.” Hence: “All that the Father has he has given to the Son.” Hence: “As the Father has life in himself, so he has given the Son to have life in himself.” Hence: “No one knows the Son except the Father, nor the Father except the Son.” Hence: “In him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.”

This life is the light of men, this light that illuminates the darkness. And so that the fisherman might console us for the impossibility of telling his generation, according to the prophet, he added: “And the darkness did not grasp it.” Language gives way before the nature and has nowhere further to run; and yet this fisherman received it as he reclined on the Lord's breast. This is not the language of the world, because what is treated is not a thing of the world. Let something be brought forward, if anything can be found in the meaning of the words beyond what has been said; and if there are any other names for the nature we have set out, let them be produced. If there are none, or rather because there are none, let us marvel at this teaching in a fisherman and perceive in him the oracles of God; and let us hold and adore the confession of the Father and the Son, of the unbegotten and the only-begotten, beyond telling and exceeding every grasp of language and perception; and, after John's example, let us recline upon the Lord Jesus, that we may be able to perceive these things and speak of them.

The integrity of this faith is commended by the authority of the Gospel, by the teaching of the apostles, and by the idle deceit of the heretics clamoring on every side. For this foundation stands firm and unmoved against all winds, rains, and torrents; it is not to be driven by blasts, penetrated by drippings, or undermined by floods; and that is best which, though attacked by very many, can be moved by none. As there are certain kinds of medicines so compounded that they are useful not only for single ailments but heal all alike, and have in themselves the power of a general remedy, so the catholic faith gives the help of a common cure not against single plagues but against all diseases; it is not to be weakened by kind, overcome by number, or deceived by variety, but stands one and the same against each and all. For it is a great thing that there are as many remedies in this one faith as there are diseases, and as many teachings of truth as there will be pursuits of falsehood. Let the names of the heretics be gathered into one, and let all their schools come forward: let them hear of one unbegotten God the Father, and one only-begotten Son of God, the perfect offspring of a perfect Father; not begotten by any diminution, not cut off as some part from a solid whole, but having all things, having received all things through his being begotten; not drawn off by derivation or flowing out, but born wholly from the whole and in the whole, from him who does not cease to be in all in which he is; free from time, released from the ages, through whom all things were made: for he could not be within the things that were established by him. This is the catholic and apostolic confession from the Gospels.

Let Sabellius, if he dares, preach that the Father and the Son are the same, and that he who is called by both names is one and the same person; so that for him the two are one person, not one thing. He will hear at once from the Gospels, not once or twice but often: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” He will hear: “The Father is greater than I.” He will hear: “I go to the Father”; and, “Father, I thank you”; and, “Glorify me, Father”; and, “You are the Son of the living God.” Let Ebion creep in, granting the Son of God a beginning from Mary and understanding the Word only from the days of the flesh. Let him read again: “Father, glorify me with yourself with the glory that I had with you before the world was”; and, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”; and, “All things were made through him”; and, “He was in the world, and the world was made through him, and the world did not know him.” Let the preachers of a new apostolate, an apostolate from Antichrist, come forward, mocking the Son of God with every insult; and let them hear: “I came out from the Father”; and, “The Son in the bosom of the Father”; and, “I and the Father are one”; and, “I am in the Father, and the Father in me.” And finally let them be angry along with the Jews that Christ, confessing God as his own Father, made himself equal to God; and let them hear along with them: “Believe at least my works, that the Father is in me and I in the Father.” This, then, is the one immovable foundation, this the one blessed rock of faith confessed by Peter's mouth: “You are the Son of the living God,” holding in itself as many proofs of the truth as there will be questions raised by perversity and slanders by unbelief.

In the rest, now, lies the dispensation of the Father's will. The Virgin, the birth, and the body; and after them the cross, death, and the underworld: these are our salvation. For the sake of the human race the Son of God was born of the Virgin and the Holy Spirit, he himself serving himself in this work; and by his own power, that is, God's overshadowing power, he sowed for himself the beginnings of a body and established the first beginnings of flesh; so that, made man from the Virgin, he might receive into himself the nature of flesh, and that through the fellowship of this mingling the body of the whole human race might be sanctified in him: so that, as all were founded in him through his willing to be bodily, so in turn he himself might be imparted to all through what in him is invisible. The invisible image of God, then, did not refuse the shame of a human beginning, and passed through conception, birth, wailing, and the cradle, all the indignities of our nature.

What worthy return, then, shall we make for the love shown in so great a condescension? The one only-begotten God, of an origin from God that cannot be told, is placed in the womb of the holy Virgin and grows into the form of a small human body. He who contains all things, within whom and through whom all things exist, is brought forth by the law of human birth; and he at whose voice archangels and angels tremble, and heaven and earth and all the elements of this world are dissolved, is heard in an infant's wailing. He who is invisible and incomprehensible, not to be measured by sight, perception, or touch, is wrapped in a cradle. If anyone considers these things unworthy of God, he will confess himself indebted for a benefit all the greater, the less these things befitted the majesty of God. He through whom man was made had no need to become man; but we needed God to become flesh and dwell in us, that is, by assuming one flesh to dwell within all flesh. His lowliness is our nobility; his shame is our honor: what he is, God abiding in flesh, that we in turn are, renewed from flesh into God.

But lest the cradle, the wailing, the birth, and the conception should perhaps hold back the scrupulous thoughts of some minds, the dignity of God must be restored to each, so that the greatness of his power may go before the lowliness of his will, and his dignity may not abandon his condescension. Let us see, then, what ministries attended the conception. An angel speaks to Zechariah; offspring is promised to a barren woman; the priest comes out mute from the place of incense; John, still held in his mother's womb, bursts into utterance; an angel blesses Mary and promises that she, a virgin, will be the mother of the Son of God. She, conscious of her virginity, is troubled at the difficulty of the thing; the angel explains the efficacy of the divine working, for he says: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you from above, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.” The Holy Spirit, coming from above, sanctified the Virgin's inward parts, and, breathing in them, mingled himself with the nature of human flesh, and by his own force and power took possession of what was foreign to him; and so that nothing might be out of harmony through the weakness of the human body, the power of the Most High overshadowed the Virgin, strengthening her weakness as though by surrounding it with a shadow, so that the overshadowing of the divine power might temper her bodily substance for the fruitful working of the Spirit coming in. This is the dignity of the conception.

Let us see what dignity accompanies the birth, the wailing, and the cradle. The angel tells Joseph that the Virgin will give birth, and that he who is born is to be called Emmanuel, that is, God with us. The Spirit proclaims it through the prophet, the angel is witness: he who is born is God with us. The new light of a star is brought out of heaven for the Magi, and a heavenly sign attends the Lord of heaven. An angel announces to the shepherds that Christ the Lord is born, the salvation of all. A multitude of the heavenly host runs together in praise of the childbirth, and the joys of the divine company speak the proclamation of so great a work. Then glory to God in the heavens, and peace on earth to men of good will, is announced. Then the Magi arrive and adore him wrapped in swaddling clothes; and after the secret practices of their empty knowledge, they bend the knee to him laid in the cradle. So through the Magi the squalor of the cradle is adored; so the wailing is honored by the divine joys of the angels; so the Spirit proclaiming through the prophet, the angel announcing, and the star of new light serve the birth. So the Holy Spirit coming upon her and the power of the Most High overshadowing her bring about the beginnings of his birth. One thing is understood, another is seen; one thing is beheld by the eyes, another by the mind. A virgin gives birth: the offspring is from God. An infant wails: angels are heard praising. The swaddling clothes are soiled: God is adored. So the dignity of power is not lost while the lowliness of flesh is taken on.

The course of the rest of his life is of the same kind. For all the time he spent as man he filled with the works of God. There is no time to speak of each; only this must be observed in all the kinds of mighty works and cures: in the assumption of flesh he is man, but in the deeds he did he is God.

Concerning the Holy Spirit, however, we ought not to be silent, and yet there is no need to speak; but for the sake of those who do not know, we cannot be silent. There is no need to speak of him, who must be confessed with the Father and the Son as his authors. And indeed I think that whether he exists need not be discussed. For he exists, since he is given, received, and possessed; and he who is joined to the confession of the Father and the Son cannot be separated from the confession of the Father and the Son. For the whole is incomplete for us if anything is lacking from the whole. If anyone asks what we understand about him, we both read in the Apostle: “Because you are sons of God, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father.” And again: “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, in whom you were sealed.” And again: “We have not received the spirit of this world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we may know the things that have been given us by God.” And again: “You are not in the flesh but in the spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God is in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not his.” And again: “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who dwells in you.” Since, then, he exists, is given, is possessed, and is of God, let the talk of slanderers cease. When they ask through whom he is, for what purpose he is, or of what kind he is: if our answer displeases them, when we speak of him “through whom are all things, and from whom are all things,” and say that he is the Spirit of God, the gift of the faithful, then let the apostles and prophets displease them too, who said of him only this, that he exists; and after them the Father and the Son will displease them.

I think that some remain in ignorance and doubt on this point because they see this third name, that is, the one called the Holy Spirit, often used to mean the Father and the Son. There is no difficulty in this: for whether Father or Son, he is both spirit and holy.

But the saying we read in the Gospels, “God is spirit,” must be carefully examined, how and for what reason it was said. For every saying is spoken for a reason, and the meaning of a saying must be understood from the intention of the speaker; lest, because the Lord answered “God is spirit,” the use and gift of the Holy Spirit should for that reason be denied together with his name. The Lord was speaking with the Samaritan woman, for he had come as the redemption of all. After a long conversation about living water, and the five husbands, and the man she now had who was not her own, the woman answered him: “Lord, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, and you say that in Jerusalem is the place where one must worship.” The Lord answered: “Believe me, woman, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father seeks such to worship him. For God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth, because God is spirit.” The woman, then, mindful of the traditions of her fathers, thought that God must be worshipped either, as Samaria held, on the mountain, or, as Jerusalem held, in the temple: for Samaria, transgressing the Law, had chosen the site of the mountain for worshipping God, while the Jews held the temple built by Solomon to be the seat of religion; and the presumption of both confined, on the height of a hill or in the hollow of a built house, God, within whom are all things and outside whom nothing is able to contain him. Since, then, God is invisible, incomprehensible, and boundless, the Lord said the time had come when God was to be worshipped neither on the mountain nor in the temple: for God is spirit, and spirit is neither circumscribed nor held; by the power of his nature he is everywhere and absent nowhere, overflowing wholly in all things; and so those are true worshippers who will worship in spirit and truth. And for those who are to worship God the Spirit in the Spirit, the one is in the office, the other in the honor, because a distinction is made between him in whom and him who is to be worshipped. For the name and gift of the Holy Spirit is not taken away because it was said, “God is spirit.” The answer was given to the woman, who shut God within a temple and a mountain, that all things are in God and God is in himself, and that he, invisible and incomprehensible, must be worshipped in what is invisible and incomprehensible. And so the nature both of the gift and of the honor was signified when he taught that God the Spirit is to be worshipped in the Spirit, showing both the freedom and knowledge of the worshippers and the boundlessness of the one worshipped, since God who is Spirit is worshipped in the Spirit.

Like this is the Apostle's saying: “The Lord is Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” To make his meaning understood, he distinguished him who is from him whose he is. For to have and to be had are not one thing, nor does the same expression contain “he” and “his.” So when he says, “The Lord is Spirit,” he shows the nature of his infinity; but when he adds, “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom,” he signifies the one who is his; for the Lord is Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. These things have been said not because the argument requires them, but so that no obscurity might cling to these sayings. For the Holy Spirit is one everywhere, enlightening all the patriarchs, the prophets, and the whole choir of the Law, inspiring John even in his mother's womb; given afterward to the apostles and the other believers for the knowledge of the truth granted to them.

What his office is in us, let us hear from the words of the Lord himself. For he says: “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. For it is expedient for you that I go; if I go, I will send you the Advocate.” And again: “I will ask the Father, and he will send you another Advocate, to be with you forever, the Spirit of truth. He will guide you into all truth; for he will not speak from himself, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will announce to you the things to come. He will glorify me, because he will take of what is mine.” These words, out of many, have been set down to open a road to understanding; in them are contained both the will of the Giver and the nature and terms of the gift: that, since our weakness could grasp neither the Father nor the Son, the gift of the Holy Spirit, by a kind of covenant of his intercession, might enlighten our faith, which finds the incarnation of God hard to believe.

It now follows that we should hear the Apostle too explaining the power and office of this gift. For he says: “As many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption, in whom we cry: Abba, Father.” And again: “No one speaking in the Spirit of God says ‘Jesus is anathema,’ and no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except in the Holy Spirit.” And again: “There are distributions of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are distributions of ministries, but the same Lord; and there are distributions of workings, but the same God, who works all things in all. To each is given the enlightenment of the Spirit for the common good. To one is given through the Spirit the word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith in the same Spirit, to another gifts of healings in the one Spirit, to another the working of mighty deeds, to another prophecy, to another the discerning of spirits, to another kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. But all these the one and the same Spirit works.” We have, then, the cause of this gift, and we have its effects; and I do not know what doubt there can be about him whose cause, nature, and power are plainly set out.

Let us make use, then, of such generous gifts, and seek the use of this most necessary gift. For the Apostle says, as we showed above: “We have not received the spirit of this world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we may know the things that have been given us by God.” He is received, then, for the sake of knowledge. For as the nature of the human body will be idle when the occasions for its functions are absent (the eyes will have no use for their service unless there is light or day; the ears will not recognize their task unless a voice or sound is given; the nostrils will not know what their office is unless some scent is fragrant; not that their nature fails them for lack of an occasion, but the use comes from the occasion), so the human mind, unless it has drawn in the gift of the Spirit through faith, will indeed have the nature for understanding God, but will not have the light of knowledge. This gift, which is in Christ, is one and wholly open to all; and since it is lacking nowhere, it is given in proportion as each is willing to receive it, and abides in proportion as each is willing to deserve it. This is with us until the consummation of the age; this is the comfort of our waiting; this, in the workings of its gifts, is the pledge of our future hope; this is the light of minds, this the splendor of souls. This Holy Spirit, then, is to be sought, to be deserved, and thereafter to be kept by faith in the commandments and by keeping them.

The Lord's saying, “I am in the Father, and the Father in me,” brings obscurity to many, and not without reason; for the nature of human understanding does not grasp the meaning of this saying. For it seems impossible that what is in another should equally be outside it; and since the beings in question must not be solitary, yet keep their own number and state, it seems that they cannot contain each other, so that one who has another within himself, and so remains always outside him, should in turn remain always within the one he has within himself. Human perception will not attain this, nor will any human comparison furnish an example for divine things; but what is unintelligible to man is possible to God. I do not say this as though the mere authority of its having been said by God were enough to explain the saying. We must therefore learn and understand what “I am in the Father, and the Father in me” means, if indeed we shall be able to grasp it as it is, so that what is thought impossible in the nature of things may be reached by the reasoning of divine truth.

And so that we may more easily reach an understanding of this most difficult question, we must first know the Father and the Son according to the teaching of the divine Scriptures, so that our discussion may be more complete when it concerns what is known and familiar. The eternity of the Father, as we treated in the previous book, surpasses places, times, appearance, and whatever can be conceived by human sense. He is outside all things and in all things, containing all things and contained by none, not changeable by approach or departure; but he is invisible, incomprehensible, full, perfect, eternal, taking nothing from elsewhere, but sufficient to himself for remaining as he is.

This unbegotten one, then, before all time begot a Son from himself: not from any underlying matter, because all things are through the Son; not from nothing, because he begot the Son from himself; not by a childbirth, because there is nothing changeable or empty in God; not a part of himself, divided, cut off, or extended, because God is impassible and incorporeal, while these things belong to passion and flesh; and, as the Apostle says, in Christ dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. But incomprehensibly, ineffably, before all time and ages, he brought forth the Only-begotten from what was unbegotten in himself, imparting to his birth, through love and power, all that God is; and so from the unbegotten, perfect, and eternal Father the Son is only-begotten, perfect, and eternal. But what belongs to him according to the body he assumed is the will of his goodness for our salvation. For being invisible, incorporeal, and incomprehensible, as begotten of God, he took on himself as much matter and lowliness as there was capacity in us to understand, perceive, and behold him; yielding to our weakness rather than falling short of what he himself was.

So the perfect Son of a perfect Father, the only-begotten offspring of the unbegotten God, who received all things from him who has all things, God from God, spirit from spirit, light from light, says confidently: “The Father is in me, and I in the Father”: for as the Father is spirit, so the Son is spirit; as the Father is God, so the Son is God; as the Father is light, so the Son is light. From what is in the Father, then, come those things in which the Son is; that is, the whole Son was born from the whole Father; not from elsewhere, because nothing was before the Son; not from nothing, because the Son is from God; not in part, because the fullness of the Godhead is in the Son; nor in some things, because in all: but as he willed who was able, as he knows who begot. What is in the Father is also in the Son; what is in the unbegotten is also in the only-begotten; the one from the other, and both one thing; not two as one person, but one in the other, because there is nothing different in either. The Father is in the Son, because the Son is from him; the Son is in the Father, because his being Son is from nowhere else; the only-begotten is in the unbegotten, because the only-begotten is from the unbegotten. So they are in each other: for as all things are perfect in the unbegotten Father, so all things are perfect in the only-begotten Son. This is the unity in the Son and the Father, this the power, this the love, this the hope, this the faith, this the truth, the way, the life: not to slander God about his powers, nor to disparage the Son because of the secret and power of his birth; to compare nothing to the unbegotten Father, to separate the only-begotten from him neither in time nor in power, and to confess the Son as God because he is from God.

There are powers of this kind in God whose manner is incomprehensible to our understanding, yet faith in them is complete through the truth of their effect. And we shall find this not only in spiritual things but also in bodily ones, shown not as an example of the birth, but so that we may wonder at a deed we can understand. On the wedding day in Galilee wine was made from water: will our speech or perception attain by what means the nature was changed, so that the plainness of water ceased and the taste of wine was born? It was not a mixing but a creation; and a creation not starting from itself, but coming into being from one thing into another: what was weaker is not overpowered by pouring in something stronger, but what was is abolished, and what was not began. The bridegroom is sad, the household troubled, the celebration of the wedding feast in danger. Jesus is asked; he does not rise or bustle; this work is done while he remains at rest. Water is poured into the jars, wine is drawn into the cups; the knowledge of the one pouring does not agree with the perception of the one drawing. Those who poured think water is being drawn; those who draw think wine was poured in; the time between is not long enough for the nature of the liquid both to come into being and to perish. The manner of the deed baffles both sight and perception; yet the power of God is perceived in what was done.

The wonder of the deed with the five loaves is not unlike it. By their increase the hunger of five thousand men and of innumerable women and children is overcome; the understanding of the work escapes the eyes of our perception. Five loaves are offered and broken; new growths of fragments steal into the hands of those breaking them. The loaf from which pieces are broken is not diminished, and yet fragments always fill the hand of the one breaking. The moments deceive the sight: while you follow a hand full of fragments, you see the other with no loss to its portion; meanwhile the heap of fragments grows. Those who break are busy at their service, those who eat at their business; the hungry are filled; the leftovers fill twelve baskets. Neither perception nor sight can follow the progress of so visible a work. What was not, is; what is not understood is seen: it only remains to believe that God can do all things.

Divine things, then, involve no flattery, nor is there in God any pretense meant to please or deceive. These works of the Son of God did not proceed from a desire for display: for he whom innumerable thousands of thousands of angels serve did not flatter man. For what did he need of what is ours, he through whom exist all things that are ours? Or did he demand honor from us, now dull with sleep, now weary from nights of luxury, now with guilty consciences after the quarrels and slaughters of the day, now drunk after banquets: he whom archangels, dominions, principalities, and powers praise in heaven with eternal and unwearied voices, without sleep, without distraction, without sin? And they praise him because he, the image of the invisible God, created all of them in himself, made the ages, established the heaven, set the stars apart, founded the earth, sank the abysses; and because he afterward was born a man, conquered death, broke the gates of hell, won for himself a people as co-heirs, and carried flesh from corruption into the glory of eternity. He needed nothing from us, then, that these works, beyond telling and beyond understanding, should adorn him among us as though he needed praise. But God, foreseeing the error of human wickedness and folly, and knowing that unbelief would break out so far as to presume to judge the things of God, overcame our audacity with examples of the very things that would be doubted.

For there are many who are wise in this age, whose wisdom is foolishness to God, who, when they hear that God was born from God, true from true, perfect from perfect, one from one, contradict us as though we preached impossibilities, clinging to certain collections of maxims, when they say: “Nothing could be born from one, because every birth is from two. Now if this son was born from one, he received a part of him who begot him; and if a part, then neither is perfect; for the begetter lacks what went out from him, and there will be no fullness in one who consists of a portion. Neither, then, is perfect, since the one who begot loses his fullness and the one who was born does not attain it.” God, foreseeing this wisdom of the world, condemns it through the prophet too, saying: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and reject the understanding of the prudent.” Likewise in the Apostle: “Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the prudence of this world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through prudence, it pleased God through the foolishness of preaching to save those who believe: since Jews ask for signs and Greeks seek wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God: for the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.”

The Son of God, then, caring for the human race, first became man so that he might be believed; so that he might be a witness to divine things for us, from among us, and through the weakness of flesh might preach God the Father to us who are weak and fleshly, carrying out in himself the will of God the Father, as he says: “I did not come to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me”; not that he himself does not will what he does; but he shows his obedience in carrying out his Father's will, himself willing to fulfill the will of the Father. And this was his will to accomplish the Father's will, to which he himself testifies, saying: “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son, that the Son may glorify you: as you have given him power over all flesh, that he may give eternal life to all that you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I have glorified you on earth, having finished the work you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me with yourself, with the glory that I had with you before the world was. I have manifested your name to the men whom you gave me.” In a few brief words he set out the whole work of his office and dispensation, while no less fortifying the truth of the faith against every suggestion of the devil's deceit. Let us run through, then, the meaning of each of his words.

He says: “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you.” He says that not the day, not the time, but the hour has come. An hour is a portion of a day. And what will this hour be? Surely the one of which he spoke when he strengthened his disciples at the time of the passion: “Behold, the hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” This, then, is the hour in which he prays to be glorified by the Father, so that he himself may glorify the Father. But what does this mean? Does he who is going to glorify wait to be glorified, does he who is going to give back honor ask for it, and need what he will in turn impart? Here let the sophists of the world and the wise of Greece come forward and entangle the truth in their syllogisms. Let them ask how, and from where, and for what reason; and when they are stuck, let them hear: “God has chosen the foolish things of the world.” So by our foolishness let us understand what is unintelligible to the wise of the world. The Lord had said, “Father, the hour has come”: he had pointed to the hour of the passion, for he was saying this at that very moment; then he added, “Glorify your Son.” But how was the Son to be glorified? For, born of the Virgin, he had come from the cradle and infancy to full manhood; through sleep, hunger, thirst, weariness, and tears he had lived as a man; even now he was to be spat upon, scourged, and crucified. What then? These things would have testified to us that there was only a man in Christ. But we are not put to shame by the cross, not condemned beforehand by the scourges, not defiled by the spittle. The Father glorifies the Son. How? At last he is fastened to the cross. Then what follows? The sun does not set, but flees. Why do I say it fled? It was not taken into a cloud, but failed in the course of its work; and the other elements of the world felt their own destruction with him; and so that no heavenly workings should take part in this crime, they escaped the necessity of being present by a kind of abolition of themselves. But what did the earth do? It trembled under the weight of the Lord hanging on the wood, testifying that it could not contain within itself the one who was about to die. Do the cliffs and stones at least yield their part? They burst and split apart and lose their nature, and confess that the tomb cut from them cannot hold the body that is to be laid in it.

What follows upon this? The centurion of the cohort, the guard of the cross, also cries out: “Truly this was the Son of God.” Creation is set free by the intervention of this sacrifice; the rocks do not keep their firmness and strength. Those who had fastened him to the cross confess that he is truly the Son of God: the outcome agrees with what had been said. The Lord had said: “Glorify your Son.” He testified that he was Son not only by the name but also by the word of ownership, “your.” For many of us are sons of God, but this Son is not of that kind. For he is a true and proper Son, by origin, not adoption; in truth, not in name; by birth, not creation. So after his glorification confession of the truth followed. For the centurion confesses him to be the true Son of God, so that no believer might doubt what a man among his persecutors had not denied.

But perhaps it is believed that the Son needed the glorification for which he prayed; and he will be found weak, since he waits for glorification from one greater. And who will not confess the Father greater, as unbegotten than begotten, as father than son, as sender than sent, as the one willing than the one obeying? He himself will be our witness: “The Father is greater than I.” These things must be understood as they are; but we must beware lest, among the unlearned, the honor of the Father weaken the glory of the Son. And this very glorification that was asked for does not allow it to be weakened: for after the words, “Father, glorify your Son,” there follows also, “that the Son may glorify you.” The Son, then, is not weak, since he, while he is to be glorified, will himself give back glorification in return. But if he is not weak, what was he asking for? For no one asks except for what he needs. Or is the Father also weak? Or is he so lavish with what he has that glorification must be given back to him through the Son? But neither did the one need it, nor does the other desire it; and yet each will impart it to the other. So the request for glorification to be given and returned in turn takes nothing from the Father and does not weaken the Son; but it shows the same power of divinity in both, since the Son prays to be glorified by the Father, and the Father does not disdain glorification from the Son; and these things show the unity of power in the Father and the Son through the exchange of glorification given and returned.

But what this glorification is, and from what it comes, must be learned. God, I think, is not changeable, nor does fault or correction, gain or loss, befall eternity; but what is, always is, for this is peculiar to God. What always is cannot ever have it in its nature not to be: how then will that be glorified which lacks nothing of its own and does not fall short of itself, so that there is nothing it might receive into itself, and it has lost nothing to take back? We are stuck; we hesitate. But the evangelist does not abandon the weakness of our understanding; he shows what glorification the Son would give back to the Father, saying: “As you have given him power over all flesh, that he may give eternal life to all that you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” The Father, then, is glorified through the Son in this, that he comes to be known by us. And this was the glory: that the Son, himself made flesh, had received from him power over all flesh, and that he would give the eternity of life to what is perishable, bodily, and mortal. And the eternity of our life was the effect not of labor but of power, since it was not any new contrivance but only the knowledge of God that would take up the glory of eternity. So glory is not added to God, for it had not departed so as to be added; but through the Son he is glorified among us, who were ignorant, runaways, unclean, dead without hope, in darkness without law; and he is glorified by this, that the Son received from him power over all flesh, to give it eternal life. Through these works of the Son, then, the Father is glorified. And so when the Son received all things, he was glorified by the Father; and in turn the Father is glorified when all things are done through the Son. And the glory received is given back in such a way that whatever glory is in the Son is wholly the Father's glory: because he received all things from the Father; because the honor of the one who serves redounds to the honor of the one who sends, as the honor of the one who begets lies in the honor of the one who is born.

But in what, then, does the eternity of life consist? He himself says: “That they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” What difficult questions are here, what battle of words? Life is to know the true God; but this alone does not yet make life. What, then, is joined to it? “And Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” The honor due to the Father is rendered by the Son when he says, “you, the only true God.” Yet the Son does not separate himself from the truth of God when he adds, “and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” The confession of believers allows no gap, since the hope of life is in both; nor does he who follows in the conjunction fall short of being true God. When, then, it is said, “That they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent,” under this designation, namely of sender and sent, the truth and divinity of the Father and the Son are not set apart by any difference of meaning or interval, but the faith of religion is taught to confess the one who begets and the one begotten.

So the Son glorifies the Father fully in what follows: “I have glorified you on earth, having finished the work you gave me to do.” All the praise of the Father comes from the Son, because in whatever the Son is praised, the praise will be the Father's; for he accomplishes everything the Father willed. The Son of God is born a man, but the power of God is in the Virgin's childbearing. The Son of God is seen as a man, but God is present in the works of the man. The Son of God is fastened to the cross, but on the cross God overcomes the death of man. Christ the Son of God dies, but all flesh is made alive in Christ. The Son of God is in the underworld, but man is carried back to heaven. The more these things are praised in Christ, the more praise will he receive from whom Christ is God. In these ways, then, the Father glorifies the Son on earth; and in turn the Son, by the works of his powers, glorifies him from whom he is, before the ignorance of the nations and the folly of the world. And this exchange of glorification does not concern any advance of divinity, but the honor that was received from the recognition of those who did not know. For in what did the Father not abound, from whom are all things? Or what was lacking to the Son, in whom it had pleased all the fullness of divinity to dwell? So the Father is glorified on earth, because the work he commanded is accomplished.

Let us see what glorification the Son expects from the Father, and the matter is complete. For the passage continues: “I have glorified you on earth; I have finished the work you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me with yourself with the glory I had with you before the world was. I have manifested your name to men.” So the Father was glorified by the works of the Son: in his being understood as God, in his being shown as the Father of the only-begotten God, in his willing, for our salvation, that his Son should be born a man, even from a virgin; in whom all that began with the Virgin's childbearing is fulfilled in the passion. Therefore, because the Son of God, perfect in every respect and born before all time in the fullness of divinity, now a man by the origin of his flesh, was being brought to completion in death, he asks to be glorified with God, as he himself had glorified the Father on earth; for at that time the powers of God were being glorified in the flesh before an ignorant world. But what glorification is it now that he expects with the Father? Surely that which he had with him before the world was. He had the fullness of divinity, and he has it, for he is the Son of God. But he who was the Son of God had begun to be also the son of man; for the Word had become flesh. He had not lost what he was, but had begun to be what he was not; he had not given up what was his own, but had received what is ours: and for what he had received he asks an advance into that glory from which he had never departed. So, because the Son is the Word, and the Word became flesh, and the Word is God, and was in the beginning with God, and the Word was Son before the foundation of the world, the Son, now made flesh, prayed that the flesh might begin to be to the Father what the Word was: that what was of time might receive the glory of that splendor which is without time; that the corruption of the flesh might be transformed into the power of God and the incorruption of the Spirit, and be swallowed up. This, then, is a prayer to God, this the Son's confession to the Father, this the petition of the flesh: the flesh in which all will see him on the day of judgment, pierced and recognized from the cross; in which he was prefigured on the mountain; in which he was raised to heaven; in which he sat down at God's right hand; in which he was seen by Paul; in which he was honored by Stephen.

Having manifested the Father's name to men, then, he asks for these things. But by what name? Was the name of God unknown? Moses heard it from the bush, Genesis announced it at the beginning of the created world, the Law expounded it, the prophets proclaimed it, men perceived it in these works of the world, even the nations honored it, though falsely. So the name of God was not unknown. And yet it plainly was unknown. For no one knows God unless he confesses both the Father as Father of an only-begotten Son, and the Son as born, not by portion, extension, or emission, but from him, ineffably, incomprehensibly, as son from father, possessing the fullness of divinity from which and in which he was born, true, infinite, and perfect God; for this is the fullness of God. For if any of these is lacking, it will no longer be the fullness that it pleased to dwell in him. This is preached by the Son, this is made known to the ignorant; so the Father is glorified through the Son, when he is acknowledged as the Father of such a Son.

Wishing, then, to win faith for this birth of his, the Son set before us the example of his deeds, so that through the indescribable working of his indescribable deeds we might be taught about the power of an indescribable birth: when water becomes wine; when five loaves, after satisfying five thousand men, besides the rest of every sex and age, fill twelve baskets with fragments. The thing is seen and not known; it is done and not understood; its manner is not grasped, and its effect is forced upon us. It is foolish to bring the slander of inquiry against what by its nature cannot be comprehended. For as the Father is indescribable in being unbegotten, so the Son cannot be described in being only-begotten, because the one begotten is the image of the unbegotten. For when we grasp the image by perception and words, we must also reach him whose image it is. But we pursue invisible things and attempt incomprehensible things with an understanding confined to what is visible and bodily. We do not blush at our folly or accuse ourselves of irreligion when we slander the secrets and powers of God. We ask how he is Son, and from where, at what loss to the Father, or from what portion he was born. You had the example of his works, so that you might believe that God can bring about things whose working you cannot understand.

You ask how the Son was born according to the Spirit; I question you about bodily things. I do not ask how he was born of a virgin; whether her flesh suffered any loss in bringing forth from itself perfect flesh. Certainly she did not receive from another what she brought forth, but flesh brought forth flesh without the shame of our elements, and, undiminished, bore from its own a perfect child. And surely it would be right to think not impossible in God what we know, through his power, was possible in a human being.

But you, whoever you are, who pursue what cannot be searched out and make yourself a weighty judge of divine secrets and powers: I consult you, that to me, unlearned and simply believing everything about God as he has said it, you may at least give the explanation of this deed. I hear the Lord, and because I believe what is written, I know that after the resurrection he often presented himself to be seen in the body by many who did not believe; certainly to Thomas, who would not believe unless he handled his wounds, as he says: “Unless I see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.” The Lord adapts himself to every weakness of our understanding, and, to satisfy the doubt of unbelievers, works a secret of invisible power: explain the manner of the deed, whoever you are, you searcher of heavenly things. The disciples were in a closed place and sat gathered in secret after the Lord's passion. The Lord stands there to confirm Thomas's faith on the conditions he had set, and offered him the opportunity to feel his body and handle his wound; and certainly he who was to be recognized as pierced must have brought the body in which he was pierced. I ask, then, through what parts of the closed house he came in bodily. For the evangelist expressed it carefully, saying: “Jesus came, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst.” Did he pass through the built walls and the solid wood, through their impenetrable nature? For he stood there bodily, not in pretense or illusion. Let the eyes of your penetrating mind follow his entry, then, and let the sight of your understanding go into the closed house with him. Everything is intact and locked; yet there he stands in the midst, he to whom all things are open by his power. You slander invisible things; I ask you for an explanation of visible ones. Nothing of the solid gives way; nor do wood and stones by their nature let anything in by some imperceptible slipping through. The Lord's body does not cease to exist so as to restore itself from nothing; and from where, then, is he who stands in the midst? Perception and speech give way before these things, and the truth of the deed is beyond human reason. So then, as we lie about the birth, let us lie also about the Lord's entry. Let us say it did not happen, because we do not grasp an understanding of the deed; and when our perception fails, let the reality of the deed fail too. But faith in the deed overcomes our lie. The Lord stood in the closed house in the midst of the disciples; and the Son was born from the Father. Do not deny that he stood there because, through the weakness of your understanding, you cannot follow the entry of the one standing there; do not refuse to know that the only-begotten and perfect Son, God, was born from the unbegotten and perfect God the Father, because the power of the generation exceeds the perception and speech of human nature.

Indeed, all the works of the world besides could stand by us as witnesses, so that we would not think it right to doubt the things and powers of God. But our unbelief runs against the truth itself, and we break in violently to destroy the power of God. If we could, we would lift our bodies and hands to heaven, drive the sun and the other stars out of the yearly bounds of their courses, throw the ebb and flow of the Ocean into confusion, stop the streams of springs, turn back the nature of rivers, shake the foundations of the earth, and rage against these works of God with an utter parricide. But it is well that the nature of our bodies holds us within this enforced restraint. Certainly we are not mistaken about what we would do if we could. For where we can, with the audacity of a profane will we tear up the nature of truth and wage war on the words of God.

The Son said: “Father, I have manifested your name to men.” Why do we raise slanders against this? Why are we in turmoil? Do you deny the Father? And yet this was the greatest work of the Son, that we should know the Father. You plainly deny him, when according to you the Son was not born from him. And why will he be called Son, if he was made by an act of will like other things? I could admire God as Maker of the world for creating Christ; and it would be a power worthy of God to have made the maker of archangels and angels, of things visible and invisible, of heaven and earth and this whole creation. But the Lord's labor is not that you should perceive that God can do all things in creating, but that you should know that God is the Father of the Son who speaks. There are many powers in heaven, effective and eternal; but there is one only-begotten Son, who differs from the rest not only in power, since all things are through him. But because he is the one true Son, let him not be made degenerate, as though born from nothing. You hear “Son”: believe that he is a son. You hear “Father”: remember that he is a father. Why do you thrust suspicion, malice, and audacity in among these names? Names have been fitted to divine things according to an understanding of their nature. Why do you do violence to the truth with words? You hear “Father” and “Son”: do not doubt that they are what they are called. The sum of the Son's dispensation is that you should know the Father: why do you make void the work of the prophets, the incarnation of the Word, the Virgin's childbearing, the power of the works, the cross of Christ? All these were spent on you, all were granted to you, so that through them both the Father and the Son might be made plain to you. Now you put in their place will, creation, and adoption: look at the warfare and the pay of Christ. Surely he cries out: “Father, I have manifested your name to men.” You do not hear, “You created the creator of heavenly things,” or, “You made the maker of earthly things,” but you hear: “Father, I have manifested your name to men.” Use the gift of your Savior: know that he who begot is Father and he who was born is Son, born from that Father who is, by the truth of nature. Remember that what was made known to you is not that the Father is God, but that God is Father.

You hear: “I and the Father are one.” Why do you cut the Son off and drag him away from the Father? They are one: that is, he who is has nothing that is not also in him from whom he is. When you hear the Son saying, “I and the Father are one,” fit the reality to the persons; allow the one begetting and the one begotten the meaning of his profession. Let them be one, as are he who begot and he who was begotten. Why do you exclude the nature? Why do you destroy the truth? You hear: “The Father is in me, and I in the Father,” and the Son's works testify to this concerning the Father and the Son. We do not, in our understanding, put a body into a body, or pour water into wine; but we confess in both the same likeness of power and fullness of deity. For the Son received all things from the Father, and is the form of God and the image of his substance. For he is from him who is; and “the image of his substance” distinguishes him only so that we may believe that he subsists, not so that any unlikeness of nature should be understood. And that the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father means that the fullness of divinity in both is perfect. For the Son is not a diminution of the Father, nor is the Son imperfect from the Father. An image is not alone, and likeness is not likeness to itself. And nothing can be like God except what is from him. For what is like in all things is not from elsewhere; nor does the likeness of the one to the other allow difference to be mixed into the two. Do not alter what is alike, nor separate those who in truth are undivided: for he who said, “Let us make man in our image and likeness,” showed, by saying “our likeness,” that they are like each other. Do not touch, do not handle, do not corrupt. Hold to the names of the nature; hold to the Son's profession. I do not want you to flatter, praising the Son from your own invention: it is well for you to be content with what is written.

One must not trust human wisdom so far as to think that one knows perfectly whatever one knows, and to judge that the sum of complete reason is contained in what one's own mind, examining it, thinks agrees on every side with the opinion of truth. For imperfect things do not conceive the perfect, nor can what subsists from another fully attain the understanding either of its author or of itself; it perceives itself only in what it is, and does not stretch its perception further than the nature established for it. For it owes its whole being not to itself but to its author; and so what subsists from its author as something else is imperfect in itself, since it consists from elsewhere. And it must be foolish in that very point in which it thinks itself perfectly wise: for, not keeping within the necessity of its nature, and thinking all things contained within the bounds of its own weaknesses, it boasts falsely of the name of wisdom; since it cannot be wise beyond the power of its perception, and its perception is as weak as its power of existing. And for that reason the imperfect nature that boasts of having the wisdom of perfect perception is mocked with the reproach of foolish wisdom, as the Apostle says: “For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, not in wisdom of speech, lest the cross of Christ be made void. For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to those who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written: I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the understanding of the understanding I will reject. Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided through the foolishness of preaching to save those who believe: since Jews ask for signs and Greeks seek wisdom; but we preach Christ Jesus crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God: for the weakness of God is stronger than men, and the foolishness of God is wiser than men.” All unbelief, then, is foolishness: for, using the wisdom of its own imperfect perception and measuring all things by the opinion of its own weakness, it thinks that what it does not understand cannot be done. For the cause of unbelief lies in the judgment of weakness, when someone thinks that what he has decided cannot be done has not been done.

And therefore the Apostle, knowing that the imperfect thinking of human nature regards only what it understands as within the reckoning of truth, says that he does not preach in wisdom of speech, lest the assertion of his preaching be made void. And lest he be thought a preacher of foolishness, he added that the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing: because unbelievers would think that alone to be wisdom which they understood; and since they understood nothing except within the nature of their own weakness, they would think that to be foolishness which alone is the perfect wisdom of God; and so, in the very opinion of their own weak wisdom, they would be foolish. Whatever, then, is foolishness to those who perish is the power of God to those who are saved: for these measure nothing by the weakness of their natural perception, but weigh the working of divine power according to the infinity of heavenly might. And therefore God rejects the wisdom of the wise and the understanding of the understanding, because salvation is granted to believers through what human opinion thinks foolishness: while unbelievers judge foolish whatever is beyond their perception, and the faithful leave to the power and might of God all the mysteries by which their salvation is granted to them. The things of God, then, are not foolish; but the prudence of human nature is unwise, which demands signs or wisdom from its God before it will believe. It is the way of the Jews to ask for signs, because, not wholly unacquainted with the name of God through their familiarity with the Law, they are troubled by the stumbling block of the cross. And it is the way of the Greeks to demand wisdom, because with Gentile folly and human prudence they look for the reason why God was raised on a cross. And because, according to the sense of nature, this is hidden in mystery from the weak, it becomes foolishness to the unbeliever, since what the imperfect mind does not naturally conceive it judges to be outside the reach of prudence. But because of this imprudent wisdom of the world, which through the wisdom of God did not know God before, that is, which did not reverence the wisdom of its Creator through the magnificence of the world and the beauty of so wisely established a workmanship, it pleased God to save believers by the preaching of foolishness, that is, that eternity should come to mortals through faith in the cross: so that, when the opinion of human judgment was confounded, salvation might be found where foolishness is thought to be. For Christ, who is foolishness to the Gentiles and a stumbling block to the Jews, is the power of God and the wisdom of God: because what human sense thinks weak and foolish in the things of God surpasses earthly prudence and strength in the truth of its wisdom and power.

Nothing in the works of God, then, is to be treated by the opinion of the human mind, nor should the material of his workmanship pass judgment on its Creator. We must take up foolishness in order to take up wisdom; not in the sense of imprudence, but with awareness of our nature: so that what the reasoning of earthly thought does not conceive, the reasoning of divine power may in turn instill in us. For when our understanding has recognized its foolishness, and we have perceived the unskillfulness of our natural imprudence, then through the prudence of divine wisdom we shall be instructed in the wisdom of God: when we measure the powers and might of God without limit, when we do not confine the Lord of nature within natural laws, when we understand that only this is rightly believed about God, for which he himself, with us, is both witness and author of what is to be believed about him.

In the earlier books, which we wrote some time ago, we consider it fully established that we hold the faith and confession of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit from the teaching of the Gospels and the apostles, and that we can have nothing in common with the heretics, since they deny the divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ without measure, reason, or fear. Yet in these books too certain things had necessarily to be included, so that, once all their deceits and impieties have been set out, the knowledge of the truth might be more complete. First we must learn what the rashness of their teaching is, and what the danger of their irreligion; then what their views hold against the apostolic faith, to which we conform, what they usually say in opposition, and by what ambiguity of words they mock the simplicity of their hearers; and finally by what art of interpretation they corrupt the truth and force of the divine sayings.

We are not unaware that neither human speech nor comparison with human nature can suffice to explain divine things. For what cannot be told has no limit or measure of signification; and what is spiritual differs from the appearance and example of bodily things. Yet when we speak of heavenly natures, the very things grasped by the perception of our minds must be expressed in the usage of common nature and speech, not as befitting the dignity of God, but as necessary to the weakness of our minds; for we are going to speak of what we perceive and understand by means of our own things and words. We testified to this in the first book, and we mention it again now so that, when we bring forward anything from human comparisons, we may not be thought to think of God according to bodily natures, or to compare spiritual things with our own passions, but rather to have brought forward the appearance of visible things for the understanding of invisible ones.

For the heretics say that Christ is not from God, that is, that the Son was not born from the Father, and is God not by nature but by appointment: namely, that there is an adoption in his name, because as there are many sons of God, so he too is a son; and then a liberality in his dignity, because as there are many gods, so he too is God; yet with a more indulgent affection of adoption and naming in his case, so that he was adopted before the others and is himself greater than the other adopted sons, and, created more excellently than all natures, surpasses the other creatures. Some of them, confessing the omnipotence of God, also say that he was created in the likeness of God and came to exist from nothing, like other things, in the image of his eternal Creator: that is, that he was commanded by a word to subsist out of things that did not exist, since God is able to fashion a likeness of himself out of nothing.

They add this too, when they hear that earlier bishops preached that the Father and the Son are of one substance, so as to weaken it subtly by giving it the look of a heretical opinion: they say that those bishops used and expressed the meaning of this word, “of one substance,” which in Greek is called homoousion, in this sense: as though the Father himself were the Son, extended, that is, from his infinity into the Virgin, from whom he took a body, and in that body which he took added to himself the name of son. This is their first falsehood about the homoousion. The next is their claim that the term homoousion means that something prior and other is common to the two, as though a prior substance or ousia of some material existed which, being shared by the two and used up in each, would testify that both are of a prior nature and of one thing. And therefore, they say, they reject the confession of the homoousion, because its expression does not distinguish the Son from the Father, and shows the Father to be later than the material he has in common with the son. Thirdly, they devise this reason for rejecting the homoousion: that according to the meaning of this word the Son is thought to come from a division of the Father's substance, as though he had been cut off from him, so that one thing was divided into two; and that they are called of one substance because a portion cut off from a whole is of the nature from which it was cut; and that the passion of division cannot befall God, because he would be changeable if he became liable to diminution by division, and would be made imperfect if his substance passed away from his perfection into another portion.

They also think they can neatly contradict the teaching of the prophets, and of the Gospels and apostles as well, by preaching that the Son's birth took place within time. For since they assert that we are wrong to say the Son always was, they must, by excluding that he always was, confess his birth from time. For if he did not always exist, there will be a time when he did not exist. And if there is a time when he did not exist, there will be time before him, because he who does not always exist began to be from time. But he who is free of time cannot fail to be always. They declare that they reject the statement that the Son always was for this reason: lest, through his always having been, he should be believed to be without birth; as though, by saying that he always was, he were proclaimed unbegotten.

O foolish and impious fears, and irreligious anxiety on God's behalf! The things alleged against the meaning of homoousion and against the statement that the Son always is, the church abhors, rejects, and condemns. For she knows one God, from whom are all things; she knows also one Lord, our Jesus Christ, through whom are all things: one from whom and one through whom; the origin of all from one, the creation of all through one. In the one from whom, she understands the authority of being unbegotten; in the one through whom, she venerates a power differing in nothing from its author, since “from whom” and “through whom” share a common authority over the things created. In the Spirit she knows God as Spirit, impassible and indivisible; for she has learned from the Lord that a spirit does not have flesh and bones, lest anyone should think that the losses of bodily passions could befall him. She knows one unbegotten God; she knows also one only-begotten Son of God. She confesses the Father as eternal and free of any origin; she confesses also the Son's origin from eternity: not himself from a beginning, but from him who has no beginning; not through himself, but born from eternity from him who always is from no one; that is, taking his birth from the Father's eternity. Our faith, then, is free from the opinion of heretical perversity. For the profession of our understanding has been stated, though the reasoning for that profession has not yet been set out. Yet, so that no suspicion might remain about the term homoousion used by the Fathers, and about the confession that he always was, these things have been mentioned. By them it may be known that the Son subsists in the substance in which he was begotten from the Father; that nothing was taken from the substance in which the Father abode by the Son's birth; and that holy men, aflame with the teaching of God, called the Son homoousios with the Father not for the faults and reasons mentioned above; lest anyone perhaps think that the birth of the only-begotten Son was taken away through the ousia, because he was called homoousios with the Father.

But so that we may understand the necessity of taking up both these terms, and the reason why they were used against the heretics who were then raging, for the greatest security of the faith, I think we must answer the perversity of the heretics and refute all their foolish and deadly teachings by the testimonies of the Gospels and the apostles. For they think they give reasons for each of their assertions, because beneath each they have set certain testimonies from the divine books which, with a corrupted sense of understanding, flatter only the ignorant, presenting an appearance of truth according to the perversity of their interpreters.

For they try, by celebrating the divinity of God the Father alone, to take from the Son that he is God; because it is written: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one.” And the Lord said the same to the teacher of the Law who asked what the greatest commandment in the Law was: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one.” And again Paul preaches thus: “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men.” Then they say that he alone is wise, so that no wisdom may be left to the Son, according to the Apostle's saying: “Now to him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery kept silent through eternal ages, but now made manifest through the prophetic Scriptures according to the command of the eternal God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith: to the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever.” Then that he alone is unbegotten and alone true, because Isaiah said: “They will bless you, the true God”; and the Lord testified to the same in the Gospels, saying: “And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” Then that he alone is good, so that there may be no goodness in the Son, because he said: “No one is good but the one God.” Then that he alone is powerful, because Paul said: “Whom in his own times the blessed and only Potentate will show us, the King of kings and Lord of lords.” Then they say they know him as unchangeable and immutable, because he said through the prophet: “I am the Lord your God, and I do not change”; and the apostle James said: “With whom there is no change.” They know him as a just judge, because it is written: “God is a just judge, strong and patient.” As caring for all, because the Lord said, when he was speaking of the birds: “And your heavenly Father feeds them”; and again: “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them falls to the ground without the will of your Father. But even the hairs of your head are numbered.” As foreseeing all things, as blessed Susanna says: “Eternal God, who knows hidden things, who knows all things before they come to be.” As one who cannot be contained, according to what is said: “Heaven is my throne, and earth the footstool of my feet. What house will you build me, or what is the place of my rest? For my hand made these things, and all these things are mine.” As containing all things, as Paul testifies: “For in him we live and move and are”; and as the Psalmist says: “Where shall I go from your Spirit, and where shall I flee from your face? If I ascend into heaven, you are there; if I descend into hell, you are present; if I take my wings before the dawn and dwell in the farthest parts of the sea, even there your hand will lead me and your right hand will hold me.” As incorporeal, because it is said: “For God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” As having immortality and being invisible, as Paul says: “Who alone has immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see”; and according to the Gospel: “No one has ever seen God, except the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father.” And as alone remaining unbegotten, because it is said: “I am who I am”; and again: “Thus you shall say to the children of Israel: He who is has sent me to you”; and through Jeremiah: “You who are Lord, O Lord.”

Who does not see that these things are full of fraud and deceit? Though they are subtly confused and mingled, they bear clear witness to the artful cunning and folly of malice and stupidity. For among other things they have added that they know the Father alone to be unbegotten: as though anyone could doubt, on this account, that he from whom was begotten the one through whom all things are received what he himself is from no one. For in the very fact that he is called Father, he is shown to be the author of the one he begot; he has a name which is understood not to come from another, and from which the one begotten is taught to have come into being. Let us, then, leave to God the Father what is proper to him, as his own and his secret, confessing in him the unbegotten power of eternal might. But I think no one doubts the reason why, in confessing God the Father, certain things are mentioned as though peculiar and private to him: it is so that no one besides him may be left a sharer in them. For when they say only true, only just, only wise, only invisible, only good, only powerful, only having immortality, by the very fact that he alone is these things, the Son, according to them, is cut off from sharing in them. For what is proper to one alone, as they say, is not shared by another. And if these things are thought to be in the Father alone and not also in the Son, it must be believed that God the Son is false, unwise, bodily according to visible matter, ill-willed, weak, and without immortality, since he is excluded from all these things in which the Father alone is.

As we are about to speak of the most complete majesty and fullest divinity of the only-begotten Son of God, we do not think anyone will judge that all the language we shall use tends to the dishonor of God the Father, as though something were taken from his dignity if any of these things is referred to the Son; for rather the honor of the Son is the Father's dignity, and the author from whom one worthy of such glory came forth is glorious. For the Son has nothing except what he has by birth, and admiration for the honor of the begotten lies in the honor of the one who begets. Any thought of dishonor, then, falls away, since whatever majesty is shown to be in the Son will overflow to magnify the power of him who begot such a Son.

It follows that, now that we know what they have confessed about the Father in order to disfigure the Son, we should hear what they have professed about the Son himself. For since we are going to answer each of their propositions and expose their irreligious teaching by the testimonies of the divine sayings, we must add to what they said about the Father what they then said about the Son: so that, by comparing their confession about the Father with that about the Son, we may keep one and the same order in answering each proposition. They say that the Son of God was begotten neither from any underlying matter, because all things were created through him; nor from God, because nothing can go out from God; but that he is from things that were not: that is, a perfect creature of God, yet not like the other creatures. And that he is a creature, because it is written: “The Lord created me in the beginning of his ways.” And that he is a perfect work, but not like other works: a work, because of what Paul said to the Hebrews: “Made so much better than the angels as he has inherited a more excellent name than they”; and again: “Therefore, holy brothers, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the apostle and high priest of our confession, Jesus Christ, who is faithful to him who made him.” To weaken the Son's strength, power, and divinity they use above all his saying: “The Father is greater than I.” And they grant that he is not one among all the creatures, because it is written: “All things were made through him.” They conclude the whole teaching of their irreligion in their own words, as follows: “A copy of the blasphemy of those who say that the Son of God is a creature.”

“We know one God, alone unmade, alone everlasting, alone without beginning, alone true, alone having immortality, alone best, alone powerful, creator of all, ordainer and disposer, unchangeable, immutable, just and best, God of the Law and the Prophets and the New Testament; that this God begot an only-begotten Son before all ages, through whom he made both the ages and all things; begotten not in appearance but in truth, having followed his will, immutable and unchangeable, a perfect creature of God, but not as one of the creatures; a work, but not as the other works; not, as Valentinus imagined, the offspring of the Father as an emanation; nor, as Mani set forth, the offspring as a part of the one substance of the Father; nor, as Sabellius, who divides the unity, said, that the Son is the same as the Father; nor, as Hieracas said, a lamp from a lamp, or a torch divided into two parts; nor one who existed before and was afterward born or created anew into a Son, as you yourself, most blessed pope, in the midst of the church and in the assembly of the brothers, have often refuted those who bring in such things; but, as we have said, created by the will of God before times and ages, receiving life and being from the Father, and glories, the Father causing them to subsist with him. For the Father, in giving him the inheritance of all things, did not deprive himself of what he holds in himself without being made; for he is the source of all.

“Therefore there are three substances (hypostases): Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And God is the cause of all, wholly without beginning and solitary; but the Son, put forth by the Father apart from time, and created and founded before the ages, was not before he was born; but, born apart from time before all things, he alone came into being from the Father alone. For he is not eternal, or co-eternal, or unmade together with the Father, nor does he have being together with the Father, as some say, or as those say who bring in two unborn principles; but as the unity and principle of all, so God is before all. Therefore he is also before the Son, as we have learned from you too, when you preached in the midst of the church. Inasmuch, then, as he has from God his being, and glories, and life, and all things have been handed over to him, in this respect God is his principle. And he rules over him as his God, since he is before him. For if the phrases ‘from him,’ and ‘from the womb,’ and ‘I came forth from the Father and have come’ are understood as meaning a part of him, of one substance, and as an extended emanation, then the Father will be composite, divisible, changeable, and a body, according to them; and, as far as lies with them, God who is without body will be subject to what follows from being a body.”

This is their error, this their deadly teaching. To confirm it they seize on testimonies from the divine sayings with a corrupted sense of understanding, and tell lies about them, taking advantage of human ignorance. No one should doubt that for knowledge of divine things divine teachings must be used. For human weakness will not attain knowledge of heavenly things by itself, nor will the perception of bodily things take to itself an understanding of invisible ones. Neither what is created and fleshly in us, nor what God has given us for the use of our life, can discern by its own judgment the nature and work of its Creator. Our minds do not rise to heavenly knowledge, nor will our weakness conceive incomprehensible power by any perception. God must be believed about himself, and we must submit to what he has granted to our knowledge of himself. Either he must be denied, as the pagans do, if his testimonies are rejected; or, if he is believed to be God, as he is, he cannot be understood otherwise than as he himself has testified of himself. Let men's own opinions cease, then, and let human counsels not stretch beyond the divine ordinance. Against irreligious and impious teachings about God, therefore, we follow the very authorities of the divine sayings; and we will treat each point on the authority of him about whom the question is asked, not fitting certain expressions, with their reasons removed, to deceive and wrongly instruct the ignorance of our hearers. For the understanding of what is said must be taken from the reasons for saying it, because the matter is not subject to the word, but the word to the matter. We will pursue everything, setting out both the reasons for speaking and the force of what is said. Let each point, then, be examined in the order in which they set it out.

For this is their principal point: “We know,” they say, “one only God,” since Moses says, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one.” But has anyone ever dared to doubt this? Or has any of those who believed in God ever been known to preach otherwise than that there is one God from whom are all things, one unbegotten power, and that this one power is without beginning? But it does not follow from God's being one that it can be denied of the Son of God that he is God. For Moses, or rather God through Moses, laid down this principal commandment for a people occupied, both in Egypt and in the desert, with idols and the cults of what they took to be gods: that they should believe in one God; and he laid it down truly and rightly. For there is one God from whom are all things. But let us see whether the same Moses also confessed that he through whom all things are is God. For it is not taken from the Father that he is the one God because the Son also is God. For he is God from God, one from one: one God for this reason, that God is from him. Conversely, the Son is no less God because the Father is the one God; for he is the only-begotten Son of God, not unbegotten, so as to take from the Father that he is the one God; nor anything other than God, because he was born from God. And though there ought to be no doubt that, by being born from God, he is God, which is why for our faith God is one, let us see whether Moses, who said to Israel, “The Lord your God is one,” preached the Son of God as God. For in confessing the divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ we shall have to use the testimony of the very one on whose authority the heretics, confessing only one God, think the Son must be denied to be God.

Since, then, it is the complete and perfect confession about God to speak as the Apostle does: “One God the Father, from whom are all things, and one Lord, our Jesus Christ, through whom are all things,” let us see what Moses says about the origin of the world. For he says: “And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the water, and let it divide between water and water; and it was so; and God made the firmament, and God divided through the midst of the water.” You have, then, God from whom, and you have God through whom. If you deny this, you must teach through whom what was made was made; or else show that the very nature of the things to be created obeyed God, so that at the words, “Let there be a firmament,” it made itself firm at the command of God's word. But the reasoning of divine Scripture does not admit this. For all things, according to the prophet, were made from nothing; no existing nature was changed into something else, but what was not was created and completed. Through whom? Hear the evangelist: “All things were made through him.” If you ask through whom, you will hear the same evangelist saying, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him.” And if you wish to deny that “Let there be a firmament” is seen to have been said by the Father, you will hear the prophet again saying: “He spoke, and they were made; he commanded, and they were created.” In the saying, then, “Let there be a firmament,” it is shown that the Father spoke. But in what is added, “And it was so,” and in God's being said to have made it, the person of the one who carries it out, who makes, is to be understood. For “he spoke, and they were made,” not merely “he willed, and made”; “he commanded, and they were created,” not merely “they came to be because it pleased him”; so that the office of a Mediator between himself and the things to be created should not be lacking. God, from whom are all things, says “let it be,” and God, through whom are all things, makes it, the same and equal name being confessed both in the signification of the speaker and in the working of the maker. But if you dare to say that “And God made” is not said of the Son, where then will be the saying, “All things were made through him,” and that apostolic one, “And one Lord, our Jesus Christ, through whom are all things,” and that one, “He spoke, and they were made”? But if these divine sayings refute your shamelessness, it is not taken from the Son of God that he is God by the saying, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one,” since by the very one who said this the Son too was preached as God in the very foundation of the world. But let us see how far this distinction between God who commands and God who makes is carried forward. For although common understanding does not admit that in the saying, “He commanded, and they were made,” one solitary and identical person is to be believed meant, yet, so that nothing can be doubted, the things that followed the creation of the world must be explained.

When, then, the world was finished and its inhabitant was to be formed, this is what is said about him: “And God said, Let us make man in our image and likeness.” I ask now: do you think God spoke to himself alone, or do you understand that this speech of his was addressed not to himself but to another? If you say he was alone, you are refuted by the very voice of him who said, “Let us make man in our image and likeness.” For God spoke through the lawgiver according to our understanding, that is, imparting to us knowledge of what he did in words which he wished us to use. The Son of God, through whom all things were made, was indeed signified in the saying, “And God said, Let there be a firmament,” and again in the saying, “And God made the firmament.” But so that this speech should not be thought empty and superfluous, as if he had told himself to make it and then made it himself (for what is so foreign to one who is alone as to tell himself that something must be made, when only his will was needed for it to be made?), he wished it to be understood more fully that this signification is not to be referred to himself alone. By saying, “Let us make man in our image and likeness,” he removed the understanding of a single one by professing a fellowship. But one who is solitary cannot have fellowship with himself. Nor does the solitude of a solitary one admit “let us make”; nor does anyone say “our” to one who is foreign to himself. Both words, “let us make” and “our,” just as they do not allow one solitary and identical person, so they do not signify one who is different and foreign. Or I ask: when you hear of one solitary, do you not think he is himself and the same? Or when you hear of one who is not himself and not the same, do you understand him as only solitary? In the solitary, then, one solitary will be found; but in one who is not the same and not himself, one not solitary. To the solitary, then, belong “I will make” and “my”; to one not solitary, “let us make” and “our.”

When, then, we read, “Let us make man in our image and likeness,” since both words signify that he is neither solitary only nor different, we too must confess him as neither solitary only nor diverse; the property of one nature in both being recognized from his saying “our image,” not “our images.” But it is not enough to have given an account of the words alone, unless the working of things also follows the understanding of what was said. For it is written thus: “And God made man; in the image of God he made him.” I ask: if the speech was that of one solitary, addressed to himself, what do you think should be understood here? For I now see a threefold signification: of the maker, of the one made, and of the pattern. The one made is man; God made him; and whom he made, he made in the image of God. If Genesis had been speaking of a solitary one, it would surely have said, “And he made him in his own image.” But, announcing the gospel mystery, it spoke not of two gods but of God and God, when it says that man was made by God in the image of God. And so God is found to work man after an image common to himself and God and after the same likeness: so that neither does the signification of the maker admit an understanding of solitude, nor does the work, made after the same image and likeness, allow a difference of divinity.

And although it may be thought superfluous after this to bring anything more, since in divine things it is not frequent repetition but simply having been said that suffices, yet we should learn what was said on this same matter elsewhere. For we must give an account not of the divine sayings but of our understanding. Among many commandments God speaks thus to Noah: “Whoever sheds the blood of a man, for his blood his own life will be shed; for I made man in the image of God.” Here too pattern, work, and worker are distinguished. God testifies that he made man in the image of God. When man was to be made, because he was speaking of himself but not to himself, he said “in our image”; but when man had been made, “God made man in the image of God.” He was certainly not ignorant of the proper use of words, so as to say, “I made him in my image,” if he had been speaking to himself. For he had said, to show the unity of nature, “Let us make in our image.” Nor again did he confuse the understanding of solitary and not solitary, when God, making man, made him in the image of God.

But if you want to assert that God the Father, solitary, said these things to himself, as though it could be granted you that one spoke with himself as with another, and that in “I made man in the image of God” he wished to be understood as saying “I made man in my image,” you are first refuted by your own testimony. For you said: “From the Father are all things, but through the Son are all things.” For in the saying, “Let us make man,” the origin is from him from whom the speech also began; but in God's making man in the image of God, he too is signified through whom the work is completed.

Then, so that you may not be free to lie on this point, Wisdom, whom you yourself have confessed to be Christ, will oppose you, saying: “When he set sure springs under heaven, when he made strong the foundations of the earth, I was with him, arranging. I was the one in whom he rejoiced. Daily I rejoiced in his sight at all times, when he rejoiced in the completed world and rejoiced in the sons of men.” Every pretext is shut off, and all error is forced to confess the truth. Wisdom, begotten of God before the ages, is present. And she is not only present but arranging. She is, then, arranging with him: understand the office of composing or disposing. For the Father, in speaking, brings about; the Son, in working what was said to be made, arranges. The distinction of persons is so made that the work is referred to both. For in the saying, “Let us make,” the command and the deed are made equal; but in what is written, “I was with him, arranging,” he shows that he was not alone in the work. And she rejoices before him who, she indicated, rejoiced with her in her joy. “Daily I rejoiced in his sight at all times, when he rejoiced in the completed world and rejoiced in the sons of men.” Wisdom has taught the cause of her joy. She rejoices because of the joy of the Father, who rejoices in the completion of the world and in the sons of men. For it is written: “And God saw that they were good.” She is glad that her works, accomplished through her at his command, please the Father. For she professes that her joy comes from this, that the Father was glad in the completed world and in the sons of men; in the sons of men because the whole beginning of the human race had already been established in the one Adam. So in the making of the world the Father does not speak to himself alone, since his Wisdom both works with him and rejoices in the completed work.

We know that many great matters remain for the full explanation of these sayings; but they are deferred by us rather than passed over, for a fuller treatment of them is reserved for the other propositions. For now we answer only what the impious said in the exposition of their faith, or rather their faithlessness: that only one God was preached by Moses. And we remember that he was truly so preached, because there is one God from whom are all things; but the Son's being God must not on that account be ignored, since the same Moses professed God and God throughout the whole body of his work. We must see, then, how the account of the election and the giving of the Law preach God and God in equal order of confession.

After many addresses of God to Abraham, when Sarah was provoked against Hagar, the barren mistress jealous of her maid's conception, and Hagar had fled from her presence, Scripture speaks of her thus: “And the angel of the Lord said to Hagar, Return to your mistress and humble yourself under her hands. And the angel of the Lord said to her, I will greatly multiply your seed, and it will not be counted for multitude.” And again: “And she called the name of the Lord who spoke with her, You are God who saw me.” The angel of God speaks (and in “angel of God” there is a twofold meaning: he who is, and he whose he is); and he speaks things not in keeping with the name of his office; for he says: “I will greatly multiply your seed, and it will not be counted for multitude.” The power of multiplying nations exceeds the ministry of an angel. But what, then, did Scripture testify about him who, as angel of God, spoke what belongs to God alone? “And she called the name of the Lord who spoke with her, You are God who saw me.” First angel of God; second Lord, for she called the name of the Lord who spoke with her; then third God, for “You are God who saw me.” He who was called angel of God is likewise Lord and God. And according to the prophet, the Son of God is the angel of great counsel. So that the distinction of persons might be complete, he was called angel of God; for he who is God from God is himself also the angel of God. But so that due honor might be given, he was proclaimed both Lord and God.

And here he is first angel, then afterward the same one is both Lord and God; but to Abraham he is only God. For safely, now that the distinction of persons has first been set out, so that the error of a solitary God may not lurk beneath, his complete and true name is spoken. For it is written: “And God said to Abraham, Behold, Sarah your wife will bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac; and I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant, and with his seed after him. As for Ishmael, behold, I have heard you, and I have blessed him, and I will increase him greatly; he will beget twelve nations, and I will make him a great nation.” Is there any doubt that he who was called angel of God is again called God as well? The speech is likewise about Ishmael, and he is to be multiplied by the same one, now as before. And lest perhaps the one who had spoken to Hagar should be thought not to be the one speaking, the divine word testifies that it is the same person, saying: “And I have blessed him and will multiply him.” The blessing is in the past, for he had already spoken to Hagar; the increase is in the future, for now for the first time God speaks to Abraham about Ishmael. To Abraham God speaks; to Hagar the angel of God spoke. He, then, who is angel is God, because he who is angel of God is God born from God. He was called angel of God because he is the angel of great counsel; but the same was afterward shown to be God, so that he who is God might not be believed to be an angel only. Let the discussion follow the order of events. The angel of the Lord spoke to Hagar; the same speaks to Abraham as God; the speech to both comes from the same one. Ishmael is blessed and is promised to be increased into a great nation.

Scripture also shows through Abraham that it was God who spoke. To Abraham too a son, Isaac, is promised. Then afterward three men stand by him. Abraham, seeing three, worships one and confesses him as Lord. Scripture has recorded that three men stood there; but the patriarch is not ignorant of who is to be worshipped and confessed. The appearance of those standing there is not distinguished; but he recognized his Lord with the eyes of faith and the sight of the mind. Then follows: “And he said to him, I will return to you at this time next year, and Sarah your wife will have a son.” And after this the Lord said to him: “I will not hide from Abraham my servant what I am about to do.” And again: “And the Lord said, The cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is full, and their sins are very great.” And again, after much other conversation, which we pass over for brevity, when Abraham was anxious about the righteous being destroyed together with the unrighteous, he says: “Far be it from you who judge the earth to do this judgment.” And the Lord said: “If I find fifty righteous in Sodom, in the city, I will spare the whole place for their sake.” And again, when the conversation with Lot, Abraham's kinsman, was finished, Scripture says: “And the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the Lord out of heaven.” And again: “And the Lord visited Sarah, as he had said, and God did for Sarah as he had spoken; and Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in her old age, at the time of which the Lord had spoken to him.” Then, when the maidservant had been driven from Abraham's house with her son, and was afraid in the desert that the boy would die for lack of water, the same Scripture says: “And the Lord God heard the voice of the boy where he was, and the angel of God called Hagar from heaven and said to her, What is it, Hagar? Do not fear; for God has heard the voice of the boy from the place where he is. Arise, take the boy and hold his hand; for I will make him a great nation.”

What blindness of faithlessness this is, what dullness of an unbelieving heart, what rashness of irreligion, either to be ignorant of these things or, knowing them, to disregard them! Certainly they were recorded and spoken in such a way that no error or obscurity might hinder the understanding of the truth. And if we show that they cannot be unknown, then the denial must be a crime of impiety. The angel of God began to speak to Hagar, as one who would increase Ishmael into a great nation and grant him innumerable descendants. The confession of the woman who heard him teaches that he is both Lord and God. For the speech began from the angel of God, but ended in the confession of God. So he who, in the ministry of announcing the great counsel, is the angel of God, is himself God both by nature and by name. For the name is fitted to the nature, not the nature to the name. On the same matters God speaks to Abraham: he is told that Ishmael has already been blessed and is to be multiplied into a nation: “I have blessed him,” he says. So he did not change the indication of his person, for he shows that he had already blessed him. Scripture has certainly kept the order of the mystery and the manner of true preaching, beginning with the angel of God and afterward confessing that the same one, speaking on the same matters, is God.

The divine word proceeds with a fuller advance of teaching. God speaks to Abraham there and promises that Sarah will bear a child. After this three men stand by him as he sits; he worships one and confesses him as Lord. And the same one, worshipped and confessed by him, promises that he will return at the same time in the coming year, and that Sarah will have a son, as God had said to Abraham. The same one, seen by him as a man, afterward speaks to him about these same things. Only the names change; nothing is lost from the confession. For though he saw a man, Abraham worshipped the Lord, recognizing, that is, the mystery of the embodiment to come. Nor did he lack testimony to so great a faith, since the Lord says in the Gospels: “Abraham your father rejoiced to see my day; he saw it and was glad.” The man who was seen, then, promises that he will return at the same time. Look at the fulfillment of the promise; but remember that it is a man who promises. What, then, does Scripture say? “And the Lord visited Sarah.” So this man is the Lord, accomplishing what he promised. And what follows? “And God did for Sarah as he had spoken.” Named a man in speaking, signified as Lord in the visitation, he is proclaimed God in the deed. You are certainly not unaware that it was a man who spoke, who was both seen by Abraham and spoke to him. How will you fail to know that he is God, when the same Scripture that had called him a man confesses him as God? For it said: “And Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in her old age, at the time of which the Lord had spoken to him.” But it was the man who said that he would come. Believe him a man only, unless he who came is both God and Lord. Compare the reasons. The man certainly will come for this, that Sarah may conceive and bear: learn the faith. The Lord and God came for this, that Sarah might conceive and bear. The man spoke in the power of God; God accomplished it in the working of God. So both his speaking and his doing show him to be God. Then, of the three men who were seen, two go away; but the one who remains is both Lord and God. And he is not only Lord and God, but also judge. For Abraham, standing before the Lord, said: “By no means will you do this thing, to kill the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous will be as the wicked. Far be it from you, who judge all the earth, to do this judgment.” In his whole speech, then, Abraham teaches the faith by which he was justified: he recognized his Lord out of the three, worshipped him alone, and confessed him as Lord and judge.

And lest perhaps you think that the honor of all three men who were seen together is contained in the confession of one, look at what Lot said when he saw the two who had departed: “And when Lot saw them, he rose to meet them and bowed with his face to the ground, and said, Behold, lords, turn aside into the house of your servant.” Here the simple sight of angels kept the plural; there the faith of the patriarch confesses a singular honor. Here the history of divine Scripture indicates that only two of the three were angels; there it proclaims the Lord and God. For it says: “And the Lord said to Abraham, Why did Sarah laugh, saying, Shall I really bear a child? But I have grown old. Is any word impossible with God? At this time I will return to you next year, and Sarah will have a son.” Scripture, then, keeps the order of truth, neither mixing a plural into him who was recognized as both God and Lord, nor giving the two angels the honor that had been offered to God alone. Lot indeed says “lords,” but Scripture calls them angels. In the one case it is a man's courtesy; in the other, the confession of the truth.

Then the punishment of a just judgment comes upon Sodom and Gomorrah. And what weight is there in this? The Lord rained sulfur and fire from the Lord. As it says Lord from Lord, so it did not separate by the name of nature those whom it had distinguished by signification. For we read in the Gospel: “The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son.” So the Lord gave what the Lord received from the Lord.

But you who have accepted the knowledge of the judge as Lord and Lord, recognize the sharing of the same name in God and God. Jacob, departing out of fear of his brother, had seen in a dream a ladder set on the earth and reaching to heaven, the angels of God going up and down on it, and the Lord leaning on it and bestowing on him all the blessings he had given Abraham and Isaac. Afterward God speaks to him thus: “And God said to Jacob, Arise, go up to the place Bethel and dwell there, and make there an altar to God, who appeared to you when you fled from the face of your brother.” God asks honor for God, and asks it with the indication of another person: “who appeared to you,” he says, “when you fled”; so that no confusion of one and the same person might arise. God, then, is the one who speaks, and God the one of whom he speaks: the confession of honor does not separate by the name of nature those whom the signification distinguishes as subsisting.

And for this passage I remember certain things needed for a fuller explanation; but the order of our answer must follow the order of their proposition. So what remains for it we will pursue in another book in its proper place. For now it was only necessary to show, in the case of God who asks honor for God, that the angel of God who spoke with Hagar is both God and Lord, since he himself spoke to Abraham on the same matters; that the man who appeared to Abraham is both God and Lord; but that the two angels, who were seen with the Lord and sent by him to Lot, are proclaimed by the prophet as nothing but angels. And God was present not only to Abraham in a man; God came to Jacob also in a man. And he not only came, but is shown wrestling; and not only wrestling, but weak against the one with whom he wrestled. This is not the time or the subject for treating anything of the mystery of the wrestling. He is certainly God, because Jacob prevailed against God, and Israel saw God.

Let us see whether this angel of God is also known to be God elsewhere than with Hagar. He plainly is. And he is found to be not only God, but the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. For the angel of the Lord appeared to Moses from the bush, and the Lord speaks from the bush: whose voice do you think should be understood, that of him who was seen, or of someone else? There is no room here for a lie. For Scripture says: “And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire from the bush.” And again: “The Lord called him from the bush, Moses, Moses. And he answered, What is it? And the Lord said, Do not come near here; take the sandals off your feet; for the place on which you stand is holy ground. And he said to him, I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” He who appeared in the bush speaks from the bush; the place of the vision and of the voice is one, and no one other than the one seen is heard. He who is the angel of God when he is seen is likewise the Lord when he is heard; and the Lord who is heard is then recognized as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. When he is called the angel of God, he is shown not to be self-contained and solitary, for he is the angel of God; when he is named Lord and God, he is proclaimed in the honor and name of his nature. You have, then, in the angel who appeared from the bush, both Lord and God.

Run on through the testimonies of Moses, and see whether he neglects any opportunity to preach God and Lord. You hold, of course, from his words: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one.” Hold now the words of that divine song of his; for he says: “See, see that I am the Lord, and there is no God besides me.” And when all his words, to the end of the song, had been spoken in the person of God, he says: “Rejoice, heavens, together with him, and let all the sons of God worship him. Rejoice, nations, with his people, and let all the angels of God honor him.” God is to be honored by the angels of God, God who says: “For I am the Lord, and there is no God besides me.” For he is the only-begotten God, and the name “only-begotten” admits no partner (just as the unbegotten, insofar as he is unbegotten, admits no sharer); for he is one from one. Besides the unbegotten God there is no other unbegotten God, and besides the only-begotten God there is no other only-begotten God. Each, then, is one and alone, by the property proper to each, of being unbegotten and of having an origin. And so each is one God, since between one and one, that is, one from one, there is no second nature of eternal divinity. He is, then, to be worshipped by the sons of God and honored by the angels of God. So honor and veneration are asked for God from the sons and angels of God. Understand what is meant by the one to be honored and by those through whom he is to be honored: God, that is, through the angels and sons of God. And lest perhaps you think that honor is asked for one who is not God by nature, and judge that in this place Moses meant the honoring of God the Father (though the Father is honored in the Son), notice the blessing which he sets out for Joseph in the same discourse. For he says: “And may the things acceptable to him who appeared in the bush come upon the head and crown of Joseph.” God, then, is to be worshipped by the sons of God, but God who is also Son of God. And God is to be honored by the angels of God, but God who is the angel of God, God: because God, the angel of God, appeared from the bush, and what pleases him is wished for Joseph when he is blessed. He is not therefore not God because he is the angel of God; nor again is he not the angel of God because he is God. But, the understanding of the persons being signified, the sense of being unbegotten and of birth being distinguished, and the dispensation of heavenly mysteries made plain, he taught that God must not be thought solitary, since the angels and sons of God will worship God, the angel and Son of God.

Let these be our answers from the books of Moses, or rather let Moses himself have answered: for the heretics, using him as their authority, think it can be argued from the confession of one God that the Son of God is not to be preached as God; impious men against the testimony of their own authority, since he, while confessing one God, never ceased to teach of the Son of God that he is God. But it follows to bring forward the many sayings of the prophets on the same subject.

You hold the saying, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one”; and would that you held it rightly! But I ask, according to your own understanding, the meaning of a prophetic saying. For it says in the Psalms: “God, your God, has anointed you.” Distinguish, for the reader's understanding, the anointed and the anointer; distinguish “you” and “your”; show to whom and about whom the words are spoken. For this order of confession is joined to what was said before. He had said: “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; the rod of your uprightness is the rod of your kingdom; you have loved righteousness and hated iniquity.” And now he has added: “Therefore God, your God, has anointed you.” The God of an eternal kingdom, then, because of the merit of the righteousness he loved and the iniquity he hated, was anointed by his God. Do any gaps between the names confuse our understanding? Only a distinction of person is set in “you” and “your,” with no distinction at all in the confession of nature. For “your” refers to the author, and “you” to the one who is from the author. For he is God from God, the prophet confessing in this order: “God, your God, has anointed you.” But there is no God before the unbegotten God, as he himself says: “Be my witnesses, and I am witness, says the Lord God, and my servant whom I have chosen, that you may know and believe and understand that I am, and before me there is no other God, and after me there will be none.” The dignity of him who is without beginning has been shown, then, and the honor of him who is from the unbegotten has been preserved: for “God, your God, has anointed you.” For the word “your” refers to the birth, but does not destroy the nature. And he is his God for this reason, that he was born from him as God. Yet the Son is not therefore not God because the Father is God: for “God, your God, has anointed you.” By marking both the author and the one begotten from him, in one and the same saying he placed both under the name of the same nature and dignity.

But lest a pretext for an impious assertion should perhaps be seized from the saying, “For I am, and before me there is no other God, and after me there will be none,” as though the Son too is not God, since after God, before whom there is no God, there will also be no God afterward, the meaning of the whole saying must be examined. God himself is witness of his own words; but his chosen servant is also witness together with him that there is no God before him and none will be after him. He is indeed a sufficient witness for himself; but with his own testimony about himself he has joined the testimony of the servant whom he chose. The testimony of the two, then, is one: that there is no God before him, for all things are from him; nor will there be a God after him; but not that no God has come from him. For the servant was already speaking these things in the Father's testimony, the servant chosen in the tribe from which he was to be born. He shows this very thing in the Gospels thus: “Behold my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved, in whom my soul is well pleased.” “There is, then, no other God before me, and after me there will be none”: showing, that is, the infinity of an eternal and unchangeable power in the fact that there is no God besides him before or after; yet placing his servant beside him both in his testimony and in his name.

And this same thing is readily learned from his own words. For he says to the prophet Hosea: “I will no longer have mercy on the house of Israel, but I will surely oppose them; but on the sons of Judah I will have mercy, and I will save them in the Lord their God.” So the Father plainly names the Son God, in whom he also chose us before eternal times. He says “their” because the unbegotten God is from no one, and we are given to the Son by God the Father as an inheritance. For we read: “Ask of me, and I will give you the nations as your inheritance.” For God, from whom are all things, has no God, being eternal without beginning. But to the Son the Father is God, for he was born God from him. And to us both the Father is God and the Son is God: the Father confessing of the Son that he is our God, the Son teaching of the Father that he is God to us; yet the Son is named God by the Father, that is, by the very name of the Father's own unbegotten power. So much for Hosea.

And through Isaiah, how complete is God the Father's profession concerning our Lord! For he says: “For thus says the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, who made the things that are to come: Ask me about your sons and your daughters, and command me concerning the works of my hands. I made the earth and man upon it; I commanded all the stars; I raised up a king in righteousness, and all his ways are straight. He will build my city and turn back the captivity of my people, not for a price nor for gifts, says the Lord of hosts. Egypt will toil, and the merchandise of the Ethiopians and the Sabaeans; men of stature will pass over to you and will be your servants; they will follow after you bound in chains, and will worship you and make supplication in you; for God is in you, and there is no God besides you. For you are God, and we did not know it, the God of Israel, the Savior. All who oppose him will blush and be ashamed and go in confusion.” Is there still any room for rashness? Or is any pretext for ignorance left, unless only this remains, that impiety betray itself by its own profession? God, from whom are all things, who made all things by commanding, claiming as his own the works of the one who made them (which surely would not have been made unless he had said they should be made), testifies that a righteous king was raised up by him, who builds a city for God himself and turns back the captivity of the people, not for a price nor for gifts; for we are all saved by grace. Then he says how, after the toil of Egypt, that is, the calamity of the world, and the merchandise of the Ethiopians and the Sabaeans, men of stature will pass over to him. And what, then, are we to think the toil of Egypt and the merchandise of the Ethiopians and the Sabaeans? Let us remember the Magi of the East worshipping the Lord and bringing gifts, and let us measure the toil of so long a journey to Bethlehem of Judea. For in the toil of these leaders the toil of all Egypt is shown. For the whole world paid the chief honor of its impious religion to the Magi, who counterfeited the workings of divine power with a false appearance of things. The same Magi, with the merchandise of the Ethiopians and the Sabaeans, brought gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh; which another prophet also foretold, saying: “Before him the Ethiopians will fall down, and his enemies will lick the dust. The kings of Tarshish will offer gifts, the kings of the Arabians and the Sabaeans will bring gifts, and he will be given of the gold of Arabia.” In the Magi and their gifts, then, the toil of Egypt and the merchandise of the Ethiopians and the Sabaeans are shown: namely, the error of the world in the Magi who worship, and the choice gifts of the nations offered by them to the Lord they worshipped.

Who, then, are the men of stature who will pass over to him and follow him in chains? It is not obscure. Look to the Gospels: Peter is girded to follow his Lord. Look at the apostles: Paul, the servant of Christ, glories in his chains. And let us see whether the prisoner of Christ Jesus fulfilled what God had said of his Son, God. “They will make supplication,” he says, “for God is in you.” Recognize the saying in the Apostle, and understand it once recognized: “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself.” Then follows: “And there is no God besides you.” To which the same Apostle at once says: “For there is one Lord, our Jesus Christ, through whom are all things”; and no other is seen to be besides him, because he is one. Thirdly it also says: “You are God, and we did not know it.” But the former persecutor of the church said: “Whose are the fathers, from whom is Christ, who is God over all.” These prisoners, then, will preach these things: men of stature indeed, who will judge the twelve tribes of Israel on twelve thrones, and will follow their Lord in the martyrdom of their teaching and their suffering.

God, then, is in God; and he in whom God is, is God. And how is there no God besides you, when God is in the same one? You seize, O heretic, on “There is no God besides me” to confess a solitary God the Father: how will you interpret the saying of God the Father's own proclamation, “There is no God besides you,” if by the saying “There is no God besides me” you strive to assert that the Son of God is not God? To whom, then, did God say, “There is no God besides you”? For here you will not be allowed to substitute the person of a solitary one. For the Lord spoke to the king whom he raised up, in the person of the men of stature who worship and make supplication: “For God is in you.” This does not admit a solitary one. For “in you” signifies one present, as the one to whom the words are addressed. And what follows, “God is in you,” shows not only one who is present, but also one who abides in the one present, distinguishing the one who dwells from the one in whom he dwells, yet by a distinction of person only, not of kind: for God is in him, and he in whom God is, is God. For God is not in a dwelling of a different nature, foreign to himself, but abides in his own, begotten from himself. God in God, because God from God. “For you are God, and we did not know it, the God of Israel, the Savior.”

The next words refute you who deny God in God; for it says: “All who oppose him will blush and be ashamed and go in confusion.” This is God's decree against your impiety. For you oppose Christ, for whose sake the profession of the Father's voice rebukes you. For he whom you deny to be God is God. And you deny it under the pretense of honoring God, who says, “There is no other God besides me.” But be confounded and blush: the unbegotten God does not need the honor you offer; he does not ask from you this glory of his solitude; he does not desire this understanding of your opinion, that because he said, “There is no God besides me,” you should deny that he whom he begot from himself is God. And lest you should claim this as belonging to him alone in order to destroy the Son's divinity, he filled the glory of his Only-begotten with the honor of perfect divinity, saying: “And there is no God besides you.” Why do you separate what has been made equal? Why do you set apart what has been placed side by side? It is proper to the Son of God that there is no God besides him; it is proper to God the Father that there is no God apart from him. Use the words of God about God. Confess thus, and make supplication to the king: “For God is in you, and there is no God besides you. For you are God, and we did not know it, the God of Israel, the Savior.” The duty of honor is free from insult, and this pattern of confession gives no offense; especially since opposition to him is full of confusion and shame. Dwell on the words of God, confess with the voices of God, and flee the threat of confusion. For by denying that the Son of God is God you will not so much venerate God with the honor of glory as solitary as despise the Father by dishonoring the Son. Confess, in faithful honor to the unbegotten God, that besides him there is no God; preach to the only-begotten God that apart from him there is no God.

Hear, then, besides Moses and Isaiah, Jeremiah also, as a third, teaching this same thing, when he says: “This is our God, and no other will be counted beside him. He found every way of knowledge and gave it to Jacob his servant and to Israel his beloved. Afterward he was seen on earth and lived among men.” For he had already said above: “He is also man, and who will know him?” You have, then, God seen on earth and living among men; and I ask how you think we should understand, “No one has ever seen God, except the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father,” when Jeremiah preaches God who was seen on earth and lived among men? The Father certainly is visible to none but the Son. Who, then, is this who was seen and lived among men? He is certainly our God, God visible in man and able to be touched. And understand the prophet when he says: “No other will be counted beside him.” If you ask how, hear what follows, lest on this account you think that the saying, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one,” is not also proper to the Father. For these words hang together: “No other will be counted beside him, who found every way of knowledge and gave it to Jacob his servant and to Israel his beloved; afterward he was seen on earth and lived among men.” For there is one Mediator between God and men, God and man: mediator both in the giving of the Law and in the taking of a body. No other, then, is counted beside him. For he is one, born from God as God, through whom all things in heaven and on earth were created, through whom times and ages were made. For the whole of whatever exists subsists by his working. He, then, is the one who makes covenant with Abraham, speaks to Moses, testifies to Israel, abides in the prophets, is born through the Virgin of the Holy Spirit, nails to the wood of the passion the hostile powers that oppose us, destroys death in the underworld, confirms by the resurrection the faith of our hope, and destroys the corruption of human flesh by the glory of his body. No other, then, will be counted beside him. For these things are proper to the only-begotten God alone, and he alone was born from God in this peculiar blessedness of his powers. No other God is counted beside him, for he is God not from another substance but from God. There is nothing new in him, then, nothing foreign, nothing recent. For when Israel hears that its God is one, and that no other God is counted beside the Son of God, God, so that he is God, then the Father, God, and the Son, God, are wholly one, not by a union of person but by unity of substance: for the prophet does not allow what the Son of God, God, is to be counted toward another God.

In answering the impious and mad teachings of the heretics in the earlier books, we were not unaware that we had been led into such a necessity of contradiction that our answer would disturb our hearers with no less danger than our silence. For when unbelieving assertion profanely pressed upon us the one God, and sound faith on the other hand could not religiously deny the one God, it could not be discussed without a sense of danger on both sides, since it would be no less impious to affirm it than to deny it. And by the opinion of human sense this will perhaps be thought foolish and contrary to reason: that what it is irreligious to deny, it should be irreligious to confess; since the piety of confessing condemns the impiety of denying, and it is not reasonable that something should be usefully affirmed which would be usefully destroyed. But human sense, imprudent for understanding divine wisdom and foolish by the measure of heavenly prudence, thinks according to its weaknesses and knows according to the frailty of its nature; it must become foolish to itself in order to be wise toward God: that is, understanding the poverty of its own perception and pursuing the wisdom of God, it must be prudent not according to human wisdom, but wise in what advances it toward God, passing into the wisdom of God from the recognized foolishness of the world. Heretical subtlety, fitting the sense of this foolish wisdom into an occasion for deceit, professed one God, using the authority of the Law and the Gospels, where it is said: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one.” It knew well how great the danger was either in answering or in silence, and expected an opportunity for impiety from either: if the silence of one who connived confirmed the holy saying faithlessly appropriated, then, because God is one, the Son of God would not be God, God alone remaining one, as he is; but if there were contradiction of this impious profession they had put forward, an answer that did not confess one God would not preserve the truth of the gospel faith, since the profession of our faith is according to one God; and a confession that professed the Father and the Son as one God would fall back into the impiety of another heresy. And so the wisdom of the world, which is foolishness with God, would mock us with an appearance of flattering and pestilent simplicity, since it laid down as the starting point of its faith something to which we would impiously either assent or object; and through the danger of either, it would either secure that the Son of God is not God, because God is one; or force us into the necessity of heresy, if, confessing both the Father as God and the Son as God, we were thought to preach one God according to the impious opinion of Sabellius. And so by this way of preaching, the one God would either exclude another, or would not be one because of another, or would be one in names only: because unity would not know another, and another would not allow union, and two could not be one.

But we, following the wisdom of God, which is foolishness to the world, and intending to expose the deceit of a viperous teaching by a saving and sincere confession of the Lord's faith, began our answer in this order, which would gain an entry for showing the truth without entangling itself in the danger of an impious profession; keeping a measured course between the two: not denying one God, but preaching God and God on the authority of the very one through whom one God was preached; teaching one God not by union, nor again cutting him into a number of differences, nor on the other hand confessing him in names only; but showing God and God, while the question of the unity is set aside and deferred for fuller treatment. For the Gospels testify that one God was rightly preached by Moses; and again Moses, preaching one God, is the authority for the faithful teaching of God and God in the Gospels. So the authority was not opposed; rather, the answer was given from the authority, so that it might not be permitted to deny that the Son of God is God because God is one for Israel, since the same author who is the authority for preaching one God is the authority for confessing the Son of God as God.

The order of this connected book, then, follows the order of the question. For since the next statement set down in their impious flattery is this: “We know one true God,” the whole discussion of this second book also turns on whether the Son of God is true God. For without doubt the subtlety of the heretical mind fitted itself to this order, first saying one God, then confessing one true God, so as to turn the Son of God away from the nature and truth of God, since truth abiding in the nature of the one would not exceed the natural truth of the one. Since, then, there is no room for doubt that Moses, preaching one God, is understood to have signified of the Son of God that he is God, let us go back through the very authorities by which he signified it, and ask whether he taught that the one he signified as God is also to be understood as true God. No one doubts that truth comes from nature and power: for example, that is true wheat which, built up in the ear, fenced with beards, threshed from its husks, ground into flour, kneaded into bread, and taken as food, has yielded from itself both the nature and the function of bread. Since, then, the power of the nature provides the truth, let us see whether he whom Moses signifies to be God is true God; we will speak later about the one God who is also the true God; lest, if no pledge were given about confirming the one and true God subsisting in the Father and the Son, a dangerous suspicion should weary the anxiety of those kept waiting.

Since, then, the creation of the world, once accepted as a knowledge of God, signifies that the Son of God is God, I ask in what respect it denies that he is true God. For there is no doubt that all things are through the Son. For all things, according to the Apostle, are through him and in him. If all things are through him, and all things are from nothing, and nothing is not through him, I ask in what the truth of God is lacking to him, to whom neither the nature nor the power of God is lacking. For he used the power of his nature, so that things which were not should be, and things which pleased should be made. For God saw that they were good.

For the Law brought in no distinction other than of person when it said, “And God said, Let there be a firmament,” and added again, “And God made the firmament.” It neither distinguished power, nor separated nature, nor changed the name, in the passage where it only set forth the understanding of the speaker so as to bring in the signification of the maker. But the signification of the speaker does not take away the truth of nature and power; rather it commends that very truth with great exactness. For to give effect to a word belongs to the nature that, in making, can accomplish what the speaker can say. In what, then, will he who makes not be true, when he who speaks is true, since the truth of the deed follows the truth of the word? God is he who spoke; God is he who made. If truth is in the one who spoke, I ask why it is denied in the one who made; unless perhaps the one is true in speaking and the other not true in making. We have, then, in the Son of God, God, the truth of nature. He is God, he is Creator, he is Son of God, he can do all things. It is little to say that he can do what he wills, for will always goes with power; he can even do what is said to him. For it belongs to perfect power that the nature of the maker can do whatever the speech of the speaker can signify. And so, since whatever can be said can also be done by him, the working that is equal to the words holds the nature of truth. The Son of God, then, is not a false God, nor an adopted God, nor God by sharing a name, but true God. And there is no need to show anything from the opposite side by which he would not be true God; for the name and nature of God in him suffice me. For he is God, through whom all things were made. This is what the creation of the world has told me about him. God is made equal to God in name; truth is made equal to truth in work. As there is the signification of God powerful in the word, so there is the understanding of God powerful in the deed. And after this I ask, in the confession of the Father and the Son, by what authority the truth of the nature is denied, which both the power of the name and the name of the power have fulfilled.

The reader should remember that I am not now silent about the questions usually raised against us out of forgetfulness or lack of confidence. For the saying, “The Father is greater than I,” and others like it, are neither unknown nor not understood, as though the nature of true God in the Son were not taught by these very sayings. But it is fitting that the order of our answer be the order of the opposing proposition, so that the steps of pious preaching, treading on the footprints of impious teaching, may wipe out the very first traces of the deceitful doctrine that strays off onto this profane and irreligious road. With the proclamations of the Gospels and the apostles deferred, then, and kept to the end, our whole fight against the impious will for now be from the Law and the Prophets, their lying and deceitful perversity being refuted meanwhile by the very sayings by which they try to deceive. For truth cannot be understood except by exposing as false what has been set against the truth; and this to the more complete disgrace of the liars, if their lies themselves serve the truth. And indeed it is the common judgment of human opinion that false things are in no way joined to true ones, nor are such kinds of things held together by mutual agreement: for, nature opposing them through difference of kind, things at variance never unite, different things do not agree, and things foreign to each other are not common.

This being so, I ask how this saying is to be understood between a true and a false God: “Let us make man in our image and likeness.” Words express meaning; meaning is a movement of reason; truth sets the movement of reason in motion. Let us follow the meaning from the words, then, understand the reason from the meaning, and grasp the truth from the reason. I ask in what respect he to whom it is said, “Let us make man in our image and likeness,” is not true, according to the one who says it to him; for without doubt this saying comes from the disposition and meaning of the speaker. He, then, who says “Let us make” signifies one with him in the making who does not disagree, is not foreign, is not weak, but is able to do what the words concern. The speaker must therefore without doubt be understood to have meant this, since he said it.

So that the truth of nature and of working might be taught more fully, he who expressed his meaning through words also added the reason for his meaning from nature, with truth, saying: “in our image and likeness.” Where is the false God here, to whom the true God says “in our image and likeness”? There is no union, no diversity, no separation. For man is made, according to the truth of the words, in a common image. But fellowship does not fit the false and the true. God who speaks speaks to God: man is founded in the image of the Father and the Son. The name does not disagree, the nature does not differ. For the form of the image in which man was created is one. And where, among these things, is truth lost, when between the two there remain both fellowship in the deed and the truth of a common image? It is not yet time for me to resolve this question; for later we will show in what image of God the Father and God the Son man was founded. For now we hold to this: whether he is not true God to whom the true God said, “Let us make man in our image and likeness.” Distinguish, if you can, the true and the false in this shared image, and with heretical fury cut apart what cannot be cut. For they are one, of whose image and likeness man was made as one copy.

But let us follow the order of the reading, so that the truth, always consistent with itself, may not be altered by the stumbling block of falsehood. “And God made man; in the image of God he made him.” The image is common: God made man in the image of God. I ask him who denies that the Son of God is true God in the image of which God he understands man to have been made by God. Let him always remember, however, that all things are through the Son, lest heretical understanding claim the work for God the Father. If, then, man is founded in the image of God the Father through God the Son, he is founded also in the image of the Son; for no one denies that “in our image and likeness” was said to the Son. The divine word, then, kept in its sayings the reasoning of truth which the work fulfilled in deeds: that God should form man in the image of God, so as to signify God and not take truth away from God; since he who was understood as God the Son in carrying out the work was also true God in the sharing of the image.

O madness of a desperate and lost mind! O foolish rashness of blind impiety! You hear God and God, you hear “our image”: why do you put in true and not true? Why do you insert natural and false? Why do you overturn religion in the name of religion? Why do you try, by “one God” and “one true God,” to make the true God not one? I am not yet stifling your mad spirits with the sayings of the Gospels and the apostles, in which the Father and the Son are each one true God, not by person but by nature: meanwhile the Law alone is killing you. Does it say true God and not true God? Does it use, in either case, anything but the name of the nature? It said God and God, the very Law that said one God. But why do I say it only said this? It preached true God and true God by the truth of the image. In naming, it first used the name of the nature; then it uses the truth of the nature in their kind. For when he who is made is created according to the image of both, it cannot fail to consist of what is true, since both are true God.

But let us go on even now along the road of our preaching by which the holy Law taught about God. The angel of God speaks to Hagar, and the same angel is God. But perhaps he is not true God because he is the angel of God. For this name seems to belong to a lower nature; and where there is a name of a foreign kind, it is thought that the truth of the same kind is not present. The previous book has already shown the emptiness of this question. For “angel” conveys the understanding of an office rather than of a nature. The prophet is my witness, saying: “Who makes his angels spirits, and his ministers a burning fire.” That burning fire, then, is his ministers, and the spirit that comes is his angels. By these the nature, or the power, of the messengers called angels and of the ministers is shown. This spirit, then, becomes an angel, or this burning fire a minister of God; and this nature of theirs receives the office of messenger and minister. The Law, then, or rather God through the Law, wishing to make known the person of the Father's name, spoke of God the Son as the angel of God, that is, God's messenger. It testifies to the signification of an office in the word “messenger,” but confirmed the truth of the nature in the name when it called him God. Here, however, is an order of dispensation, not of kind. For we preach nothing other than the Father and the Son, and we make the nature of the names equal in such a way that the birth of the only-begotten God from the unbegotten God holds the truth of God. The signification of sent and sender here teaches nothing other than the Father and the Son; it does not take truth from the nature, nor destroy in the Son the property of a divinity received by birth: for let no one doubt that the nature of the author is born together in the birth of the Son, so that what is from one subsists as one, which through one is not separated from one; and so they are one by the fact that one is from one.

O impatient warmth of faith, and silence unable to hold back the speech it longs for! Already in the previous book we went beyond the limit set for our preaching, when, refuting the heretics' impious use of “one God” and teaching that God and God were preached by Moses, we hurried with pious, though rash, haste toward the true and religious confession of one God. And now too, while dwelling on the business of another question, we have not kept the set order; and while speaking of the Son of God as true God, we have burst out, in the ardor of a fervent spirit, as far as confessing true God in the Father and the Son. But let the truth of our faith be reserved for its own treatment: though it has been begun for the reassurance of the reader, it must be treated and completed more fully to bring the gainsayer to despair.

The name of an office, then, brings no change of nature: for he who is the angel of God is God. Let him plainly not be true God, if he has not both spoken and done the things of God. For he increases Ishmael into a great nation and promises multitudes of nations to his name: I ask whether this is the work of an angel. But if it is the power of God, why do you take truth away from the nature when you do not take from it the power of truth? The power of the nature, then, holds the assurance of truth; and he who is true God does not know how ever not to be true God, even amid the mysteries of his dispensation that save the world.

And first I ask, what does “true God” and “not true God” mean? For I do not grasp the sense of the expression if I am told: it is fire, but not true fire; or it is water, but not true water. I ask in what the truth of one kind differs from the truth of the same kind. For what is fire cannot be such that it is not true; nor can a nature, while it remains, lack being true. Destroy in water what makes it water, and by that you will be able to abolish its being true. But if it remains water, it must also persist in being true. A nature can perish only by not existing; but it cannot fail to be true if it remains. Either the Son of God is true God, so that he is God; or, if he is not true God, he cannot even be what God is: because if the nature is not there, the name of the nature does not fit; but if the name of the nature is in him, the truth of the nature cannot be absent from him.

But perhaps, when the angel of God is called God, the name is granted by adoption, and there is in him the naming of God rather than the truth. If he did not sufficiently show the nature of God in himself when he was called the angel of God, consider, under the name of a nature lower still than an angel's, whether he displayed the truth of God from himself. For a man spoke to Abraham; but Abraham worshipped God. But, O pestilent heretic, Abraham confessed as God the one whom you deny to be God. What blessings promised to Abraham do you impiously expect? He is not to you, as he truly is, the father of nations; nor are you reborn into the family of his seed through the blessings of his faith. You are not raised up from stones as a son of Abraham; but, a brood of vipers, you stand as an enemy of his confession. You are not the Israel of God, not Abraham's posterity, not justified by faith; for you have not believed God. For Abraham was justified, and made father of nations, through that faith by which he worshipped the God in whom he had believed. For that blessed and faithful patriarch worshipped God; and hear how true a God, to whom, as he says of himself, no word is impossible. Or is not every word possible to God alone? Or I ask what is lacking of true God to him to whom every word is possible.

And I ask, who is this God, the destroyer of Sodom and Gomorrah? For the Lord rained from the Lord: was it not true Lord from true Lord? Or what else than Lord from Lord? Or what will you fit to Lord and Lord besides the signification of person? And remember that the one you know as the only true God you have professed as the only just judge. And understand that the Lord who rained from the Lord, who does not kill the righteous with the wicked and judges all the earth, is both Lord and just judge, and rained from the Lord. And among these, I ask whom you have called the only just judge. For the Lord rained from the Lord; and you will not deny that he is a just judge who rained from the Lord. For Abraham, the father of nations, but certainly not of unbelievers, said: “By no means will you do this thing, to kill the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous will be as the wicked. By no means will you who judge the earth do this judgment.” This God, then, the just judge, must also be true God. I hold you, impious one, by your own lie. I do not yet bring forward God as judge from the Gospels: the Law has told me of God as judge. Take from the Son that he is judge, in order to take away that he is true God. For you professed the same one as only true God whom you professed as only just judge; and the one you teach to be just judge you cannot, by your own reckoning, deny to be true God. He who is judge is Lord, is able to do every word, is the guarantor of eternal blessings, is judge of the pious and the impious, is the God of Abraham, was worshipped by him: invent, at least, by this impious and foolish impudence of your words, some reason why he is not true.

The mysteries of heavenly mercy do not destroy the truth of the nature; nor do the appearances adapted to the vision of faith deceive the faith of the saints. For the mysteries of the Law prefigure the mystery of the gospel dispensation, so that the patriarch sees and believes what the Apostle contemplates and preaches. For since the Law is a shadow of things to come, the appearance of the shadow expressed the truth of the body. And God, who in the fullness of time was to be begotten in man, is seen and believed and adored in man. For the appearance of a prefigured truth is taken up to be seen. At that time God was only seen in man, not born; afterward he who had been seen was also born. The familiarity of the form taken up to be beheld prepares for the truth of being born. There, man is taken up by God to be seen according to the weakness of our nature; here, what had been seen is born for the sake of the weakness of our nature. The shadow receives a body, the appearance truth, the vision nature. Yet God is not changed from himself when he is either seen or born for us in man, birth and vision having a close kinship of property with each other: so that what was born had been seen, and what was seen was to be born. And since this is not yet the place for comparing the Gospels with the Prophets, let us meanwhile pursue the order we set from the Law. For we will afterward prove from the Gospels that the true Son of God was born in man; for now we teach from the Law that the Son of God, seen by the patriarchs in the form of a man, is true God. For when a man was seen by Abraham, God was both worshipped and proclaimed judge; and when the Lord rained from the Lord, there is no doubt that the Law, in saying that the Lord rained from the Lord, speaks to signify the Father and the Son. Nor again must we think that the patriarch did not know that he was worshipping true God, whom he worshipped understanding him to be God.

The impiety of faithlessness has no small difficulty in understanding the true faith. For the teaching of religious doctrine does not enter a mind narrowed by irreligion. Hence the irreligious mind does not grasp what God did, by being born in man, for the mystery of human salvation, since it does not understand that the work of its salvation is the power of God. Beholding the childbirth, the weakness of infancy, the growth of childhood, the years of youth, the sufferings of the body, the cross of the sufferings, and the death of the cross, they do not perceive true God through these things; though he brought forth in himself, as his own nature, things which he did not have before in the truth of his nature, in such a way that he did not lose the truth of his nature, nor did God, made man, cease to be God, when he who is God began to be man. They do not understand that it is only by the power of true God that what was not should be, and yet what was should not cease to be; since the taking up of weak things of nature could only come from the power of a mighty nature, which, while remaining in what it was, could yet be what it was not. O heretical imprudence, and foolish wisdom of the world, not understanding that the reproach of Christ is the power of God, and not perceiving that the foolishness of faith is the wisdom of God! So for you Christ is not God because he who was is born, because he who is unchangeable grows in age, because the impassible suffers, because the living dies, because the dead lives, because everything in him is against nature? I ask, what else is this than to be almighty, which is what God is? I do not yet touch the sacred and venerable Gospels, to show from them that Christ Jesus is God in these sufferings. For you take your stand on the Law; and it must teach that he who is God does not lose being God through the weakness he assumed. For it has testified to the mystery of your faith by the power of its own mysteries.

Stand by me now, stand by me with the spirit of your faith against the poisonous hissing of unbelief, holy and blessed patriarch Jacob: prevailing in the wrestling with a man, being the stronger, you beg to be blessed by him. What is this, that you pray to the weak one, that you look for something from the feeble one? The one whose blessings you ask, you, the stronger, crush in your embrace. The work of your mind differs from the deeds of your body, for you perceive something other than what you do. In the act of wrestling you hold a weak man; but this man is to you true God, not by naming but by nature. For you ask, patriarch, to be blessed not with adoptive blessings but with true ones. You wrestle with a man, but you see God face to face. You do not discern with the eyes of your body what you perceive with the sight of your faith. The man is weak in relation to you; but your soul has been saved by seeing God. In the wrestling you are Jacob; after the faith of the blessing you asked for, you are Israel. A man is subject to you according to the flesh, foreshadowing the mystery of the passion in the flesh; you are not ignorant of God in the weakness of the flesh, foreshadowing the mystery of the blessing in the Spirit. Neither does what you see prevent faith from remaining, nor does weakness draw you away from asking the blessing. Nor does being man prevent him who is man from being God; nor is he who is God not true God: for he who is God cannot fail to be true God, in blessing, in changing your name, and in naming you.

The shadow of the Law still keeps the order of the gospel mystery, and, a rival of the truth, prefigures in its mysteries the truth of apostolic teaching. In the vision of a dream blessed Jacob had seen God: in a dream there is the revelation of a mystery, not a bodily seeing. For by the ladder the descent and ascent of the angels to heaven is shown, and God is shown leaning on the ladder, and the interpretation of the vision foretold the revelation of the dream. For by the patriarch's words this place of the vision is shown to be both the house of God and the gate of heaven. And after a long account of his deeds there follows: “And God said to Jacob, Arise and go up to the place Bethel and dwell there, and make there a sacrifice to God, who appeared to you when you went away from the face of Esau.” If the gospel faith has access to God the Father through God the Son, and God cannot be understood except through God, now teach how the God who asks honor for the God leaning on the ladder of heaven is not true. Or what difference of nature is there in the two, where there is one and the same name of the same nature? God was seen; God speaks of the God who was seen. God cannot be understood except through God, just as God receives honor from us only through God. For the one will not be understood to be honored unless this one has taught that he is to be honored; nor will God be known unless this God has been known. The dispensation of mysteries has its order: we are taught to honor God through God. The nature keeps its name: neither is anything other than God. And when there is one name of the one nature for the Father and the Son, I ask how God the Son could degenerate from himself so as not to be true.

We must not think about God with human judgments. For our nature is not such as to raise itself by its own strength to heavenly knowledge. What is to be understood about God must be learned from God, because he is known only on his own authority. Let there be the elaborate training of secular learning, let there be innocence of life: these will further the satisfaction of conscience, but will not attain the knowledge of God. Moses, adopted as the queen's son and instructed in all the learning of the Egyptians, though he had, out of natural affection, avenged a Hebrew's wrong by the death of an Egyptian, still did not know the God of his fathers' blessings. For when, leaving Egypt out of fear because the killing had become known, he was a shepherd of sheep in the land of Midian, he saw fire in a bush without the bush being burned, heard God, asked his name, and learned his nature. For these things about God could not have been known except through God. We must speak about God, then, in no other way than he himself has spoken about himself for our understanding.

It is the angel of God who appeared in fire from the bush; and from the bush, in the fire, God speaks. You have the dispensation in the angel, because “angel” denotes an office, not a nature; you have God in the name of the nature, because the angel of God is God. But perhaps he is not true God. Is the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob not true? For their angel, speaking from the bush, is God forever. And so that you may not steal an occasion for calling the name adoptive, that God who is speaks to Moses. For so it is written: “And the Lord said to Moses, I am who I am. And he said, Thus you shall say to the children of Israel: He who is has sent me to you.” The speech begins from the angel of God, so that the mystery of human salvation in the Son may be understood; the same one is the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, so that he may have the name of his nature; then God who is sends to Israel, so that what God is might be truly understood to be.

What lie do you tell against these things, with a mad spirit, ineffectual folly of heretical impiety, sowing by night among the wheat of noble seed, against the knowledge of such great patriarchs, tares to be burned? But if you believed Moses, you would also believe God, the Son of God: unless perhaps you will deny that Moses spoke about him. If you wish to deny this, you will hear in the words of God: “For if you believed Moses, you would perhaps believe me also; for he wrote of me.” He will plainly refute you; he will refute you with the whole volume of the Law, which he received, ordained through angels by the hand of a Mediator. And ask whether he who gave the Law is true God, since the one who gave it is certainly the Mediator. Did not Moses lead the people out to the mountain to meet God? Did not God come down on the mountain? Or is this perhaps a false and adopted name rather than the name of his nature? Consider the sounding trumpets, the flames of the torches, the smoke of furnaces seething from the mountain, the trembling of human weakness, conscious of itself, at God's coming, and the death that the people confessed they would suffer under God's voice when they begged Moses to speak. Is he not true God to you, heretic, at whose mere speaking Israel feared to die, and whose voice human weakness could not bear? Is he not God to you because he spoke through the weakness of a man, so that you might hear and see? Moses went up the mountain; over forty days and nights he gained the knowledge of divine and heavenly mysteries; he arranged everything according to the pattern of the truth shown him on the mountain; through the familiarity of God speaking with him he took on the glory of a brightness no one could look upon, and the unbearable light of the majesty near him filled the corruptible appearance of his face; he bears witness to God, speaks of God, summons the angels of God, with the rejoicing of the nations, to worship him, and calls down upon the crown of Joseph's head the blessings pleasing to him: and after this, does anyone dare to grant him only the name and deny that he is true?

Now, we think it has been shown by all our discussion that no reasoning has been offered by which a true God and a false God could enter the mind's understanding, since the Law spoke of God and God, Lord and Lord; and that no difference was signified in names and natures that would prevent the nature from being understood by the name and the name by the nature; since the might of God, the power of God, the works of God, and the name of God were in him whom the Law preached as God. For the Law, following the arrangement of the gospel mystery, showed, so as to signify the person, God obedient to the words of God in creating the world; God the Creator of an image common to himself and God in forming man; the Lord as judge from the Lord in judging the Sodomites; and the angel of God as God in bestowing blessings and in ordaining the mysteries of the Law: so that God, always shown as God for a saving confession in God the Father and God the Son, might teach the truth of the nature by the very name of the nature, since the Law, signifying both as God, left no ambiguity about the truth.

Now it is time that we not allow what the Law taught piously and religiously to be preached impiously through the theft of heretical folly, which, intending to deny the Son of God, began thus: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one.” And because its impiety was endangered by the name, since the Law had spoken of God and God, in order to deny the nature behind the name by the authority of a prophetic saying, it added: “They will bless you, the true God”: so that by this the Law would have spoken of one God, and in the Son of God, God, there would be a name rather than truth, only one true God being understood. And perhaps you think, fool, that we contradict your words so as to deny one true God. We certainly do not deny it; we confess it as you do. For this is our faith, this our conscience, this our speech. But we understand one God, and the same God as true. Nor is our confession endangered by the name, since it preaches one and true God in the nature of the Son. Learn the meaning of your own confession, and know the one and true God, so that you may piously preach one and true God. For you seize the profession of our religion for your impiety; and you deny what is, while you do not deny what is. So you deceive foolish wisdom, destroying the truth under the appearance of truth. You confess one true God in order to deny one true God. Your profession is thought pious in the very point where it is most impious, true where it is false. So one and true God is preached by you in such a way that he is not. For you deny that the Son of God is true God, though you do not deny that he is God; yet you confess him God not by nature but by name. If his birth is a matter of name rather than of truth, you can take the truth away from the name; but if God was truly born, I ask how what was born can fail truly to be? Either deny that he is, so that he may not be; or, if he is, how will what is not be, since what is cannot be so as not to be? Of the birth we will speak soon. Meanwhile I will convict the impiety of your lie about the truth of God's nature by the prophet's confession; yet in such a way that, while we preach one and true God, neither the heresy of Sabellius, which professed the Father himself to be also the Son to himself, may presume on it, nor may you lie about the truth of the Son of God by preaching only one true God.

Impiety has nothing of wisdom in it; and where the fear of God, which is the beginning of wisdom, is lacking, it takes away with it every beginning of prudence. For, to weaken faith in true God in the Son, they bring forward the prophetic saying: “And they will bless you, the true God.” The first folly of this impiety was that what was said earlier by the same prophet was either not understood, or, if understood, was passed over in silence. Then it equipped itself for fraud by adding a syllable that is not found in the books, using the lie of its folly as though its own words deserved so much belief that it thought the very authority of the prophetic sayings need not be checked. For it is not written, “They will bless you, the true God,” but, “They will bless the true God.” And there is no small difference, for ambiguity, between “you, the true God” and “the true God.” For where there is “you,” the pronoun seems to belong to another person; but where the syllable of the pronoun is absent, the name too is referred to the author of the saying.

And so that the reasoning for understanding the truth may be complete, the prophet's very words will be set out in full: “Therefore thus says the Lord: Behold, those who serve me will eat, but you will be hungry; behold, those who serve me will drink, but you will be thirsty; behold, those who serve me will exult in gladness, but you will cry out for sorrow of heart and howl for affliction of spirit. For you will leave your name for gladness to my chosen ones, but the Lord will slay you. But those who serve me will be called by a new name, which will be blessed on earth; and they will bless the true God, and those who swear on the earth will swear by the true God.” It is never without reason that the customary manner of preaching is exceeded; and the reason for something new is supplied by the reason of a falsehood to come. For since so many prophecies about God had been given before, and only the simple name of God had been used to show his dignity and nature, we must ask why the Spirit of prophecy now foretells through Isaiah that the true God is to be blessed and that oaths are to be sworn on earth by the true God. And first we must recognize that this saying announces things of a future time. And I ask whether he was not true God who was then, in the opinion of the Jews, both blessed and sworn by. For the Jews, not knowing the mystery of God and therefore ignorant of the Son of God, worshipped God only, not also the Father. For surely, if they had worshipped the Father, they would have worshipped the Son also. These, then, blessed God and swore by him. But the prophet testifies that the true God is to be blessed, speaking of the true God for this reason: that through the mystery of the body he assumed, the truth of God in him would not be understood by all. Confirmation of the true was needed where the assertion of the false was going to break out. Let us review each of the sentences of this passage.

“Therefore thus says the Lord: Behold, those who serve me will eat, but you will be hungry; behold, those who serve me will drink, but you will be thirsty.” Recognize under the same saying the signification of both times, so that you may grasp the mystery of the ages. For “those who serve me will eat”: he rewards present religion with future rewards, so that the punishment of future thirst and hunger will consume the impiety of the present. Then he added: “Behold, those who serve me will exult in gladness, but you will cry out for sorrow of heart and howl for contrition of spirit.” In keeping with the sense above, here too future and present time are shown: those who serve will exult in gladness, but those who do not serve will remain in crying and howling through sorrow of heart and contrition of spirit. Then he added: “For you will leave your name for gladness to my chosen ones, but the Lord will slay you.” The speech is to Israel according to the flesh, signifying a future time: Israel is reproached because it would leave its name to God's chosen ones. I ask what this name is. Surely Israel, to whom the speech was then addressed. Then I ask who is Israel today. And the Apostle indeed testifies that those who are so in spirit, not in letter, who walk by the rule of Christ, are the Israel of God.

Further, since it was said above, “Therefore thus says the Lord,” we must understand why there follows, “But the Lord will slay you,” and then what this saying means: “But those who serve me will be called by a new name, which will be blessed on earth.” Is there any doubt that the words, “Therefore thus says the Lord,” and what follows, “But the Lord will slay you,” showed that the one who spoke and the one who would slay are to be understood as none other than the Lord: who would afterward reward those who served him with a new name, and who, as all would know, both spoke in the prophets and would be judge of the pious and the impious? So the rest of the passage unfolded the mystery of the gospel sacrament, so that there could be no doubt about the Lord who speaks and the Lord who slays: “But those who serve me will be called by a new name, which will be blessed on earth.” All of this speaks of a future time. And what is this new name of religion which will be blessed on earth? If the blessedness of the Christian name had ever existed from past ages, it would not be new now. But if this name, hallowed by our devotion to God, is new, then surely this newness of profession is the reward of heavenly blessings on earth.

Now the next words confirm the inward assurance of our whole faith, saying: “And they will bless the true God, and those who swear on the earth will swear by the true God.” Certainly those whose name in God's service is new will bless the true God; and the God by whom they are to swear is true God. Is there any doubt who is sworn by, who is blessed, through whom those who serve him have a new and blessed name? The complete faith of the church's teaching stands with me against your impious preaching, heretic: the faith of the name made new through you, O Christ, and of the title blessed from you on earth through the profession of service, swearing that you are true God. For every mouth of believers speaks of you, Christ, as God. All the faith of believers swears by you as God, confessing you to be true God, preaching you to be true God, inwardly knowing you to be true God.

This whole prophetic passage, then, leaves no difficulty in understanding that it signifies God: the one who is served under the new name, through whom the newness of that name is blessed on earth, who is blessed as true God, and who is sworn by as true God; all of which the pious faith of the church, in the fullness of time, professes in devotion to the Lord Christ. (And the prophetic word was so fitted to him that it did not bring in the signification of another person by adding a pronoun. For if it had added “you, the true God,” the speaker's words could have been referred to another; but when it says “the true God,” it left the meaning with the speaker.) And although there is no doubt whom the present passage signifies, yet the words joined to it above show whose profession this is to be understood to be. For he says: “I appeared openly to those who did not ask for me; I was found by those who did not seek me. I said, Here I am, to a nation that did not call on my name. I stretched out my hands all day to an unbelieving and contradicting people.” Is the impious falsehood of a stealthy preaching hidden, and will the true God who says these things be unknown? I ask, who appeared to those who did not ask, and who was found by those who did not seek? And to which nations does he belong that had not called on his name before? And who stretched out his hands all day to an unbelieving and contradicting people? Compare with these that sacred and divine Song of Deuteronomy, in which God, provoked by those who are no gods, moves the unbelievers to jealousy by a no-nation and a foolish nation; and understand who becomes manifest to those who did not know him, who is claimed by strangers as their own, and who spread out his hands before an unbelieving and contradicting people, nailing to the cross the handwriting of the former decree. For it is of him that the Spirit of the prophet said, in a passage continuous and connected in order: “But those who serve me will be called by a new name, which will be blessed on earth; and they will bless the true God, and those who swear on the earth will swear by the true God.”

If heretical folly and impiety, to deceive the ignorant and simple, falsely claim that these things were said in the person of God the Father, so that the meaning of this saying may not be applied to God the Son, let them hear the guilt of their lie from the Apostle and teacher of the nations, who proclaims all these things of the mystery of the Lord's passion and of the times of the gospel faith, when he reproaches the unbelief of Israel, which did not understand the Lord's coming in the flesh. For he says: “For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. How will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how will they believe him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher? And how will they preach unless they are sent? As it is written: How beautiful are the feet of those who announce peace, of those who announce good things! But not all obey the gospel. For Isaiah says: Lord, who has believed our report? So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word. But I say: Have they not heard? Indeed, their sound has gone out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world. But I say: Did Israel not know? First Moses says: I will provoke you to jealousy by those who are no nation; by a senseless nation I will anger you. And Isaiah is bold and says: I appeared to those who did not seek me; I was found by those who did not ask for me. But to Israel what does he say? All day I have stretched out my hands to a people that does not listen.” Who are you, that you have gone out through the circles of heaven, whether in the body or out of it uncertain, and have become a more faithful interpreter of the prophetic sayings than Paul? Who are you, that you have heard and kept silent the unspeakable sacraments of heavenly mysteries, and preached with greater confidence the knowledge revealed to you by God? Who are you, that, reserved for the cross to fill up the Lord's passion and before that caught up into paradise, you have taught better from the divine Scriptures than the chosen vessel, you who do not know that these things were said and done by the true God, and preached by his true and chosen apostle so that the true God might be understood?

Unless perhaps the Apostle, using prophetic sayings not taken up by the spirit of prophecy, is a rash interpreter of another's words. The Apostle indeed says everything through the revelation of Christ; but he knew the sayings of Isaiah from the sayings of Isaiah himself. For at the beginning of the passage in which the true God is to be blessed and sworn by those who serve him, this prayer of the prophet is read: “From of old we have not heard, nor have our eyes seen a God besides you, and your works which you will do for those who wait for your mercy.” Isaiah says that he has seen no God but this one. For he saw the glory of God, whose mystery of embodiment from a virgin he had foretold. And if you, heretic, do not know that he saw the only-begotten God in that glory, hear John the evangelist saying: “Isaiah said these things when he saw his glory and spoke of him.” Here by apostolic, here by gospel, here by prophetic sayings, impious heretic, you are shut in. For Isaiah saw God; and though it is written, “No one has ever seen God, except the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father; he has declared him,” yet the prophet saw God, and beheld his glory, so that his prophetic dignity aroused envy. For it was for this reason that he was brought to a sentence of death by the Jews.

God, then, whom no one has seen, the only-begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father has declared. Either dissolve the Only-begotten's declaration, or believe that he was seen who appeared to those who did not understand him, became the God of the nations that did not call on him, and spread out his hands before a contradicting people; yet so that a new name is called upon those who serve him, and the true God is blessed and sworn by on earth. Prophecy speaks, the Gospel testifies, the Apostle interprets, the church confesses that he who was seen is true God; though no one says that God the Father was seen. And the insanity of heretical fury has broken out so far that, while it pretends to confess, it denies. For it denies by a new and impious scheme of confession, and by a crafty art eludes the faith while it counterfeits it. For when one God has been confessed, the same true and alone just, alone wise, alone unchangeable, alone immortal, alone powerful, and the Son is then set beneath him in a difference of substance, not born from God as God but taken into sonship by creation, not having the name of nature but having received the title of adoption, the Son must lack all those things which were proclaimed as the privilege of a solitary majesty in the Father.

Heretical perversity does not know how to know and confess one true God; the faith and understanding of this confession lie outside the mind of impiety. The Father and the Son must first be confessed, so that one true God may be understood; and once the mysteries of human salvation are known, which are completed in us for life in the Father and the Son through the power of regeneration, the mysteries of the Law and the Prophets are to be pursued. Impiety, ignorant of the preaching of the Gospels and the apostles, does not grasp one true God. We will set out the understanding of it, up to the most complete profession of true piety, from their teaching, so that the Only-begotten may be understood as subsisting from the Father, undivided and inseparable, not by person but by nature, and so one God, because he is God from the nature of God. Yet the faith of this perfect unity must be built up from the prophetic sayings, and the foundations of the gospel house laid on them; so that, through the same nature of the one divinity, one God may be understood by the fact that the only-begotten God is not counted as another God. For throughout this book we have kept this order: in the same passages in which in the previous book we taught that the Son is God, we have now shown that he is true God. And, as I hope, the explanation of all the sayings was such that he who was not denied to be God was understood to be true God. The rest of our discourse will now advance to this: that he who is understood to be true God is not counted as another God; and that what does not tend to another may be understood as one; yet so that this oneness does not destroy the subsisting nature in the Son, but preserves, in God and God, the nature of the one God.

The reasoning of truth demands that the beginning of this understanding be taken from him through whom God began to be made known to the world, that is, from Moses, through whose mouth the only-begotten God professed this of himself: “See, see that I am God, and there is no God besides me.” And lest heretical impiety refer the force of this saying to the unbegotten Father, both the reasoning of the saying itself and the Apostle as authority stand in the way. The Apostle, as we taught above, is the interpreter for understanding this whole passage as spoken in the person of the only-begotten God; and he showed that the words, “Rejoice, nations, with his people,” belong to him, adding, to confirm the saying: “And there will be the root of Jesse, and he who rises to rule the nations; in him the nations will hope.” Since, then, Moses showed that he who had said, “There is no God besides me,” is the one of whom he said, “Rejoice, nations, together with him,” and the Apostle understood this of our Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten God, in whom, rising according to the flesh from the root of Jesse as king of the nations, lies the hope of the nations, we must now treat the meaning of the saying itself, so that, since there is no doubt who said it, we may understand in what sense it was said.

The true, complete, and perfect mystery of our faith is to confess God from God and God in God: not in bodily ways, but by divine powers; not by a transfusion of nature into nature, but by the mystery and power of the nature. For God is from God not by cutting off, extension, or derivation, but subsists by birth from the power of the nature into the same nature. The next book, interpreting the sayings of the Gospels and the apostles, will speak of these things more plainly; but meanwhile what we say and believe must be taught from the Law and the Prophets. The birth of God, then, cannot fail to hold the nature from which it proceeded. For what subsists from no other source than God does not subsist as anything other than God. It is the same nature, not in such a way that he who begot is himself born (for how would he be himself, if he were begotten?), but so that the one begotten subsists in those very things which the one who begot wholly is, because what is begotten is from no other source. And so what subsists as one from one is not referred to another; nor is what lives from the living new in itself; nor is what the living one begot into life absent from him. And so in the generation of the Son the incorporeal and unchangeable God follows his own nature, begetting an incorporeal and unchangeable God; nor does the perfect birth of incorporeal and unchangeable God from incorporeal and unchangeable God abandon its nature: this is the mystery of God subsisting from God. The only-begotten God testifies to this through holy Moses: “See, see that I am the Lord, and there is no God besides me.” For there is no other nature of divinity, so that any God should be besides him. For though he himself is God, yet by the power of the nature God is also in him. And because he himself is God and God is in him, there is no God besides him; since what is God does not come from elsewhere, and God is in him, who has in himself both what he himself is and that from which he subsists.

The same one Spirit of prophecy, speaking in very many, confirms the true and saving profession of our faith, not changing the preaching of religious doctrine through the successions and intervals of time. For so that what was said through Moses in the person of the only-begotten God might be confirmed with fuller progress in understanding, the same Spirit of prophecy speaks again through Isaiah, in the words of God the Father, in the person of the men of stature: “For God is in you, and there is no God besides you. For you are God, and we did not know it, the God of Israel, the Savior.” Let the desperate fury of heretical impiety hurl itself against this inseparable profession of nature and name, and, if it can, tear apart with the rabid mouth of its madness what is united in words and in reality. God is in God, and besides him there is no God: let it separate the one who is within from the one in whom he is, and divide the understanding of this mystery by a variety of kinds. For in saying, “God is in you,” he taught the truth of the nature of God the Father in God the Son, since he who is God was understood to be in him. And in adding, “And besides you there is no God,” he showed that there is no God besides him, because God was within him who is God. The third, “You are God, and we did not know it,” testifies to the pious and faithful profession of human understanding, which, once it knew the mysteries of the birth and the name announced by the angel to Joseph, would confess: “For you are God, and we did not know it, the God of Israel, the Savior”: understanding that the nature of God subsists in him, since God is in God, and there is no other God besides him who is God; for he himself is God, and God is in him, and this leaves us no error of any other God. So Isaiah prophesied, bearing witness to the undivided and inseparable divinity of the Father and the Son.

And Jeremiah, with no less power of prophecy, taught that the only-begotten God is of a nature not separated from God the Father, saying: “This is our God, and no other will be counted beside him. He found every way of knowledge and gave it to Jacob his servant and to Israel his beloved. After this he was seen on earth and lived among men.” Why, heretic, do you put another God into the Son of God, God? Learn to understand and confess one true God. No other God is counted beside Christ to make him God. He is God by nature, by birth, from God. For what is God from God is not another God. For no other is counted beside him, because there is no truth in him other than God's. Why do you put together, under a false religion of one God, true and not true, degenerate and noble, one thing and another? The Father is God, the Son also is God. God is in God; besides him there is no God; no other is counted beside him to make him God. If in these words you understand God as one rather than solitary, you will profess the religion of the church, which confesses the Father in the Son. But if, ignorant of the heavenly mystery, you put forward one God in the sense of a solitary one, you are outside the knowledge of God, not confessing that God is in God.

I am well aware that I have undertaken to write these things against the mad heresy of the impious, which asserts that the Son of God is a creature, at a most difficult and harsh time; when many churches in almost all the provinces of the Roman Empire are already infected with the disease of this pestilent preaching, and, through long familiarity with the teaching and the false name of true religion, are steeped in it as though it were a rightly held conviction of pious faith. I know how hard it is to move toward amendment a will that the authority of an opinion now public, through the assent of very many, holds fast in its zeal for its error. For error in very many is grave and dangerous; and the fall of many, even if it recognizes itself, claims authority for itself out of shame at rising again, drawing from its numbers the shamelessness to want its error to be thought prudence, and to assert that what it errs in along with many is understanding of the truth, since there is thought to be less error in many.

For my part, besides the obligation of my calling and office, by which, as bishop of this church, I owe the ministry of preaching the gospel, I was all the more eager to write the more people were held in the danger of an unbelieving understanding; seeking a richer joy from the salvation of many, if, once they knew the mysteries of perfect faith in God, they would abandon the impious teachings of human folly, give themselves back to God, rejecting the heretics, and, leaving the food of death with which birds are lured into the snare, rise into the flight of free security; and would follow Christ as leader, the prophets as heralds, the apostles as forerunners, a faith made complete, and a salvation perfected in the confession of the Father and the Son; and, remembering what was said by the Lord's mouth, “He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him,” would turn to honoring the Father through honoring the Son.

For lately a pestilent and deadly plague has arisen among the peoples, which, raging with enormous contagion, has brought the ruin of a pitiable death. Neither the sudden devastation of cities collapsing into the abyss with their people, nor the frequent and deadly slaughters of wars, nor the widespread contagion of incurable sickness has raged so fiercely as this deadly heresy has spread to the destruction of the human race. For to God, for whom all among the dead live, only that perishes which destroys itself. For he who will judge all, and who in the mercy of his majesty will temper the punishment deserved by ignorant error, will no longer judge those who deny him, but will deny them.

For the raging heresy denies, it denies the mystery of the true faith, using the first principles of religion for the teaching of its impiety, when it began the exposition of its unbelief, as is contained in the earlier books, thus: “We know one God, alone unmade, alone everlasting, alone without beginning, alone true, alone having immortality, alone best, alone powerful.” This beginning, taken from a pious confession, serves their purpose when it says, “One God, alone unmade, alone without beginning,” so that under what was religiously displayed in words the rest might be impiously added. For after much else, which it had set out about the Son with an equally feigned profession of religion, it added: “a perfect creature of God, but not as one of the creatures; a work, but not as the other works.” And after much else, in which confessions of the truth were inserted to overshadow the intention of heretical impiety, so as to defend, by the subtlety of clever interpretation, that he came to subsist from things that did not exist, it says: “And created and founded before the ages, he was not before he was born.” Finally, as though everything were now most strongly fortified for the defense of impiety, so that he might be understood neither as Son nor as God, it added: “For if the phrases ‘from him,’ and ‘from the womb,’ and ‘I came forth from the Father and have come’ are understood as meaning a part of him, of one substance, and as an extended emanation, then the Father will be composite, divisible, changeable, and a body, according to them; and, as far as lies with them, God who is without body will be subject to what follows from being a body.” And since our discourse against this exposition of most impious teaching will now be wholly from the Gospel, we thought it fitting to insert again in this sixth book the whole published statement of this heresy, though it was already written out in an earlier book: so that a fresh reading, and a comparison with the answer set beneath each point, may draw out the sense of the truth through the teachings of the Gospels and the apostles, even from the unwilling and contradicting. They say, then:

“We know one God, alone unmade, alone everlasting, alone without beginning, alone having immortality, alone best, alone powerful, creator of all, ordainer and disposer, unchangeable, immutable, just and best, God of the Law and the Prophets and the New Testament; that this God begot an only-begotten Son before all ages, through whom he made both the ages and all things; begotten not in appearance but in truth, having followed his will, immutable and unchangeable, a perfect creature of God, but not as one of the creatures; a work, but not as the other works; not, as Valentinus imagined, the offspring of the Father as an emanation; nor, as Mani set forth, the offspring as a part of the one substance of the Father; nor, as Sabellius, who divides the unity, said, that the Son is the same as the Father; nor, as Hieracas said, a lamp from a lamp, or a torch divided into two parts; nor one who existed before and was afterward born or created anew into a Son, as you yourself, most blessed pope, in the midst of the church and in the assembly, have often refuted those who bring in such things; but, as we have said, created by the will of God before times and ages, receiving life and being from the Father, and glories, the Father causing them to subsist with him. For the Father, in giving him the inheritance of all things, did not deprive himself of what he holds in himself without being made; for he is the source of all.

“Therefore there are three substances, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And God is the cause of all, wholly without beginning and solitary; but the Son, put forth by the Father apart from time, and created and founded before the ages, was not before he was born; but, born apart from time before all things, he alone came into being from the Father alone. For he is not eternal, or co-eternal, or unmade together with the Father, nor does he have being together with the Father, as some say, or as those say who bring in two unborn principles; but as the unity and principle of all, so God is before all. Therefore he is also before the Son, as we have learned from you too, when you preached in the midst of the church. Inasmuch, then, as he has from God his being, and glories, and life, and all things have been handed over to him, in this respect God is his principle. And he rules over him as his God, since he is before him. For if the phrases ‘from him,’ and ‘from the womb,’ and ‘I came forth from the Father and have come’ are understood as meaning a part of him, of one substance, and as an extended emanation, then the Father will be composite, divisible, changeable, and a body, according to them; and, as far as lies with them, God who is without body will be subject to what follows from being a body.”

Who does not sense in these words the slippery windings of a serpent's path, or fail to see the viper's knots in its twisted coils, within which the chief power of its poisonous mouth is enclosed by the gathered circle of its bent body? But when all is stretched out and unrolled, the whole venom of the hidden head will be laid open. For first the names of truth are pressed upon us, so that the poison of falsehood may enter. Good is in the mouth, so that evil may creep in from the heart. And in all this I nowhere hear them call the Son of God God; nowhere do I find the Son proclaimed in such a way that he is a son. The name of Son is pressed upon us so that the nature may be passed over in silence; the nature is taken away so that the name may be foreign to him. Other heresies are held up so that this heresy may lie about itself. One only God, alone true, is pressed upon us, so that it may not be left to the Son of God to be truly and properly what God is.

Although, then, in the earlier books we taught from the preaching of the Law and the Prophets about God and God, true God and true God, and that in the true God the Father and the true God the Son one true God is to be understood according to unity of nature, not union of person; yet the complete exposition of this faith must be given from the teaching of the Gospels and the apostles, so that the true Son of God may be understood to be God, not of a nature foreign to and different from the Father, but of the same divinity, existing through the truth of birth. And I do not think anyone can be so mad as either not to understand God's declarations about himself once known, or, having understood them, to wish them not understood, or to think they must be corrected by the opinion of human prudence. But before we begin to speak of the realities of the saving mysteries, so that the profession of heresy may not flatter itself in any respect by naming other heretics, the whole veil of this clever malice must be exposed: so that the very means by which the hidden poison covers itself may betray and reveal it, and the sense of the public conscience may come to understand the flattering venom.

The heretics, then, wishing the Son of God not to be from God, nor God born from God of and in the nature of God, after mentioning one God alone true without adding “Father,” so as to deny, by excluding the property of birth, that the Father and the Son are of one truth, said: “Not as Valentinus imagined the offspring of the Father as an emanation”: so that, under the appearance of the Valentinian heresy, by rejecting the name of emanation they might reject the birth of God from God. For Valentinus, inventing ridiculous and foul things, brought in, besides the chief God, a family of gods and numerous powers of aeons, and then asserted that our Lord Jesus Christ was put forth by the mystery of a hidden will. This empty emanation, sought out by the frenzy of a rash and foolish author, the gospel and apostolic faith of the church does not know. It knows nothing of Valentinus's Depth, and Silence, and thrice ten aeons; but it knows nothing other than one God the Father, from whom are all things, and one Lord, our Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, God born from God. But because God was born from God, and neither by his birth took from God being what God is, nor is himself not God in his birth; and because what he is as God did not begin, but was born from God; and because what is born seems, according to the sense of human nature, to be put forth, so that putting forth itself is thought to be birth: therefore an attempt was made, through the heresy of Valentinus, to exclude the name of emanation, so that the truth of the birth might not remain; since the understanding of emanation, by earthly opinion, would not be far from the nature of earthly birth. The slow and difficult understanding of human nature in divine things requires that we be reminded often of what we have said once: that examples from human comparison are not to be believed to do justice to the mysteries of divine power, but that the likeness of an earthly kind is brought in only to train the mind spiritually about heavenly things, so that by this step of our nature we may be carried forward to an understanding of the divine majesty. The birth of God is not to be judged by the emanations of human births. For where one is from one, and God is born from God, earthly birth brings only an understanding of what is meant; but the origin of those who are born, which includes intercourse, conception, time, and childbirth, does not serve as an example for comparison, since God born from God is to be understood as nothing else than born. We will treat the truth of the divine birth, according to the gospel and apostolic faith, in its place; meanwhile, the ingenuity of heretical art had to be shown, which, to abolish the truth of the birth, would extinguish the name of emanation.

The heresy keeps the same malicious fraud of its art in the rest, saying: “Nor as Mani set forth the offspring as a part of the one substance of the Father.” Emanation was denied above, so that birth might be denied; now too, under Mani's name, a portion of one substance is brought forward to be denied, so that God may not be believed to be from God. For Mani, with a frenzy that broke out in rejecting the Law and the Prophets, an avowed champion of the devil as far as he could be, and a worshipper of the sun who did not know it, preached that what was in the Virgin was a portion of the one substance, and wished that to be understood as the Son which, drawn off as some part of God's substance, appeared in the flesh. So, to take away both the birth of the only-begotten Son and the name of one substance, a portion of one substance in the Son's birth is held up: so that, because a birth asserted to be from a portion of one substance is profanely preached, first the birth itself might not exist, being condemned in Mani for professing a portion; then the name and faith of one substance might be taken away, because among heretics it went with a portion; and thereby he would not be God from God, because the property of the divine nature would not be in him. Why does impious fury feign mad anxieties under a false appearance of religion? The faith of the church condemns Mani, just as the preachers of heretical madness do. For it knows no portion in the Son; but it knows whole God from whole God; one from one; not cut off, but born; it knows that the birth of God is neither a diminution of the one begetting nor a weakness of the one born. If it knows this from itself, bring the charge of a rashly claimed knowledge; but if it learned it from its Lord, allow the one born the knowledge of his own birth. For it learned these things from the only-begotten God: that the Father and the Son are one, that the fullness of the deity is in the Son; and therefore it both hates the attribution of a portion of one substance to the Son, and, through the truth of the birth, venerates in the Son the property of true divinity. But, deferring a fuller completion of the answers to each point, let us run through the rest.

For there follows: “Nor as Sabellius, who divides the unity, said that the Son is the same as the Father.” Sabellius, believing thus, does not know the mysteries of the Gospels and the apostles. But this is not condemned in a heretic by the heretics in simple honesty. For, wishing nothing to be one between the Father and the Son, they reproach Sabellius with the crime of dividing the union: a division of the union which did not bring in a birth, but divided the same one in the Virgin. But for us, birth is in our confession; and, detesting union, we hold the unity of divinity: that is, that God from God are one in the kind of their nature, since what came into existence from God as God through the truth of birth subsists from no other source than God. And what remains from no other source than God must remain in the truth in which God is; and so they are one, since he who is God from God is neither something else himself, nor is what he is as God from elsewhere. The impiety of union in Sabellius is held up so that the religion of unity may be taken from the faith of the church. I will follow the other devices of the heretical mind, lest I be thought, with suspicions rather than true concerns, a malicious interpreter of another's simplicity; I will show, by the conclusion of the whole profession, to what end the preface of so crafty a speech was designed.

For there follows: “Nor as Hieracas, a lamp from a lamp, or a torch divided into two parts. Nor one who existed before and was afterward born or created anew into a Son.” Hieracas, not knowing the birth of the Only-begotten and not having attained the force of the gospel mysteries, preached two lights of one lamp, so that the twofold division of the wicks would imitate the substance of the Father and the Son, kindled into light from the oil of one vessel: as though there were an outer substance, like the oil in the lamp, containing the nature of both lights; or as though a torch, with the same papyrus woven through it, shone at both ends, the material in the middle putting forth both lights from itself. The error of human folly brought these things in, since they know what they know from themselves rather than from God. But because it is the profession of the true faith that God was born from God as light from light, which gives its nature from itself without loss to itself, so that it gives what it has and has what it has given, and what is born is what it is, since nothing other than what it is was born; and the birth received what was, and did not take away what it received; and both are one, since what is born is born from what is, and what is born is neither from elsewhere nor anything else, for it is light from light: so, to turn away the understanding of this faith, the torch or lamp of Hieracas was set up to bring the charge of confessing light from light, so that what was said impiously and has been condemned now and before might not be thought to be said religiously. Away, away with the most empty fear of the heretics; do not falsely claim to be protecting the church's faith with the pretense of an anxious assertion. With us there is nothing bodily, nothing lifeless in the things of God: what God is, is wholly God. There is nothing in him but power, life, light, blessedness, and spirit. That nature does not admit dull matter, nor does it consist of different parts in order to endure: God, as God, remains what he is, and, remaining God, begot God. They are not held together, like torch and torch, or wick and wick, by an outer nature. The birth of God from God, the Only-begotten, is not a series but an offspring; not a drawing-out but light from light. It is the unity of the nature of light, not an extension by connection.

And now, how great the heretical cunning, and how crafty the profession, in this: “Nor one who existed before and was afterward born or created anew into a Son.” God who was born from God was certainly not born from nothing, nor born from things that did not exist; his birth had a living nature. Nor was it the same God who already was who was born, but God was born from God who already was; and the birth had, in that very birth, the nature of its origin. If we speak from what is ours, we are presumptuous; but if we show that we have been taught by God to speak, the birth of God must be confessed according to God's teaching. It is this unity of nature in the Father and the Son, and this ineffable mystery of a living birth, that heretical fury tries to exclude when it says: “Not one who existed before and was afterward born or created anew into a Son.” For who will be so mad as to think that the Father ceased to be himself, so that the same one who had been was afterward born or created anew into a Son, and there was an abolition of God, followed by a birth out of that abolition, when the birth testifies that its author remains? Or who is so senseless as to admit that the Son came to subsist otherwise than by birth? Who, again, is so foolish as to dare to preach that God did not come into being from the fact that God is born? For it is not the abiding God who was born, but God was born from the abiding God, holding in himself, in the birth of the nature, the nature of the one begetting. And the birth of God, which came into being from God as God, holds not things that did not exist, but obtained, by the truth of being born, the things that were and are God's. So it was not he who was that was born; but God was born and came into being from and in the things that were God's. All this earlier speech of heretical deceit, then, prepared this road for its most impious teaching: that, intending to deny the only-begotten God, as though having first set out the reasoning of truth, it might preach him born from nothing rather than from God, referring his birth to the will to create out of things that did not exist.

Then, after much else, as though through an approach prepared for itself, it burst out to this, saying: “But the Son, put forth apart from time, and created and founded before the ages, was not before he was born.” The heretical speech balanced itself, as it thinks, both to confirm its impiety and to excuse itself from a charge, if the question were pressed, by saying, “he was not before he was born”: so that by “he was not before he was born” it might deny him the nature of a subsisting origin, and he would have begun to be from nothing, to whom no standing as existing before his birth was granted; and then, if this were judged an irreligious saying, a ready defense would be at hand: that he who already was could not be born, and that one who existed before would not have had the birth by which he came to be, since birth leads to this, that the one born comes to subsist. O fool and impious one, who would look for a birth in one who subsists without birth? Or how is one who is to be thought born, when birth is the nature of being born? But, striving craftily to deny the birth of the only-begotten God from God the Father, you wished to escape, through “he was not before he was born,” the fact that God, from whom the Son of God was born, was, and that the nature of God remained, from which the Son, God, subsists by birth. If, then, he was born from God, a birth from an abiding nature must be confessed; not that the God who was should be born, but that the birth of God from God who was should be understood.

But heretical heat does not contain its irreligious passions; and through saying “he was not before he was born,” laboring to make him born from things that did not exist, that is, not born from God the Father as God the Son by a true and perfect birth, at the very end of its whole exposition it burst out into the final and most profane ardor of its irreligious fury, saying: “For if the phrases ‘from him,’ and ‘from the womb,’ and ‘I came forth from the Father and have come’ are understood as meaning a part of him, of one substance, and as an extended emanation, then the Father will be composite, divisible, changeable, and a body, according to them; and, as far as lies with them, God who is without body will be subject to what follows from being a body.” It would be a heavy and very difficult task to defend the truth of religion against the impiety of falsehood, if impiety took counsel as wisely as it dares boldly. But it is well that the will to irreligion comes from a lack of wisdom. And therefore, while an answer to folly is easy, the correction of fools is difficult: because, first, they do not seek the reasoning of understanding, and then, when it is offered by one who understands, they do not grasp it. But if any are held in error by the fear of God and ignorance of understanding, not by a will to impiety through foolishness, I hope they will be inclined to correction, since the demonstration of the truth will completely expose the folly of impiety.

You said, fools, and you still say it today, not knowing how to be wise toward God: “For if ‘from him,’ and ‘from the womb,’ and ‘I came forth from the Father and have come’…” I ask you: was all this said by God, or not? It certainly was said; and since it was said by God about himself, it must be understood in no other way than as it was said. We will treat these sayings in their place, showing the force of each. Meanwhile I ask everyone's understanding what he thinks is meant when it is said “from him”: is it to be understood as from another, or from nothing, or is he to be believed to be that very one? He is not from another, because he is from him, that is, so that he may be God from no source other than God. He is not from nothing, because he is from him; for the nature from which the birth comes is shown. He is not the same one, because where it says “from him,” the birth of the son is referred to the father. Then, when “from the womb” is said, I ask whether he can be believed to have been born from nothing, when the truth of the birth is revealed through the names of bodily functions. For God, who does not consist of bodily members, when he spoke of the Son's generation, said, “From the womb before the morning star I begot you,” but, confirming from the truth of his divinity that ineffable birth of the only-begotten Son from himself, he spoke for the faith of understanding: so as to instruct, about his own divine things, the sense of human nature toward the knowledge of faith according to human nature; so that, when he says “from the womb,” it might be taught that his Only-begotten did not subsist as a creation from nothing, but by a natural birth from himself. Finally, as to what he said, “I came forth from the Father and have come,” did he leave any doubt that what he is as God is understood to be from no other source than the Father? For coming forth from the Father, he had neither another nature of birth nor none; but he testifies that he from whom he declares he came forth is his author. But my later discussion will show and explain these things.

Meanwhile, let us see with what human confidence men forbid us to understand things about God which they do not deny God said about himself. O most grievous disgrace of human folly and insolence, not only to accuse God's profession about himself by not believing it, but to condemn it by correcting it; to defile and attack with human teachings that ineffable secret of his nature and power, and to dare to say: “If the Son is from God, God is changeable and bodily, since he has put forth or extended from himself what he would have as a son!” Why are you anxious lest God be changeable? We confess the birth, we preach the Only-begotten, taught by God; you, so that the birth may not remain and the only-begotten God may not be in the faith of the church, set against it the nature of the unchangeable God, which can be neither extended nor stretched out. I would bring you, wretched error, examples even from the things of the world, of certain natures that are begotten, so that you would not think birth an extension, nor believe the natures of those born to be losses to those who beget, since many living souls are even begotten from the living without bodily intercourse: were it not wrong not to have believed God about himself, and judged the madness of utmost fury to take away authority for faith from him to whom you profess veneration for life. For if life is only through him, how is not faith in life through him? And how is faith in life in him who is held to be an untrustworthy witness about himself?

For you seize, most impious heretic, the birth of the Son for a will to create; so that he is not born from God, but came to subsist from a creation by the will of the one who created. And so with you he is not God, because, God remaining one, the Son does not hold in his birth the nature of his origin; but, being founded in another substance, he is, as only-begotten, more excellent than the other created and made things: yet he was brought into being so as to have the bringing into being of the creation granted to him, and did not bring with him from his generation the nature of God; and you call him born because he came to subsist from nothing; and you name him Son, not because he was born from God, but because he was created through God; for you remember that religious men too were held worthy by God of being called by this name; and you grant him the name of God on no other condition than that by which it was said, “I said, You are gods, and all sons of the Most High,” so that he enjoys the condescension of the one who names him in the title, not the truth of nature in the name; and so with you he is son by adoption, god by naming, only-begotten by privilege, firstborn by order, wholly creation, from no one God; because his generation is not a natural birth from God, but the substance of a creature.

And first, having begged your pardon for my most impatient grief, allow me to speak before you, almighty God, and permit me, earth and ashes as I am, yet bound by devotion to your love, to speak freely in these words. I, unhappy one, was nothing before, without the sense of life, without understanding of myself; I lacked what I am. But your mercy is the cause of my living; and I do not doubt that you, being good, ordained that my being born should be good for me. For you, who have no need of me, would not have begun me as an origin of evil. But when you had given me life with a soul and also made me understand reason, you taught me to know you, as I think, by the sacred books given through your servants Moses and the prophets, in which you revealed that you are not to be worshipped in your solitude. I came to know there God with you, not another in nature, but one in the mystery of your substance. I came to know you, God, in God, not confused by mingling, but by the power of nature, since what you are as God was in him who is from you: not so that you were the same and were in him, but the truth of a perfect birth taught that you are in him who is from you. This the voices of the Gospels and the apostles tell me again, and the words set down in the books from the sacred mouth of your Only-begotten testify: that your Son, the only-begotten God from you the unbegotten God, was born a man from the Virgin for the mystery of my salvation; in whom the truth of his generation from you would contain you, and whom the nature of his birth from you, who abide in him, would keep in you.

Into what depth without hope of return, I pray, have you plunged me? For I have so learned these things, so believed them, and so hold them with the faith of a settled mind, that I can neither believe otherwise nor wish to. Why have you deceived me, wretched as I am, about yourself, and destroyed my unhappy flesh and soul with a teaching that makes me know what is foreign to you? After the dividing of the Red Sea, the glory of Moses coming down from the mountain deceived me, as he beheld with you all the secrets of heavenly mysteries. I believed him about you, in your own words. David, found to be after your own heart, destroyed me; and Solomon, worthy of the gift of divine wisdom; and Isaiah, preaching after he saw the Lord of hosts; and Jeremiah, sanctified in the womb before he was formed, prophet for uprooting and planting nations; and Ezekiel, witness of the mystery of the resurrection; and Daniel, the man of desires, who knew the times; and the consecrated choir of the prophets; and the whole mystery of gospel preaching: Matthew, chosen from a tax collector to be an apostle; and John, worthy, from his close friendship with the Lord, of the revelation of heavenly mysteries; and blessed Simon, who after his confession of the mystery was laid beneath the building of the church and received the keys of the heavenly kingdom; and all the rest who preached by the Holy Spirit; and Paul, from persecutor an apostle, your chosen vessel, living in the depth of the sea, a man in the third heaven, in paradise before his martyrdom, and in his martyrdom the complete libation of a perfect faith.

From these I have been taught what I hold; with these I have been imbued past curing. And forgive me, almighty God, that in these things I cannot be corrected, though I can die with them. The age of this present world has brought forth these most impious teachers, as I judge them, too late for me. My faith, which you instructed, got these masters too late. Before I had heard their names I believed in you thus, was reborn through you thus, and from then on have been yours thus. I know that you are almighty, and I do not look for an account of the ineffable birth known only to you and to your Only-begotten himself. For nothing is impossible to you, and I do not doubt that the Son was begotten by you by the power of your omnipotence. For if I doubted, I would already be denying that you are almighty. I learned from my own birth that you are good; and so I am confident that you were not grudging of your honors in the birth of your Only-begotten. For I believe that what is yours is his, and what is his is yours. The very creation of the world has shown me that you are wise; I am conscious that you begot from yourself your Wisdom, not unlike you. You are truly one God to me; but I will not believe that there is in him who is God from you anything other than what is yours. And judge me in this, if it is a crime in me, that through your Son I have believed too much the Law, the Prophets, and the apostles.

But let rash speech cease, and let it pass from what it broke out into, through the need to expose heretical folly, to the service of giving reasons instead: so that, if any can still be saved, they may keep to the road of gospel and apostolic teaching toward faith, and understand that the Son of God is true Son not by adoption but by nature. For this is the fitting order of our answer: first to teach that he is the Son of God, so that the nature of divinity in him, by which he is Son, may be fully established. For the heresy now in question works above all for this, that our Lord Jesus Christ should not be the true Son of God and true God. That our Lord Jesus Christ is truly the only-begotten Son of God, God, and is so taught, is known in many ways: since the Father testifies of him, he himself professes it of himself, the apostles preach it, the devout believe it, the demons confess it, the Jews deny it, the nations recognize it in his passion. For what is said in faith of his being the Son in the proper sense does not come from sharing a name. And since everything that Christ the Lord did or taught is beyond everything belonging to those who are called sons, and among all the things special to Christ this above all is taught, that he is the Son of God, the name of son in him does not come from a general relationship.

I do not taint the faith of truth by establishing this with words of my own. Let the Father speak of his Only-begotten, as he often did, so that Jesus Christ might not be unrecognizable because of his body at the completing of the mystery of baptism: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” I ask, in what is truth lost, and in what is the faith of this profession weak? The birth from a virgin by the Holy Spirit announced by an angel, the star that guided the Magi, the honor of the one worshipped in the cradle, the power of the one to be baptized under the Baptist's profession: these are not thought enough to show his majesty; the Father speaks from heaven, and speaks thus: “This is my Son.” What is meant by this faith, not of added names, but of pronouns? For surnames are added to names, but pronouns hold in themselves the force of names. There is a signification of what is proper where one hears both “this is” and “my.” And understand what the truth and meaning of the words are. You had read: “I have begotten sons and raised them up”; but you had not read “my sons”: for he had begotten them for himself through the dividing of the nations, and the people of his inheritance as sons. So that the surname of son, by a sharing in an adoptive inheritance, might not be added to the only-begotten God, the truth of nature was shown by signifying what is proper. Let the name of son indeed be assigned to Christ as a common one, if it is found said of anyone else: “This is my Son.” But if “This is my Son” is proper and unique to him, why do we bring a charge against God the Father for professing what is proper to the Son? Does it not seem to you that “this is” means this: others indeed have been named sons by him, but this one is my Son; I have given the name of adoption to very many, but this one is my Son; do not look for another, do not fail to believe that it is this one; this one I touch as with a pointing finger and by the meaning of the word, when I say that he is both mine, and this, and Son? After this, what understanding can there be that he is not to be believed to be so? And this meaning of the Father's voice was given so that he who was to be baptized to fulfill all righteousness should not be unknown in what he was; but that he who was seen as a man for the mystery of our salvation should be known by God's voice as the Son of God.

And since the life of believers lies in the confession of this faith (for there is no other eternal life than that we should know that Jesus Christ, the only-begotten God, is the Son of God), the voice from heaven is heard again by the apostles, repeating this same meaning, so that what it would be death not to believe might be believed more firmly for life. For when the Lord stood on the mountain in the form of his majesty, with Moses and Elijah standing by, and three pillars of the churches had been taken up as witnesses to the vision and the voice, this voice of the Father came from heaven: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear him.” The brightness that was seen had not been enough to confirm his honor; he is marked out by the voice: “This is my Son.” The apostles cannot bear the glory of God; mortal eyes are dulled at the sight; the faith of Peter, James, and John, dismayed with fear, falls down; yet the profession of the Father's authority is there, and this one is shown to be Son by the word that signifies what is proper. And not only is the truth of the Son made known by “this” and “my,” but there is added: “Hear him.” The testimony of the Father is indeed from heaven; but the testimony of the Son is confirmed on earth, for he is shown to be the one to be heard. And although no ambiguity is left by the Father's profession, yet it is decreed that the Son's profession about himself is also to be believed; and the truth of the Son in him is taught so far that the confirmation of the Father's voice demands of us the obedience of hearing. Since, then, this voice of the Father's will is that the Son should be heard, let us hear the Son professing what he himself is.

I do not think anyone is so far removed from common sense that, while he recognizes in all the books of the Gospels the Son's profession of the bodily lowliness he assumed, when he says, “Father, glorify me,” and again, very often, “You will see the Son of Man,” and, “The Father is greater than I,” and also, “Now my soul is greatly troubled,” or even, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” and many other such sayings, of which we will speak in their order, he should nevertheless, amid such constant testimony of lowliness, charge him with insolence for calling God his Father, when he says, “Every plant which my Father has not planted will be uprooted,” or, “You have made my Father's house a house of trade”; and that wherever he always names God as his Father, it should be a matter of rash presumption rather than of a confident nature which, conscious of its birth, holds the name of truth in the Father. A frequent profession of lowliness, then, does not have this vice of insolence, to claim what belongs to another, defend what is not his own, and presume to make himself equal to God in what is proper to him. Nor with equal rashness, as when he names the Father, does he also profess himself Son, saying: “For God did not send his Son into this world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through him”; or again: “Do you believe in the Son of God?” What are we doing now, if we grant Jesus Christ only the name of adoption, through which we charge him with rash presumption even in naming God as his Father? The Father's voice from heaven is: “Hear him.” I hear: “Father, I thank you”; I hear: “You say that I blasphemed, because I said, I am the Son of God.” If I do not believe the names, if I do not understand the nature from the words, I ask what is to be believed and understood. No other suspicion is left to me. The authority of the Father is from heaven: “This is my Son.” The Son's profession about himself is: “My Father's house,” and “My Father.” The profession of the name is salvation, when the question demands faith, saying: “Do you believe in the Son of God?” Names of what is proper follow, where it says “my.” I ask you, heretic, from where any other presumption comes. You take faith from the Father, profession from the Son, nature from the names; you do violence to God's words, so that they may not be what they declare. The only thing your impiety has is shamelessness, to accuse God of lying about himself.

Although, then, a simple confession alone shows the names to be names of nature, so that he of whom it was said, “This is my Son,” and he to whom it was said, “My Father,” are what they are called; yet, lest the name be one of adoption in the Son, or of honor in the Father, let us see what properties have been added by the Son to the name of Son. He says: “All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and he to whom the Son wills to reveal him.” Does “No one knows the Son except the Father, nor does anyone know the Father except the Son” agree with “This is my Son” and “My Father”? For the Son could be known through the Father, or the Father through the Son, only by mutual testimony. There is the voice from heaven; there is also the word of the Son. The Son is as unknowable as the Father. All things have been handed over to him, and in “all” nothing is understood to be excepted. If the power is equal, if the secret of knowledge is equal, if the nature is in the names, I ask how they are not what they are called, whose might in power and difficulty in knowledge do not differ. God, then, does not deceive in his words; neither the Father nor the Son lies about himself: and learn how the names are to be trusted in these things.

For he says: “For the works which the Father has given me to accomplish, the very works that I do, bear witness about me that the Father has sent me; and the Father who sent me has himself borne witness about me.” The only-begotten God teaches that he is Son not only by the testimony of the name but also of power: for his works, which he does, testify that he was sent by the Father. I ask, to what do the works testify? To his having been sent. And so both the obedience of the Son and the authority of the Father are taught in the one sent, since the works he does could belong to no one else than the one sent by the Father. But works are not enough as testimony, for unbelievers, that the Father sent him. For there follows: “And the Father who sent me has himself borne witness about me; you have neither heard his voice nor seen his form.” I ask what the Father's testimony about him was. Unroll the volumes of the Gospels and review their whole work. Give me a testimony of the Father besides what was heard: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased,” and, “You are my Son.” John heard this, though he was not ignorant of it; yet the testimony of the Father's voice is sent for our teaching. Nor is this enough. John in the desert was worthy of this voice, but the apostles too were not to be deprived of the authority of this testimony. The same voice from heaven comes to them, but they receive more than John. For John, prophesying already from the womb, did not need this word: “Hear him.” I will indeed hear him; and I will hear no one besides him, except the one who heard in order to teach. If there is no other testimony of the Father about the Son in the books than that he is his Son, the truth of this testimony is that the very works of the Father which he does confirm the truth of this testimony. What slander is brought in today, that the name is one of adoption, that God is a liar, that the names are empty? The Father has testified about the Son; the Son by his works makes himself equal to the Father's testimony: why should there not be seen in him the truth of the Son, which is both stated and proved? The name of Son in Christ is not from God the Father by an adoption of kindness; nor did he earn this name by holiness, as many are sons of God after the confession of faith. For in them there is no signification of what is proper, only a favor of the name granted, as is worthy of God. “This is,” “this is mine,” and “hear him” are something else: in this there is truth, there is nature, there is faith.

Nor indeed does the Son testify of himself anything less than this proper meaning of the Father's word. For as in the Father's saying, “This is my Son,” there is a showing of the nature, and in what he added, “Hear him,” there is the hearing of the mystery and faith for which he came from heaven, since we are urged to hear him for the saving teaching of confession; so in this the Son taught the truth both of his birth and of his coming, saying: “You neither know me nor know where I am from; for I did not come of myself, but he who sent me is true, whom you do not know; but I know him, because I am from him, and he sent me.” No one knows the Father, and the Son often professes this; and he says he alone knows him for this reason, that he is from him. I ask whether “from him” shows in him the work of creation or the nature of generation. If it is the work of creation, all things that are created are also from God. And how do all things not know the Father, when the Son knows him because he is from him? If he is seen to be created rather than born in being from God, since all things are from God, how is he not ignorant of the Father along with the others that are from him? But if it is proper to him to know him because he is from him, how will it not be proper to him that he is from him? That is, that he is true Son of God by nature, since he alone knows God because he alone is from him. You have, then, a property of knowledge from a property of generation; and “from him” shows in him not the power of a creature (for all things exist from him by the power of creation), but the truth of birth, through which he alone knows the Father, while the rest that are from him do not know him.

Yet, lest heresy perhaps seize on “from him” as referring to the time of his coming, he at once added: “Because I am from him, and he sent me.” He kept the order of the gospel mystery, professing himself born and sent: so that both who he was and where he was from might be known, according to the earlier sentence. For “I am from him” and “he sent me” are not the same, just as “you neither know me” and “nor do you know where I am from” are not the same. Is not every man, though born in the flesh, from God, according to the sense of common opinion? And how does he deny that either he himself or where he is from is known by them, unless he refers where he is from to the author of his nature? who would be unknown because he himself was unknown to be the Son of God. Examine, wretched folly, what this is: “You neither know me nor know where I am from.” All things are from nothing, you say, and so much from nothing that you dared to lie that even the only-begotten God came to subsist from nothing. What, then, is it that the impious know neither Christ nor where he is from? For the fact that where he is from is unknown shows, by the not knowing where he is from, the nature he is from. For whatever came to subsist from nothing cannot have its origin unknown: because the very fact that it is known to be from nothing involves no ignorance of where it is from. But he who came is not from himself; but he who sent him is true, whom the impious do not know. So he who sent is the very one who is not known to have sent. So the one sent is from the one who sent: and he is from him from whom he is not known to be; and for this reason who he himself is is not known, since it is not known from whom he is. He does not know Christ who does not know where Christ is from; nor does he confess the Son who denies he was born; nor does he understand him to be born who thought him to be from nothing. And he is so far from being from nothing that the impious do not know where he is from.

They plainly do not know, they do not know, who take the nature away from the name, who, not knowing, do not love to know. And let them hear the Son reproaching the impious with ignorance of this knowledge, when the Jews said that God was their Father; for he says: “If God were your Father, you would surely love me; for I came forth from God and have come; nor did I come of myself, but he sent me.” The Son of God did not disapprove the taking of a religious name in those who, confessing him as the Son of God, called God their Father; but he rebukes the rash claim of the Jews who presumed God to be their Father, through the fact that they did not love him: “If God were your Father, you would surely love me; for I came forth from God.” For all to whom God is Father through faith, he is Father through that faith by which we confess Jesus Christ as the Son of God. But to confess him as son according to the general name of the saints, what faith does that have, so that we say, “He is one of the sons”? Are not the rest also sons in this weakness of their creaturehood? In what, then, does the faith that has confessed Jesus Christ as Son of God excel, if he has the name of son, like the sons, not the nature? This faithlessness does not love Christ, nor does this impious profession piously claim God as Father: for if God were their Father, they would love Christ because he came forth from God. I ask what it is to have come forth from God. Certainly it cannot be said that to have come forth from God is the same as to have come; for he signifies both: “For I came forth from God and have come.” And showing what “I came forth from God” is, and what “I have come” is, he at once added: “Nor did I come of myself, but he sent me.” He taught that he is not his own origin when he said, “Nor did I come of myself,” and he testifies that he came forth from God and was sent by him. But when he says that he must be loved by those who called God their Father because he came forth from God, he taught that the reason for love lies in the reason for his birth. For he referred “came forth” to the name of an incorporeal birth, because the devotion of professing God as Father must be earned by love of Christ, who was begotten from him. For when he says, “He who hates me hates my Father also,” in saying “my” he excluded a sharing of the name by signifying what is proper. But he condemns the one who professes God as his Father and does not love him, for usurping the Father's name; for he who hates him hates the Father also, and he is not devoted to God the Father who does not love the Son, since there is no other reason for loving the Son than that he is from God. The Son, then, is from God not by his coming but by birth; and all love toward the Father will lie here, if the Son is believed to be from him.

The Lord testifies to this, saying: “I do not say to you that I will ask the Father for you; for the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came forth from God and have come from the Father into this world.” A complete faith concerning the Son, which believes and loves that he came forth from God, has no need of intercession with the Father; by itself it deserves to be heard and loved, having confessed the Son born from God and sent. His birth and coming, then, are shown with the most complete truth of signifying what is proper. “I came forth from God,” he says, so that no nature other than that of birth might be thought to be in him; since what else but God could come forth from God, that is, subsist from birth? “And I have come from the Father,” he says, “into this world.” So that that coming forth might be understood to signify a birth from the Father, he professed that he came from the Father into this world. The one belongs to the dispensation, the other to nature. Nor does he allow the coming forth to be thought the same as the coming, since after the coming forth from God he mentions the coming from the Father. For to have come from the Father and to have come forth from God are not of the same meaning; and the two expressions differ as much as being born and being present. For it is one thing to have come forth from God into the substance of birth, another to have come from the Father into this world to accomplish the mysteries of our salvation.

And according to the order of the answer we proposed, this is a most suitable place for us to teach, thirdly, that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was believed by the apostles to be so not by naming but by nature, not by adoption but by birth. For although many very great declarations of the only-begotten God about himself still remain, in which he testifies to the truth of his generation without leaving even a slight occasion for a lying slander, yet, since the reader's mind must not be burdened with sayings heaped up in abundance, and since some things about the proper character of the birth have already been shown, all the rest will be reserved for other questions. Now, since this is the order set for our discussion, that after the Father's testimony and the Son's profession we should be taught by the faith of the apostles too about confessing the Son of God as true and by birth, we must see whether, in the Lord's saying, “I came forth from God,” they understood anything other than the nature of a birth.

For after many obscure sayings, spoken in parables by him whom they already knew as the Christ announced by Moses and the prophets, confessed by Nathanael as both Son of God and King of Israel; after Philip too was rebuked, when he asked about the Father, for not knowing through the power of the works that the Father was in him and he in the Father; and after he had already taught them in frequent sayings that he was sent by the Father: yet when they heard him profess that he had come forth from God, this was their answer (for the passage is connected): “His disciples said to him, Now you speak plainly and say no proverb. Now we know that you know all things and have no need for anyone to question you: by this we believe that you came forth from God.” What, I ask, is this wonder at this word, that he professed to have come forth from God? You, holy and blessed men, who for the merit of your faith received the keys of the kingdom of heaven and obtained the right of binding and loosing in heaven and on earth, had seen such great things, so proper to God, done by our Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God; and at his saying that he came forth from God do you now declare that you attain an understanding of the truth for the first time? You had certainly seen the water of the wedding, and the same water become wedding wine, and the change, or growth, or creation of one nature into another. You had also broken five loaves for food for so great a multitude, and when all were satisfied the fragments of the loaves had grown to fill twelve baskets, and the smallness of a nature driving away hunger had grown into an abundance of the same nature. You had seen withered hands made whole again, the tongues of the mute loosed into speech, the feet of the lame quick to run, the eyes of the blind seeing, and the lives of the dead returning. Lazarus, already stinking, had stood up at his voice, and called from the tomb, with no interval between voice and life, had quickly come out, and while the smell of death still struck the nostrils, he himself was already standing alive. I say nothing of the other works of great and divine power. Do you only now understand who this is, sent from heaven, after you heard, “I came forth from the Father”? And is this said to you for the first time without a proverb, and do you understand through the power of his nature that it is true that he came forth from God, when he silently beholds the thoughts of your wills, when he asks about nothing as though ignorant, when he is the knower of all things? For through all these things which he does by the power and nature of God, he must be believed to have come forth from God.

Here the holy apostles did not understand “came forth from God” as “sent by God”; for throughout the earlier discourse they had often heard him confess that he was sent. But hearing that he came forth from God, and seeing the nature of God in him from his works, they recognize the truth of his nature by his having come forth from God, when they say: “Now we know that you know all things and have no need for anyone to question you: by this we believe that you came forth from God.” For they believe that he came forth from God by the fact that he is able to do, and does, the things that are God's. For he completes the account not by saying that the nature of God came from the Father, but that he came forth from God. Then what they now hear for the first time is confirmed for faith. For when the Lord had said both, “I came forth from God, and I have come from the Father into this world,” they found nothing to wonder at in what they had often heard, “I have come from the Father into this world.” But their answer testified to faith in and understanding of this saying, “I came forth from God.” For their answer referred only to that, when they say, “By this we believe that you came forth from God”; and they do not add, “and you have come from the Father into this world.” And since the one is in their profession and the other in their silence, the newness of the saying required the profession, and the understanding of the truth drew out the testimony of professing. They knew indeed that he could do all things as God, but they had not yet received the account of his birth; and those who knew he was sent by God did not yet know that he had come forth from God. Understanding that ineffable and perfect birth of the Son through the force of this saying, they now declare that he has spoken with them without proverbs.

For God is not born from God by the custom of human childbirth, nor is he thrust out, as man from man, through the elements of our origin. That birth is whole, perfect, and undefiled, whose coming forth from God is rather a going out than a childbirth. For he is one from one. It is not a portion, not a falling away, not a diminution, not a derivation, not an extension, not a passion; but it is the birth of a living nature from a living one. He is God coming forth from God, not a creature chosen for the name of God; he did not begin from nothing so as to be, but came forth from one who remains; and “to have come forth” has the meaning of birth, not of a beginning. For it is not the same for a substance to have begun and for God to have come forth from God. And though the knowledge of this birth is not subject to words, since it is ineffable, it nevertheless has the security of faith in the teaching of the Son, who shows that he came forth from God.

The faith of the Gospels and the apostles is not to have believed the Son of God by name rather than by nature. For if this naming is one of adoption, and he is not the Son because he came forth from God, I ask from where blessed Simon Bar-Jona confessed, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God”? Or is it because all have the power, through the mystery of regeneration, to be born as sons of God? If Christ is Son of God by this kind of naming, I ask what it was that flesh and blood did not reveal to Peter, but the Father who is in heaven? What merit is there in a general profession? Or what glory of revelation is there in public knowledge? If he is Son by adoption, from where is this blessed confession in Peter, offering to the Son what is common to the saints? But apostolic faith reaches beyond human understanding. He had often heard, “He who receives you receives me; and he who receives me receives him who sent me.” He already knew, then, that he was sent; and he had heard the one he knew was sent professing, “All things have been handed over to me by the Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, nor does anyone know the Father except the Son.” What is it that the Father now reveals to Peter, which receives the glory of a blessed confession? Did he not know the names of Father and Son? Yet he had often heard them. But he speaks what no human voice had yet uttered: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” For although, abiding in the body, he had professed himself Son of God, yet apostolic faith now for the first time recognized the nature of divinity in him. Nor was praise given to Peter only for the honor he confessed, but for recognizing the mystery: because he confessed not only the Christ, but the Christ, the Son of God. For to confess his honor it would have been enough to say, “You are the Christ.” But it would have been empty for him to confess the Christ unless he confessed the Son of God. For in saying “You are,” he unfolded the force and property of natural truth. And the Father, by saying “This is my Son,” revealed to Peter that he should say, “You are the Son of God”: for in “This is” there is the sign of the one revealing, and in the answer “You are” the recognition of the one confessing. On this rock of confession, then, is the building of the church. But the sense of flesh and blood does not reveal the understanding of this confession. This is the mystery of divine revelation: not only to call Christ the Son of God, but to believe it. Or was it a naming rather than a nature that was revealed to Peter? If a naming, he had already often heard it from the Lord, who confessed himself the Son of God. In what, then, is the glory of revelation? Of the nature, surely, not of the name, since the profession of the name had already been frequent.

This faith is the foundation of the church; through this faith the gates of hell are powerless against her. This faith holds the keys of the heavenly kingdom. What this faith has loosed or bound on earth is both bound and loosed in heaven. This faith is the gift of the Father's revelation: not to falsely call Christ a creature from nothing, but to confess him as the Son of God according to the nature of what is proper to him. O impious frenzy of wretched folly, not understanding the martyr of a blessed old age and of this faith, Peter the martyr, for whom the Father was asked that his faith might not fail in temptation; who, after repeating the profession of love for God that was asked of him, grieved that he was tested yet again by a third question, as though doubtful and uncertain; and who therefore, after this third cleansing of his weaknesses by testing, was worthy to hear three times from the Lord, “Feed my sheep”; who, while all the apostles were silent, understanding the Son of God by the Father's revelation beyond the measure of human weakness, earned surpassing glory by the confession of his blessed faith! Into what necessity of interpreting his words are we now led? He confessed Christ the Son of God; but you today, lying priesthood of a new apostolate, press upon me Christ as a creature from nothing. What violence do you do to glorious words? He is blessed for this, that he confessed the Son of God. This is the Father's revelation, this the foundation of the church, this the security of eternity. From this the church has the keys of the kingdom of heaven; from this its earthly judgments are heavenly judgments. He learned by revelation the mystery hidden from the ages, spoke the faith, declared the nature, confessed the Son of God. Whoever denies this by confessing rather a creature must first deny Peter's apostleship, faith, blessedness, priesthood, and martyrdom; and after that let him understand that he is a stranger to Christ, since Peter earned these things by confessing the Son.

Or do you think, wretched heretic, whoever you are today, that Peter would have been more blessed if he had said: “You are the Christ, the perfect creature of God, a work surpassing all works, who began to be from nothing, and through the goodness of God, who alone is good, earned the name of son by adoption, and who were not born from God”? And I ask you what he would have heard on saying this, he who, when he answered on hearing of the passion, “Be merciful to yourself, Lord; this shall not be,” heard it said to him: “Get behind me, Satan; you are a stumbling block to me”? Yet human ignorance did not make Peter guilty of a crime, for the Father had not yet revealed to him the whole mystery of the passion; but a small faith received a sentence of condemnation. Why, then, did the Father not reveal to Peter this faith of confession, namely creation and adoption? God begrudged it to Peter, I suppose, putting it off to later times and keeping it now for you new preachers. Let there indeed be another faith, if there are other keys of the kingdom of heaven. Let there be another faith, if there is to be another church, against which the gates of hell will not prevail. Let there be another faith, if there will be another apostolate, binding and loosing in heaven what is bound and loosed by it on earth. Let there be another faith, if another Christ, Son of God, will be preached besides the one who is. But if this faith alone, which confessed Christ the Son of God, earned in Peter the glory of all blessings, then the faith that will confess him rather as a creature from nothing, not having obtained the keys of the kingdom of heaven and being placed outside apostolic faith and power, must be neither the church's nor Christ's.

Let us bring forward, then, all the professions of apostolic faith in which, confessing the Son of God, they confess in him not the name of adoption but the property of nature, and testify not to the baseness of creation in him but to the glory of birth. Let John speak, who remains thus until the Lord's coming, left behind and set apart under the mystery of the divine will, since it is said not that he will not die, but that he will remain. Let him speak, then, in his own voice, as he is accustomed: “No one has ever seen God, except the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father.” Faith in the nature did not seem to him sufficiently set out by the name of Son, unless the force of what is proper were added from outside by a word signifying exception. For by naming him not only Son but also Only-begotten, he cut away completely any suspicion of adoption, since the nature of the Only-begotten guarantees the truth of the name.

I do not yet ask what “who is in the bosom of the Father” means; that question has its own order. I ask what the meaning of “only-begotten” requires. And let us see whether it is what you profess him to be, that is, a perfect creature of God; so that “perfect” would belong to “only-begotten,” and “creature” would refer to “son.” But John called the only-begotten Son God, not a perfect creature. He was not unaware of these names of blasphemy, saying, “who is in the bosom of the Father,” and hearing from his Lord: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life.” God, loving the world, gave this testimony of his love for it, that he gave his only-begotten Son. If the proof of love lies in having provided a creature for creatures, having given for the world what belongs to the world, and having offered, to redeem things brought into being from nothing, one who came into being from nothing, then a cheap and contemptible loss does not make a faith of great merit. But it is precious things that commend love, and great things are valued by great. God, loving the world, gave a Son not adopted but his own, his only-begotten. Here is what is proper, here is birth, here is truth; not creation, not adoption, not falsehood. This is the proof of love and charity: to have given for the world's salvation a Son who is both his own and only-begotten.

I pass over all the titles given to the Son. Passing over is no loss when choice comes from abundance. The success of an undertaking always has a cause, and every work has a clear necessity for the task undertaken. In writing the Gospel, he surely had to give the reason for writing; and let us see what he showed it to be, when he says: “But these things are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.” He gave no other reason for writing the Gospel than that all might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. If it is enough for salvation to believe in Christ, why did he add “the Son of God”? But if faith in Christ is only this, to have believed not merely Christ but Christ the Son of God, then the name of Son in Christ, the only-begotten God, which is proper to him for salvation, does not come from the custom of adoption. If, then, salvation lies in confessing the name, I ask why there is no truth in the name. And if there is truth in the name, by what authority will he be called a creation, when it is not the confession of a creation but of a Son that will bring salvation?

This, then, is true salvation, this the merit of perfect faith: to have believed that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. For there is no love in us toward God the Father except through faith in the Son. And let us hear him speaking in his letter: “Everyone who loves the Father loves him who was born from him.” What, I ask, is it to be born from him? Is it the same as to be created through him? Or why does the evangelist lie, saying that he was born from him whom the heretic teaches rather to have been created through him? And let us all hear what this teacher says. For it is said: “This is the antichrist, who denies the Father and the Son.” What are you doing, champion of a creature, new maker of Christ from things that did not exist? If you hold the profession, recognize the name of the one who professes it. Or when you preach Father and Son as Creator and creature, do you think you can, by imitating the words of the names, avoid being understood to be an antichrist? If in your faith he is Father by nature and Son by nature, I am a slanderer, bringing against you the reproach of a name not yours. But if everything is feigned, and named rather than proper, learn from the apostle the surname of your faith, and hear what faith in the Son believed is. For there follows: “He who denies the Son does not have the Father either; he who confesses the Son has both the Son and the Father.” He who denies the Son lacks the Father; he who confesses and has the Son has the Father. I ask what place adoptive names have here. Is not this whole matter one of nature? And hear how much it is.

For he says: “For we know that the Son of God has come, and became flesh for us, and suffered, and rising from the dead took us to himself, and gave us the best understanding, that we may understand the true one and be in his true Son Jesus Christ: he is the true one, and eternal life, and our resurrection.” O unhappy understanding, lacking the Spirit of God and advancing toward the spirit and name of antichrist, not knowing that the Son of God came for the mystery of our salvation (and so unworthy of the sense of this best understanding), having confessed that Jesus Christ is a creature with an adoptive name rather than the true Son of God: by what secrets of hidden mysteries were you taught this? Or who today is the new author of this knowledge of yours? Did the Lord show it to you in secret when you reclined on his breast in the intimacy of love? Or, following alone to the cross, among the other commands to take Mary as your mother, did you learn this too in that special testimony of love toward you? Or did you obtain it running to the tomb before Peter? Or among the assemblies of angels and the unbreakable bonds of the sealed books, the manifold powers of heavenly signs, and the everlasting hymns of new and incomprehensible songs, was this pious teaching revealed to you by the Lamb as guide: that the Father is not father, the Son not son, the nature not nature, the truth not truth? For with you all these are changed into falsehoods. The apostle, granted the best understanding, calls him the true Son of God; you affirm creation, preach adoption, deny birth. And since this true Son of God is for us eternal life and resurrection, there is neither eternal life nor resurrection for one to whom he is not true. So says John, the disciple loved by the Lord.

But the apostle who became, from persecutor, the chosen vessel preached nothing unlike these things. For which of his words is not under the confession of the Son? Which letter did not begin from the mystery of this truth? In which name is there no signification of what is proper? For when it is said: “We were reconciled to God through the death of his Son”; and again: “God sent his Son in the likeness of sinful flesh”; and again: “God is faithful, through whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son”: what room is left here for the theft of the heretics? He is his own Son, his Son; not his adoption, not his creature. The name speaks the nature, the property declares the truth, the confession testifies to the faith: I do not understand what could be added to the nature of a son. For that he is the Son of him who is believed to be Father: the chosen vessel did not speak uncertainly or weakly, nor did the teacher of the nations and apostle of Christ leave the error of an ambiguous teaching. He knows who are sons by adoption, and who have earned by faith to be and be called this. For he says: “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery again to fear, but you received the spirit of adoption, in which we cry, Abba, Father.” This name belongs to our faith through the mystery of regeneration, and our profession gives us adoption. For works done according to the Spirit of God earn the name of sons of God; and “Abba, Father” is cried by us rather than remaining ours from the property of nature; for the act of the voice is outside the property of nature, and to be called and to be are not the same.

But let us understand what the Apostle's faith about the Son of God is. For although in all the speech he had for the teaching of the church he never spoke of the Father without confessing the Son, yet, to show the truth of this name with as much meaning as human speech could, he says: “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but handed him over for us.” Will there still be a naming by adoption in him in whom there is the name of what is proper? For the Apostle, wishing to show God's love toward us, so that the greatness of God's love might be known by a kind of comparison, taught that God did not spare his own Son: certainly not an adopted one for those to be adopted, nor a creature for creatures, but his own for strangers, his proper Son for those to be named sons with him. Seek the force of the saying, so that you may understand the greatness of the love. Weigh what “proper” is, so that you may not be ignorant of the truth. For here the Apostle says “own Son,” though elsewhere he had often said “his Son” or “the Son of him.” And though many manuscripts, through the simple understanding of translators, have in this place “his Son” instead of “his own Son,” yet the Greek, the language in which the Apostle spoke, here names him “own” rather than “his.” And although in common understanding there is not much difference between “own” and “his,” yet the Apostle, though in other sayings he had spoken of “his Son,” which in Greek is τὸν ἑαυτοῦ υἱόν, in this place, where he says ὅς γε τοῦ ἰδίου υἱοῦ, “who did not spare his own Son,” expressed the truth of the nature pointedly: so that he who had shown above many sons through the spirit of adoption should now show the only-begotten God as the Son who is his own.

This is not a human error, nor is there a fault of ignorance in denying the Son of God, where what is denied cannot be unknown. The Son of God is called a creature subsisting from nothing. If neither the Father said this, nor the Son testified it, nor the Apostle preached it, yet to dare to say it is not merely not to know Christ but to hate him. For when the Father says of his Son, “This is,” and the Son says of himself, “He who speaks with you is he,” and Peter confesses, “You are,” and John testifies, “This is the true one,” and Paul does not cease to preach of the “own” Son, I understand nothing else but a hatred that denies, where the error of inexperience is no excuse for the crime. He who will afterward speak in the Antichrist is meanwhile speaking these things, speaking plainly through the prophets and forerunners of his coming, disturbing the saving confession of faith with these new assaults: first to tear from our consciousness, since we believe so, the understanding of a natural Son; then to shut out even the remaining name, which will be adoptive. For with those in whose view Christ is a creature, the Antichrist himself must be Christ; since a creature does not have the property of a son, and that one will falsely claim to be the Son of God; and so by those who now deny that this one is the Son of God, that one will then be believed to be Christ.

What hopes, I ask, empty fury, do you seek? And with what confidence in your salvation do you contend with blasphemous mouth that Christ is a creature rather than a Son? You ought to have known and held the mystery of this faith from the Gospels. For though the Lord can do all things, yet in each of those who prayed for the effect of his working he willed there to be the merit of confession. Not that the confession of the one praying added power to him who is the Power of God; but to earn this was the reward of faith. For when he asked Martha, who was pleading for Lazarus, whether she did not believe that those who believed in him would never die, she spoke out the faith of her heart in reply, saying: “Yes, Lord, I have believed that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who have come into this world.” This confession is eternity, and this faith does not die. Martha, begging for her brother's life, when asked whether she believed so, believed so. What life, I ask, or from whom, does the one who denies this expect, when to believe so is the only life? For great is the mystery of this faith, and the blessedness of this confession is perfect.

The Lord had granted sight to a man blind from birth, and the Lord of nature had removed a loss of nature. And because this blind man had been born for the glory of God, so that the work of God might be understood in the work of Christ, no faith of confession was awaited from him; but he who did not know the author of so great a gift in receiving his eyes earned this afterward, to learn the faith. For the removal of blindness did not bring eternal life. Therefore the Lord asks him, already healed and cast out of the synagogue: “Do you believe in the Son of God?” So that he might not think it a loss to be without the synagogue, since this faith, once confessed, would give back to him immortality. And when he, still uncertain, had answered, “Who is he, Lord, that I may believe in him?” the Lord, not wishing the ignorance of the man to remain, whom after the recovery of his eyes he was rewarding with the understanding of so great a faith, said: “You have seen him, and he who speaks with you is he.” Does the Lord ask of this man, as of others who prayed for healing, a confession of faith to earn health? Certainly not. For he spoke these things to the blind man already seeing; but only so that he might answer, “I believe, Lord”; because the faith of the answer would bring not the healing of blindness, but life. And let us examine carefully the force of this saying. The Lord asks: “Do you believe in the Son of God?” If any confession of Christ whatever were the completion of faith, it would have been said, “Do you believe in Christ?” But because almost all heretics would have this name in their mouths, confessing Christ and yet denying the Son, what is proper to Christ is required for faith, namely, that one believe in the Son of God. But what does it profit to have believed in the Son of God, if one believes in a creature, since faith in Christ is required of us not as in a creature of God but as in the Son?

Or did the demons not know the proper meaning of this name? It is fitting that the heretics be refuted no longer by apostolic teaching but by the mouth of demons. For they cry out, and often cry out: “What have I to do with you, Jesus, Son of the most high God?” The truth drew out a confession from the unwilling, and the pain of obeying testifies to the power of his nature. They are conquered by power when they leave bodies long possessed; they pay honor when they confess his nature. Christ meanwhile testifies, by work and by name, that he is the Son of God. Where among these voices of confessing demons, heretic, do you find the name of a creature and the indulgence of adoption?

Learn what Christ is at least from those who do not know him, so that the very confession forced from the ignorant may convict your impiety. For though the Jews did not know Christ in the body, they nevertheless knew that he who was the Christ was the Son of God; when they were using false witnesses against him, without any assertion of truth, the priest asks him thus: “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?” Not knowing the mystery, they are yet not ignorant of the nature. They do not ask whether the Christ is the Son of God, but whether this man is the Christ, the Son of God. The error is about the man, not about the Son of God. For there is no doubt that the Christ is the Son of God; and so, when it is asked whether this man is he, it is still not denied that the Christ is the Son of God. And with what faith, I ask, do you deny what not even those who do not know deny? For since perfect knowledge is to know that Christ the Son of God, abiding before the ages, was also born of the Virgin, even those who do not know that he was born of Mary nevertheless know that he is the Son of God. And see into what fellowship with Jewish impiety you have mixed yourself by denying the Son of God. For they testify what reason they brought for condemning him, saying: “And according to the law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God.” Is not this also the reproach of your impious voice, why he calls himself Son, whom you assert to be a creature? He, by confessing himself the Son of God, is judged guilty of death by them; you, by denying that he is the Son of God, what judgment, I ask, do you pass? For his profession displeases you as it did the Jews. I ask whether you remain of a different verdict from those from whom you do not differ in will. For with the same impiety you deny that he is the Son of God. Yet their crime is less, in that they do not know. For they do not know that Christ is from Mary, but they do not doubt that the Christ is the Son of God. You, because you cannot be ignorant that Christ is from Mary, nevertheless do not preach that Christ is the Son of God. For them, in what they do not know, salvation can still be safe if they believe; for you all ways to salvation are now shut, since you deny what you can no longer be ignorant of. For you are not ignorant that he is the Son of God, so much so that you grant the name of adoption, so as to call falsely a creature named “son” with others. Taking away the nature as far as you can, you would take away the name as well if you were allowed. But since that is not allowed, you do not leave the nature to the name, so that what is called a son may not be the true Son of God.

You had, in the confession of those for whom, when the wind raged and the sea was troubled, calm was restored at the command of his word, a reason for you too to confess the true Son of God and to earn it with their words: “Truly he is the Son of God.” But a raging spirit drags you into the shipwreck of life, and a storm, pressing on the movements of your mind as on a stormy sea, masters you.

If this faith of the sailors seems to you uncertain because it will be thought to be that of the apostles, to me, though it offers less to wonder at, it brings more authority. But take also the faith of the Gentiles in him; for hear a soldier of the Roman cohort, subdued to faith amid the harsh guard of the cross. For the centurion, seeing the works of so great a power, says: “Truly this was the Son of God.” This is testified, after he gave up his spirit, by the torn veil of the temple, the shaken earth, the split rocks, the opened tombs, and the dead rising; and a man of Gentile unbelief confesses it: he recognizes the nature of power in the deeds, he professes the truth of the nature in the name. So great is the reasoning of truth and so great the force of faith that the compulsion of the truth overcomes the will, and not even one of those who had crucified him denied that Christ, the Lord of eternal glory, is truly the Son of God.

This seventh book is being written by us against the mad rashness of the new heresy: later than the others before it in number, but first, or greatest, for understanding the mystery of perfect faith. We are not unaware how difficult and steep is the road of gospel teaching that we are climbing. And though we are called back from it by the trembling of a mind conscious of its weakness, yet, driven by the heat of faith, stirred by the fury of the heretics, and troubled by the danger of the ignorant, we cannot be silent about what we do not dare to speak: subject to fear of both dangers, lest either our silence or our preaching be guilty of deserting the truth. For heretical subtlety has surrounded itself with incredible arts of a corrupted mind: first to feign religion, then to deceive with words the security of all simple ears, further to fit itself to the wisdom of the world, and finally to turn away the understanding of the truth under the appearance of a reasoning set forth. For by declaring one God, it feigned piety; by professing again the Son of God, it deceived its hearers in the name; by saying also that he was not before he was born, it satisfied the wisdom of the world; and by confessing God unchangeable and incorporeal, it excluded, by the display of a crafty reasoning, the birth of God from God: using our teachings against us, and fighting with the church's faith against the church's faith, preparing against us the most grievous danger either of answering or of silence, while through things that are not denied it preaches things that are denied.

And indeed we remember that in all the earlier books we warned our readers, as they examined the whole published blasphemy, to notice that its only labor was that our Lord Jesus Christ should be believed to be neither Son of God nor God, since, while names are granted him only by a kind of adoption, the nature both of God and of Son is denied him: since God is affirmed to be unchangeable and incorporeal, as indeed he is, for this reason, that the Son may not be born from God; and God the Father is the one God in their confession only so that Christ may not be God in our faith; for an incorporeal nature, they say, does not admit the understanding of a birth, and one God alone in confession dissolves for us the faith of God from God. But in the earlier books we taught from the Law and the Prophets against this deceitful and useless preaching of theirs, and kept a form of answer which, preaching God from God and professing one true God, neither fell short into the union of one true God nor went beyond into faith in another God; since in our confession God is neither solitary nor two. And meanwhile, neither denying nor confessing a mere one, the completeness of faith has been preserved, since what they are as one is referred to both, and yet each is not the one. Intending, then, to complete this indissoluble mystery of perfect faith from the teachings of the Gospels and apostles, our first duty was simply to make known to our hearers that the Son of God has the subsisting nature of a true birth, and to make plain that the Son is neither from elsewhere nor from nothing, but from God. And since, according to what was set out in the previous book, there can be no doubt that, the name of adoption being set aside, he is true Son by the truth of birth, we now bring forward from the Gospels also that, because he is true Son, he may be known to be true God as well: for he will be neither true Son unless he is also true God, nor true God unless he is also true Son.

Nothing is heavier for human nature than awareness of danger (for what is unknown or sudden has indeed a pitiable security, but has no fear of the future); because for one not ignorant of what may happen, anxiety itself is the punishment of suffering. I am not now setting a ship out of harbor ignorant of shipwreck, nor entering a road unaware of forests infested by robbers, nor crossing the sands of Libya uncertain whether scorpions, asps, and basilisks are everywhere: nothing is free of my anxiety, nothing of my awareness. For I speak under the watch of all the heretics, hanging on my mouth for the chance of every single word, and every path of my discourse is either broken by narrow places, cut by pits, or stretched with snares. That it is steep and difficult I complain less: for I climb not by my own steps but by the apostles'. But for me to step aside from the narrow way, or fall into what is dug, or be entangled in nets, is always in danger, always in fear. For as I am about to preach one God according to the Law, the Prophets, and the Apostles, Sabellius is at hand, swallowing me whole with the cruellest bite under the profession of this word, like a longed-for meal. If again I deny one God in Sabellius's sense and confess the Son of God as true God, the new heresy waits to accuse me of preaching two gods. When I am about to say that the Son of God was born of Mary, Ebion, who is Photinus, stands by, ready to take authority for his lie from the truth of my profession. I say nothing of the rest, whom all know to be outside the church. But this evil, though often condemned and cast out, is still an internal one today. Galatia impiously nourished many to profess one God. Alexandria wickedly produced, almost throughout the whole world, those who deny two gods. Pannonia defends, pestilently, that Jesus Christ was born only of Mary. And amid these the church is in danger of not holding the truth through true things, while things are pressed upon her for irreligion by which religion is both confirmed and lost. For we cannot piously preach one God if we preach him as solitary, because the Son will not be God in a faith of a solitary God. But when we preach the Son of God as God, as he is, we are in danger of not holding the faith of one God; and to deny one God is the same danger as to confess a solitary one. And the foolish of the world do not perceive these things, since to them one does not seem to be signified in one not solitary, nor can one be understood without being solitary.

But the church, I hope, will bring the light of her teaching even to the imprudence of the world, so that, though it does not accept the mystery of faith, it may understand that the truth of the mystery is preached by us against the heretics. For great is the power of truth, which, though it can be understood by itself, shines out through the very things that oppose it: so that, remaining unmoved in its nature, it gains the firmness of its nature daily while it is attacked. For it is proper to the church to conquer when she is wounded, to be understood when she is accused, to prevail when she is deserted. She would wish all to remain with her and within her, and would neither cast out nor lose any from her most peaceful bosom, as they become unworthy of the home of so great a mother; but when heretics depart from her or are cast out, as much as she loses the opportunity of granting salvation from herself, so much she gains for faith in the blessedness to be sought from her. This is most readily known from the very zeal of the heretics. For since the church, established by the Lord and confirmed by the apostles, is one for all, from which the raging error of various impieties has cut itself off; and it cannot be denied that disagreement in faith arose from the fault of bad understanding, while what is read is fitted to the opinion rather than the opinion obeying what is read; yet, while the separate parties oppose one another, she is to be understood not only from her own teachings but from those of her opponents: so that, while all are against her alone, she refutes the most impious error of all by the very fact that she alone is one. All heretics, then, come against the church; but while all heretics conquer one another, they win nothing for themselves. For their victory is the church's triumph over all, since one heresy fights against another with what the church's faith condemns in the other heresy (for there is nothing common to the heretics); and meanwhile, as they oppose one another, they confirm our faith.

Sabellius preaches one God, taking away the birth of the Son, while he does not doubt that the power of the nature that worked in the man is God. For, ignorant of the mystery of the Son, he lost faith in a true generation through wonder at the deeds; and when he hears, “He who has seen me has seen the Father also,” he impiously seized on a union of an undistinguished and not unlike nature in Father and Son, not understanding that a natural unity is shown under the signification of birth: since the fact that the Father is seen in the Son is a confirmation of divinity, not an abolition of birth. The knowledge of the one in the other, then, comes because the one does not differ from the other in nature; and in that in which they differ in nothing, there is an undifferentiated beholding of the property of nature. Nor indeed can it be doubted that he who abode in the form of God showed from himself the appearance of the form of God. This saying of the Lord also feeds the foolish fury of this perverse opinion: “I and the Father are one.” For the unity of a nature not unlike led irreligiously to the error of union, and the force alone being understood did not hold the meaning of the saying. For “I and the Father are one” does not signify a solitary one. For the conjunction that signifies “and the Father” does not admit the understanding of one person; and “are” does not allow a singular; but “are one” does not take away the birth, but does not separate the nature in its kind; since “one” is not of difference, nor “are” of a single person.

Set against this madness the madness of the present heretics, so that they may stand against Sabellius. They will claim to have read, “The Father is greater than I”; and, understanding nothing either of the mystery of the birth or of the mystery of God's emptying himself and taking flesh, they will make a diminution of nature out of the profession of “greater.” For they will contend against Sabellius that the Son exists, to the extent that he is less than the Father, that he asks back his former honor, that he fears to die, and that he died. But on the other side Sabellius defends the nature of God in the deeds; and while this new heresy will not deny one God, so as not to believe the Son God, Sabellius will keep one God in his profession so that there may be no Son at all. The one will press the Son working; the other will contend that God is in the works. The one will say one; the other will deny one God. Sabellius will defend himself thus: “The works that were done, no nature but God's accomplishes: the forgiveness of sins, the healing of sicknesses, the running of the lame, the sight of the blind, the life of the dead is from God alone. No other nature than one conscious of itself would say, ‘I and the Father are one.’ Why do you drag me into another substance? Why do you urge me toward another God? The deeds that are proper to God, the one God did.” But against this those who preach a Son unlike God the Father will cry out with no less viperous mouth: “You do not know the mystery of salvation; the Son must be believed, through whom the ages were made, through whom man was formed, who gave the Law through angels, who was born of Mary, who was sent by the Father, who was crucified, died, and was buried, who, rising from the dead, is at the right hand of God, who is judge of the living and the dead. In him we must be reborn, him we must confess, his kingdom we must earn.” Each enemy of the church does the church's business: Sabellius preaches God from his nature in the works, and these confess the Son of God from the mystery of faith.

And now, by what victory of our faith Ebion, who is Photinus, either conquers or is conquered: while he refutes Sabellius for denying that the man is the Son of God, and is refuted by the Ario-maniacs for not knowing the Son of God in the man. Against Sabellius he defends the Gospels for himself from the son of Mary; Arius does not leave him the Gospels through the son of Mary alone. Against Sabellius, who denies the Son, the man is claimed by Photinus as the Son; by Arius, against Photinus, who does not know the Son before the ages, it is denied that the Son of God is only from man. Let them conquer as they wish, since by conquering one another they are conquered: while these present ones are refuted about the nature of God, Sabellius is refuted about the mystery of the Son, and Photinus is convicted either of not knowing or of denying the Son of God born before the ages. But meanwhile the faith of the church, founded on the teachings of the Gospels and apostles, holds against Sabellius the profession of the Son, against Arius the nature of God, and against Photinus the creator of the world: and this all the more truly because these things are not denied by them to one another. For Sabellius preaches the nature of God in the works, but does not know the Son working. They name the Son, but do not confess the truth of God's nature in him. Photinus claims the man, but in the man he claims he does not know the birth of God before the ages. So, while each defends or condemns, the very things that each religiously defends or condemns, as they are, show the truth of our faith.

These things, then, I had to show briefly, not from a love of abundance but for caution: first, so that all the heretics' positions might be known to be uncertain and wandering, since they disagree with one another to our advantage; and then so that no one might hold me, as I resist the blasphemous professions of those who are now, and preach God the Father and God the Son of God, and profess that the Father and the Son are of one name and nature, in a not unlike kind of divinity, to be in the error either of two gods or, on the other hand, of a single and solitary God; since neither union would be found in God the Father and God the Son as preached, nor would a diversity of gods fit with the showing of a nature not separated. Now, since in the previous book we answered from the Gospels those who deny that the Son of God subsists from God by the truth of birth, we must show that he who is truly Son of God by nature is truly God by nature as well: yet in such a way that our faith is not lost either to a single God or to another God; since it will neither preach one God as solitary, nor confess him as not one by confessing him not solitary.

We know our Lord Jesus Christ as God, then, in these ways: by name, by birth, by nature, by power, by profession. And about the name I think there is no ambiguity. For we read: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” What slander is there, that he should not be what he is called? Or is a name not a signification of nature? And since every contradiction has a cause, I now ask the cause for denying God here. For the naming is simple and free from the stumbling block of an added qualification. For the Word who became flesh is nothing other than God. No suspicion is left here of an attributed or assumed naming, as though what is God should have the name not from nature.

Look at other names, either attributed or assumed. It was said to Moses: “I have made you a god to Pharaoh.” But is not the reason for the name added, when it says “to Pharaoh”? Or did he bring the nature of God to him, and not rather terror upon one who would fear, when Moses' serpent, soon to be a rod again, swallows the magicians' serpents; when he drives away the swarm of flies he had sent; when he turns away the hail by the power by which he had called it; when he drove back the locusts by the power by which he had brought them; when the magicians confess at his works that it is the finger of God? So Moses was given as a god to Pharaoh, while he is feared, while he is entreated, while he punishes, while he heals. And it is one thing to be given as a god, another to be God. For he was given as a god to Pharaoh; but he does not have both the nature and the name of God. I remember also another naming, where it is said, “I said, You are gods”; but in it there is the signification of a name granted. And where “I said” is added, it is the speech of the speaker rather than the name of the thing; for the name of a thing brings the understanding of the thing, but the will to name comes from another. And where the author of the naming shows himself, there the naming is by the word of the author, not a natural name in kind.

But here the Word is God: the reality exists in the Word, and the reality of the Word is declared in the name. For the name “Word” in the Son of God comes from the mystery of his birth, as do the names Wisdom and Power: which, though they came into existence as God the Son with the substance of a true birth, are yet not lacking to God, as his own, though born from him as God. For, as we have often said, we preach not a mystery of division in the Son, but of birth. Nor was there an imperfect separation, but a perfect offspring: because birth does not have a loss in begetting, since it holds the gain of being born. And therefore the only-begotten God has been given the names of those things which, while they complete him as subsisting from birth, yet are in the Father by the power of an unchangeable nature. For the only-begotten God is the Word, but the unbegotten Father is never at all without the Word: not that the Son's nature is the utterance of a voice; but God, subsisting from God with the truth of birth, was signified in “Word” so that he might be taught to be the Father's own and inseparable from him through no difference of nature. Just as Christ is the wisdom and power of God, not, as is usually understood, an effective movement of an inner power or mind, but a nature possessing through birth the truth of substance, signified by the names of these inner things. For what subsists by being born cannot be seen to be the very thing which is always within each person. But the only-begotten Son, born from the eternal God the Father as subsisting God, was shown as subsisting by these names of properties, which he did not lack from whom he subsisted, so that he could be understood not to be foreign to the nature of the Father's divinity. God, then, who is, is nothing other than God. For when I hear, “And the Word was God,” I do not hear only that the Word is said to be God, but I understand it shown that he is what God is: for as above, in Moses as god and in those named gods, a name was added by way of address; here, however, the reality of substance is signified when it is said, “He was God.” For “to be” is not an accidental name, but subsisting truth, abiding cause, and the natural property of a kind.

And let us see whether the confession of the apostle Thomas follows this preaching of the evangelist, when he says, “My Lord and my God.” He whom he confesses as God is his God. And certainly he was not ignorant of the Lord's saying, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one”: and how did apostolic faith become forgetful of the chief commandment, so as to confess Christ as God, when life was to be lived in the confession of one God? But the Apostle, understanding the faith of the whole mystery through the power of the resurrection, having often heard, “I and the Father are one,” and, “All that the Father has is mine,” and, “I am in the Father, and the Father in me,” now confessed the name of the nature without danger to faith: because religion, confessing the Son of God as God, would not fall away from the profession of one God the Father, since nothing but the truth of the Father's nature was believed to be in the Son of God; nor would faith in one nature be endangered under an impious confession of another God, since the perfect birth of God had not brought the nature of another God. Understanding the truth of the gospel mystery, then, Thomas confessed his Lord and his God. This is not a name of honor, but a confession of nature: for he believed in God by the very realities and powers. And the Lord taught that the devotion of this profession was one not of honor but of faith, saying: “Because you have seen, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.” For Thomas believed by seeing. But you ask what he believed. What else did he believe than what he professed: “My Lord and my God”? For only the nature of God could have risen from the dead to life by itself; and the faith of the religion believed professed this, that he is God. Will the name of God, then, be thought not a reality of nature, when the profession of the name followed faith in the nature believed? For surely a devoted Son, who did not his own will but the will of him who sent him, and who sought not his own honor but the honor of him from whom he had come, would have refused the honor of this name in himself, lest what he himself had preached, one God, should be undone. But truly confirming the mystery of apostolic faith, and acknowledging in himself the name of the Father's nature, he taught that those are blessed who, though they had not seen him rising from the dead, have yet believed him to be God through understanding the resurrection.

The name of the nature, then, does not abandon the profession of our faith. For the name that signifies each thing also shows a thing of the same kind; and there are not now two things, but a thing of the same kind. For the Son of God is God; this is what is signified by the name. One name does not count up two gods, because God is the one name of one undivided nature. For since the Father is God and the Son is God, and the proper name of the divine nature is in both, both are one: because, while the Son subsists from the birth of the nature, he yet keeps the unity in the name; and the Son's birth does not force the faith of believers to profess two gods, since it professes the Father and the Son to be of one name as of one nature. The Son of God, then, has the name from his birth. For this is our second step in the demonstration: that he is God by birth. Though there still remains for me the apostolic authority concerning the proper use of the name, meanwhile I wish to treat the words of the Gospel.

And first I ask what newness the birth of the Son could bring into the nature so that he would not be God. The understanding of human sense excludes that anything should become, by being born, different from the nature of its origin; unless perhaps something conceived from a difference of natures comes into life as something new in itself (and so of both kinds, so as to be neither), as is common among cattle and beasts. But even this newness is present only from inborn properties under a difference of nature; and birth did not bring in their difference, but received it, holding what is one for it from both. And since these things are so in bodily causes and passions, what madness is it, I ask, to refer the birth of the only-begotten God to a nature degenerate from God, when birth is only from the property of the nature, and it will no longer be birth if the property of the nature has not been in the birth? From this comes all that heat and fury, that in the Son of God there should be not birth but creation; that, subsisting, he should not hold the origin of his own nature, but take one foreign to God from things that did not exist: because, according to his saying, “What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit,” since God is spirit, there can be no doubt that nothing different and foreign from the one from whom he was born is in the one born. The birth of God, then, makes God perfect, so that God is understood not to have begun but to have been born: because to have begun can be different from being born, since everything that begins either comes into existence from nothing into something, or advances from one thing into another and ceases; as gold from earth, liquids from solids, hot things from cold, red from white, living creatures from waters, the living from the lifeless. But the Son of God did not begin to be God from nothing, but was born; nor was he anything else before he was God. And so he who was born God neither began nor advanced to what God is. The birth, then, holds the nature from which he subsisted, and the Son of God subsists as nothing other than what God is.

Or if anyone doubts on this point, let him learn an understanding of the nature from the Jews, or rather let him learn the truth of the birth from the Gospel, in which it is written: “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.” Here it is not, as is usual elsewhere, the speech of the Jews reported as said by them; rather this is the evangelist's explanation, showing the reason why the Jews wished to kill the Lord. The excuse of a faulty understanding, then, ceases for the impiety of the blasphemers, since by the Apostle's authority the natural property has been shown under the signification of birth: he called God his own Father, making himself equal to God. Is it not a natural birth, where through the name of his own Father the equality of nature is shown? For there is no doubt that equality has no difference. Who, moreover, will doubt that an undiffering nature follows from birth? For from this alone comes the only equality that can truly exist: because birth alone can provide equality of nature. But equality will never be believed to exist where there is union; nor will it be found where there is difference. So the equality of likeness has neither solitude nor diversity: because all equality is neither diverse nor solitary.

Although, then, the judgments of our understanding here are shared with the opinion of human sense, that birth has equality of nature, and that where there is equality there can be nothing foreign to itself nor solitary, yet the faith of this discussion of ours must also be confirmed from the Lord's own words, so that the rashness of contradiction may not, under the freedom of a different understanding of names, dare to oppose the declarations of God's testimony about himself. For the Lord answered: “The Son can do nothing of himself, except what he sees the Father doing; for whatever he does, the Son also does likewise. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself does; and he will show him greater works than these, so that you may marvel. For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so the Son also gives life to whom he will. For the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son, so that all may honor the Son as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him.” The order of our proposition indeed required that each kind of each cause be treated separately; so that, since we had learned that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God by name, birth, nature, power, and profession, our demonstration might run through each step of the arrangement proposed. But the nature of the birth does not allow this, since it alone embraces in itself name, nature, power, and profession. For without these there will be no birth, since by being born it contains all these in itself. In treating it, then, we have fallen into the necessity of not being able to postpone the matters mentioned above to the order of their own treatment.

For the Lord, answering the Jews, who wished to kill him all the more because, calling God his Father, he had made himself equal to God, set out the whole mystery of our faith while contradicting their impious motives. For he had said earlier, when, after the paralytic was healed, he was judged guilty of breaking the Sabbath and even deserving death: “My Father is working until now, and I am working.” And from this all their envy was kindled, because he had made himself equal to God by claiming the name of Father. Wishing, then, both to confirm his birth and to profess the power of his nature, he says: “The Son can do nothing of himself, except what he sees the Father doing.” The beginning of his answer was fitted against the impious motive of the Jews, by which they were driven even to the will to kill him. For to the charge of breaking the Sabbath brought against him he had said, “My Father is working until now, and I am working,” so that he might be understood to have claimed this by the authority of an example; yet signifying that what he himself did must be understood as the Father's work, since the Father was working in him as he worked. And again, against the envy by which he had made himself equal to God through the name of Father, he added: “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of himself, except what he sees the Father doing.” So that this equality through the name and nature of son might not take away faith in the birth, he says that the Son can do nothing of himself except what he has seen the Father doing. And so that the saving order of our confession in the Father and the Son might remain, he showed the nature of the birth, which took the power of acting not by increments of strength granted for each work, but drew it beforehand from knowledge; and drew it not from some example of a bodily work, as though the Father first did something toward what the Son would do afterward; but since the nature of God had come to subsist into the nature of God, that is, the Son had been born from the Father, he testified that, through consciousness of the Father's power and nature in himself, the Son can do nothing of himself except what he has seen the Father doing; and since the only-begotten God worked by the workings of the Father's power, he claimed for himself as much to do as he was conscious that the nature of God the Father, inseparable from him, which he possessed through a lawful birth, could do. For God does not see in bodily ways, but all his seeing is in the power of his nature.

Then he added: “For whatever the Father does, the Son also does likewise.” He added “likewise” to signify the birth; he spoke of “all” and “the same” to show the truth of the nature. For in what are “all,” “whatever,” and “the same,” there can be neither difference nor remainder. And so he is in the same nature whose nature can do all the same things. But where all the same things are done likewise through the Son, the likeness of the works excluded the solitude of the worker: so that all that the Father does, the Son also does all the same things likewise. This is the understanding of a true birth, and the most complete mystery of our faith, which, from the unity of the divine nature, confesses the truth of one undifferentiated divinity in the Father and the Son: that the Son, doing the same things, does them likewise, and, doing them likewise, the things he does are the same; because under one signification these testify both to the birth, by “done likewise,” and to the nature, by “the same done.”

The order of the Lord's answer, then, keeps the whole order of the church's faith, neither separating the nature nor failing to signify the birth. For this follows: “For the Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself does; and he will show him greater works than these, so that you may marvel. For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so the Son also gives life to whom he will.” Does the showing of the works press on us here anything else than faith in the birth, so that we believe in a Son subsisting from God the Father who subsists? Unless perhaps the only-begotten God is to be believed to have needed the teaching of a showing through ignorance; but the rashness of this impious opinion is not admitted. For one who knows whatever he is to be taught does not need to be taught. For after he said, “The Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself does,” to show that all this showing by the Father is teaching for our faith, so that both the Father and the Son might be in our confession, and so that no ignorance might be understood in the Son, to whom the Father showed all the works he did, he at once said: “And he will show him greater works than these, so that you may marvel. For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so the Son also gives life to whom he will.” The showing of the future work, then, is not unknown to the Son, to whom it is to be shown that, after the example of the Father's nature, he gives life to the dead. For he says the Father will show the Son things at which they will marvel; and what those same things were he soon taught: “For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so the Son also gives life to whom he will.” The power is made equal by the unity of a nature not unlike. And the showing of the works is not instruction for ignorance, but for our faith: it brought not knowledge of unknown things to the Son, but confession of the birth to us, confirming it through the fact that all that he could do had been shown to him. Nor did the heavenly word act without circumspection, lest perhaps the signification of a different nature should creep in under the occasion of an ambiguous saying. For he says that the Father's works were shown to him, rather than that a nature of power was added to him for working them: so that the showing itself might be taught to belong to the substance of the birth, to which, through the Father's love, knowledge of the Father's works, which he willed to be done through him, was inborn. Moreover, lest, through the profession of being shown, a difference of nature, as of one ignorant, be believed in him, he is not ignorant of the very things he professes are to be shown. So far is he from acting on the authority of an example, that he gives life to whom he will. For to will is the freedom of a nature which subsists with the will of choice in the blessedness of perfect power.

And lest his giving life to whom he wills should seem not to have the nature of birth in it, but to subsist by right of an unborn power, he at once added: “For the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son.” And in all judgment having been given, both nature and birth are shown: because only an undifferentiated nature could have all things, and a birth cannot have anything unless it is given. All judgment has been given, because he gives life to whom he wills. Nor can judgment seem to have been taken from the Father, though he does not judge: because the Son's judgment is from the Father's judgment; for all judgment was given by him. But the reason for giving judgment is not passed over in silence. For there follows: “But he has given all judgment to the Son, so that all may honor the Son as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him.” What, then, I ask, is left for suspicion, or what remains as a pretext for impiety? The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son. And the reason for giving judgment is that the Son may be of equal honor with the Father, and that whoever dishonors the Son dishonors the Father too. And how after this is the nature of the birth understood to differ, when not only working, power, and honor, but even the insult of denied honor makes them equal? The word of the divine answer, then, shows nothing other than the mystery of the birth. Nor could or should the Son be distinguished from the Father otherwise than by being taught both to have been born and yet not to differ.

The Father, then, works until now, and the Son works. You have the names of nature, since both the Father works and the Son. Understand also the nature of God working, through which God works. And lest perhaps you think two workings of unlike natures are to be understood, remember what was said of the blind man: “But that the works of God might be made manifest in him: I must work the works of him who sent me.” In what the Son works, then, is the Father's work; and the Son's work is the work of God. And the discussion of works continues later. Meanwhile, the answer was concerned only with referring every work to both, while the nature of working of both did not differ, since in what the Father works until now, the Son also works; lest he who is lord of the Sabbath (for the Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath) should be believed to work impiously on the Sabbath, whose work, through the nature of birth, had in it the authority of the Father's work. The nature, then, is not confused or abolished, so that he is not a son; nor again is the nature taken away, so that he is not God. Nor are they separated by difference, so that they are not one; nor can their being one bring it about that there are not two. And first recognize the Son, when it is said: “The Son can do nothing of himself, except what he sees the Father doing.” You have the birth of a son, which can do nothing of itself unless it sees. In that he can do nothing of himself, he removes the error of being unbegotten; for a birth cannot have power of itself; but in that he sees, the recognition of a nature conscious in itself is signified. And in this now recognize the true nature of God: “For whatever he does, the Son also does likewise.” After the power of the nature, understand thereby the unity of a nature not unlike: “That all may honor the Son as they honor the Father who sent him.” And lest the unity of nature hold you in the union of a solitary one, learn in this the mystery of faith: “He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him.” Everything is shut against the devices of heretical fury. He is Son, because he can do nothing of himself; he is God, because whatever the Father does, he also does the same; they are one, because he is made equal in honor and does the same things, not other ones; he is not the Father himself, because he was sent. The birth alone, then, has this mystery, that it embraces in itself name, nature, power, and profession: because every birth cannot fail to be in the nature from which it is born. It does not bring a substance of a foreign kind, because from one there does not subsist something foreign. And what is not foreign to itself is one in the kind of nature; and whatever is one through birth does not have solitude, because solitude is singular, and the unity of birth belongs to both.

And besides this, let the testimony of God's own judgment about himself stand by. For he says: “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me, and I give them eternal life, and they will not perish forever, nor will anyone snatch them out of my hand. What the Father has given me is greater than all; no one can snatch it out of my Father's hand. I and the Father are one.” What stupor of a dull mind, I ask, blunts our understanding, so that these things, said so plainly, do not enter our sense? Or what swelling of an insolent mind mocks human weakness, so that, having gained knowledge of God from these words, men think God is not to be understood in the words by which he became known? Either other Gospels must be brought forward which teach otherwise; or, if these alone have taught about God, why do we not believe as we are taught? And if knowledge is taken from these alone, why is faith not from the same source as knowledge? But when faith is found to be opposed to knowledge, it is no longer the faith of knowledge but of crime, taking to itself an irreligious faith against the religion of a knowledge confessed. The only-begotten God, then, conscious of his own nature in himself, signifies the ineffable mystery of his own birth, for the confession of our faith, with as much completeness of words as he can: that he may be understood to be born, believed to be in the nature of God, to be one with the Father, and, in professing himself one with the Father, yet not to lose being the Son by being understood as solitary and the Father himself. For first he testifies to the power of his nature, when he says of his sheep, “Nor will anyone snatch them out of my hand.” This is the voice of conscious power, confessing the freedom of undisturbed strength in that no one snatches the sheep from his hand. But so that, though in the nature of God, the birth of the nature from God might be understood, he added: “What the Father has given me is greater than all.” He does not hide that he was born from the Father; for what he received from the Father is greater than all. And he who received it is in what he received by being born, not afterward; and yet he is from another, since he received. But lest he who received from another should be understood to exist as something else rather than in the nature of the one from whom he received, he says: “No one can snatch from my Father's hand.” No one snatches from his hand, because he received from the Father what is greater than all. What does so different a profession mean, that again no one snatches from his Father's hand? The hand that received from the Father is the Son's; the hand that gave to the Son is the Father's: and how is what is not snatched from the hand of the Son not snatched from the hand of the Father? If you ask how, understand: “I and the Father are one.” The Son's hand is the Father's hand. For the nature does not degenerate through birth so as not to be the same; nor again, because it is the same, does it hinder the understanding of birth, since birth admits nothing foreign into itself. So that, through a bodily signification, you may know the power of the same nature, the Son's hand is said to be the Father's hand, because the nature and power of the Father were in the Son. Finally, so that through the mystery of the birth you might recognize the truth of an undifferentiated nature, it was said: “I and the Father are one”: so that their being one might be believed to be neither different nor solitary, since through the property of birth and generation no other nature exists in either.

The will of mad minds remains, as far as can be understood, though the effect of the will has ceased; and zeal for malice does not abandon a malignant spirit, though the occasion for an evil work is absent. For now the fury of the heretics, since the Lord is already seated in heaven and they cannot drive him to the cross after the example of the Jews, with equal unbelief denies that he is what he is; and though they cannot deny what was said, yet, not obeying what was said, they exercise the hatred of impiety, throw stones of words, and, if they could, would drag him back from his throne to the cross. Of the Jews, stirred at the novelty of this saying, it is written thus: “The Jews therefore took up stones to stone him. He answered them: I have shown you many good works from the Father; for which of these works do you stone me? The Jews answered him: We do not stone you for a good work but for blasphemy, and because you, being a man, make yourself God.” But you, heretic, recognize what you do and profess, and understand that you are a partner of those whose example of unbelief you reproduce in yourself. For at the saying, “I and the Father are one,” the Jews raised stones, and their impious resentment, impatient of the mystery of saving faith, broke out even to an attempt to kill. What less do you accomplish by denying, having no one to stone? The will does not differ; but the heavenly throne makes your will ineffective. How much more irreligious are you than the Jew? He raises stones against the body, you against the Spirit; he against a man, as he thought, you against God; he against one dwelling on earth, you against one seated on the throne of power; he against one unknown, you against one confessed; he against one about to die, you against the judge of the ages. He says, “Being a man”; you say, “Being a creature”; but both of you say, “You make yourself God”; this reproach of your impious mouth against him is common to both. For you deny God from the generation of God, you deny the Son from the truth of birth, you deny that “I and the Father are one” is the confession of one and wholly alike nature in both. You put in place a God of a new, external, and foreign substance: so that he is either God of another kind, or not God at all, because he does not subsist by birth from God.

But since you are stirred by the mystery of this saying, “I and the Father are one,” so that, as the Jew says, “Being a man, you make yourself God,” you say with equal impiety, “Being a creature, you make yourself God” (for you say: You are not Son by birth, you are not God in truth; you are a creature more excellent than all, but you were not born God, because I do not admit a birth of nature from an incorporeal God; not only are you and the Father not one, but you are not a son, not like him, not God); the Lord indeed answered the Jews, but his whole answer fits your impiety even better: “Is it not written in the Law, I said, You are gods? If he called them gods to whom the word of God came, and Scripture cannot be broken, do you say of him whom the Father sanctified and sent into this world, You are blaspheming, because I said, I am the Son of God? If I do not do the works of the Father, do not believe me; but if I do them, even if you will not believe me, believe the works, so that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I in him.” The reason for his answer followed the reason for the charge of blasphemy brought against him. For it was counted a crime that, being a man, he made himself God. And he was accused of making himself God because he had said, “I and the Father are one.” Intending, then, to show that his claim that he and the Father are one was taken from the nature of his birth, he first refutes the absurdity of the ridiculous charge, that he should be called guilty because, being a man, he made himself God. For since the Law assigned this name to holy men, and the word of God, which cannot be broken, confirmed this profession of an imparted name, how could this one, whom the Father had sanctified and sent into this world, be a blasphemer by confessing himself the Son of God, when the unbreakable word of God had established those named gods by the Law? It is no longer a crime, then, that being a man he makes himself God, since the Law called gods those who are men. And if the use of this name by other men is not irreligious, it is not seen to be used shamelessly by that man whom the Father sanctified (for this whole answer concerns the man, since the Son of God is also the son of man), in calling himself the Son of God; since he surpasses the others, who can without irreligion call themselves gods, in that he was sanctified to be the Son: as blessed Paul makes known to us the knowledge of this sanctification, when he says: “Which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning his Son, who was made of the seed of David according to the flesh, who was destined Son of God in power according to the spirit of sanctification.” The charge of blasphemy, then, that being a man he makes himself God, falls away, since the word of God gave this name to very many, and he, sanctified and sent by the Father, professed himself nothing other than the Son of God.

No room is left, I think, for doubting that “I and the Father are one” was said of the nature of his birth. For when the Jews accused him of making himself God by this saying, though he was a man, his answer confirms that by “I and the Father are one” he showed himself to be the Son of God: first by name, then by nature, finally by birth. For “I” and “the Father” are names of realities; “one” is a profession of nature, because in what they are the two do not differ; but “are” does not allow union. And where “we are one” is not union, birth makes them to be one. For all this comes from his professing himself, sanctified by the Father, to be the Son of God; and the profession of the Son of God confirms “I and the Father are one”: because birth can bring no nature other than that from which it subsists.

The word of the only-begotten God completed the mystery of our whole faith. For when the answer had been given to why, being a man, he made himself God, so that the saying “I and the Father are one” might take the order of a complete and perfect understanding, he consequently added: “You say that I blaspheme because I said, I am the Son of God. If I do not do the works of the Father, do not believe me; but if I do them, even if you will not believe me, believe the works, so that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I in him.” It is the mark of unbridled audacity when salvation is already despaired of in one's conscience, and every professed impiety is beyond shame. For no one blushes at folly when he has lost religion: to contradict these words is madness rather than ignorance. The Lord had said, “I and the Father are one”; this is the mystery of the birth, that the Father and the Son are in unity of nature. And since claiming the nature was being called a crime, the reason for the claim is taught from its ground. For he says: “If I do not do the works of the Father, do not believe me.” If he does not do the Father's works, he is not to be believed when he professes to be the Son of God. So the birth does not have a new and external nature, since he is to be believed to be the Son through doing the Father's works. What place does adoption, what place does the indulgence of a name find here, to make him not Son of God by nature, when the Son of God is to be believed from the works of the Father's nature? A creature is not made equal or like to God, nor is the power of a foreign nature compared to him: only the birth of a Son is believed, without impiety, equal to him through likeness. For whatever is outside him will be made equal to him with insult to his honored power. For if anything that is not from him can be found like him and of the same power, he has lost the privilege of God under the partnership of an equal; and he will no longer be one God, from whom another god is undistinguished. But equality of what is proper involves no insult: because what is like him is his own, and what is compared to him in likeness is from himself; nor is that outside him which can do what is his; and it is an advance of dignity to have begotten power without estranging the nature. The Son does the works of the Father, and on that ground asks to be believed the Son of God. It is not arrogant presumption that asks to be proved only from what it does. And he testifies that he does not his own works but the Father's, lest the birth of the nature be taken away by the magnificence of the deeds. And since, under the mystery of the body he assumed and of the man born of Mary, the Son of God was not understood, faith in the name is made known from the deeds, when he says: “But if I do them, even if you will not believe me, believe the works.” He does not want to be believed first to be the Son of God except from the works of the Father which he himself does. But if he does the works and, through the lowliness of his body, is thought unworthy of belief in his profession, he asks for belief in the works. For why should the mystery of a man's birth hinder the understanding of the divine birth, when the divine birth carries out all its work through the ministry of the man it assumed? If, then, the man is not believed through the works to be the Son of God, let the works be believed to be the Son of God's, since they cannot be denied to be God's. For the Son of God has in himself by being born everything that is God's; and therefore the Son's work is the Father's work, because the birth is neither outside the nature from which it remains, and has in itself the nature from which it subsists.

Doing, then, the works of the Father, and asking that, if he himself were not believed, the works themselves might at least be believed, he had to show what the works were to be believed for; namely, what follows: “But if I do them, even if you will not believe me, believe the works, so that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I in him.” This is the same as “I am the Son of God”; this is the same as “I and the Father are one.” This is the nature of the birth; this is the mystery of saving faith: not to divide what is one, nor to take nature away from the birth, and to confess the truth of the living God from the living God. For God, who is life, does not subsist from things composite and lifeless; nor is he who is power held together from weak things; nor is he who is light put together from dark things; nor is he who is spirit formed from things unlike. All that is in him is one: so that what is spirit is also light, power, and life; and what is life is also light, power, and spirit. For he who says, “I am, and I do not change,” is not changed in parts nor made different in kind. For the things signified above are not in him from parts; but all this in him is one and perfect: all of it is the living God. God, then, is living, and the eternal power of a living nature; and what is born from him, with the mystery of his knowledge, could not be born anything other than living. For when he says, “As the living Father sent me, and I live through the Father,” he taught that life is in him through the living Father. Then, when he says, “For as the Father has life in himself, so he has given the Son to have life in himself,” he testified that all his living things are from the living one. And what is born living from the living has the advance of birth without newness of nature. For what is begotten from the living into the living is not new; for life was not sought from nothing for birth, and life, which takes its birth from life, must, through the unity of nature and the mystery of a perfect and ineffable birth, both live in the living one and have in itself living life.

We remember that at the beginning of our discourse we warned that human comparisons do not satisfy as examples of divine things, yet that the mind of our understanding is partly trained by bodily forms. I consult the experience of human birth, whether the origin of those born does not remain within the parents. For though those lifeless and unseemly elements by which the causes of birth begin flow out into another person, yet by the power of nature they remain within one another: since, through the origin of the same nature given, the one who begets follows the one born; and through the birth received, whose power, though transmitted, is not taken away, the one born remains in the one who begets. Let this be mentioned by us only for understanding human birth, not as a perfect example of the birth in the only-begotten God: because the weakness of human nature is put together from unlike things and held together in life from lifeless things. Nor does what is begotten in it live at once, nor does it all live from life, since there are many things in it which, when they have grown, are cut off without any sensation of their nature. But in God all that is lives. For God is life, and nothing can be from life except what is living. Nor is the birth by derivation, but by power. And so, since all that is lives, and all that is born from him is power, he has birth but not change; he imparts increase and does not lose nature: since he both follows the birth he gave through the likeness of an undivided nature, and the birth, which is living from living, does not abandon in being born the nature it has.

Fire, having fire in itself and remaining as fire in fire, partly offers an image of this faith. For though in it there is the brightness of light, the heat of its nature, the power of burning, the restlessness of flickering, yet the whole is fire, and all these are one nature. It has, indeed, weakness, in that it subsists and lives through matter, and fails together with the matter by which it had lived. But what is incomparable in God we learn in part by comparison, so that what is partly found in earthly elements may not be incredible in God. I ask, then, whether there is division and separation when fire comes from fire. Is the nature cut off so as not to remain, or does the nature not follow so as not to be in it, when, a light kindled from a light by a kind of advance of birth, there is no cutting off of nature, and yet there is light from light? Or does this not remain in that which subsists from it without cutting off? Or is this not in that from which it was not cut off, but went out with unity of natural substance? And I ask whether they are not one, when light from light is separable neither by division nor by kind of nature.

And these comparisons, as I said, are made only for understanding the faith, not for the dignity of God: so that we might gain an understanding of invisible things from bodily ones, not at all so that any example of comparison should satisfy the nature of God, since it would be fitting and just to believe God when he testifies about himself. But because heretical fury troubled the faith of the simpler, saying that what could hardly be understood except by bodily comparison should not be believed about God, we thought it useful, according to that saying of the Lord already mentioned above, “What is born of the flesh is flesh, but what is born of the Spirit is spirit,” since God is spirit, to insert these examples of comparison in part: so that he might not be thought to lie in his profession, when some natural examples of creatures provided us with understanding of the divine profession.

The living Son of God from the living, then, and God from God, showing both the unity of an inseparable and wholly alike nature and the mystery of birth, says: “I and the Father are one.” And since there arose a slander of the saying as though insolent, to show rather the consciousness of his nature in the saying, he added: “You say that I blaspheme, because I said, I am the Son of God,” testifying that the unity of nature is from birth. But so that a complete profession might confirm faith in the birth, and yet the birth professed might not bring a split in nature, he kept this conclusion of his whole answer: “Believe the works, that the Father is in me and I in the Father.” What here has not been shown to be natural and proper under the mystery of birth? They are in each other, since the birth is from the Father alone, since no external or unlike nature subsists into another God, since God, remaining from God, does not have what he is as God from elsewhere. Bring in two gods into the church's faith, if you find an opening; or at least invent a solitary God by false reasoning: separate the Son from the Father, if you can, except by the truth of birth alone confessed. The Son is in the Father, and the Father in the Son, not by transfusion and mutual pouring back, but by the perfect birth of a living nature. So in God the Father and God the Son you will neither count two gods, because both are one, nor preach a single one, because both are not one person. Apostolic faith, then, does not have two gods, since it has neither two fathers nor two sons. Confessing the Father, it has confessed the Son; believing in the Son, it has believed also in the Father: because the name of father has in itself the name of son. For he is father only through the son; and the signification of son is a showing of the father, because the son is only from the father. In the confession of one, then, there is not one person only: since the Son completes the Father, and the birth of the Son is from the Father. And the nature is not changed by birth so as not to be the same according to the likeness of its kind. But it is the same in such a way that, through birth and generation, both must be confessed rather to be one thing, not one person.

Let him preach two gods, then, who can preach one without one; or let him teach a single God who can deny that one is in one through the power of nature and through the mystery of generation and birth. And let him assign a different nature to each who does not know that the Father and the Son are preached as one. Let the heretics blot out the Son's gospel profession about himself, “I am in the Father, and the Father in me,” so that they may preach either two gods or one alone. There are no significations of natures in the property of one nature; nor does the truth of God from God make two gods, nor does the birth of God allow a single God, nor are they not one who are in each other. And they are in each other, since one is from one: because neither did one give to one through generation anything other than what is his own, nor does one obtain from one through birth anything other than the one's. Apostolic faith, then, whether it preaches the Father, will preach one God; or whether it confesses the Son, will confess one God: because the same and wholly alike nature of God is in both, and because, while the Father is God and the Son is God, and the name of the nature of both is one, “one” signifies both. For God from God, or God in God, neither makes two gods, since one from one remains in the nature and name of the one; nor falls into a solitary God, since one and one in signification are not alone.

The Lord did not leave the teaching of so great a mystery uncertain or doubtful, nor did he abandon us in the error of an ambiguous understanding. And let us hear him revealing all knowledge of this faith to the apostles. For he says: “I am the way and the truth and the life: no one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you know my Father also; and from now on you will know him, and you have seen him. Philip said to him: Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us. Jesus said to him: Have I been with you so long, and you do not know me? Philip, he who has seen me has seen the Father also. How can you say, Show us the Father? Do you not believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak from myself; but the Father who abides in me, he does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father in me; or else believe because of the works themselves.” He who is the way does not lead us into wandering and pathless places, nor does he who is the truth mock us with falsehoods, nor does he who is the life leave us in the error of death. And since he himself established these kind names of his dispensation for our salvation, so that as the way he might lead us into the truth, and as the truth establish us in life, we must learn what he shows to be the mystery of obtaining that life. “No one comes to the Father except through me.” The road to the Father is through the Son. And we must ask whether this is through the admonition of teaching or through faith in his nature: for we can be seen to come to the Father through the Son's teaching rather than through confessing the Father's divinity in him. Let us seek, then, the sense of understanding in what follows. For faith is to be entered upon not from our own choice, but from the force of the words.

For this follows: “If you know me, you know my Father also.” The man Jesus Christ is seen: and how, if he himself is known, will the Father be known, when the apostles recognize in him the form of their own nature, that is, of man, and God, free from bodily flesh, cannot be known in this weakness of bodily flesh? But the Lord, confirming in the mystery of the body he assumed the nature of the Father's divinity in himself, kept this order: “If you know me, you know my Father also; and from now on you will know him, and you have seen him.” He separated the time of seeing from the time of knowing. For the one he said was to be known, he said had already been seen: so that, from the time of this revelation, they might receive knowledge of the nature long seen in him.

But the newness of the words disturbed the apostle Philip. A man is seen. He confesses himself the Son of God; he declares that when he is known the Father is known. He says the Father has been seen, and is to be known because he has been seen. The weakness of the human mind does not grasp this, and the profession of such different things does not win belief: that he who was then seen is now to be known, when having seen is knowledge; that if the Son is known, the Father is also known; when the Son himself, according to man, gave knowledge of himself as bodily, both seen and touched, while the nature of the man seen, so different from the Father, does not provide knowledge of the Father from him; and the Son had often testified that the Father was seen by no one. Philip, then, broke out, asking the Lord with apostolic familiarity and constancy: “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” Faith is not now in danger, but this is an error of ignorance. For the Lord had said that the Father had been seen and was from now on to be known; but the Apostle had not understood that he had been seen. So he did not deny that he had been seen, but asked that he be shown to him; nor did he desire a showing as of bodily contemplation, but asked for a demonstration for understanding the one who had been seen. For he had seen the Son in the form of a man, but did not know how he had seen the Father through him. For to his saying, “Lord, show us the Father,” so that the showing might be a demonstration for understanding rather than for seeing, he added: “and it is enough for us.” Faith was not taken from the saying; rather a demonstration for knowing was asked, which would be enough for faith in the saying, since through the Lord's profession there was no uncertain authority for believing. And the request to show the Father arose from this, that he had been said to have been seen and to be known because he had been seen. Nor was it shameless to ask for the showing of one who had been seen.

The Lord, then, answered Philip's words thus: “Have I been with you so long, and you do not know me, Philip?” He rebukes the Apostle's ignorance in knowing him, since he had said above that when he was known the Father too was known. But what is it that he complains he was not known for so long? Namely, that when he was known, the divinity of the Father's nature in him should have been understood. For since the things he did were proper to God: walking on the waves, commanding the winds, accomplishing, with faith in the deeds, an incomprehensible change of wine and increase of bread, putting demons to flight, driving out diseases, repairing the losses of bodies, correcting defects of birth, forgiving sins, giving life back to the dead; and since one in the flesh did these things and professed himself the Son of God amid them: from this arose the whole complaint, that in the mystery of a human birth the nature of God, which did these things in the man assumed, was not understood.

And therefore, rebuking them that, though he had done these things so long, he had not been recognized, he said to those asking him to show them the Father: “He who has seen me has seen the Father also.” He does not mean bodily contemplation and the sight of fleshly eyes, but the sight of those eyes of which he had said: “Do you not say, There are still four months, and the harvest comes? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are white for harvest.” Neither the time allows nor the signification of fields white for harvest permits anything earthly and bodily to be understood here; but he ordered the eyes of understanding to be lifted to behold the blessedness of perfected fruits, as now when he says, “He who has seen me has seen the Father also.” For what is fleshly from the Virgin's childbearing does not serve to behold the form and image of God in him; nor is the appearance of the man assumed an example for seeing the nature of the incorporeal God. But God is recognized in him, if indeed by any he himself has been recognized, from the power of his nature; and God the Son, understood, brings it about that the Father too is understood: since he is an image in such a way as not to differ in kind but to signify his author. For other images, made of different metals, colors, materials, or arts, render the appearances of those whose images they have been made. But can lifeless things, so as to be true images, be made equal to living ones, and painted, carved, or cast things to natural ones? But the Son is not the Father's image in that way: because he is the living image of the living one, and, being born from him, has no diversity of nature, and, differing in nothing, holds the power of the nature from which he does not differ. That he is an image, then, serves so that the birth of the only-begotten God signifies God the Father; and signifies him in such a way that he himself is the form and image of the invisible God; and through this he does not lose the likeness united with the nature, because he does not lack the power of the nature.

And hence comes this: “Have I been with you so long, and you do not know me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father also. How can you say, Show us the Father? Do you not believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?” No other speech about the things of God has been left to human eloquence besides the word of God: all the rest is narrow, enclosed, entangled, and obscure. If anyone wishes to show this in other words than those in which it was said by God, either he himself does not understand, or he leaves his readers nothing to understand. The Lord said, when he was asked to show the Father, “He who has seen me has seen the Father also.” To change this is the part of an antichrist, to deny it the part of a Jew, not to know it the part of a pagan. But perhaps the understanding of the sense is at fault. Let there be a fault in our faith if obscurity remains in God's words. For the saying does not signify a solitary one, and yet the profession teaches an undifferentiated nature. For the Father seen in the Son can be neither a single one nor an unlike one: because, he being seen through this one, they are neither not one in the profession of the mystery, nor one person. And I ask what the Lord is believed to have signified when he says, “He who has seen me has seen the Father also.” You do not hold union, where the addition of the Father's name is signified by the conjunction itself. For when it says “the Father also,” the understanding of a single and unique one is excluded. And what remains, except that the Father was seen through the Son through the united likeness of nature? And lest this be left uncertain for our faith, the Lord added: “How can you say, Show us the Father?” For what need was left of not knowing the Father, or of showing him to those who did not know, when the Father had been seen in the Son?

And he was seen so truly, from the property of nature, since the one born and the one begetting are one by lack of difference and in the kind of truth, that this word of the Lord followed: “Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father in me?” That the Father and the Son are inseparable through natural likeness we cannot teach in any words but the Son's. For the Son, who is the way and the truth and the life, does not here play with theatrical mimes by changing names and appearances, so that in the man assumed he names himself Son of God, but in nature is God the Father, and, one and alone, now pretends by a change of persona to be in another. So he is not himself solitary, now son to himself, now professing himself father to himself, and bringing in names of nature where nature is absent. The simplicity of the words here is different: for the Father is Father, and the Son is Son. But in these names and realities there is nothing new, nothing different, nothing foreign in itself. For the truth of nature keeps its property: that what is from God is God, and birth is neither a lessening nor a difference; since the Son does not subsist in a nature external and unlike to God the Father, nor did the Father acquire anything foreign to himself for the birth of the Only-begotten, but rather granted all that is his without loss to the giver. And so he neither lacks the nature of God, since he is God from nowhere but from God; nor differs from God, since he himself is nothing other than God: because both the birth of God subsists in the Son, and through the birth of God the nature of God has not lost from itself what God is. The Father, then, is in the Son, and the Son in the Father, God in God: not by a double conjunction of compatible kinds, nor by the engrafting nature of a more capacious substance (for by bodily necessity what is outer cannot become inner to the things contained); but by the birth of a living nature from a living one; since the reality does not differ, since birth does not make the nature of God degenerate, since God is born from God as nothing other than God, since in them there is nothing new, nothing foreign, nothing separable, since it is impious to believe two gods in the Father and the Son, sacrilegious to preach the Father and the Son as a single God, and blasphemous to deny that God from God are one in the likeness of kind.

And lest the gospel faith should receive this mystery as doubtful and ambiguous, the Lord kept this order in his teaching: “Do you not believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak from myself; but the Father who abides in me, he does his works.” By what other words, I ask, could or can the property of nature in the Father and the Son be shown than by these very words, the signification of birth being brought forward in all of them? For when he says, “The words that I speak to you I do not speak from myself,” he did not remove his person, nor deny that he is Son, nor hide in himself the nature of the Father's power. For while he himself speaks, he speaks abiding in substance; but while he does not speak from himself, he testifies to the birth of God from God the Father in him. He himself is inseparable from him and in a wholly alike unity of nature: because, though he speaks from him, he himself nevertheless speaks. For one who does not speak from himself and yet speaks cannot fail to exist while he speaks; and while he does not speak from himself, he shows that what he speaks is not his alone. For he added: “But the Father who abides in me, he does his works.” For the Father to abide in the Son is not a mark of a single and unique one; but for the Father to work through the Son is not a mark of one different or external. Just as it is not a mark of one person not to speak from oneself what one speaks, nor again of one foreign and separable to speak through the one speaking; but this is the mystery of those who are one. And both are not other, who are in each other through the property of nature: whose unity is this, that the one speaking does not speak from himself, and the one who does not speak from himself does not fail to speak. And since he had taught that the Father both speaks and works in him, he established faith in this perfect unity, saying: “But the Father who abides in me, he does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father in me; or else believe because of the works themselves.” The Father works in the Son; but the Son too works the Father's work.

So that, then, the Father might not be believed to work and speak in the Son by the effectiveness of power, and not by the property of nature that comes by birth, he says: “Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father in me.” What is this, I ask: “Believe me”? Surely it refers to what was said: “Show us the Father.” Faith is confirmed by the command to believe, the very faith that had asked the Father to be shown. For it had not been enough to say, “He who has seen me has seen the Father also,” unless he extended our understanding so far that, while we knew the Father in the Son, we should remember that the Son is in the Father: lest a transfusion of one into the other be thought of, rather than a unity of the same nature in both through generation and birth. The Lord, then, wants to be believed, lest the consciousness of faith be endangered through the dispensation of the man assumed. Certainly, if flesh, body, and passion bring any ambiguity, let it at least be believed by the works that God is in God, and God from God, and that they are one: since by the power of nature each is in the other and neither is without the other; since the Father loses nothing of his own in the Son, and the Son takes from the Father all that makes him Son. This is not the condition of bodily natures, that they should be in each other, that they should have the perfect unity of a subsisting nature, that the abiding birth of the Only-begotten should be inseparable from the truth of the Father's divinity. This is proper to the only-begotten God alone; this faith lies in the mystery of a true birth; this is the work of spiritual power, that to be and to be in should not differ; and to be in not as one thing in another, like a body in a body, but to be and subsist in such a way as to be in one who subsists, and to be in in such a way as to subsist oneself. For each, subsisting, is therefore not without the other, since, according to generation and birth, the nature of the one subsisting is not other. Hence comes this: “I and the Father are one,” and, “He who has seen me has seen the Father also,” and, “I am in the Father and the Father in me”: because the birth does not differ or degenerate, because the nature of the birth completes the mystery of one divinity in the Father and the Son, since the Son of God is nothing other than God. And therefore the generation of the Only-begotten is not counted as two gods: because the Son of God, being born God, displayed in himself the nature of the God who begot him.

The blessed apostle Paul, sketching the pattern for appointing a bishop and forming by his precepts an entirely new man for the church, taught that this was, so to speak, the sum of the virtues perfected in him, when he said: "Holding fast the word that accords with the teaching of the faith, so that he may be able to exhort to sound teaching and to refute those who contradict it. For there are many who are not submissive, empty talkers and deceivers." He shows in this way that the qualities proper to discipline and conduct are of use for the merit of the priestly office only if the things necessary for the knowledge of teaching and defending the faith are not lacking among the rest. For it does not at once make a good and useful priest either merely to act blamelessly or merely to preach with knowledge: the blameless man profits only himself unless he is learned, and the learned man is without the authority of his teaching unless he is blameless. The apostle's word does not merely fit a man for life in this world by precepts of uprightness and honour, nor, on the other hand, does it train a scribe of the synagogue for the law by knowledge of doctrine; it forms the perfect leader of the church with the perfect goods of the greatest virtues, so that his life may be adorned by his teaching and his teaching by his life. Accordingly he instructed Titus himself, to whom he was writing, with this rule for perfecting religion: "In all things show yourself an example of good works, teaching the sound word with reverence, beyond reproach, so that an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing base or evil to say of us." This teacher of the Gentiles, chosen as master of the church from the consciousness of Christ speaking and dwelling in him, was not unaware that the contagion of diseased speech would spread, and that the corruption of pestilent teaching would rage against the soundness of the words of the faithful, sinking the plague of its impious understanding down to the very seat of the soul and creeping on as a deep-seated evil. For of these he says: "whose talk creeps on like a cancer," infecting the health of the mind it has invaded by a contagion always hidden and stealing upon it. For this reason he wanted the bishop to have the teaching of sound speech, a conscience in the faith, and skill in exhortation, holding firm against impious, lying, and mad contradictions. For there are many who, feigning faith, are not submissive to the faith, and who make a faith for themselves rather than receive one, puffed up with the mind of human vanity, savouring what they want and unwilling to savour what is true; whereas the truth of wisdom is this, sometimes to savour what you would rather not. A speech of folly follows this wisdom of the will, for what is foolishly thought must also be foolishly preached. And how great an evil is foolish preaching to those who hear it, when they are led astray into an opinion of folly under the appearance of wisdom? Therefore the apostle kept this order concerning them, saying: "For there are many who are not submissive, empty talkers and deceivers." They must be contradicted, then: insolent impiety, vain-talking insolence, and seductive vain talk; and contradicted through soundness of teaching, truth of faith, and sincerity of words, so that there may be a sincerity of truth and a truth of soundness.

My reason for recalling this saying of the apostle now is that men perverse in mind, deceitful in profession, empty in hope, and viperous in speech lay on us the necessity of contradicting them, while under the appearance of religion they insinuate deadly teachings, diseased interpretations, and corrupt wills into the simplicity of their hearers. Among them they set aside the sincerity of the apostolic preaching and work so that the Father may not be father, the Son may not be son, God may not be God, and faith may not be faith. Resisting their mad lies, we have now carried our answer so far that, having shown from the Law God and God, and true God in true God, we then showed from the teachings of the Gospels and the apostles the perfect and true birth of the only-begotten God, and finally, in the same course of our preaching, taught that the Son of God is true God and of a nature not different from the Father. Thus the faith of the church confesses neither a solitary God nor two gods, since the birth of God does not allow a solitary God, and a perfect birth does not admit the names of different natures in two gods. Our concern in refuting their empty talk is twofold: first, to teach what is holy, perfect, and sound, so that our speech does not wander through turns and windings and, emerging from devious and straying burrows, seek the truth rather than show it; then to lay open to the conscience of all that the very things they fit to an appearance of flattering truth by the subtleties of empty and deceitful opinions are ridiculous and absurd. It is not enough for us to have taught what is pious unless it is understood to be most pious through the refutation of what is impious.

Good and wise men by nature and study prepare themselves wholly for gaining either the thing or the time of some blessed hope, so that their readiness may fall short of their expectation in nothing. So these men, crazed with heretical fury, take the greatest care to labour with all the ingenuity of their impiety against the truth of the pious faith, so that against those who are religious they may excel in being irreligious, may outdo the hope of our life by the despair of theirs, and may spend more thought on falsehood than we apply teaching to truth. Against the pious professions of our faith they have worked out these contradictions of their impious unbelief: first they ask whether in our faith God is one; then they add whether Christ also is God; finally, whether the Father is greater than the Son. So when they have heard in our profession that God is one, they use it to make Christ not God. They do not ask about the Son whether he is God; by asking about Christ they want only this, that he not be Son. Catching a man of simple faith, they drive him by faith in one God away from confessing Christ as God, since God would no longer be one if Christ too had to be confessed as God. And with what subtlety of worldly cleverness they argue here, when they say: "If he is one, whoever else is seen to be will no longer be; and if there is another, this one will no longer be one, since nature does not allow one where there is another, or another where there is one." Then, when they have deceived the readiness of the believer and hearer by the art of this crafty assertion, they fit to it what they now obtain as by an easier road: that Christ is God by name rather than by nature, because this general name in him in no way destroys faith in one God, which alone is true. And through this the Father is greater than the Son, because, the nature being different, since there is only one God, the Father is greater by the property of his nature; and this one is called son, a creature subsisting by the will of God, because he is less than the Father; and he is not God, because the one God does not allow another God to be, and what is less must be of a nature foreign to him who is greater than it. And how ridiculous they are in this, laying down rules for God, when they assert that nothing can be born from one, because the birth of all things is from the union of two, and that the unchangeable God cannot give from himself any birth to one born, since what does not change is not subject to addition, and the nature of a solitary and single being has nothing in it of the condition of begetting.

But we, having attained the gospel and apostolic faith through spiritual teachings and pursuing the hope of blessed eternity in the confession of the Father and the Son, after showing from the Law the mystery of God and God, neither going beyond the faith in one God nor failing to preach Christ as God, took from the Gospels this order of reply: to teach the true birth of the only-begotten God from God the Father, because through it he would be both true God and not foreign to the nature of the one true God. So he could neither be denied to be God nor himself be called another God, because the birth made him God, and the nature in him of the one God from God did not separate him into a second God. And although the common sense of understanding drove us to this, that the names of natures should not be set against each other within the same nature, and that those whose being does not differ in kind should not fail to be one, yet it pleased us to show this from the professions of our Lord himself. He, after often declaring one God to our faith and hope, in order to confirm the mystery of one God while professing and proving himself also God, said: "I and the Father are one," and "If you know me, you know my Father also," and "He who has seen me has seen the Father," and "The Father who abides in me, he does his works," and "Believe me that the Father is in me and I in the Father; but if not, believe because of the works themselves." He expressed his birth in the name of the Father; he teaches that the Father is known when he is known; he confesses the unity of nature when the Father is seen in his being seen; he testifies that he is inseparable from the Father when, abiding in the Father, the Father abides in him; he holds the confidence of his consciousness when he asks to be believed in these sayings on account of the working of power. So in this most blessed faith of a perfect birth every error, both of two gods and of a single God, is extinguished, since those who are one are not one person, and he who is not the one person does not differ from him who is in such a way that the two are not one.

Since the heretics cannot deny these things, said and understood so absolutely, they still corrupt them by the most foolish lie of their impiety in order to deny them. For the words "I and the Father are one" they try to refer to the agreement of unanimity, so that there is in them a unity of will, not of nature; that is, so that they are one not through what they are but through willing the same thing. And they fit to this defence of theirs what is in the Acts of the Apostles: "Now the multitude of those who believed had one soul and heart," so that the diversity of souls and hearts becomes a unity, one heart and soul, through agreement of the same will. Or what is written to the Corinthians: "He who plants and he who waters are one," so that, since their ministry toward salvation and the advance of the same mystery does not differ, there is a unity of will in the two. Or what the Lord said, asking the Father for the salvation of the nations that would believe in him: "I do not pray for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they all may be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us." So, since men cannot be poured back into God, nor come together into one undistinguished mass, their being one is from unity of will, since they all do what pleases God and come together by movements of mind that do not disagree with each other; and thus it is not nature that makes them one, but will.

He plainly cannot be wise who does not know God. And since Christ is Wisdom, he who either does not know Christ or hates him must be outside wisdom: like these men, who would have the Lord of majesty, the King of the ages, and the only-begotten God be a creature of God rather than his Son; and while they lie foolishly, they are still more foolish in defending their lie. Postponing for a little the property of the unity that is in God the Father and God the Son, they must be refuted from the very texts they use.

For I ask whether those whose soul and heart were one were one through faith in God. Certainly through faith: through it the soul and heart of all were one. And I ask whether faith is one or another. One, surely, on the authority of the apostle himself, who preaches one faith, as one Lord, one baptism, one hope, and one God. If then all were one through faith, that is, through the nature of one faith, how do you not understand a natural unity in those who are one through the nature of one faith? For all had been reborn to innocence, to immortality, to the knowledge of God, to the faith of hope. And if these cannot be different from one another, because hope is one and God is one, as the Lord also is one and the baptism of regeneration is one; if these are one by agreement rather than by nature, then ascribe a unity of will also to those reborn into them. But if they have been regenerated into the nature of one life and eternity, through which their soul and heart are one, then unity of agreement ceases in those who are one in the regeneration of the same nature.

We do not speak our own words, nor do we frame anything false from these texts by corrupting the sense of what is said, to mock the ears of our hearers; holding the form of sound teaching, we think and preach what is sincere. For the apostle teaches that this unity of the faithful comes from the nature of the sacraments, writing to the Galatians: "For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus." That they are one amid so great a diversity of nations, conditions, and sexes: is it from the agreement of will, or from the unity of the sacrament, since they have one baptism and have all put on one Christ? What then will harmony of minds do here, when they are one through this, that they put on one Christ through the nature of one baptism?

Or, when he who plants and he who waters are one, are they not one through this, that, being themselves reborn in one baptism, they are one ministration of the one baptism that regenerates? Do they not do the same thing? Are they not one in one? So those who are one through the same thing are one also by nature, not by will only, because they themselves have been made the same thing and are ministers of the same thing and the same working.

The contradiction of fools always serves to show their folly, because whatever is fitted against the truth by the wit of an unwise or perverse understanding must, since the truth stands unshaken and immovable, be understood as false and foolish, being opposed to it. For the heretics, labouring to deceive through the words "I and the Father are one," so that unity of nature and undifferenced substance of divinity might not be believed of them, but that they might be one from mutual love and agreement of wills, have brought forward, as we showed above, an example of that unity even from the Lord's words: "That they all may be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us." Whoever is outside the faith of the gospel promises is outside the promises themselves, and the crime of impious understanding has lost simple hope. For not to understand what you believe brings not so much pardon as reward, since the greatest pay of faith is to hope for what you do not know. But it is the madness of the utmost impiety either not to believe what is understood or to have corrupted the understanding of what is believed.

But although impiety changes the sense of its own understanding, it cannot prevent the meaning of the words from standing out. The Lord prays the Father that those who will believe in him may be one, and that, as he is in the Father and the Father in him, so all may be one in them. Why do you bring in equanimity here, why a unity of soul and heart through agreement of will? It was within the wealth and precision of language, if will made them one, for the Lord to pray thus: "Father, as we will one thing, so may they also will one thing, so that we may all be one through concord." Or did he who is the Word not know the meaning of a word? Did he who is the Truth not know how to speak the truth? Did he who is Wisdom err in foolish speech? Was he who is Power in such weakness that he could not express what he wished to be understood? He plainly spoke the true and sincere mysteries of the gospel faith. And he not only spoke so as to signify, but taught for faith, saying: "That they all may be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us." First the prayer is for those of whom it is said, "That they all may be one"; then the advance of unity is shown by an example of unity, when he says, "As you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us": so that, as the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father, so through the pattern of this unity all might be one in the Father and the Son.

But because it is proper by nature to the Father and the Son alone to be one, since God from God, the Only-begotten from the Unbegotten, can exist only in the nature of his origin, so that he who is begotten exists in the substance of his birth and the birth of divinity has no other and different truth than that from which it proceeded: the Lord, leaving nothing doubtful to our faith, taught the nature of this absolute unity in the whole speech that follows. For there follows: "That the world may believe that you sent me." The world, then, will believe that the Son was sent by the Father through this, that all who will believe in him will be one in the Father and the Son. And how they will be so, we are told at once: "And the glory which you gave me I have given to them." Now I ask whether glory is the same thing as will, since will is a movement of the mind, while glory is an appearance or dignity of nature. The Son, then, gave the glory received from the Father to all who would believe in him, not, surely, a will; had that been given, faith would have no reward, since a necessity of will fastened on us would bring faith upon us. What the giving of the received glory would achieve he showed: "That they may be one, as we are one." The received glory was given for this reason, that all might be one. Now then all are one in glory, because the glory given is no other than that which was received, and it was given for no other purpose than that all might be one. And since all are one through the glory given to the Son and bestowed by the Son on believers, I ask how the Son is of a glory different from the Father's, when the Son's glory takes up all believers into the unity of the Father's glory? This saying may perhaps be bold for human hope, but it will not be unfaithful; for though it is rash to hope for this, yet not to have believed it is irreligious, since one and the same is for us the author of both hope and faith. Of this we shall treat more plainly and fully in its proper place. Meanwhile, even from the present passage, this hope of ours is seen to be neither empty nor rash. All, then, are one through the glory received and given. I hold the faith and accept the cause of the unity; but I do not yet grasp the reason how the glory given brings it about that all are one.

But the Lord, leaving nothing uncertain to the conscience of the faithful, taught the very effect of this natural working, saying: "That they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may be perfected into one." I now ask those who introduce a unity of will between the Father and the Son whether Christ is in us today through the truth of nature or through concord of will. For if the Word truly became flesh, and we truly receive the Word made flesh in the Lord's food, how is he not to be thought to abide in us by nature, who, born as man, both took to himself the nature of our flesh, now inseparable from him, and mingled the nature of his own flesh with the nature of eternity under the sacrament of the flesh to be communicated to us? For in this way we are all one, because the Father is in Christ and Christ is in us. Whoever then denies that the Father is in Christ by nature, let him first deny that he himself is in Christ, or Christ in him, by nature; because the Father in Christ and Christ in us make us one in them. If then Christ truly took the flesh of our body, and that man who was born of Mary truly is Christ, and we truly receive the flesh of his body under the mystery (and through this we shall be one, because the Father is in him and he is in us), how is a unity of will asserted, when the natural property brought about through the sacrament is the sacrament of perfect unity?

In the things of God we must not speak with human or worldly sense, nor must a perverse, foreign, and impious understanding be wrung from the soundness of the heavenly words by violent and reckless preaching. Let us read what is written and understand what we read, and then we shall fulfil the duty of perfect faith. For what we say of the natural truth of Christ in us we say foolishly and impiously unless we have learned it from him. He himself says: "My flesh is truly food, and my blood is truly drink. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him." No room is left for doubting the truth of the flesh and blood. For now, both by the Lord's own declaration and by our faith, it is truly flesh and truly blood. And these, received and drunk, bring it about that we are in Christ and Christ is in us. Is this not the truth? Let it be untrue, by all means, for those who deny that Christ Jesus is true God. He is in us, then, through the flesh, and we are in him, while what we are is with him in God.

How we are in him through the sacrament of his communicated flesh and blood he himself testifies, saying: "And this world no longer sees me; but you will see me, because I live and you will live; because I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you." If he wanted only a unity of will to be understood, why did he set out a certain gradation and order in the completing of unity? Was it not so that, since he was in the Father through the nature of divinity, and we, on the other hand, in him through his bodily birth, and he again in us through the mystery of the sacraments, a perfect unity through the Mediator might be taught? For while we abide in him, he abides in the Father, and abiding in the Father he abides in us; and so we advance to unity with the Father, since we too are in him by nature, who is in the Father by nature according to his birth, while he abides in us by nature.

How natural this unity in us is, he himself testified thus: "He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him." For no one will be in him except one in whom he himself has been, having taken into himself the flesh of him only who has taken his. He had already taught the sacrament of this perfect unity above, saying: "As the living Father sent me, and I live through the Father, so he who eats my flesh will himself also live through me." He lives, then, through the Father; and in the same way as he lives through the Father, we live through his flesh. For every comparison is taken up to give a pattern for understanding, so that we may grasp the matter in hand according to the example set before us. This, then, is the cause of our life, that we who are fleshly have Christ abiding in us through the flesh, we who are to live through him on the same terms on which he lives through the Father. If then we live by nature according to the flesh through him, that is, having received the nature of his flesh, how does he not have the Father in himself by nature according to the Spirit, since he himself lives through the Father? He lives through the Father because his birth did not bring him a foreign and different nature, because what he is is also from him, and yet he is not separated from him by any intervening unlikeness of nature, because through his birth he has the Father in himself in the power of nature.

We have recalled these things because the heretics, falsely claiming only a unity of will between the Father and the Son, used the example of our unity with God, as though we were united to the Son, and through the Son to the Father, only by obedience and the will of religion, and as though no property of natural communion were granted us through the sacrament of the flesh and blood. Yet the mystery of a true and natural unity must be preached, both through the glory of the Son given to us and through the Son abiding in us in the flesh, while we are united to him bodily and inseparably.

We have answered, then, the folly of these madmen only to show their empty lie, so that they might not deceive the unlearned by the error of a vain and ridiculous assertion. For the rest, the gospel faith did not need the necessity of our reply. The Lord prayed for our unity with God on our behalf; but he holds his own and abides in it. They are not one through the sacrament of the dispensation, but through a birth of nature, since God in begetting him lets nothing of himself degenerate in him. They are one, since what is not snatched from his hand is not snatched from the hand of the Father; since when he is known the Father is known; since when he is seen the Father is seen; since what he speaks, the Father abiding in him speaks; since in him working the Father works; since he is in the Father and the Father in him. This is not the work of creation but of birth; will does not bring it about, but power; unanimity does not speak it, but nature. For to be created and to be born are not one thing, nor is to will the same as to be able, nor is to agree the same as to abide.

We do not, then, deny unanimity between the Father and the Son; for the heretics are accustomed to lie in this, saying that, since we do not accept concord alone as the unity, we affirm them to be at discord. But let them hear how far we are from denying unanimity. The Father and the Son are one in nature, in glory, in power; and the same nature cannot will different things. And let them hear further the Son testifying to his unity of nature with the Father; for he says: "When the Advocate comes, whom I shall send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from my Father, he will testify of me." The Advocate will come, the Son will send him from the Father, and he is the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father. Let the whole school of the heretics shake off the stings of its wit and look now for something it can at least lie about to the ignorant, and let it teach what this is that the Son sends from the Father. He who sends shows his power in what he sends. But what he sends from the Father, how shall we understand it: as received, or let go, or begotten? For one of these the words "he will send from the Father" must signify. And he will send from the Father the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father: there is, then, no receiving here, where a proceeding has been shown. It remains for us to settle our view on this: whether we are to think it the going forth of one already existing or the proceeding of one begotten.

I am not now finding fault with anyone's freedom of understanding as to whether they think the Paraclete Spirit is from the Father or from the Son. For the Lord did not leave it uncertain; in the same discourse he spoke thus: "I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When that Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. For he will not speak from himself, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things to come. He will glorify me, because he will receive of mine and declare it to you. All things whatever the Father has are mine; therefore I said, He will receive of mine and declare it to you." He receives, then, from the Son, who is also sent by him and proceeds from the Father. And I ask whether to receive from the Son is the same as to proceed from the Father. But if a difference is believed between receiving from the Son and proceeding from the Father, certainly to receive from the Son will be thought one and the same as to receive from the Father. For the Lord himself says: "Because he will receive of mine and declare it to you. All things whatever the Father has are mine; therefore I said, He will receive of mine and declare it to you." What he will receive (whether it is power, or might, or teaching), the Son said was to be received from himself; and again he signifies that this same thing is to be received from the Father. For when he says that all things whatever the Father has are his, and that he therefore said it was to be received from what is his, he teaches that what is to be received from the Father is still received from him, because all that is the Father's is his. This unity has no difference; nor does it matter from whom a thing is received, when what is given by the Father is spoken of as given by the Son. Will a unity of will be brought in here too? All that the Father has is the Son's, and all that is the Son's is the Father's. For he himself says: "And all mine are yours, and yours are mine." This is not yet the place to show why he said, "Because he will receive of mine"; for the meaning is of future time, where he is shown as about to receive. Now at any rate he says the Spirit will receive from him, because all that is the Father's is his. Cut apart, if you can, the unity of this nature, and bring in some necessary unlikeness through which the Son is not in unity of nature. For the Spirit of truth proceeds from the Father, but is sent by the Son from the Father. All that is the Father's is the Son's; and therefore whatever he who is to be sent will receive, he will receive from the Son, because all that is the Father's is the Son's. So nature keeps its law in all things; and the fact that both are one signifies the same divinity in each through generation and birth, since the Son confesses that what the Spirit of truth will receive from the Father is to be given by him. Heretical perversity is not to be allowed the licence of impious understanding, so as not to confess that this saying of the Lord, that the Spirit of truth will receive from him because all that is the Father's is his, must be referred to the unity of nature.

Let him speak who is the chosen vessel and teacher of the Gentiles, in accordance with the understanding of the truth, having first praised the faith of the Roman people. Wishing to teach the unity of nature in the Father and the Son, he says: "But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God is in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not his. But if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who dwells in you." We are all spiritual if the Spirit of God is in us. But this Spirit of God is also the Spirit of Christ. And while the Spirit of Christ is in us, yet the Spirit of him who raised Christ from the dead is in us; and he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to our mortal bodies because of his Spirit dwelling in us. We are given life, then, because of the Spirit of Christ dwelling in us, through him who raised Christ from the dead. And while the Spirit of him who raised Christ from the dead is in us, yet the Spirit of Christ is in us, and the Spirit who is in us is nonetheless the Spirit of God. Distinguish, then, heretic, the Spirit of Christ from the Spirit of God, and the Spirit of Christ raised from the dead from the Spirit of God raising Christ from the dead, when the Spirit of Christ dwelling in us is the Spirit of God, and when the Spirit of Christ raised from the dead is yet the Spirit of God raising Christ from the dead.

And I now ask whether you think that by "the Spirit of God" a nature is signified or a thing belonging to a nature. For a nature is not the same as a thing of the nature, just as a man is not the same as what belongs to a man, nor fire the same as what belongs to fire itself; and by the same reasoning God is not the same as what belongs to God.

For I remember that by "the Spirit of God" the Son of God is signified in such a way that God the Father is understood to be shown in him, and that "the Spirit of God" can signify and refer to either; and that this is shown not only on prophetic but on gospel authority, when it is said: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me"; and again: "Behold my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved in whom my soul is well pleased; I will put my Spirit upon him"; and when the Lord himself testifies of himself: "But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come near to you." For these seem without ambiguity to signify either the Father or the Son, while still manifesting the power of the nature.

I think "the Spirit of God" is said of both for this reason, so that we should not believe that the Son is in the Father or the Father in the Son in a bodily manner, that is, so that God, abiding in a place, should not seem to exist nowhere else apart from himself. For a man, or anything else like him, when he is somewhere, is not elsewhere, because what is there is contained where it is; his nature is too weak to be everywhere, being somewhere where it stands. But God, the living power of immeasurable might, which is nowhere absent and nowhere lacking, shows himself wholly through what is his, and signifies that what is his is nothing other than himself, so that where what is his is present, he himself is understood to be. Yet it is not to be believed in a bodily manner that, when he is somewhere, he is not also everywhere, since through what is his he does not cease to be in all things, and what is his is nothing other than what he himself is. These things have been said for the understanding of the nature.

That God the Father is signified by "the Spirit of God" I think must be understood thus: the Lord Jesus Christ professed that the Spirit of the Lord was upon him, because of which he anointed him and sent him to preach the gospel. For in him the power of the Father's nature is manifested, showing the communion of his nature in the Son even when born in the flesh, through the sacrament of this spiritual anointing; for after the birth of the completed baptism this sign of the property was also heard, the voice from heaven testifying: "You are my Son; today I have begotten you." For it is not to be understood that he was upon himself, or came to himself from heaven, or named himself his own son; all this was a demonstration for our faith, so that under the sacrament of a perfect and true birth we might know the unity of the nature abiding in the Son, who had also begun to be man. So it is found that the Father is signified by "the Spirit of God." And we understand the Son to be shown in this way when he says: "But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come near to you": showing, that is, that he casts out demons by himself, that is, by the power of his nature, since they can be cast out only by the Spirit of God. And in "the Spirit of God" the Spirit the Paraclete is also signified, not only on prophetic but on apostolic authority, when it is said: "But this is what was spoken through the prophet: It shall be in the last days, says the Lord, I will pour out of my Spirit on all flesh, and their sons and their daughters shall prophesy." And we are taught that all this was fulfilled in the apostles when, the Holy Spirit having been sent, they all spoke in the tongues of the nations.

These things had necessarily to be shown so that, to whatever side heretical falsehood might betake itself, it would still be shut in by the bounds and rule of gospel truth. For Christ dwells in us, and where Christ dwells, God dwells. And when the Spirit of Christ dwells in us, yet while the Spirit of Christ dwells in us no other spirit dwells than the Spirit of God. And if Christ is understood to be in us through the Holy Spirit, this Spirit is still to be known as the Spirit of God in the same way as the Spirit of Christ. And since through the thing of the nature the nature itself dwells in us, the nature of the Son will be believed to be undifferenced from the Father, since the Holy Spirit, who is both the Spirit of Christ and the Spirit of God, is shown to be the thing of one nature. I ask now, then, how are they not one by nature? The Spirit of truth proceeds from the Father; he is sent by the Son and receives from the Son. But all that the Father has is the Son's; and therefore he who receives from him is the Spirit of God, but the same is also the Spirit of Christ. He is a thing of the Son's nature, but the same thing is also of the Father's nature. He is the Spirit of him who raises Christ from the dead; but the same is the Spirit of Christ raised from the dead. Let the nature of Christ and of God differ in something, so as not to be the same, if it can be made out that the Spirit who is God's is not also Christ's.

But you, heretic, raving and whirled about by the spirit of deadly teaching, the apostle holds fast and hems in, laying down Christ for us as the foundation of faith, not unaware of this saying of the Lord: "If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him." By this he testified that, when the Spirit of Christ abides in us, the Spirit of God abides in us, and that the Spirit of him raised from the dead is not different from the Spirit of him who raises from the dead. For they come and dwell in us; and I ask whether they will come and make their dwelling as a company of different beings, or in unity of nature? But the teacher of the Gentiles insists that not two spirits, that of God and that of Christ, but the Spirit of Christ, who is also the Spirit of God, is in believers. It is not a cohabiting but a dwelling; yet a dwelling under the mystery of cohabiting, since neither do two dwell, nor is the dweller different from another. For the Spirit of God is in us, but the Spirit of Christ is in us; and when the Spirit of Christ is in us, the Spirit of God is in us. So, since what is God's is also Christ's, and what is Christ's is God's, Christ cannot be anything different from what God is. Christ, then, is God, one Spirit with God.

The apostle teaches that the gospel saying "I and the Father are one" is a unity of nature, not the solitude of a union, writing to the Corinthians: "Therefore I make known to you that no one speaking in the Spirit of God calls Jesus anathema." Do you know now, heretic, in what spirit you call Christ a creature? Since those who served the creature rather than the Creator are under anathema, understand what you are when you confess Christ a creature, you who are not unaware that the worship of a creature is under a curse. And note what follows: "And no one can say Jesus is Lord except in the Holy Spirit." Do you feel what you lack, in denying to Christ what is his? If Christ is Lord to you through the nature of God, you have the Holy Spirit; but if he is lord by an adoptive name, you lack the Holy Spirit and are animated by the spirit of error, because no one can say Jesus is Lord except in the Holy Spirit. And you, calling him a creature rather than God, though you name him lord, do not say that he is the Lord, because for you he is lord by a common, general, and familiar name rather than by nature. But learn his nature from Paul.

For there follows: "Now there are divisions of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are divisions of ministries, and the same Lord himself; and there are divisions of workings, but the same God who works all in all. And to each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for what is profitable." In this passage a fourfold meaning is understood: in the division of gifts there is the same Spirit, and in the division of ministries the same Lord himself, and in the division of workings the same God, and in the giving of what is profitable the manifestation of the Spirit. And so that the giving of what is profitable might be known in the manifestation of the Spirit, it is at once added: "To one is given through the Spirit the word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith in the same Spirit, to another the gift of healings in the same Spirit, to another the working of powers, to another prophecy, to another the discerning of spirits, to another kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues."

The fourth element we named, the manifestation of the Spirit in the giving of what is profitable, has a clear meaning. For it has been stated through what profitable gifts this manifestation of the Spirit takes place. In these powers of the divisions there is no uncertain display of the gift of which the Lord had spoken to the apostles, commanding them not to depart from Jerusalem: "But wait," he said, "for the promise of the Father, which you heard from my mouth: For John baptized with water, but you will be dipped in the Holy Spirit, whom you will also receive not many days after these." And again: "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and Samaria, and to the end of the earth." He bids them wait for the promise of the Father, heard from his mouth. Certainly even now the utterance is of that fatherly promise. Through these workings of powers, then, there is the manifestation of the Spirit. For the gift of the Spirit is not hidden where there is the word of wisdom and the words of life are heard; or where there is the knowledge of divine understanding, so that we may not, like cattle, through ignorance of God be ignorant of the author of our life; or through faith in God, so that we may not, by not believing the gospel of God, be outside the gospel of God; or through the gift of healings, so that by the healing of infirmities we may bear witness to the grace of him who grants them; or through the working of powers, so that what we do may be understood to be the power of God; or through prophecy, so that through understanding of doctrine we may be understood to be taught by God; or through the discerning of spirits, so that we may not be ignorant whether someone speaks by a holy or a perverse spirit; or through kinds of tongues, so that speech in tongues may be given as a sign of the Holy Spirit given; or in the interpretation of tongues, so that the faith of the hearers may not be endangered by ignorance, when the interpreter of a tongue makes the tongue clear to those who do not know it. In all these, then, divided to each for profit, there is the manifestation of the Spirit, since through them he gives to each wonders of profit, the gift of the Spirit not being hidden.

In this mystery of the heavenly sacraments, most difficult for human understanding, the blessed apostle Paul kept both a complete demonstration and careful caution, to show that these divided gifts are given through the Spirit and in the Spirit (for to be given through the Spirit and in the Spirit is not the same thing): because the giving of a gift that is obtained in the Spirit is nevertheless granted through the Spirit. He completes these divisions of gifts thus: "But all these one and the same Spirit works, dividing to each as he wills." Now then I ask what Spirit works these things, dividing to each as he wills: whether the one through whom, or the one in whom, the division of gifts takes place. If anyone dares to say that it is the same one who is signified, the apostle will contradict him, saying why the reader understands him wrongly; for he says above: "And there are divisions of workings, but the same God who works all in all." So he who divides is one, and he in whom the division is granted is another. And understand that it is always God who works all these things, yet in such a way that Christ works, so that the Son, working, performs the Father's work. And if you confess Jesus as Lord in the Holy Spirit, understand the force of the threefold meaning in the apostle, when in the divisions of gifts there is the same Spirit, in the divisions of ministries the same Lord, in the divisions of workings the same God; and again one Spirit working all things, dividing to each as he wills. And grasp, if you can, that the Lord in the division of ministries and God in the division of workings are this same one Spirit, who both works and divides as he wills; because in the divisions of gifts there is one Spirit, and the same Spirit works and divides.

Or, if this one Spirit of the same divinity in God and in the Lord, through the mystery of the birth, displeases you, show what spirit it is, and in what spirit he both works and divides these divisions for us. But you will show nothing other than what belongs to our faith, because the apostle showed who is to be understood, saying: "For as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the one body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ." He signifies, then, that the divisions of gifts are from the one Lord Jesus Christ, who is the body of all; for when he had shown the Lord in the ministry and had also shown God in the workings, he nevertheless shows that one Spirit both works and divides all these, dividing these members of graces in the perfection of one body.

Unless perhaps the apostle is thought not to have kept the principle of unity in saying, "And there are divisions of ministries, and the same Lord himself; and there are divisions of workings, but the same God," so that, because he referred the ministries to the Lord and the workings to God, he may seem not to mean one and the same in ministries and workings. Learn how these members of the ministries are members of the workings, when he says: "You are the body of Christ and members. And God has set some in the church, first apostles," in whom is the word of wisdom; "second prophets," in whom is the gift of knowledge; "third teachers," in whom is the teaching of faith; "then powers," in which are the healings of infirmities, powers of helping, prophetic governings, and gifts of kinds of tongues, whether of speaking or of interpreting. These are certainly both the ministries and the workings of the church, in which is the body of Christ; and God has established them. Or else declare that they were not established through Christ, because God established them. But you will hear him saying: "But to each of us grace was given according to the measure of the gift of Christ." And again: "He who descended is the same who also ascended above all the heavens, that he might fill all things. And he gave some apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of ministry." Are not the gifts of the ministries Christ's, while they are nonetheless also the gifts of God?

But if impiety has claimed for itself that, because he says "the same Lord" and "the same God," they are not in unity of nature, I will add to this understanding of yours what you think are firmer supports. For the apostle himself says: "But for us there is one God the Father, from whom are all things, and we in him, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we through him." And again: "One Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is through all and in us all." Through the words "one God" and "one Lord" it seems that being God is assigned as proper to God alone, as to the one God, since the property of one does not allow the partnership of another. O truly rare and difficult gifts of grace, and truly the manifestation of the Spirit established in this giving of what is profitable! And rightly was this order kept in dividing the graces, that the word of wisdom should be first; for it is true that "no one can say Jesus is Lord except in the Holy Spirit," because Christ could not be understood as Lord except through this word of wisdom; then that the word of knowledge should follow, so that we may speak with knowledge what we savour, and so savour the word of wisdom; and that the third gift should be in faith, because those first and higher gifts would lose the profit of the gift unless God were believed. So now, in the mystery of this greatest and most beautiful saying of the apostle, all the heretics have neither the word of wisdom nor the word of knowledge nor the faith of religion, because impiety, which does not grasp understanding, is outside the knowledge of the word and outside the simplicity of faith. For no one speaks what he does not savour, nor can he believe what he cannot speak. So the apostle, preaching one God, coming from the Law and called into the gospel of Christ, kept the confession of a perfect faith. And so that the simplicity of a seemingly careless statement might give the heretics no occasion to deny the Son's birth through the preaching of one God, he confessed one God under the sign of his property, saying: "One God the Father, from whom are all things, and we in him," so that he who is God might also be believed to be Father. Then, because this bare belief in one God the Father would not avail for salvation, he added: "And one our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we through him," showing that the purity of saving faith lies in preaching one God and one Lord, so that we hold in faith both one God the Father and one Lord Jesus Christ. For he was not unaware of the Lord's saying: "For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him should have eternal life." But setting out the order of the church's faith, and establishing our faith in the Father and the Son, he spoke the mystery of that inseparable and indissoluble unity and faith, saying: "One God and one Lord."

First, heretic, living outside the apostolic spirit, understand your folly. If you seize on the confession of one God to make Christ not God, because where one is he must be understood as solitary, and being one is proper and peculiar to him who is one, what will you profess about the fact that Jesus Christ is one Lord? For if, on your view, that the Father is one God left Christ no room to be God, then necessarily, also on your view, that Christ is one Lord leaves God no room to be Lord, since you would have being one belong properly to him who is one. If, then, you deny that the one Lord Christ is also God, you will deny too that the one God the Father is also Lord. And what will there be in the might of God if he is not Lord, and in the power of the Lord if he is not God, since that which the Lord is makes him God, and that which God is constitutes him Lord?

But the apostle, holding fast the mystery of the Lord's saying "I and the Father are one," while he professes each to be one, signifies each as one not in the sense of the solitude of a single being but of unity of spirit; because one God the Father and one Lord Christ, since each is both Lord and God, still do not allow in our faith either two gods or two lords. Each, then, is one; and though each is one, neither is alone. We shall be able to speak the mystery of the faith only in the apostle's words. For there is one God and one Lord; and through the fact that God is one and Lord is one, the Lord is shown in God, just as God is shown in the Lord. You do not hold a union, so that God is single; nor yet do you divide the spirit, so that the two are not one. Nor can you divide the power in the one God and the one Lord, so that he who is Lord is not also God, or he who is God is not also Lord. For the apostle took care, by the wording of the names, not to preach either two gods or two lords. And therefore he used this kind of teaching, so that in the one Lord Christ he might signify also one God, and in the one God the Father signify also one Lord; and yet, professing both Father and Christ, not bring upon us an impious union that would destroy the birth of the only-begotten God.

Unless perhaps the madness of utter despair will dare to break out so far as to say that, because the apostle called Christ Lord, no one ought to confess him anything other than Lord, and that having the property of Lord he does not have the truth of God. But Paul knows that Christ is God, when he says: "Whose are the fathers, and from whom is Christ, who is God over all." Here a creature is not reckoned as God; he is the God of creatures, who is God over all.

How the God over all is also a Spirit inseparable from the Father, learn also from this very saying of the apostle with which we are now dealing. For having confessed one God the Father, from whom are all things, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, I ask what difference he brought in by saying that all things are from God and all things through Christ? Can he from whom, and he through whom, all things are be understood as of a nature and spirit separable from each other? For all things came to be from nothing through the Son, and the apostle referred them to God, from whom are all things, and to the Son, through whom are all things. And I do not find what difference there is, since through each there is the work of the same power. For if, with regard to the substance of the universe, it were a proper and sufficient account of creatures that they are from God, what need was there to mention that the things that are from God are through Christ, unless being through Christ and being from God are one and the same? But just as "Lord" and "God" are ascribed to each of them so as to be mutual, so "from whom" and "through whom" are referred to both, to show the unity of both and not to suggest a single one. The statement does not lie open to the occasion of impiety, and the apostle's faith is not wanting in carefulness of preaching. For he so tempered himself in these exact words that he could be understood to mean neither two gods nor a solitary one, while he both abhors union and does not divide unity. For this "from whom are all things" and "through whom are all things," though it did not establish a single one in the power of might, still did not show a different one in the working, since "from whom are all things" and "through whom are all things" showed for this purpose an author of the same nature. And he declares that both are proper to the same nature. For after proclaiming the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God, confessing that his judgments are inscrutable beyond understanding, and showing that his ways are past finding out, he nevertheless, using the office of human faith, rendered this honour to the depth of the unsearchable and inscrutable heavenly mysteries, saying: "For from him and through him and in him are all things; to him be glory for ever, amen": now referring to the signifying of one nature what can only be the work of one nature.

For since he specially ascribed to God that all things are from him, and gave to Christ as his property that all things are through him, and now it is the glory of God that from him and through him and in him are all things; and since the Spirit of God is the same as the Spirit of Christ; or since in the Lord's ministry and in God's working one Spirit works and divides: they cannot but be one whose properties belong to one, since in the same Lord the Son and in the same God the Father one and the same Spirit, dividing in the same Holy Spirit, accomplishes all things. O man worthy of the knowledge of great and heavenly secrets, taken up and chosen as a sharer in the divine mysteries, keeping necessary silence about things it is not lawful to utter, and truly an apostle of Christ! How has he shut in the wits of human perversity by the preaching of his complete statement, confessing one God the Father and one Lord Jesus Christ, so that amid these no one can preach either two or a single one; while yet he who is not single does not advance into two, nor can those who are not two be understood as solitary; and amid these the Father, being shown, shows the perfect birth of Christ!

Stretch out now your flickering, hissing tongues, you heretical serpents, whether Sabellius, or Photinus, or you who now preach that the only-begotten God is a creature. Whoever denies the Son will hear of one God the Father, because, since the Father is father only through the Son, the Son is signified in the Father by that very name. Whoever takes from the Son the unity of an undifferenced nature, let him acknowledge one Lord Jesus Christ; for unless the Lord is one through unity of Spirit, there will be no room left for God the Father to be Lord. And whoever reckons the Son from time and from the flesh, let him learn that through him are all things and we through him, and that, creating all things, he is a timeless immensity outside of times. And meanwhile let him read again that there is one hope of calling, and one baptism, and one faith. And if after this he opposes the apostle's preaching, he is himself made anathema, since he thinks otherwise by his own sense; he is neither called nor baptized nor faithful, because in one God the Father and one Lord Jesus Christ there is one faith of one hope and one baptism. Nor will any diversity of doctrines be able to boast of having a place among the things that belong to one God and Lord and hope and baptism and faith.

The one faith, then, is to confess the Father in the Son and the Son in the Father through the unity of an inseparable nature, not confused but undivided, not mixed but undifferenced, not merely joined but existing, not incomplete but perfect. For it is birth, not division; he is Son, not by adoption; he is God, not by creation. Nor is he God of another kind; the Father and the Son are one; for the nature was not made new in being born, so as to be foreign to the property of its origin. So the apostle holds this faith of the Son abiding in the Father and the Father in the Son, proclaiming that for him there is one God the Father and one Lord Christ, since in the Lord Christ there was also God, and in God the Father there was also Lord; and each was one in being God, and each was one in being Lord; because it is understood to be imperfect both in God, unless he is Lord, and in the Lord, unless he is God. And so, since each is one, and one is signified in each, and neither is without the one, the apostle in his teaching does not go beyond the gospel preaching; nor is Christ, speaking in Paul, different from what he said while abiding bodily in the world.

For the Lord had said in the Gospels: "Work not for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you; for him the Father, God, has sealed." They said therefore to him: "What shall we do to work the works of God?" And he said to them: "This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent." The Lord, setting out the mystery both of his incarnation and of his divinity, spoke also the teaching of our faith and hope: that we should work for food that does not perish but endures for ever; that we should remember that this food of eternity is given us by the Son of Man; that we should know that the Son of Man is sealed by God the Father; that we should recognize that this is the work of God, to believe in him whom he had sent. And who is it whom the Father sent? Surely the one whom God sealed. And who is it whom God sealed? The Son of Man, of course, who provides the food of eternal life. And who, finally, are those to whom he provides it? Those who will work for the food that does not perish. So the work of the food is the same as the work of God, namely to have believed in him whom he sent. But the Son of Man says these things. And how will the Son of Man give the food of eternal life? He does not know the mystery of his own salvation who does not know that the Son of Man, giving food to eternal life, has been sealed by God the Father. Here now I ask what, after all, is the meaning of the Son of Man being sealed by God the Father?

First we must recognize that God spoke not for himself but for us, and tempered the language of his speech to our understanding as far as the weakness of our nature can grasp it. For when earlier he had been rebuked by the Jews for making himself equal to God by professing himself the Son of God, he had answered that he did all things that the Father does; that he had received all judgment from the Father; and that he too was to be honoured as the Father. And in all these, having first professed himself Son, he had made himself equal to the Father in honour, power, and nature. Then he had said that, as the Father has life in himself, so he had given the Son to have life in himself; in which he signified the unity of the same nature through the mystery of birth. For by "what the Father has" he signified the Father himself in the having; because God is not, in human fashion, made of parts, so that what is had by him is one thing and he who has it is another. The whole of what he is, is life, a nature perfect, absolute, and infinite, not made up of unlike parts but itself living throughout. And since this life was given such as it is had, even if it is understood to signify the birth of him to whom it was given, it still brings no difference of kind, since it was given such as it is had.

After this so manifold and exact signifying that the Father's nature was shown in him, he used this saying: "For him the Father, God, has sealed." The nature of seals is such that they display the whole form of the figure pressed into them and have nothing less in themselves than that from which they are sealed; and while they receive the whole of what is impressed, they bear forth from themselves the whole of whatever was impressed. But this does not serve as an example of the divine birth, because in seals there is material, difference, and impression, by which the likenesses of stronger kinds are impressed on softer natures. But the only-begotten God, also Son of Man through the mystery of our salvation, wishing to signify to us the likeness of the Father's property in himself, says he was sealed by God; and this because the Son of Man was going to give the food of eternal life, so that through this the power to give food for eternity might be understood to be in him, because he contained in himself the whole fullness of the Father's form, of the God who sealed him, so that what God had sealed should bear from itself nothing other than the form of the God who sealed it. These things the Lord spoke to the Jews, who because of their unbelief could not receive this saying.

But for us the preacher of the gospel, by the Spirit of Christ speaking through him, conveys an understanding of this property, saying: "Who, though he was in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal to God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant." For he whom God had sealed could be nothing other than the form of God; and what is sealed in the form of God must have in itself, imaged together with it, the whole of what is God's. And therefore the apostle preached that he whom God sealed is God abiding in the form of God. For, about to speak of the mystery of the body taken up and born together in him, he says: "He did not consider it robbery to be equal to God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant." For what was in the form of God remained God through God who sealed him. But because the form of a servant was to be taken up, and he was to be obedient to death, not grasping for himself to be equal to God, he emptied himself through obedience to take up the servile form. He emptied himself out of the form of God, that is, out of that by which he was equal to God; yet not regarding himself equal to God by robbery, though in the form of God and equal to God he stood sealed as God by God.

Here now I ask whether he who remains God in the form of God is God of another kind, as we see in seals with the sealing and sealed likenesses, when iron pressed on lead or a gem on wax either shapes the likeness of a hollow image in it or presses out the form of one standing out from it. But if anyone is so foolish and senseless as to think that God forms out of himself into God something other than God, and that he who is in the form of God is wholly something other than God, then after the mysteries of the man taken up and of the humility completed through obedience even to the death of the cross, he will hear, by the confession of things in heaven and on earth and under the earth and of every tongue, that Jesus is in the glory of God the Father. If then he will remain in this glory when the form has already been that of a servant, I ask, what did he remain when he was in the form of God? Was not Christ, the Spirit, in the nature of God, which is signified by "glory," since Christ Jesus, that is, the one born man, will stand in the glory of God the Father?

In all things the blessed apostle keeps the unchangeable preaching of the gospel faith, proclaiming the Lord Jesus Christ as God, so that the apostolic faith neither perishes into two gods through a God of another kind, nor does God the Son, inseparable from the Father, give an impious occasion for preaching a single and solitary God. For in saying "in the form of God" and "in the glory of God the Father," he neither taught that they differ nor allowed us to think that he does not exist. For he who is in the form of God neither advances into another God nor is himself not God, because he cannot be separated from the form of God, being in it; nor is he who is in the form of God not God. Just as he who is in the glory of God cannot be other than what God is; and while he is God in the glory of God, he does not admit the preaching of another God different from God, because, by being in the glory of God, he has in himself by nature, from him in whose glory he is, that which God is.

The one faith is not endangered by many proclamations so as to cease to be one. For the evangelist had taught the Lord's saying: "He who has seen me has seen the Father also." But did Paul, the teacher of the Gentiles, either not know or keep silent about the force of the Lord's saying, when he said: "Who is the image of the invisible God"? I ask whether he is a visible image of the invisible God, and whether the infinite God can be imaged into an appearance through the image of a bounded form? For an image must render the form of that of which it is the image. Let those who want the nature in the Son to be of another kind determine of what sort they would have the Son to be the image of the invisible God. Bodily, perhaps, and visible, and wandering about from place to place by motion and walking? Let them remember, however, that according to the Gospels and the prophets both Christ is Spirit and God is Spirit. If they confine this Spirit, Christ, in a formable and bodily way, the image of the invisible God will not be bodily, nor will a defined measure be the likeness of the undefined.

But neither did the Lord leave it uncertain, "He who has seen me has seen the Father also," nor was the apostle silent about what kind of image he is, "who is the image of the invisible God." For the Lord had said, "If I do not do the works of my Father, do not believe me," teaching that the Father is seen in him from this, that he did his works, so that the power of the nature, once understood, might show the nature of the power understood. By this the apostle, signifying that he is this image of God, says: "Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; because in him were established all things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or principalities or powers or dominions; all things were founded through him and in him, and he is before all, and all things hold together in him; and he is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things he himself might hold the first place; because in him it pleased all the fullness to dwell, and through him all things to be reconciled to him." Through the power of these works, then, he is the image of God. For surely the Founder of things invisible is not under such necessity of nature that the image of the invisible God should be visible. And so that he might not be understood as the image of a shape rather than of a nature, he is therefore the image of the invisible God, the nature of God in him being understood through the power of his nature, not through a visible quality.

He is, then, the firstborn of all creation, because in him all things were created. And so that no one should dare not to refer to him the fact that all things were created in him, he says: "All things were founded through him and in him, and he is before all, and all things hold together in him." All things, then, hold together in him who is before all things and in whom all things are. These words concern the beginnings of creatures. But on account of the dispensation of our body he says: "And he is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things he himself might hold the first place; because in him it pleased all the fullness to dwell, and through him all things to be reconciled to him." The apostle has set bodily operations alongside the spiritual mysteries. For he who is the image of the invisible God is also the head of the body, the church; and he who is the firstborn of all creation is also the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that in all things he may hold the first place, since he who is the image of God is a body for us; since he who is the firstborn of creation is also the firstborn into eternity; so that, as spiritual things owe it to him that they endure, being created in the firstborn, human things too may owe it to him that they are reborn eternal in the firstborn from the dead. For he is the beginning, who, being Son, is image; being image, is of God. He is also the firstborn of all creation, containing in himself the beginning of the universe. And again he is the head of the body, the church, and the firstborn from the dead, so that in all things he may hold the first place. And because all things hold together in him, the fullness well pleasing stands in him, since in him, through him, all things are reconciled to him, in whom, through him, all things were created in him.

Do you now perceive what it is to be the image of God? It is surely that all things are created in him through him. Since all things are created in him, understand also that he whose image he is creates all things in him. And since what is created in him is created through him, recognize also that in him who is the image the nature of him whose image he is is present. For he creates through himself what is created in him, just as all things are reconciled in him through him. Since they are reconciled in him, grasp the nature of the Father's unity in him, reconciling all things to himself in him. Since all things are reconciled through him, understand that he reconciles to the Father in himself all that he reconciled through himself. For the same apostle says: "But all things are from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; since God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself." Compare with these the whole mystery of the gospel faith. He who is seen in the one seen, who works in the one working, who speaks in the one speaking, the same reconciles in the one reconciling. And therefore reconciliation is in him and through him, because the Father, abiding in him through an undifferenced nature, was himself restoring the world to himself in reconciliation through him and in him.

Caring for human weakness, then, God did not teach the faith by an uncertain bareness of words. For although the authority of the Lord's word alone would have imposed the necessity of believing, he still trained our sense through the understanding of a reason set forth, so that we might know what he had said, "I and the Father are one," through the very cause of the unity explained. For in saying that he speaks through the one speaking, works through the one working, judges through the one judging, is seen through the one seen, reconciles through the one reconciling, and abides in him who abides in him, I ask what other, more fitting language he could have used in his explanation to the sense of our understanding, so that they might be understood to be one, than this, by which, through the truth of birth and the unity of nature, whatever the Son did and said, the Father spoke and did in the Son? This, then, does not belong to a nature foreign to itself, nor to one acquired as God through creation, nor to one born as God from a portion of God, but to a divinity begotten by a perfect birth as perfect God, whose natural confidence of consciousness it is to say: "I in the Father, and the Father in me," and again: "All that is the Father's is mine." For nothing of God is lacking to him, by whose working, speaking, and being seen God works, speaks, and is seen. There are not two in the working, speaking, or being seen of one. Nor is God solitary, who in God working, speaking, and seen has worked, spoken, and been seen as God. This the church understands, this the synagogue does not believe, this philosophy does not grasp: that one from one, whole from whole, God and Son, neither by birth took from the Father what is whole, nor in being born failed to hold this whole along with him. And whoever is held in this folly of unbelief is a follower either of the Jews or of the Gentiles.

But so that you may understand the Lord's saying, "All that is the Father's is mine," learn the teaching and faith of the apostle, who says: "See that no one leads you astray through philosophy and empty deceit according to the tradition of men, according to the elements of the world, and not according to Christ; because in him dwells all the fullness of divinity bodily." He is of the world, savours the teachings of men, and is the prey of philosophy, whoever does not know Christ as true God, whoever is ignorant of the fullness of divinity in him. The human mind savours only what it understands, and the world believes only what it can, reckoning possible, according to the natures of the elements, only what it sees or does. For the elements of the world came to be from nothing; but Christ does not endure from things that did not exist, nor did he begin at an origin; he took an eternal origin from an origin. The elements of the world are either lifeless or have advanced to life; but Christ is life, born from the living God into living God. The elements of the world were established by God and are not God; Christ, God from God, is himself wholly this which God is. The elements of the world, since they are within, cannot stand out from themselves so as not to be within; Christ, having God in himself under a mystery, is in God. The elements of the world, when they beget from themselves offspring of their kind into life, provide from themselves the beginnings of birth through bodily passions, but they are not themselves alive in those born; but all the fullness of divinity is in Christ bodily.

And I ask: whose fullness of divinity is in him? If it is not the Father's, what other God, you deceitful preacher of one God, do you impose on me, whose fullness of divinity dwells in Christ? But if it is the Father's, explain how this fullness dwells in him bodily. For if you believe the Father is in the Son in a bodily manner, the Father dwelling in the Son will not exist in himself. But if, as is rather the case, the divinity abiding in him bodily signifies the truth of the nature in him of God from God, since God is in him not by condescension or by will but by generation, true and whole, abiding in bodily fullness according to himself; since what he himself is has also been born, through the birth of God, into God; and since there is nothing different or diverse in God from what dwells bodily in Christ, and whatever dwells bodily is that very thing according to the fullness of divinity: why do you follow human things? Why do you cling to the teachings of empty deceits? Why do you offer me unanimity, concord, a creature? The fullness of divinity is in Christ bodily.

The apostle kept the law of his faith in this also, teaching that the fullness of divinity dwells in Christ bodily, so that the language of faith should not fall into an impious union, nor irreligious madness break out into the notion of another nature. For the fullness of divinity dwelling in Christ bodily is neither single nor separable, since the bodily fullness does not allow itself to be distinguished from the bodily fullness, nor can the indwelling divinity be understood to be the very dwelling-place of divinity. And so Christ is such that the fullness of divinity is in Christ bodily; and the fullness of divinity is in Christ bodily in such a way that the fullness dwelling in him is understood to be nothing other than Christ. Steal whatever openings in the words you like, and rouse the stings of your irreligious wit. At least make up a lie about whose fullness of divinity dwells in Christ bodily. For there is Christ, and there is also the fullness of divinity dwelling in him bodily.

And if you ask what a bodily dwelling is, understand what it is to speak in the one speaking, to be seen in the one seen, to work in the one working, God in God, whole from whole, one from one; and so recognize the bodily fullness of divinity. And whose fullness of divinity this is, dwelling bodily, remember that the apostle does not keep silent, when he says: "For his invisible things, from the founding of the world, are understood and clearly seen through the things that are made, his eternal power also and divinity." His divinity, then, is bodily in Christ, not in part but whole; it is not a portion but the fullness; abiding bodily in such a way that they are one; one in such a way that God does not differ from God; God undifferenced from God in such a way that a perfect birth has produced perfect God; and the perfect birth so subsists that in God born from God the fullness of divinity dwells bodily.

In the preceding book we treated of the undifferenced nature of God the Father and God the Son, and showed that the saying "I and the Father are one" does not lead to a solitary God but to the unity of a divinity undivided according to generation, since God was born from nowhere else than from God, and God from God cannot but be what God is. Having run through testimonies of the divine and apostolic sayings, if not all, yet enough for understanding, by which the inseparable nature and power of the Father and the Son was taught, we came to this passage of the apostolic faith, where he says: "See that no one leads you astray through philosophy and empty deceit according to the tradition of men, according to the elements of the world, and not according to Christ; because in him dwells all the fullness of divinity bodily." In it we taught that, through the fullness of divinity dwelling bodily in him, he is shown to be true and perfect God and of the Father's nature, so that the indwelling fullness was understood to signify neither a different one nor a single one: since the bodily dwelling of the incorporeal God taught the property of natural unity in God who had come to subsist from God, and God dwelling in Christ, being his indweller, showed the birth of Christ who subsists. By this, I think, more than enough answer has been given to the impiety of those who referred the Lord's sayings, "He who has seen me has seen the Father also," and "The Father in me and I in the Father," and "I and the Father are one," and "All that is the Father's is mine," to a unity and concord of will; so that, while belief in the saying remained, the false religion of a deceitful teaching might corrupt the understanding of the saying; and, since agreement of wills could not be denied in those in whom unity of nature is proclaimed, a fellowship of concord alone might be believed in order to abolish the unity that is according to birth. But when the blessed apostle, after many unambiguous proclamations of the natural truth, taught the fullness of divinity dwelling bodily in Christ, every assertion of impious rashness was cut off, since the bodily dwelling of the incorporeal divinity brought about a natural unity: so that the facts that the Son is not alone but the Father abides in him, and not only abides but works and speaks, and not only works and speaks but is seen, are not nominal but real; since through the mystery of birth he has in himself power from power, might from might, and nature from nature, holding by birth what is his own, and bearing forth from himself through the image what is in himself, being both the image and the truth of the author; because a perfect birth provides a perfect image, and the fullness of divinity dwelling bodily holds a natural truth.

And although these things are as they are, because natural God from God can only be in that nature of his birth by which he is God, and the undifferenced unity of the living nature is inseparable from itself under the birth of the living nature, yet the heretics creep in through the saving confession of the gospel faith to destroy the truth, so as to take from the Son his natural unity, while they arrange sayings spoken in one way and for one purpose to be understood in another way and for another purpose. Denying the Son of God, they use the authority of his saying: "Why do you call me good? No one is good but one, God"; so that, because his profession spoke of one God, whatever else is afterwards called by the name of God no longer abides in the nature of God, because God is one. And so that his being called God himself may be by naming rather than in truth, they try to confirm it from his saying: "And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God." And so that he may be outside the property of true God, they add: "The Son can do nothing of himself except what he sees the Father doing." They try this also: "The Father is greater than I." Finally, as though with an unanswerable denial of his divinity, they boast that they have overthrown the church's faith when they read again: "But of that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone." For a nature seems not to be made equal through birth if it differs through the necessity of ignorance; and the Father by knowing and the Son by not knowing would show an unlikeness of divinity, since God ought to be ignorant of nothing, and one who is ignorant is not to be compared with one who knows. But all these things, neither understanding them by reason, nor distinguishing them by times, nor grasping them by the gospel mysteries, nor perceiving them by the force of the sayings, they speak against the nature of divinity with foolish and unlearned madness, quoting only these bare words to fill the ears of the ignorant, keeping silent either about how they are resolved or about their causes; whereas the understanding of sayings is to be sought either from what precedes or from what follows.

Before giving the reason for these sayings mentioned above from the very professions of the Gospels or the apostles, we think all who share the common faith must be reminded that in the confession in which eternal life lies, there too lies the understanding of eternity. He plainly does not know his own life, he does not know it, who is ignorant that Christ Jesus is true man as he is true God. And it is a matter of the same peril to deny that Christ Jesus is God the Spirit, or that he is flesh of our body. "Everyone therefore who confesses me before men, I also will confess before my Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven." The Word made flesh said this, and the man Jesus Christ, the Lord of majesty, taught it: himself established in himself as Mediator for the salvation of the church, and by that very mystery of mediator between God and men existing as one who is both, since he himself, from natures united into one, is the same reality of both natures; yet so that he lacked neither in either, lest by being born man he should cease to be God, or again by remaining God he should not be man. This, then, is the true faith of human blessedness: to preach God and man, to confess Word and flesh; neither to be ignorant that God is man, nor to be ignorant that the flesh is the Word.

Since, against the nature of our sense, God, remaining God, is born man, it is no longer against the nature of our hope that, born man, he remains God; for the higher nature, born into the lower, gives faith that the lower can be born into the higher. And indeed, according to the law and custom of the world, the effect is readier for our hope than for the divine mystery. For the world has, in the things that are born, the power of increase, but not the power of diminution. Look at trees, crops, cattle. Consider man himself, a sharer in reason: he always advances by growth, but is never contracted by diminution; nor does he lose himself in what has grown in himself. For although he may wither with age or be cut off by death, he has either change in time or an end in the constitution of living; but what he is, he does not have the power not to be, so as to make himself new by diminution out of the same self, that is, to go back from an old man into a little child. The necessity of our nature, then, always carried forward to growth by the law of the world, not unreasonably expects advancement into a higher nature, since for it increase is according to nature and diminution against nature. It was proper to God, then, to be other than he was remaining, and yet not to cease to be what he had remained; that God should be born in man and yet not cease to be God; that he should contract himself to conception, cradle, and infancy, and yet not depart from the power of God. This mystery is not for himself but for us. Nor is our being taken up an advancement for God; rather his will to suffer humiliation is our promotion, since he does not lose what God is, and gains for man that he should be God.

So the only-begotten God, born man of the Virgin, and in the fullness of times about to advance in himself man into God, kept throughout this manner of gospel speech: he taught that he should be believed the Son of God and urged that he be proclaimed the Son of Man; speaking and doing as man all that is God's, then speaking and doing as God all that is man's; yet so that in that very speech of both kinds he never spoke except with a signifying of both man and God; always showing one God the Father, and professing himself in the nature of the one God through the truth of birth; yet not failing to subject himself to God the Father both by the honour of a son and by the condition of a man, since every birth refers itself to its author, and all flesh professes itself weak before God. Hence the heretics find occasion to deceive the simple and ignorant, falsely claiming that what he said as man was said according to the weakness of the divine nature; and because one and the same is speaking all that he speaks, they contend that he said everything about himself.

We do not, of course, deny that all his speech, which remains his, belongs to his nature. But if Jesus Christ is both man and God, and neither was he first God when man, nor when also man was he not also God, nor after the man in God is he not wholly man, wholly God, then the mystery of his sayings must be one and the same as that of his kind. And when you distinguish in him man from God according to time, distinguish then the speech of God and of man. And when you confess God and man in time, judge the sayings of God and of man in time. But when, after man and God, you understand again the time of one wholly man and now wholly God, if anything was said to show that time, fit what was said to the time; so that, since God before the man is one thing, man and God another, and wholly man, wholly God after the man and God yet another, you do not confound the mystery of the dispensation by times and kinds, since, according to the quality of the kinds and natures, his speech in the mystery of the man must have been one when he was not yet born, another when he was still to die, another when he is now eternal.

For our sake, then, Jesus Christ, remaining what he is and born a man of our body, spoke all these things according to the custom of our nature, yet without omitting that his nature is God. For although in birth, suffering, and death he carried through the things of our nature, he still did all those things by the power of his own nature: since he is himself the origin of his own birth, since he wills to suffer what it is not possible for him to suffer, since he who lives dies. And yet, while God does these things through man, born from himself, suffering through himself, and dying of himself, he did not fail to act as man, since he was both born and suffered and died. These mysteries of heavenly secrets were established before the foundation of the world: that the only-begotten God should will to be born man, the man to remain for ever in God; that God should will to suffer, so that the devil, raging through the sufferings of human weakness, might not keep the law of sin in us, God having taken up our weakness; that God should will to die, so that no insolent power should stand against God, nor be able to usurp the nature of the power created in it, since the immortal God had placed himself within the law of death. So God is born for our taking up, suffers for our innocence, and finally dies for vengeance: so that our man abides in God, the sufferings of our weaknesses are partnered with God, and the spiritual powers of wickedness and malice are subdued by the triumph of the flesh, God dying through the flesh.

The apostle, then, aware of this mystery, and having gained the knowledge of faith through the Lord himself, knowing that the world, men, and philosophy could not grasp it, says: "See that no one leads you astray through philosophy and empty deceit according to the tradition of men, according to the elements of the world, and not according to Jesus Christ; because in him dwells all the fullness of divinity bodily, and you are filled in him, who is the head of all principality and power." Having set forth the fullness of divinity dwelling bodily in him, he at once added the mystery of our being taken up, saying: "You are filled in him." For as the fullness of divinity is in him, so we are filled in him. He does not say, "you are filled," but "you are filled in him," because all who have been or will be regenerated to eternal life through the hope of faith now abide in the body of Christ; they are to be filled afterwards, no longer in him but in themselves, at that time of which the apostle says: "Who will transform the body of our lowliness to be conformed to the body of his glory." Now, then, we are filled in him, that is, through the taking up of his flesh, in whom the fullness of divinity dwells bodily. And this hope of ours has no small power in him. For that in which we are filled is the head and beginning of all power, according to the saying: "That in his name every knee should bow, of things in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that the Lord Jesus is in the glory of God the Father." This, then, will be the confession: that Jesus is in the glory of God the Father, and that, born in man, he no longer abides in the weakness of our body but in the glory of God. Every tongue will confess this. And when things in heaven and on earth bow the knee, this is the headship of all principality and power: that all things should be subject to him, bowing the knee, in whom we are filled, and who, through the fullness of divinity dwelling in him bodily, is to be confessed in the glory of God the Father.

Having shown the mystery both of his nature and of our being taken up, since, while the fullness of divinity abides in him, we are filled in him through his being born man, he goes on to the rest of the dispensation of human salvation, saying: "In whom also you were circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands, in the stripping off of the body of the flesh, but in the circumcision of Christ, buried with him in baptism, in which you also rose with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead." We are circumcised, then, not with a fleshly circumcision but with the circumcision of Christ, that is, reborn into the new man. For when we are buried with him in his baptism, we must die out of the old man, because the regeneration of baptism is the power of resurrection. And this is the circumcision of Christ: not to be stripped of the flesh of the foreskin, but to die wholly with him, and through this afterwards to live wholly for him. For in him we rise again through faith in that God who raised him from the dead. God, then, is to be believed, by whose working Christ was raised from the dead, because this faith rises again in Christ.

Then the whole mystery of the man taken up is completed thus: "And you, when you were dead in trespasses and the foreskin of your flesh, he made alive together with him, forgiving you all trespasses, blotting out the handwriting that was against us in decrees, which was contrary to us; and he took it out of the way, nailing it to the cross; having put off the flesh, he made the powers a show, triumphing over them in himself." The man of this world does not grasp the apostolic faith, and no one but the speaker himself explains the words of his meaning. God raises Christ from the dead, the Christ in whom the fullness of divinity dwells bodily. But he made us alive together with him, forgiving us our sins, blotting out the handwriting of the law of sin which through earlier decrees was contrary to us, taking it out of the way and nailing it to the cross, stripping himself of the flesh by the law of death, making the powers a show, triumphing over them in himself. Of the powers triumphed over in himself and made a show, of the handwriting blotted out, and of our being made alive, we have already treated above. But who will grasp or speak this mystery? The working of God raises Christ from the dead; and this same working of God makes us alive with Christ; and this same working forgives sins, blots out the handwriting, and nails it to the cross; it puts off the flesh, makes the powers a show, and triumphs over them in himself. You have the working of God raising Christ from the dead; you have also Christ working in himself these very things that God works. For Christ died, stripping himself of the flesh. Hold, then, that Christ the man was raised from the dead by God; hold that Christ God worked the work of our salvation when he was about to die; so that, when God works these things in Christ, though it is God working, it is still Christ who, stripping himself of the flesh, was to die; and when Christ has died, though God worked before the death, the working of God still raises the dead Christ; since he who raises Christ from the dead is the same who as Christ worked before death, and the same who stripped himself of the flesh when about to die.

Do you now understand the mystery of the apostolic faith? Do you now know Christ? For I ask you who it is that strips himself of the flesh, and what that flesh is that was stripped off? For I hold from the apostle the meaning of a twofold understanding, of the flesh stripped off and of him who strips himself of the flesh; and between these I hear of Christ raised from the dead through the working of God. And since it is God who raises Christ from the dead, and it is Christ who is raised from the dead, I ask who it is that strips himself of the flesh, and who it is that raises Christ from the dead and makes us alive with Christ? For if the dead Christ is not the same as the flesh stripped off, show the name of the flesh stripped off, and again explain the nature of him who stripped himself of the flesh. For I find that the God Christ raised from the dead is the same who stripped himself of the flesh, and again that the flesh stripped off is Christ raised from the dead; then I find him making the principalities and powers a show and triumphing in himself. Do you understand this one who triumphs over the powers in himself? Do you perceive that the flesh stripped off and he who strips himself of the flesh do not differ from each other? For he triumphs in himself, that is, in that flesh of which he stripped himself. Do you see that God and man are so proclaimed that death is assigned to the man and the raising of the flesh to God, yet not so that he who died is one and he through whom the dead rises is another? For the flesh stripped off is the dead Christ; and again, he who raises Christ from the dead is the same Christ who strips himself of the flesh. Understand the nature of God in the power of the resurrection; recognize the dispensation of the man in the death. And since both were done by their own natures, remember nevertheless that he who is both is one Christ Jesus.

For although I remember that the apostle frequently refers Christ's being raised from the dead to God the Father, the apostle is not, in his sayings, outside the gospel faith or contrary to himself, especially since the Lord says: "For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This command I received from the Father." Or when he was asked to show a sign for faith in him, he said of the temple of his body: "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." For since by the power to take up his life again and by the might to raise the temple he teaches that he himself is to himself the God of his resurrection, yet refers all this to the authority of the Father's command, the apostle is not understood in a contrary sense when, preaching Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God, he referred all the greatness of his work to the Father's glory; because whatever Christ does, the power and wisdom of God does; and whatever the power and wisdom of God does, God without doubt does, whose wisdom and power Christ is. So now Christ was raised from the dead through the working of God, because he himself worked the works of God the Father with a nature not different from God. And in him faith in the resurrection rests on God, who raised Christ from the dead.

The blessed apostle, then, kept this preaching of a twofold meaning in Christ, so as to teach both the weakness of the man in him and the power and nature of God, according to what was said to the Corinthians: "For though he was crucified out of weakness, yet he lives by the power of God," showing that the death was of human weakness and the life of the power of God; and to the Romans: "For the death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. So you also consider yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus": ascribing the death to sin, that is, to our body, but the life to God, to whom it is natural to live; and that through this we must die to our body, so that we may live to God in Christ Jesus, who, taking up the body of our sin, now lives wholly to God, the fellowship of our nature being united into communion with divine immortality.

I had to show these things briefly so that we might remember that in the Lord Jesus Christ the person of both natures is under discussion; because he who abode in the form of God took the form of a servant, in which he was obedient to death. For the obedience of death is not in the form of God, just as the form of God is not in the form of a servant. But through the mystery of the gospel dispensation he who is in the form of a servant is no other than he who is in the form of God; though to take the form of a servant and to abide in the form of God are not the same, and he who abode in the form of God could not take the form of a servant except by emptying himself, since the two forms do not agree to come together. But he who emptied himself and he who took the form of a servant are not another and a different one. For having taken cannot belong to one who does not exist, since to take belongs to one who subsists. So the emptying of the form is not the abolition of the nature, because he who empties himself does not lack himself, and he who takes remains. And since he who empties and takes is the same, there is indeed in him a mystery, that he empties himself and takes; yet there is no destruction, so that the one emptying would not exist or the one taking would not be. So the emptying goes so far as to let the form of a servant advance, not so that Christ, who was in the form of God, should not remain Christ, since it was none but Christ who took the form of a servant. When he emptied himself, so that the same Christ, abiding as Spirit, should be Christ as man, the change of condition in the body and the taking up of a nature did not destroy the nature of the abiding divinity, because it is one and the same Christ who both changes his condition and takes it up.

Having shown the dispensation of the mysteries, through which the heretics were deceiving the ignorant, so as to ascribe to a weakness of divinity all that was said and done through the nature of the man taken up, and to assign to the form of God whatever is fitting and proper to the form of a servant, we must now answer their propositions themselves. For the kinds of the several sayings will now be safely judged, since the only faith is to confess the Word and the flesh, that is, Jesus Christ God and man. The heretics think, then, that our Lord Jesus Christ is to be denied as God by nature because he said: "Why do you call me good? No one is good but one, God." Every reasoned answer must start from the causes of the questions; for an answer will address what prompts the question. And first I ask the man who slanders with this saying whether he thinks the Lord blames being called good, and would rather have been called evil. For this seems to be signified by the words, "Why do you call me good?" I do not think anyone will be so senseless as to want to ascribe a profession of wickedness to him who said: "Come to me, all you who labour and are burdened, and I will refresh you. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." He professes himself gentle and humble; and will he be believed to be angry at being called good? These professions are so at odds that the witness to his own goodness would be accusing the name of goodness in himself. He is not, then, understood to be angry at being called good. And we must ask what other profession about himself he blames, since he is not to be believed to blame the name of goodness in himself.

Let us see, then, what the questioner said besides "good." For he says: "Good teacher, what good shall I do?" He used two names together, "good" and "teacher." And since he does not blame being called good, he must blame being called good teacher. And he blames being called good teacher in such a way as to blame the faith of the questioner rather than the name either of teacher or of good in himself. For the young man, proud in his keeping of the law, ignorant of the end of the law, which is Christ, thinking himself justified by works, and not understanding that he had come to the lost sheep of the house of Israel and that it was impossible for the law to save believers through the faith of justification, questions the Lord of the law and the only-begotten God as though he were a teacher of common precepts written in the law. The Lord, then, abhorring this profession of irreligious faith about himself, that he was being questioned as a teacher of the law, answered: "Why do you call me good?" And to signify how far he was to be understood and confessed as good, he added: "No one is good but one, God"; not rejecting the name of goodness, if it were assigned to him as God.

Then, showing that he blamed the name of good teacher in himself because of the faith of him who questioned him as a man, after the young man's boasting and glorying in the law fulfilled, he answered thus: "One thing you lack: go, sell whatever you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me." He who promises heavenly treasure does not shun the name of goodness for himself; nor does he who offers himself as guide to this perfect blessedness refuse to be seen as teacher. But he blames the faith of an earthly opinion about himself, teaching that goodness is in God alone. And to signify that he was both God and good, he used the offices of goodness, opening the heavenly treasures and offering himself to lead the way to them. So he both abhors what was offered him as though to a man only, and does not profess himself foreign to what he assigned to God, since, confessing one God as good, he himself spoke and did what belongs to the power, goodness, and nature of the one God.

That he neither shunned the name of goodness nor refused the honour of teacher, but blamed the faith of one who savoured nothing in him but what was bodily and fleshly, is understood from the fact that he spoke otherwise to the apostles when they confessed him teacher, saying: "You call me Teacher and Lord, and you say well; for so I am"; and when elsewhere he said: "Do not be called teachers, for your teacher is Christ." Where he is teacher with faith, there he praises it so far as to profess the name himself; but here he does not acknowledge the name of good teacher, where he was not understood to be either Lord or Christ, proclaiming one God alone as good, certainly not separating himself from God, he who, professing himself Lord and Christ, shows himself guide to the heavenly treasure.

The Lord always kept this measure of the church's faith: proclaiming the Father as one God, he did not separate himself from the mystery of the one God, while through the nature of birth he professed himself neither another God nor the Father himself; because the nature of the one God in him does not allow him to be God of a different kind, nor does the birth admit that his being Son is not perfect. So he can neither be separated from God nor is he the Father himself. Through this he so tempers every meaning of his speech that whatever honour he declared for God the Father he showed, by a most modest confession, to be proper to himself too. For when he says, "Believe in God, and believe in me," I ask in what respect he separated himself in nature, who did not separate himself in honour? For in saying, "And believe in me," after saying, "And believe in God," is he not understood to have signified his own nature too by saying "in me"? Separate the nature, by all means, if you separate the faith. If to believe in God without Christ is life, tear Christ away from both the name and the property of God. But if it brings life to perfection that those who believe in God believe in Christ, let the careful reader weigh the force of the words: "Believe in God, and believe in me." For in saying, "Believe in God, and believe in me," joining himself to faith in God, he joined himself also to his nature, since, having named God, in whom one must believe, he taught that one must believe in him too; teaching thereby that he is God, since those who believe in God must believe in him. Yet he excluded the occasion of an irreligious union, because, professing that one must believe both in God and in himself, he left no room for faith in himself as solitary.

Although, then, in very many and almost all his sayings he provided the resolution of this mystery, so that, having confessed God the Father, he never separated himself from his unity, nor, placing himself in his unity, professed him to be one and solitary, the mystery both of unity and of birth is understood to be taught most of all from this, when he says: "But I have a testimony greater than John's. For the works which the Father has given me to accomplish, the very works that I do, bear witness of me, that the Father has sent me. And the Father who sent me has himself borne witness of me. You have never heard his voice nor seen his form, and you do not have his word abiding in you, because you do not believe him whom he has sent." How is it truly understood that the Father has borne witness to the Son, when he himself has not been seen nor his voice heard? I remember, indeed, that a voice was heard from heaven, saying: "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear him." And how was the voice of God not heard, when the voice heard contains in itself the signifying of the Father's voice? But perhaps those dwelling in Jerusalem did not hear it, because John alone heard it in the wilderness. We must ask, then, how the Father bore witness in Jerusalem. For he no longer uses the testimony of John, who heard the voice from heaven, but has a testimony greater than John's; and what this was he added at once: "For the works which the Father has given me to accomplish, the very works that I do, bear witness of me, that the Father has sent me." I recognize the authority of the testimony, for no one but the Son sent by the Father would do these things. His work, then, is the testimony. But what follows next? "And the Father who sent me has himself borne witness of me. You have never heard his voice nor seen his form, and you do not have his word abiding in you." Are they then free of blame for not knowing the Father's testimony, since he was never heard or seen by them and his word does not abide in them? But they are not excused for a testimony unknown to them, because he professes that the Father's testimony about him is the testimony of his works. The works, then, testify of him that he was sent by the Father; but this testimony of the works is the Father's. And since the Son's working is the Father's testimony, it must be understood that the nature working in Christ is that through which the Father too is witness. And so Christ working, and the Father testifying in his work, are shown to be of an inseparable nature according to birth, since the testimony of God about Christ is signified to be Christ's very working.

They are not, then, free of guilt for a testimony unknown to them, since the work of Christ is the Father's testimony about him. Nor, because they did not hear the voice of the witness, nor see his form, nor have his word abiding, are they therefore without awareness of the testimony. For to the words, "You have never heard his voice nor seen his form, and you do not have his word abiding in you," so that, since the Father had borne witness of him, the cause of the voice not being heard, the form not seen, and the word not abiding in them might be understood, he at once added: "Because you do not believe him whom he has sent"; showing that, if he were believed, the voice of God would be heard, the form of God seen, and his word would be in those who believed, since through the unity of nature the Father both spoke and was seen and was possessed in him. Does he not signify the Father too, when he has been sent by him? Does he distinguish himself from the Father by any difference of nature, when the Father, bearing witness of him, was neither heard nor seen nor understood for this reason, that they did not believe him who was sent by the Father? The only-begotten God, then, does not separate himself from God in confessing God the Father; but, God the Father being shown through the signifying of the Father, he establishes himself also in the honour of God.

For in this very same discourse, in which he teaches that by his works he testifies that he was sent by the Father, and signifies that the Father testifies that he was sent by him, when he had said, "And you do not seek the glory of him who alone is God," he still did not leave this saying bare and not first prepared for faith in the unity. For above he said: "You will not come to me that you may have life. I do not receive glory from men; but I know you, that you do not have the love of God in you. I have come in my Father's name, and you have not received me; if another comes in his own name, you will receive him. How can you believe, who receive glory from men and do not seek the glory of him who alone is God?" He rejects the glory of men, because glory is rather to be sought from God, and it is the mark of unbelievers to receive glory from one another. For what glory will man impart to man? He says, then, that he knows the love of God is not in them; and he teaches this cause of the love of God not abiding in them, that they do not receive him coming in the name of his Father. What, I ask, is it for him to come in the name of the Father? Is it anything other than in the name of God? Or is it not for this reason that the love of God is not in them, that he was not received when he came in the name of God? Or had he not signified the nature of God in himself when he said, "You will not come to me that you may have life"? For in the same discourse he had already said: "Amen, amen, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live." When he comes in the name of the Father, he is not the Father himself, and yet he is not outside that nature of divinity by which the Father is; because it is proper both to the Son and to God to come in the name of God the Father. Then another, coming in the same name, is to be received. But this is a man from whom men will hope for glory for themselves, and to whom they will render glory in return, while he falsely claims to have come in the name of the Father. And it is not obscure that the antichrist is signified here, boasting with a lie of the Father's name. And when they honour him and are honoured by him (for they will receive this spirit of error), they will not seek the glory of him who alone is God.

Since, then, they do not have the love of God because they did not receive him coming in the name of the Father, and again, receiving another coming in the same name and receiving glory from one another, they do not seek the glory of him who alone is God, can Christ be understood to separate himself from the glory of the one God, when the glory of the only God is not sought precisely because, in receiving the antichrist, he was not received? For he whose rejection is the neglect of the glory of the only God must have the glory of the only God in his own glory; had they abided in receiving him, they would have sought the glory of the only God. And this same discourse is our witness, at whose beginning it is contained: "That all may honour the Son as they honour the Father. He who does not honour the Son does not honour the Father who sent him." Only things natural to each other are made equal in honour, and honour made equal does not separate those honoured. Yet equality of honour is demanded together with the mystery of birth. Since the Son is to be honoured as the Father is, and the glory of him who alone is God is not sought, he is not outside the glory of the only God, whose glory is one and the same with God's; because, as he who does not honour the Son does not honour the Father either, so he who does not seek the glory of the only God does not seek Christ's either. Christ's glory, then, is inseparable from God's glory. And how one and the same it is for both he also teaches when, on being told of Lazarus's sickness, he says: "This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it." Lazarus dies for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through Lazarus. Is it doubted that the glory of God is in the glory of the Son of God, when the death of Lazarus, which is glorious to God, is to bring forth glory for the Son of God? And so both the natural unity of God the Father in Christ through birth is taught, when Lazarus's sickness is for the glory of God, and the mystery of the faith is kept, when the Son of God is to be glorified through Lazarus: God being understood as glorified through the Son of God, and not understood so as not also to be confessed in the Son of God, since, when God is glorified through Lazarus, the Son of God is glorious.

The birth of the living from the living is inseparable from the mystery of the divine nature, and the Son of God does not undergo a change of kind, so that the truth of the Father's nature might not remain in him. For even by those very expressions in which, by confessing only one God, he seems to have denied the nature of God in himself under the showing of one alone, he still placed himself in the unity of the Father's nature without overthrowing faith in one God. For when asked by a scribe what was the chief commandment in the law, he answered: "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your inward parts, and with all your strength. This is the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbour as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these." He is thought to have estranged himself from the nature and worship of the one God, since the profession of the chief commandment is this: "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord"; and then not to place himself even in the worship of the following commandment, since the law called us to love of neighbour as it called us to faith in one Lord. And indeed the scribe's answer must not be neglected, when he says: "You have spoken well, Teacher, in truth, that God is one and there is no other besides him; and that he is to be loved with all the heart and all the strength and all the soul; and to love one's neighbour as oneself. This is greater than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices." The scribe's answer seems to agree with the Lord's words, professing an inmost and inward love of one God, promising love of neighbour according to the truth of one's love for oneself, and understanding that love for God and man is above whole burnt offerings of sacrifices. But we must see what follows.

[When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely,] he said to him: "You are not far from the kingdom of God." What does the profession of so measured an answer mean, that, although this faith brings a man to completion for the kingdom of heaven, to believe in one God and love him with all the soul, all the strength, and all the heart, and also to love one's neighbour as oneself, this scribe is not yet in the kingdom of God, but not far from the kingdom of God? This is given with another meaning to those who clothe the naked, feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, visit the sick, and frequent those shut up in prison: "Come, you blessed of my Father, possess the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." Or to those for whom this is the reward of poverty of spirit: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." This is the perfect fruit, the full possession, the sure handing over of the prepared kingdom. Or did the young man profess anything less than these? For when he had made love of neighbour equal to love of self, what had he left undone for the completion of good works? For sometimes to be kind and dutiful is not of perfect love; but perfect love has fulfilled every duty of kindness of every kind, since he leaves nothing that he owes another who renders as much to another as to himself. But the Lord, praising the scribe's profession of faith, yet held back by ignorance of the completed mystery, and answering that he was not far from the kingdom of God, still did not set him in the very possession of the blessed hope. For he was running a happy course, though unknowingly, both preferring the love of God to all things and making love of neighbour equal to his love of himself. And since he had preferred the love of God even to that love of neighbour, he was no longer held by the prescriptions of whole burnt offerings and sacrifices. This was not far from the gospel mystery.

And why he is not far from the kingdom of God, rather than about to be in the kingdom of God, must be understood from the Lord's own words. For there follows: "And no one dared to question him any longer. And Jesus answered and said, teaching in the temple: How do the scribes say that the Christ is the son of David? For David himself says in the Holy Spirit: The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies the footstool of your feet. David himself calls him Lord; and how is he his son?" The scribe, then, who confesses one God, to be loved above all things, is not far from the kingdom of God. But he is reminded by his own profession why he is ignorant of the mystery of the law and does not know that Christ the Lord, the Son of God, is to be confessed, through the nature of his birth, within faith in one Lord. And because, through the profession of one Lord according to the law, it seemed that nothing was lacking to the Son of God for remaining within the mystery of the one Lord, he reminds the scribe how he could call Christ the son of David, when David had professed him his Lord, and nature would not allow that one who was the son of so great a patriarch should also be his lord. This was so that the scribe, who understood him only according to the flesh and the childbearing of Mary, who was of David, might remember that according to the Spirit he was David's Lord rather than his son; and that the saying, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord," might not separate Christ from the mystery of the one Lord, since so great a patriarch and prophet professed as his Lord him who had been begotten from the womb of the Lord before the morning star; not, surely, forgetful of the law, nor ignorant that no other lord is to be confessed, but understanding that he who had come to subsist from the womb of the incorporeal God by the mystery of a natural birth is to be understood as Lord without violating faith in the law, since, one from one, through the nature of the one Lord, he had in himself by nature that which the Lord is.

What room, then, is now left for doubt? The Lord himself, teaching that the chief commandment of the law lies in the confession and love of one Lord, used toward the scribe not his own testimony but the prophet's that he himself is Lord; yet always signifying that he is Lord through the fact that he is the Son of God. For through this he abides in the mystery of the one God by birth: because the birth of God, holding the nature of God in itself, does not go out into another God by diversity of nature; and the truth of generation neither takes from the Father his being Lord, nor fails to bring it about that the Son also is Lord. And so neither does the Father lose his authority, nor does the Son fail to hold the nature: through which neither is God the Father not the one Lord, nor is the only-begotten God the Lord separated from the one, since from the one Lord he himself subsists as one into Lord; teaching one Lord from the law in such a way as to confirm, with the prophet as witness, that he too is Lord.

Let the answer of the gospel faith go on through the remaining propositions of impious madness, and fight back with the very things by which it is attacked; and, conquering with the weapons meant for its own destruction, let it show that the sayings of one Spirit are also the teaching of one faith. For there is no other Christ than he who has been preached, namely true God, abiding in the glory of the one true God; and as he professed himself Lord from the law while he seemed to deny it, so in the Gospels too he shows himself true God while he is thought not to confess it. For the heretics excuse themselves from confessing him true God by this saying of his: "And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent." For in saying, "you, the only true God," he is thought to separate himself from the truth of God by the exception of a solitary one, since "the only true God" does not allow itself to be understood except as a solitary God. And truly the apostolic faith does not allow two true gods to be believed, because nothing foreign to the nature of the one God is to be made equal to the truth of the same nature. For God will not be one in the truth of the one God if, outside the nature of the one true God, another true God of another kind exists, not natural to him through birth.

But so that he may be understood, by this very same saying, to have professed himself without ambiguity true God in the nature of the one true God, let the course of our answer descend from the professions that precede it, continuous and joined with it, so that, through the steps of a demonstrated faith, the confidence of our freedom may finally rest on the very summit of Christ the true God. After the mystery of his discourse in which he said: "He who has seen me has seen the Father also," and: "Do you not believe me that I am in the Father and the Father in me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak from myself; but the Father who abides in me, he does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if not, believe at least because of the works themselves." After this manifold discourse of great mysteries, then, there follows this saying of the disciples in reply: "Now, then, we know that you know all things, and do not need anyone to question you; by this we believe that you came forth from God." In the powers of God in him they understood also the nature of God; for to know all things and to know the thoughts of hearts could belong not to one sent from God but rather to one born from God. They profess, then, that they believe this, that he came forth from God, because the power of the nature of God was in him.

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."

Unless the sayings are proper to the proposition, we do violence to the sayings by the presumption of our own unbelieving understanding. But if the answer was given to the causes of their anger, our faith rather speaks what is taught than irreligious perversity defends the error of its impiety. Let us ask, then, whether this answer is proper to the sabbath work: "The Son can do nothing of himself except what he sees the Father doing." For he said above: "My Father is working until now, and I am working." If what he does by the authority of the Father's nature in him he does while the Father does it, who works until now on the sabbath, the Son is free of blame for the work, in which the authority of the Father's working is set forth. For he referred "cannot" not to weakness but to authority; for he cannot of himself unless he sees. Seeing does not confer power; and since sight does not confer power, being unable without sight does not weaken the nature but shows the authority from sight. For "unless he sees" signifies consciousness in seeing, as he says to the apostles: "Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and see the fields, for they are white for harvest." With consciousness in himself, then, of the Father's nature, which works in him as he works, so that the Lord of the sabbath might not be believed to have violated the sabbath, he says: "The Son can do nothing of himself except what he sees the Father doing"; to show that what he worked came from the consciousness of the nature working in him, since, as he worked on the sabbath, the Father too was working until now on the sabbath. But to the resentment at the other indignity he referred the cause of the following saying: "For whatever the Father does, these the Son also does likewise." Reproach the Son of God with weakness, take away also the equality of nature, if the Son does not do likewise whatever the Father does, if any difference of the Father's power and working is admitted, if equality of honour, which is proper to equality of power and nature, is not demanded. For he himself says in what follows: "That all may honour the Son as they honour the Father. He who does not honour the Son does not honour the Father who sent him." Divide, if you can, an equality in an honour that is not unequal; weaken, if you can, the nature in the same working of power.

Why do you seize on the cause of the answer to insult the divinity? To the sabbath working he answered that he could do nothing except what he had seen the Father doing; but to show equality he professed that he does whatever the Father does. Hold what concerns the sabbath as a reproach of weakness, if the Son does not do likewise whatever the Father does. But if "whatever" is without exception, where, after all, will weakness be found, when in nothing is the Son unable to do what the Father can? Or where, after all, is equality denied by the intervening of weakness, when one and the same honour is demanded for both? And if there is the same power of working and the same reverence in honouring, I do not understand where, after all, any insult of a weak nature is left, when the power of might and the equality of honour are the same in the Father and in the Son.

And although these things have been treated with the very resolution of the matter, yet, so that the Lord's words, "The Son can do nothing of himself except what he sees the Father doing," may not serve the impiety of weakening his nature rather than show his consciousness of the Father's nature in him, by which he worked on the sabbath by authority, we must also show the meaning of the Lord's saying that bears on this, where he says: "And I do nothing of myself, but as the Father taught me, I speak these things. And he who sent me is with me, and he has not left me alone, because I always do the things that please him." Do you perceive what it means that the Son can do nothing unless he sees the Father doing it? And with what mystery it was said, "I do nothing of myself"; and again, "He has not left me alone, because I always do the things that please him"? For if he does nothing of himself because the Father abides in him, how, again, has the Father not left him alone because he does what pleases him? On your view, heretic, the difference of the sayings does not agree: that he does nothing of himself except as taught by the Father abiding in him; and again that the Father abides in him because he does what pleases him. For if he does nothing of himself because the Father abides in him, how did he deserve that the Father abide in him from doing what pleases him? For there is no merit in not doing of oneself what one does. And conversely, how are the things the Son does pleasing to the Father, when the Father abiding in the Son does those very things? You are in a tight place, impiety, and the well-fortified piety of our faith shuts you in. Either the Son does something or he does not. If he does not, how does he please in what he does? But if he does, how does he do it in the things he does not do of himself? Since it is proper to have done what pleases, and there is no merit in not having done of oneself what one has done.

But, you who contradict, the unity of the nature is this: that he acts through himself in such a way as not to act of himself, and does not act of himself in such a way as to act through himself. Understand the Son acting, and the Father acting through him. He does not act of himself, since the Father is to be shown abiding in him. He acts through himself, since, according to the Son's birth, he himself does what pleases. Let him be weak in not acting of himself, unless he himself acts so far that what he does pleases. But let him not be in unity of nature, if the things he himself does, and in which he pleases, he does not do through himself, but the Father abiding in him teaches him to do them. So the Father teaches by abiding, and the Son in acting does not act of himself; and the Son, acting not of himself, himself acts when he does what pleases. And so the unity of nature is kept in acting, since he who works does not work of himself, and he who has not worked of himself works.

Add to this also what you seize on as a reproach of weakness: "All that the Father gives me comes to me, and him who comes to me I will not cast out; because I came down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of the Father who sent me." But perhaps the Son is without freedom of will, so that weakness of nature imposes necessity on him. And he is subject to necessity, not to will, so that he does not cast out those who come, given to him by the Father. But the Lord, signifying in these words the unity of the mystery, since he does not reject those given to him, since he does not do his own will but the will of him who sent him, after repeating this same saying to the murmuring Jews, confirms the sense of our understanding, saying: "Everyone who hears from the Father and learns comes to me; not that anyone has seen the Father, except he who is from God; he has seen the Father. Amen, amen, I say to you, he who believes in me has eternal life." And I ask first, where the Father was heard, where he taught those who heard? But no one has seen the Father except him who is from God. And how will anyone hear him whom no one has seen? Hearing from the Father, then, he comes to the Son. And when the Son is heard and teaches, the property of the Father's nature, both heard and teaching, is shown in him; so that the Son's teaching and being heard is understood as hearing the Father's teaching. For since no one has seen the Father, and he who comes to the Son hears and learns from the Father so that he comes, we are reminded to understand what it is for the Father both to teach in the Son speaking and, in the Son being seen, to be heard, though seen by no one; because the birth of the Son contains in itself, perfected, the property of the Father's nature. Wishing, then, to testify to the Father's authority while keeping the unity of nature in himself, the only-begotten God both does not cast out those given him by the Father and does not his own will but the will of him who sent him; not that he does not will what he does, or that he who teaches is not himself heard; but so as to show both him who sends and himself who is sent under the property of an undifferenced nature, since what he wills, does, and speaks he signifies to be the Father's will, works, and words.

That he is of free will he shows without ambiguity when he says: "For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so the Son also gives life to whom he will." Where equal power of might and dignity of honour is shown in the Father and the Son, there freedom of will is also shown; but where unity is shown, there the disposition of the Father's will is signified. For the Son does what the Father wills. But to do is more than to obey a will; for to obey a will implies an outward necessity, while to do a will is proper to unity, since the deed belongs to the will. And when the Son does the Father's will, he teaches, through the non-difference of nature, that his will is natural to him together with the Father, since all that he does is his will. The Son plainly wills all that the Father wills, and the natural will does not disagree. For since this is the Father's will, which he shows when he says: "For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day," hear now whether the Son's will disagrees with the Father's, when he says: "Father, I will that those whom you have given me may be with me where I am." There is no doubt, then, that the Son wills. For while the Father wills that believers have eternal life in the Son, the Son wills that believers be where he himself is. Unless, perhaps, dwelling with Christ is not eternity; or Christ does not give perfect and blessed things to those who believe in him, saying: "No one knows the Son except the Father, nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and he to whom the Son wills to reveal him." Is he not in freedom of will, willing to give us knowledge of that secret of the Father? And is his will so free that he imparts knowledge of himself and of the Father to whom he wills? And so the nature both of birth and of unity between the Father and the Son is shown, since the Son is so free in will that what he does willingly is a deed of the Father's will.

He who does not know the dispensation of the faith is plainly outside the understanding of the mysteries; and he who has not gained the teaching of the gospel is a stranger to the hope of the gospel. The Father is to be believed in the Son and the Son in the Father, through unity of nature, through power of might, through equality of honour, through the generation of birth. But perhaps the Lord's testimony is contrary to this profession of ours, when he says: "The Father is greater than I." Is this, heretic, the dart of your impiety? Are these the weapons of your madness? Has it slipped your mind that the church does not know two unbegotten ones, and does not confess two fathers? Have you forgotten the dispensation of the Mediator, and in it the birth, the cradle, the growth in age, the suffering, the cross, the death? And at your rebirth did you not confess the Son of God born of Mary? If, abiding the Son in all these, he says, "The Father is greater than I," do you think you need not know that this dispensation of your salvation is the emptying of the form of God, and that the Father, outside this taking up of human sufferings, remained in that blessed eternity of his undefiled nature without taking up our flesh? For we profess that the only-begotten God, abiding in the form of God, remained in the nature of God; and we do not at once pour the unity of the servile form back into the nature of divine unity; nor again do we preach the Father in the Son by a bodily insertion, but that from him a nature of the same kind was begotten, which by nature had in itself the nature that begot it; which, abiding in the form of the nature that begot it, took the form of the nature and weakness of a body. For the property of the nature was there; but the form of God was no longer there, because through his emptying the form of a servant had been taken up. For the nature had not failed so as not to be; but the nature of God, remaining itself, had taken into itself the lowliness of an earthly birth, exercising the power of its kind in the condition of the lowliness taken up. And God born from God, found in the form of a servant as man, acting as God in works of power, was not other than God, as he taught by his deeds, nor did he fail to remain man, in whose condition he was found.

And therefore in this same earlier discourse, testifying to the unity of nature he had with the Father, he had said: "He who has seen me has seen the Father also," and "The Father in me and I in the Father." These surely have no difference, arising from equality of nature, since the beholding of the Son makes good the seeing of the Father too, and one abiding in one does not divide one from one. And so that he might not be thought to render from himself the sight of beholding the Father through bodily beholding, he had added: "Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father in me; but if not, believe at least because of the works"; so that, since power belongs to nature and working itself is the might of power, the unity of the Father's nature in him might be known through the might of the power; since, so far as anyone knew him to be God in the power of nature, so far he would know God the Father in the might of nature; and since the Son, as great as the Father is, enabled the Father to be seen in him in his deeds, the Father would thereby be known as undifferenced from the Son, through understanding him as undifferenced in the might of nature.

So the only-begotten God, about to fulfil the dispensation of the flesh and to complete the mystery of the servile form he had taken, used a profession that would demonstrate our faith, saying: "You have heard that I said to you, I am going away, and I am coming to you. If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father; because the Father is greater than I." Since what concerns the nature of divinity was set out in this same earlier discourse, does this profession take from the Son the equality of nature that a genuine birth completes? Or is it an insult to the only-begotten God that the Father is to him the unbegotten God, since from the unbegotten God an only-begotten birth subsists into an only-begotten nature? For the Son is not his own origin, nor did he, not yet existing, procure his birth for himself out of nothing; but existing as a living nature from a living nature, he holds in himself the power of the nature, while professing the authority of the nature, so as to testify both to the honour and to the grace of the birth received in the honour. And rendering this as due to the Father, that he ascribes his obedience to the will of him who sent him, yet not so as to weaken the unity of nature by the obedience of humility, he became obedient to death, and yet after death he is above every name.

But if perhaps he seems unequal for this reason, that this name is given him after the emptying of the form of God, this slander does not know the mystery of the lowliness he took up. For if the birth of a man brought in a new nature, and lowliness changed the form under the servile taking up, now the gift of the name restores the equality of form. For ask what was given. If what was given is what belongs to God, the gift of this nature brings no lowness upon that divine nature. Indeed, this name now given him, though it has the mystery of a gift, does not have in the gift of the name a foreign name. For it is given to Jesus that things in heaven and on earth and under the earth should bow the knee to him, and every tongue confess that the Lord Jesus is in the glory of God the Father. The honour of this confession is given, then, that he is to be confessed in the glory of God the Father. Do you hear, then, "The Father is greater than I"? Know that he is the one of whom it was said for the merit of obedience: "And he gave him the name which is above every name." Hear again: "I and the Father are one," and "He who has seen me has seen the Father also," and "I in the Father and the Father in me." Understand the honour of the confession given, that the Lord Jesus is in the glory of God the Father. When, then, is it "The Father is greater than I"? Surely then, when the name above every name is given him. And conversely, when is it "I and the Father are one"? Surely when every tongue confesses that the Lord Jesus is in the glory of God the Father. If, then, the Father is greater by the authority of the giver, is the Son less through the confession of the gift? The giver, then, is greater; but he to whom it is given to be one is no longer less. If it is not given to Jesus that he is to be confessed in the glory of God the Father, he is less than the Father. But if it is given him to be in that glory in which the Father is, you have both, in the authority of the giver, that he is greater, and, in the confession of the gift, that they are one. The Father, then, is greater than the Son; and plainly greater, who gives him to be as great as he himself is; who imparts to him by the mystery of birth to be the image of his unbegottenness; whom he begets from himself into his own form; whom he renews again from the form of a servant into the form of God; whom, born in his glory according to the Spirit as Christ God, he gives again to be in his glory according to the flesh as Jesus Christ, God who died. He showed, then, the cause why, if they loved him, they would rejoice that he was going to the Father: because the Father was greater.

So, teaching that this joy came from love, because love would rejoice that Jesus was to be confessed in the glory of God the Father, he at once added the merit of resuming this glory, saying: "For the ruler of this world is coming, and he has nothing in me." The ruler of this world has nothing in him, because, found as a man in condition, he remained outside the sin of the flesh in the likeness of the flesh of sin, condemning sin in the flesh because of sin. Referring all this to obedience to the Father's command, he added: "But so that the world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father has given me command, so I do. Rise, let us go from here." Through love of carrying out the Father's command, he rises in haste to complete the mystery of his bodily suffering; yet at once he opens the mystery of the bodily taking up, through which we would be in him like branches in a vine, branches which would not bear useful fruit unless he had become the vine. And therefore he urges us to abide in him through faith in the body he took up, so that, since the Word became flesh, we might be in the nature of his flesh as branches in a vine; while he set the form of the Father's majesty apart from this taking up of bodily lowliness, at the time when, professing himself the vine for the unity of the branches, he showed the Father as the careful vinedresser of this vine, cutting off its useless and unfruitful branches and appointing them to be burned. Saying, then, "He who has seen me has seen the Father also," and "The words that I speak, I do not speak from myself; but the Father who abides in me, he does his works," and "Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father in me," so as to make plain both the mystery of the birth and the mystery of the body taken up, he comes through the sequence of his sayings to say, "Because the Father is greater than I." And at once, so that the full reason of the saying might lie beneath it, he added the example of the vinedresser, the vine, and the branch, showing thereby the taking up of bodily lowliness. And from this he teaches that the cause of going to the Father, and the gladness of love when he went to the Father, had to be that the Father was greater than he: from whom, namely, he was to resume glory; with whom and in whom he was to be glorified, not with a new honour but with the former one; not a foreign one but that which he had with him. If, then, he is not to be glorified into him, that is, to be in the glory of God the Father, ascribe an insult to his nature; but if his being glorified by him is authority, recognize the Father as greater in the authority of glorifying.

Why do you snatch the dispensation for impiety? Why do you attack the mystery of our salvation unto death? The Father, about to glorify the Son, is greater; the Son, glorified in the Father, is not less. Or how is he less who is in the glory of God the Father? Or is the Father not greater? The Father, then, is greater, in that he is Father; but the Son, in that he is Son, is not less. The Son's birth makes the Father greater; but the nature of the birth does not allow the Son to be less. The Father is greater, in that he is asked to restore glory to the man taken up; the Son is not less, in that he resumes glory with the Father. And so both the mystery of the birth and the dispensation of the incarnation are fulfilled. For the Father, being Father and now glorifying the Son of Man, is greater; and the Father and the Son are one, since the Son, born from the Father, after taking up an earthly body, is glorified into the Father.

So the birth has no baseness of nature, because he is in the form of God, because he is born from God. And although unbegottenness is thought to differ from birth by its very meaning, birth is still not outside the nature of unbegottenness, because it did not take from elsewhere that in which it subsists. For although it did not attain to being made co-unbegotten, it still received from the unbegotten God being what God is. Our faith, then, though not grasping a beginning of the birth, professes that the only-begotten God always is; because nature does not allow it to confess that he once began whose birth surpasses every time of beginning. But while it confesses that he always is and is before times, it does not doubt that he was born in timeless infinity, having nevertheless confessed his birth as one beyond the understanding of a beginning.

But the heretics take this as an insult to the nature, that it was said, "The Father is greater than I"; or this: "But of the day and hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone." Ignorance of the day and hour, then, is charged against the only-begotten God, so that God born from God is not in that perfection of nature by which he is God, since, under the dominion of a necessity of not knowing, some outward force is now stronger than he, which holds him in the weakness of ignorance as though weak against it. Indeed, the madness of the heretics drives us by a kind of right of necessary confession toward the impiety of this understanding, as if it must be believed so, because the Lord said it so, and because it could seem most irreligious to corrupt the declaration of his profession about himself by the opinion of a different understanding of ours.

And first, before the reason and cause of the saying are recalled, we must judge by the sense of common judgment whether it can be credible that he should not know anything of all things, who is the author of all things for what they are and will be. For if all things are through Christ and in Christ, and so through him that all things are in him, how is that which is neither outside him nor not through him not also in his knowledge, when his knowledge commonly grasps, by the power of a nature that does not lack knowledge, things that are neither in him nor through him? But what takes its cause only from him, and receives its movement toward what is and will be only within him, how is it outside the knowledge of his nature, through which and in which what is to be accomplished is contained? For the Lord Christ is not ignorant of human thoughts, not only those stirred by present movement but those still to be roused by the prompting of a future will, as the evangelist testifies: "For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him." Will the power of his nature, then, which grasps knowledge of things not yet existing and is not ignorant of the disturbances that will come upon minds still at rest, be thought not to have known what is through it and within it? Is he who is powerful over what is another's powerless over what is his own, he of whom we remember it was said: "All things were created through him and in him, and he is before all"; or this: "Because in him it pleased all the fullness to dwell, and through him all things to be reconciled to him"? Since all the fullness is in him, and all things are reconciled through him and in him, and that day is the expectation of our reconciliation, is he ignorant of this day, whose time is both in him and is through his mystery? For this day is the day of his coming, of which the apostle says: "But when Christ your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory." No one, then, is ignorant of what is through him and within him: will Christ come, and not know the day of his coming? The day is his, according to the same apostle, because "the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night": and is he to be understood as held by ignorance of it? Human natures know beforehand, as far as in them lies, what they determine to do, and knowledge of what is to be done follows the will to act: and does God, born, not know what is in him and through him? For through him are the times, and in him is the day; because through him is the ordering of things to come, and in him is the dispensation of his coming. And will he be in such dullness as to be ignorant, by the sense of a sluggish nature, of what belongs to him, like wild beasts and brutes, which, animated without the reason of foreseeing counsel, do not know what they themselves are doing, when, driven by some movement of stupid will, they are carried toward something by chance and with uncertain step?

How, too, will the Lord of glory, if the day of his coming is unknown to him, be believed to be of an incomplete and imperfect nature, which has the necessity of coming and has not gained the knowledge of its coming? Through this, ignorance would be stronger than God, taking from him the power of having knowledge. And how greatly the occasion of impiety is doubled if, besides weakness in Christ, a fault is also assigned to God the Father: that he has cheated the only-begotten God, the Son of his love, of knowledge of this day, and out of a feeling of malice has begrudged him knowledge of the consummation to come; and that, while he willed the day and hour of his passion not to be unknown to him, he denied him the day of his power and the hour of his being glorified in his saints, and took away knowledge of blessedness from him to whom he granted foreknowledge of death! The trembling of the human conscience cannot bear presuming such a judgment upon God and ascribing to him the faults of human changeableness, so that either the Father denies the Son something or God born is ignorant of something.

But God does not know how to be anything other than love, nor anything other than Father. And he who loves does not envy; and he who is Father is not otherwise than wholly Father. For this name does not admit a portion, so that he is father in some respect and not father in another. For a father is father of the whole of what is in himself, having his whole self in him to whom his being father is not by a portion; not that he is father of the things that are his for himself, but that in the things by which he himself is, he is wholly father to him who is from him. And since, according to the natures of human bodies, which come together from unlike parts and consist of compounds, one can be father only of all that is his, since the perfect birth preserves in the children what is in each of the kinds and parts, a father, then, is father of all that is his, since the birth is from all and remains in all. And since in God things are not bodily but absolute, not partial but whole and entire, not made alive but living, whole living and whole one God, since he is not composed of a portion but perfect from simplicity, it is necessary that, according as he is Father, he himself be wholly Father of all that is his to him whom he has begotten from himself, since the perfect birth of the Son makes him Father from all that is his. If, then, the Father is proper to the Son, the Son must remain in that property by which the Father is. But how will he be thought to remain, if he is outside the nature of foreknowledge, and something is lacking to his birth from its author? For almost everything would be lacking if he does not have what is proper to God. And what else is proper to God than knowledge of things to come, so that a nature capable of invisible and not yet existing kinds contains things not yet abiding and to abide hereafter?

Paul, the teacher of the Gentiles, does not allow us this profession of impious error, that the only-begotten God should be thought ignorant of anything; for he says: "Instructed in love, unto all the riches of the fullness of understanding, unto the knowledge of the mystery of God, Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge." God Christ is a mystery, and all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge lie hidden in him. A portion cannot agree with the whole; for a part is not understood as all things, and all things do not allow themselves to be understood as a part. For if the Son does not know the day, then not all the treasures of knowledge are in him: he is not ignorant of the day, containing in himself all the treasures of knowledge. But we should remember that these treasures of knowledge are hidden in him, and not, because they are hidden, absent; since through his being God they are in him, but through his being a mystery they are hidden. Yet the mystery of God, Christ, in whom all the treasures of knowledge are hidden, is not hidden or unknown to us. And since he himself is the mystery, let us see whether, in the things he does not know, he is ignorant. For if in other cases a profession of not knowing does not carry the sense of ignorance, not even now is he ignorant of what he does not know. For since his not knowing, according to the fact that all the treasures of knowledge lie hidden in him, is a dispensation rather than ignorance, you have a cause of not knowing without the sense of ignorance.

For in all the things that God says he does not know, he professes ignorance, yet is not held by ignorance; since with regard to what he does not know there is no weakness of not knowing, but either it is not the time for speaking or it is the dispensation for not acting. God speaks to Abraham, saying: "The cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is full, and their sins are very great. I will go down, then, and see whether they are completing them according to their cry; and if not, that I may know." We have, then, God not knowing what he nevertheless does not fail to know. For since he knows the sins are very great, and yet goes down to see whether they are completed, and, if not yet completed, that he may know, we understand that he does not fail to know because he does not know, but knows then because it is the time for acting. God's knowing, then, is not a change from ignorance but the fullness of time. For he still waits in order to know; and since we cannot understand of him that he does not know, yet he still waits to know, it must be that what he knowingly does not know and unknowingly knows is nothing other than a dispensation either of speaking or of acting.

It cannot be doubted, then, that God's knowledge is from time rather than from change, since, regarding what God knows, it is the time for professing knowledge rather than for gaining it; as we are taught also from what was said to Abraham: "Do not lay your hand on the boy, and do nothing to him; for now I know that you fear your God, and you have not spared your beloved son for my sake." God, then, knows now; but to know now is a profession of earlier ignorance. Since this does not befit God, nor that he was ignorant before that Abraham was faithful to him, of whom it was said, "Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness," this "now I know" is the time at which Abraham received testimony, not that at which God began to know. For Abraham, by the burnt offering of his son, had shown the love he had for God; God knew it then, when he speaks. And since he is not to be understood as not knowing before, it must be understood that he knew it then because he speaks. Of the very many passages in the Old Testament about the knowledge of God, we have shown these only by way of example, so that what God does not know might be understood to be so not because of ignorance but because of time.

In the Gospels we find the Lord, knowing many things, not knowing them. The workers of iniquity, glorying in many mighty works and in his name, he does not know, saying: "And then I will swear, I never knew you. Depart from me, all you who work iniquity." Even with an oath he does not know those whom he nevertheless is not ignorant are workers of iniquity. He does not know them, then, not because he is ignorant, but because by the iniquity of their working they are unworthy of his knowledge: confirming the truth of the saying by the sanctity of an oath, having in the power of his nature that he is not ignorant, and keeping in the mystery of his will that he does not know. The only-begotten God also does not know the foolish virgins; having entered the bridal chamber of his glorious coming, he is ignorant of those who were careless to get oil for themselves. For they approach and ask, and are so far from unknown that they are answered: "Amen I say to you, I do not know you." Their approach and petition do not allow them to be unknown; but the answer of not knowing is not of nature but of will, since they are unworthy to be known by him who is ignorant of nothing. Finally, so that he might not be thought ignorant through weakness, he at once spoke thus to the apostles: "Watch, therefore, for you do not know the day or the hour"; so that, when he urges them to watch because of ignorance of the day and hour, it might be recognized that the virgins were not known by him because, asleep and careless, lacking oil, they had remained unworthy of entering his bridal chamber.

The Lord Jesus Christ, then, who as God searches hearts and reins, is not in such weakness of nature that he does not know, since this very not knowing is understood to come from the knowledge of his nature. And if any should perhaps ascribe ignorance to him, let them fear to be told by him who knows their thoughts: "Why do you think evil in your hearts?" For when the knower, not ignorant of thoughts and deeds, sometimes asks about thoughts and deeds as if an ignorant knower, as about the woman touching the fringe, or the apostles about their disagreement in words, or those weeping about the tomb of Lazarus, he is to be understood not as not knowing but as speaking. For nature does not allow that he who, though absent, knows Lazarus dead and buried should not know the place of the tomb; that he who sees thoughts should not have known the woman's faith; and that he who has no need to ask anyone about anything should have been ignorant of the apostles' disagreement. But for him who knows all things, it is sometimes a dispensation to say that he does not know the very things he is not ignorant of: whether, with Abraham, knowledge is concealed for a time; or, with the foolish virgins and the workers of iniquity, knowledge is denied to the unworthy; or, in the mystery of the Son of Man, the question of one ignorant comes from the man; in all these accommodating himself to the truth of bodily birth, by which the weakness of our nature is held; not so as to be weak by nature, he who is God, but so that God, born man, took human weaknesses upon himself; and took them so, not that the unchangeable nature was reduced into a weak nature, but that in the unchangeable nature there should be the mystery of taking up; since he who was God is man, and he who is man did not cease to remain God. So, acting and confirming himself as born man, while remaining God the Word, he very often uses the profession by which he is man, although the declaration of God is often the same as that of men: when he does not know things which are either not to be confessed at that time or are not acknowledged for merit.

We must understand, then, why he professed not to know the day. If he is believed not to know it at all, the apostle contradicts this: "In whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge." There is, then, a hidden knowledge; and because it is to be hidden, not knowing must sometimes also be confessed, so that it can be hidden. For if it is declared, it will not remain in secret. He denies, then, that he knows, so that the knowledge can be hidden. But if he does not know so that the knowledge may remain hidden, he who knows all things does not fail to know by nature what he does not know only so that it may be hidden. And why knowledge of the day is hidden is not obscure. For, warning us always to remain intent with unremitting faith, he took away the security of a defined knowledge, so that the mind, anxious in the uncertainty of a suspended expectation, hastening and always awaiting the day of his coming, might always hope by awaiting; and the very uncertainty, though not about a time to be doubted, might hold it in wakeful care. For so the Lord says: "Therefore you also be ready, because you do not know at what hour the Son of Man will come." And again: "Blessed is that servant whom his Lord, when he comes, finds so doing." Ignorance was necessary not for error but for perseverance. Nor was that denied to our loss which, unknown, gave increase, so that the security of knowledge might not rouse the negligence of a faith grown careless, but an undefined expectation might keep the preparation unremitting: which would always guard against the coming of the thief, always to be feared, since he chooses the time of sleep for theft, while the father of the household keeps watch, always fearing loss.

Although, then, it is not obscure that God's ignorance is not ignorance but a mystery, since through a dispensation either of acting, or of declaring, or of showing, he so does not know as to know, and so does not fail to know as not to know, we must still see whether perhaps he is so weak that he cannot know what the Father knows: able indeed to know the thoughts of human hearts, because a higher nature mingles itself with the movements of a lower nature and passes through it, as weak, with vigorous power; but unable, being weaker himself, to penetrate a nature stronger than himself; because, as light things are passable for heavy, rare for dense, and liquid for solid, so conversely heavy things do not yield to light, dense to rare, or solid to liquid; since strong things are not open to weak ones, while weak things are penetrated by strong. For this reason, then, the impious say the Son is ignorant of the thoughts of God the Father, that, being himself weak, he does not enter the stronger by going in, nor does the feeble pass through the powerful.

If anyone dares not only to say these things of the only-begotten God with rash mouth but even to think them with impious heart, let him recognize that the apostle believed otherwise when writing thus of the Holy Spirit to the Corinthians: "But God has revealed it to us through his Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God. For who among men knows the things of a man that are in him, except the spirit which is in him? So also no one knows the things that are in God except the Spirit of God." But spurning these empty examples of bodily things, let us estimate God from God, and Spirit from Spirit, by their powers rather than by earthly conditions. And let us estimate, not by our sense but by the divine profession, and believe him who says: "He who has seen me has seen the Father also." Nor let us be ignorant of him who said: "Believe at least my works, that the Father is in me and I in the Father." Nor let us be ignorant of him who said: "I and the Father are one." For if the names of things, mentioned according to human understanding, confirm our sense, he in whom someone is seen through understanding has no difference of nature from him; nor does he differ in kind who, having him abiding in himself, is in him who abides; nor are they different who are one. Understand the unity, since the nature is not divided. And again grasp the mystery of an undivided nature, since, as a mirror, one is the mirror of one. A mirror, however, not in such a way that a brightness sends out an imaged likeness of an outward nature; but in that a living nature is undifferenced from a living nature, being whole from whole, which, while it is only-begotten, has the Father in itself, and abides in the Father while it is God.

Since the heretics cannot deny these things, proclaimed by the Lord to signify the mystery of the birth, they try to evade them by referring them to concord of will, so that in God the Father and God the Son there is not unity of divinity but of will: as though divine teaching were poor in words, and the Lord could not have said, "I and the Father will one thing"; or as though this meant the same as "I and the Father are one"; or as though, unskilled in speech, he did not say, "He who has seen my will has seen the will of my Father also," and this were the same as "He who has seen me has seen the Father also"; or certainly as though it were not in the usage of divine speech to say, "The will of my Father is in me, and my will is in my Father," but this saying, "I in the Father and the Father in me," fitted that meaning. All these things are foul, absurd, and impious, and human sense does not yield to such a judgment of foolish opinion, that either the Lord could not say what he wanted or said something other than what he said. And although he is found to have used parables and allegorical sayings, it is one thing to strengthen sayings with examples, or to do justice to the dignity of things by the meanings of proverbs, or to fit oneself to the professions of the times; yet this same passage about unity, which is under discussion, does not allow anything to be believed in the sayings other than what the words sound. For if they are one through willing one thing, and natures separable from each other cannot will one thing, since by the difference of a dissenting kind they necessarily disagree in different wills through difference of nature, how can those will one thing for whom knowing is not one, since knowledge and ignorance hinder the unity of a single will? Since, then, not knowing is opposed to knowledge, opposites cannot will one thing.

But perhaps his saying that only the Father knows confirms that the Son, who said he does not know, does not know. Unless he had plainly said that only the Father knows, a matter of the greatest danger would be left to our understanding, lest he himself be thought not to know. For since in what he does not know there is a dispensation of hidden knowledge rather than a nature of not knowing, through this too, that only the Father knows, he is to be believed not to have been ignorant: because, as we taught above, knowledge with God is not the understanding of coming to know what he did not know, but of speaking. And through the fact that only the Father knows, the Son is not understood not to know; since the Son says he does not know so that others may not know, and says the Father alone knows for this reason, that he himself also may not be ignorant. For if God is said to have known that Abraham loved him at the time when he did not conceal it from Abraham, it must be that the Father too is said to know the day because he has not concealed it from the Son, God not gaining knowledge by sudden learning but declaring it in time. If, then, the Son does not know the day according to the mystery, so as to keep silent, conversely the Father alone must be shown to know the day for this reason, that he does not keep silent.

But far be it to think of the novelties of bodily changes in the Father and the Son, as though the Father at some time either speaks to the Son or is silent. We remember, indeed, that a voice was sometimes sent from heaven for us, so that the meaning of the Father's saying might confirm among us the mystery of the Son, as the Lord says: "This voice came from heaven not for my sake but for yours." But the nature of God does not need the compound necessities of human function: movement of tongue, shaping of mouth, effort of breath, striking of air. God is simple; he is to be understood by our religion, professed by our piety; he is not to be pursued by sense but adored, because a bounded and weak nature cannot seize by the opinion of its understanding the mystery of an infinite and powerful nature. He is not, then, different by the parts of a compound divinity, so that in him there is will after stupor, speech after silence, or work after rest; so that he is not thought to will anything unless there is a movement toward willing, or cannot speak anything unless words sound after silence, or is not understood to do anything unless he goes out into work. He is not subject to the laws of nature from whom all nature takes its law; nor is he held in anything by weakness or change in accomplishing, who is beyond the measure of power, according to the Lord's saying: "Father, all things are possible to you"; so that God can do as much as human sense cannot grasp. But he did not cheat even himself of the power of omnipotence, saying: "Whatever the Father does, these the Son also does likewise." There is no difficulty where there is no weakness; for difficulty is the lot of a power unable to accomplish. For the nature of difficulty lies in weakness of power; and a power that has no measure is not held by the law of weakness.

We have shown this so that God might not be thought to have spoken to the Son after silence, nor the Son to know after ignorance; but that our understanding is to be instructed by expressions drawn from our nature, which would not understand anything to be shown except through a speaker, and would not think anything to be not unknown except by knowing. The Son, then, does not know the day for this reason, that he keeps silent; and he says the Father alone knows for this reason, that he alone does not keep silent toward the one who is his alone. But, as I said, he does not await these difficulties of nature, so as to know when he has ceased to be ignorant, or to hear when the Father has begun to speak. He taught without ambiguity the unity of his nature with him, as the Only-begotten, saying: "All that is the Father's is mine." He was not speaking now of possessing; for it is one thing to be, outside oneself, under one's own sway, another to be oneself in what is one's own: the one is to possess heaven, earth, and the whole world; the other is to signify oneself in the things that are one's own, and one's own not as external things subject to one, but because one subsists oneself from what is one's own. Now, then, when all that is the Father's is his, he signifies the nature of divinity, not a sharing of possessions. For when he was speaking of the Holy Spirit taking from what is his, he says: "All that is the Father's is mine; therefore I said, he will take of mine"; so that, when he takes of his, he might not be thought not also to take of the Father's; or, when he took of the Father's, might not be understood not also to take of his. For the Holy Spirit, who is the Spirit of God, was not taking from creatures, so as to seem to receive from them because all of them are God's. But all that is the Father's is his for this reason, that what the Spirit takes from the Son might not seem not also to be taken from the Father's, since all that was the Father's was understood to be the Son's too.

This nature, then, did not need change, or questioning, or address, so as to know after ignorance, ask after silence, or hear after asking; but, abiding perfect in the mystery of its unity, as it had birth from God, so it had the whole. And having the whole, it did not fail to hold what belongs to the whole, namely knowledge and will; so that the Son would not know by questioning what the Father knows, nor will by being given a sign what the Father wills. But since all that was the Father's was his, he was in such a property of nature that he neither willed nor knew anything other than the Father. To show the birth, however, a showing of the person is very often used, as when it is said: "I did not come to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me." He does the Father's will, not his own, while through the will of him who sent him he signifies the Father too. But that he wills the very same thing he shows without ambiguity, saying: "Father, I will that those whom you have given me may be with me where I am." Since, then, the Father wills us to be with Christ, in whom, according to the apostle, he chose us before the foundation of the world, and the Son wills that very thing, namely that we be with him, the will is the same as regards nature, which, to signify the birth, is distinguished in will.

The Son, then, is not ignorant of what the Father is not ignorant of; nor, because only the Father knows, is the Son therefore ignorant, since the Father and the Son abide in unity of nature; and the Son's not knowing, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, is a dispensation of silence; as the Lord himself testified when he answered the apostles asking about the times: "It is not for you to know the times or moments which the Father has set in his own power." Knowledge is denied; and not only denied, but even concern for knowing is restrained, since it is not theirs to know these times. They themselves, certainly, now after the resurrection, ask about the times, though when they asked before they had been told that not even the Son knew; nor can they seem to have understood, by the ear, that the Son did not know, since they question him again as one who knows. But understanding that the mystery of not knowing was a dispensation of silence, and thinking that now, after the resurrection, the time for speaking had come, they ask. And the Son no longer tells them that he does not know, but that it is not theirs to know, because the Father has set it in his own power. If, then, the apostles understand the Son's not knowing the day to be a dispensation and not weakness, shall we say the Son does not know the day for this reason only, that he may not be God? Since God the Father has set the day in his own power for this reason, that it might not pass into the knowledge of human understanding; and the Son, asked before, saying that he did not know, now in turn answers not that he does not know, but that it is theirs not to know, and that the Father has set the times not in his knowledge but in his power? For since day and moment fall within the name of "times," he who is himself to restore the kingdom to Israel cannot seem to be ignorant of the day and moment of restoring it. But instructing us toward understanding his birth through the exception of the Father's power, he neither answered that he did not know, and, showing that the ability to know was not granted to them, he professed that this very thing rests in the mystery of the Father's power.

There is no doubt that every utterance of human speech has always been liable to contradiction, because, where the movements of wills disagree, the sense of minds also disagrees, as, fighting with the feeling of opposed judgments, it contradicts the assertions by which it is offended. For although every saying is perfect by the reason of truth, yet, while one thing seems right or pleasing to some and another to others, the word of truth lies open to the answer of opponents, because the error of either a foolish or a vicious will strives against a truth either not understood or offensive. For all obstinacy in wills once adopted is without measure, and zeal for opposing persists with unbending movement, where the will is not subjected to reason and no effort is spent on learning, but we seek out reasons for what we want and fit teaching to what we are eager for. Then the teaching that is invented will be one of name rather than of nature; and the reason will no longer be that of truth but of preference, a reason which the will has fitted to itself for the defence of what pleases, not one that would stir the impulse of the will through the understanding of reasonable truth. Through these faults of partisan wills, then, all the contradictions of opposing purposes arise, and there is a stubborn fight between the assertion of truth and the defence of preference, while truth holds its ground and the will protects itself. But if the will did not go before reason, but were moved through the understanding of truth to will what is true, teaching would never be sought for the will, but the reason of teaching would move every will; and every word of truth would be without contradiction, since each one would not defend as true what he wanted, but would begin to want what is true.

The apostle, not unaware of these vicious wills, among many precepts for bearing witness to the faith and preaching the word, writing to Timothy, says: "There will be a time when they will not endure sound teaching, but according to their own desires they will heap up for themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they will turn away their hearing from the truth and turn aside to fables." For when, through zeal for impiety, they are beyond enduring sound teaching, they will heap up teachers for what they desire, piling up schemes of teaching suited to their lusts, not desiring to be taught, but gathering teachers to what they desire, so that the very heap of teachers sought out and piled up may satisfy with its teachings their seething desires. And this great madness of foolish irreligion, by what spirit at last, not enduring sound teaching, will it desire a corrupt one? If it does not know, let it learn from the same apostle writing to the same Timothy: "But the Spirit says plainly that in the last times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, to doctrines of demons, in the hypocrisy of those who speak lies." For what progress in teaching is it to seek what pleases rather than what should be taught? Or what reverence of teaching is it not to desire what should be taught, but to heap up teaching for what is desired? But seducing spirits supply these incentives, and the lies of feigned religion confirm them. For lying hypocrisy follows falling away from the faith, so that there is at least in words a piety which the conscience has lost. And they make this very feigned piety impious by every lie of words, corrupting the holiness of the faith by the schemes of false teaching, while teaching is heaped up according to the desires of partisanship rather than according to the gospel faith. For with ears roused by itching, while they are scratched by the impatient pleasure of hearing, under the novel preaching of their desire, being themselves wholly estranged from hearing the truth, they give themselves entirely to fables, so as to gain for what they say an appearance of truth, while they can neither speak nor hear what is true.

We have plainly fallen into this most troublesome time of the apostle's prophecy. For now that teachers have been sought out to preach a creature rather than God, men pursue human desires rather than the teachings of sound faith; and the itching of their ears has so roused them to hear what they desire that, with teachers heaped up, this preaching alone now prevails for the present, through which the only-begotten God, estranged from the power and truth of God the Father, is in our faith either God of another kind or not God: a deadly profession of impiety either way, either speaking of two gods under a difference of divinity, or denying altogether as God him whose nature is from God by birth. This pleases ears estranged from hearing the truth and turned to fables; the hearing of this sound teaching is not endured, and it is wholly in exile together with its preachers.

But though sound teaching is now in exile from many, who heap up teachers for themselves according to their own desires, the truth of preaching will not be in exile from the holy. For we in exile will speak through these books, and the word of God, which cannot be bound, will run free, giving warning of this same time of the apostle's prophecy; so that, when hearing impatient of the truth is detected and teachers heaped up according to human desires are found, there may no longer be doubt about the time, but truth may be understood to share the exile of the preachers of sound faith, who rejoice in it. We will not complain of the times; rather we will rejoice that iniquity has shown itself through this time of our exile, in which, impatient of the truth, it banishes the preachers of sound teaching so as to heap up teachers for itself according to its desires; glad and rejoicing in the Lord in our exile, that the fullness of the apostle's prophecy has been fulfilled in us.

In the earlier books, then, holding, as I think, the profession of a sincere faith and undefiled truth, although, according to the custom of human nature, no speech is not liable to contradiction, I think we have so governed the reasoning of our whole reply that no one can contradict it except with a profession of impiety. For the truth of those sayings which the heretics take from the Gospels according to the art of their lying has been so shown that in contradicting them it is no longer possible to plead ignorance, but irreligion must be confessed. We have also, by the gift of the Holy Spirit, so tempered the demonstration of the whole faith that they could not even invent any charge against us. For they are accustomed to fill the ears of the ignorant about us, asserting that we deny the birth when we preach the unity of divinity, and saying that by "I and the Father are one" we signify a solitary God: so that the unbegotten God, descending into the Virgin, was born man; who, for the dispensation of the flesh, put the "I" that had so begun, and for the showing of his divinity added "and the Father," as though he were the father of this his man; and, consisting of two, namely man and God, he spoke of himself as "we are one."

But we, declaring a birth that subsists without time, have preached God the Son as God of a nature not foreign to God the Father; not co-equal with the Unbegotten by being unbegotten, but not unequal by the generation of the Only-begotten; that they are one not by the doubled names of a union, but by the birth of nature; that there are not two gods in our faith through difference of kind, nor again a single one because of a solitary God, where the mystery of the only-begotten God is to be confessed; but that the Son is signified and is in the Father, since in him are both the nature and the name of the Father; and that the Father is understood and abides in the Son, since a son can neither be called nor be a son except from a father; that he is also the living image of a living nature, and the form of God naturally sealed in God, of a power and kind so undifferenced that neither his work, nor speech, nor appearance is foreign to the Father; but since the image naturally has in itself the nature of its author, the author too, through his natural image, has worked, spoken, and been seen.

And preaching this generation of the Only-begotten, timeless, unspeakable, and surpassing every sense of human understanding, we have also taught the mystery of God born as man from the childbearing of the Virgin; showing that, according to the dispensation of the flesh he took up, when, emptying himself out of the form of God, he took the form of a servant, the weakness of the human condition did not weaken the nature of God, but, the power of divinity being kept whole in the man, the power of God was gained for man. For when God was born into man, he was not born so as not to remain God, but so that, God remaining, man might be born into God. For his name is Emmanuel, which is "God with us," so that there is not a falling away of God to man, but an advance of man to God. Or when he asks to be glorified, this surely profits not the nature of God but the lowliness he took up. For he asks for that glory which he had with God before the foundation of the world.

Answering their most foolish professions too, we went down to the demonstration about the unknown hour: which, even if, according to them, it had not been grasped by the Son, would still not pertain to an insult to the only-begotten divinity; because nature would not allow his birth to drive him back into the beginningless subsistence of unbegottenness, the Father still reserving in his own power the moment of fixing the day, to show the unbegotten authority; nor could a nature be understood as weak in which there was as much from the birth of the nature as a perfect birth could fill; nor was ignorance of the day and hour to be counted against the only-begotten God as a difference of divinity, since, to show against the Sabellian heretics an unbegotten and beginningless power in the Father, this exception of power in him is that of the unbegotten. But since we have taught that this profession of not knowing the day is not the weakness of ignorance but a dispensation of silence, every occasion of impious assertion must now also be cleared away, and all the proclamations of heretical blasphemy must be gone through, so that the truth of the gospel may shine out through the very things by which it seems to be obscured.

For many of them hold, from his fear of the passion and from the weakness of suffering, that he was not in the nature of the impassible God: that he who feared and grieved was not in that security of power which does not fear, nor in that incorruption of Spirit which does not grieve, but, of a nature lower than God the Father, trembled with fear of human suffering and groaned at the cruelty of bodily punishment. And they rest this assertion of their impiety on what is written: "My soul is sorrowful even to death"; and again: "Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me"; and also: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" They add this too: "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit." For they seize all these professions of our pious faith for the use of their impiety: that he feared, who is sorrowful and who prayed that the cup be taken from him; that he grieved, who complained that he was forsaken by God in his passion; that he was also weak, who commended his spirit to the Father; and that his anguish does not admit the likeness of a nature made equal to God in the birth of the Only-begotten, a nature which testifies to its weakness and difference by the prayer about the cup, the complaint of desolation, and the confession of commendation.

And first, before we show from these very sayings that no weakness either of fearing for himself or of grieving befell him, we must ask what he could seem to have feared, so that dread of unbearable pain befell him. And I think no other cause for fear is put forward here than the passion and death. And I ask those who think so whether it stands to reason that he feared to die, who, driving every terror of death from the apostles, exhorted them to the glory of martyrdom, saying: "He who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me; and he who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses it for my sake will find it." Since to die for him is life, what grief is he to be thought to have felt in the mystery of death, who repays life to those who die for him? And when he warns that those who kill the body are not to be feared, did death itself terrify him into fear of bodily suffering?

Then, what pain of death would he fear, who was to die by the freedom of his own power? For in the human race death is hastened either by an outward force, that is, fever, wound, accident, or collapse, assailing the body; or the very nature of our body, overcome by age, yields to that same death. But the only-begotten God, having power to lay down his life as well as to take it up again, in order to carry out in himself the mystery of death, when, having drunk the vinegar, he had testified that he had completed the whole work of human sufferings, bowed his head and gave up his spirit. If this right has been left to man's nature, that, breathing out his spirit by himself, he should go to rest in death, and that the soul should not depart shaken loose by the dissolving of the body, nor the spirit burst out or flow away as from a violated dwelling when the limbs are broken, pierced, or crushed: then let fear of death fall on the Lord of life, if, in dying by giving up his spirit, he did not use the power of his freedom to die. But if he died of himself and gave back his spirit by himself, there is no terror of death in the power of dying.

But perhaps, with the timidity of human ignorance, he feared this very power of dying in himself, so that, though he died of himself, he still feared the very fact that he was going to die. And if there are any who think so, let them decide to which thing they think death was terrible, to the Spirit or to the body. If to the body, are they ignorant that he was to raise the temple of his body within three days, the Holy One who would not see corruption? But if death is terrible to the Spirit, would Christ fear the chaos of the underworld, while Lazarus rejoices in Abraham's bosom? These things are foolish and ridiculous: that he, in the power of laying down his life and taking it up again, should fear to die, he who, for the mystery of human life, was to die under the freedom of his own will. There is no fear of death in the will of one dying and in the power of not being long dead; because both the will to die and the power to live again are outside the nature of fear, since death cannot be feared both in the will to die and in the power to live.

But perhaps the punishments of the body hanging on the cross, the violent bonds of the cords tying it, and the raw wounds of the driven nails are what he feared? Let us see, then, of what body the man Christ is, that pain should have stayed in flesh hung, bound, and pierced.

For the nature of bodies is such that, animated by fellowship with a soul into a certain sense of the soul that feels, it is not dull and lifeless matter, but feels when touched, hurts when pricked, stiffens when cold, is glad when warmed, wastes with hunger, and grows fat with food. For by a certain passing through of the soul that holds and penetrates it, it is either delighted or hurt according to the things in which it is. When, then, bodies hurt when pricked or dug into, the sense of the soul poured into them admits the sense of pain. In fact, a wound of the body hurts only up to this point, and the clippings of nails growing out from the flesh of the fingers feel nothing. And if at any time, by a disease setting in, some part of the limbs has decayed and lost the sense of living flesh, when it is cut off or burned it will not feel whatever pain there could have been, since the mingling of the soul does not remain in it. Or when the grave necessity of cutting the body remains, the vigour of the soul is lulled by a medicated drink, and the mind, seized by stronger juices, is reduced to a dead forgetfulness of its own sense. Then the limbs are cut without knowing pain, and the dead sense of the flesh escapes the whole blow of a deep wound through the sense of the soul grown torpid in it. The animated body, then, brings pain into its own weak sense through the mingling of a weak soul.

If, then, the man Jesus Christ lived in the body through the beginnings of our body and soul, and God, made in the likeness of man and found in condition as a man, was not, as God, the author of his own soul as of his own body, he would have felt the pain of our body, animated in the body with our soul and body both in conception and in beginning. But if, having taken flesh for himself by himself from the Virgin, he himself, of himself, fitted a soul to the body conceived through himself, then according to the nature of the soul and body there must also have been the nature of the sufferings. For emptying himself out of the form of God, taking the form of a servant, and being born Son of Man as well as Son of God, not failing from himself and his power, God the Word perfected a living man. For how will the Son of God have been born Son of Man, or, abiding in the form of God, have taken the form of a servant, unless, God the Word being able of himself both to take flesh within the Virgin and to give a soul to the flesh, the man Christ Jesus was born perfect for the redemption of our soul and body; and took a body in such a way that, conceived from the Virgin, it made him the form of a servant? For the Virgin bore what she bore only from his Holy Spirit. And although she gave of herself to the birth of the flesh as much as women contribute of themselves, receiving the beginnings of bodies to be brought forth, yet Jesus Christ did not grow together through the nature of human conception. But the whole cause of birth, brought in through the Spirit, held in the birth of the man what is the mother's, while yet it had, in the power of its origin, what God is.

Hence the Lord himself showed that greatest and most beautiful mystery of the man taken up, saying: "No one has ascended into heaven except he who came down from heaven, the Son of Man who is in heaven." That he came down from heaven is the cause of the origin conceived from the Spirit. For Mary did not give the body its origin, although she contributed to the growth and birth of the body all that is natural to her sex. That he is the Son of Man is the birth of the flesh taken up in the Virgin. That he is in heaven is the power of the nature that always abides, which, when the flesh was begun and founded through himself, did not, out of the power of its infinity, confine itself within the region of a bounded body. Abiding in the form of a servant by the power of the Spirit and the might of the Word of God, the Lord of heaven and world was not absent from any part of the whole circle of heaven and world, within or without. Through this, then, he both came down from heaven, and is the Son of Man, and is in heaven; because the Word made flesh had not lost abiding as what the Word is. For as he is the Word, he is in heaven; as he is flesh, he is the Son of Man; as the Word has become flesh, he is both from heaven, and Son of Man, and in heaven: because the power of the Word, abiding not in bodily ways, did not leave the place from which he had come down; and the flesh had taken its origin from nowhere else than from the Word; and the Word made flesh, while it was flesh, was nonetheless still the Word.

The blessed apostle also spoke completely the mystery of this unspeakable bodily birth, saying: "The first man is from the clay of the earth, the second man from heaven." By saying "man" he taught the birth from the Virgin, who, using the mother's office, carried out the nature of her sex in the conception and birth of a man. And when he says "the second man from heaven," he testified to his origin from the coming of the Holy Spirit upon the Virgin; and so, since he is both man and from heaven, this man's birth is from the Virgin and his conception from the Spirit. This the apostle says.

The Lord himself, opening the mystery of this birth of his, spoke thus: "I am the living bread who came down from heaven; if anyone eats of my bread, he will live for ever," calling himself bread; for he himself is the origin of his body. And so that the power and nature of the Word might not be thought to have failed from itself into flesh, he said again that the bread was his own; so that through the fact that the bread comes down from heaven, the origin of the body might not be thought to be from human conception, since the body is shown to be heavenly. But since the bread is his own, it is a profession of the body taken up by the Word; for he added: "Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you will not have life in you"; so that, since he who is the Son of Man is himself the bread that came down from heaven, through his bread coming down from heaven, and through the flesh and blood of the Son of Man, the taking up of flesh conceived from the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin may be understood.

Of this body, then, is the man Jesus Christ, both Son of God and Son of Man, who, emptying himself out of the form of God, took the form of a servant. The Son of Man is no other than he who is the Son of God, and he in the form of God is no other than he who in the form of a servant was born perfect man; so that, as through the nature established for us by God, the founder of our origin, man is born of body and soul, so Jesus Christ, through his own power, was man and God of flesh and soul, having in himself both the whole and true reality of man and the whole and true reality of God.

Yet many, by the art of confirming their heresy, are accustomed so to mock the ears of the unlearned as to say that, because both the body and the soul of Adam were in sin, the Lord also received the flesh and soul of Adam from the Virgin, and that the Virgin did not conceive the whole man from the Holy Spirit. If they understood the mystery of the flesh taken up, they would also understand the mystery of the same one being both Son of Man and Son of God. As though, if he had taken only the flesh from the Virgin, he had taken the soul also from her: whereas every soul is the work of God, while the generation of flesh is always from flesh.

But wishing that the only-begotten God, who in the beginning was God the Word with God, should not be God subsisting, but the speech of an uttered voice, so that what their own word is to speakers, the Son is to God the Father, they cleverly try to creep in so that the subsisting Word, God, and abiding in the form of God, should not have been born Christ the man; so that, since the cause of a human origin rather than the mystery of a spiritual conception gave life to that man, God the Word would not have come to exist making himself man from the childbearing of the Virgin, but, as the Spirit of prophecy was in the prophets, so the Word of God was in Jesus. And they are accustomed to accuse us of saying that Christ was born a man not of our body and soul; whereas we preach the Word made flesh, and Christ emptying himself out of the form of God and taking the form of a servant, perfect according to the condition of human formation, and born a man in our likeness, so that the true Son of God is truly the Son of Man; neither not born from God as man, nor, because born from God as man, therefore failing to be God.

But as he took for himself through himself a body from the Virgin, so he took for himself from himself a soul, which in any case is never supplied by man from the origins of those who beget. For if the Virgin had the conception of the flesh only from God, much more must the soul of the body have come from nowhere else than from God. And since that Son of Man is himself the one who is also the Son of God, because the whole Son of Man is the whole Son of God, how ridiculous it would be to preach, besides the Son of God who is the Word made flesh, some other one, as a prophet animated by the Word of God, when the Lord Jesus Christ is both Son of Man and Son of God! From the facts that his soul is sorrowful even to death and that he has power to lay down his soul and take it up again, they want to reckon the soul as coming from outside, not from the Holy Spirit as the body too was conceived from him; whereas God the Word, abiding in the mystery of his nature, was born man. And he was born, not so as to be one and another, but so that he who was God before the man, taking up man, might be understood as man and God. For how was Jesus Christ the Son of God born of Mary, except that the Word became flesh: namely, that the Son of God, being in the form of God, took the form of a servant? That he who was in the form of God took the form of a servant is a comparison of contraries, so that, as true as it is that he abides in the form of God, so true is it that he took the form of a servant. For we are driven to understand the property of the nature by the meaning of a word common to both. For he who is in the form of God is also in the form of a servant. And though the one belongs to nature and the other to dispensation, both are in the property of the same truth, so that he is as truly in the form of God as truly in that of a servant. And as to have taken the form of a servant is nothing other than to have been born man, so to be in the form of God is nothing other than to be God, professing him one and the same, not by a failing of God but by a taking up of man, to have been both in the form of God through the divine nature and in the form of a servant, from the conception by the Holy Spirit, found in condition as a man. So, since Jesus Christ was born, suffered, died, and was buried, he also rose again. He cannot, in these different mysteries, be so divided from himself as not to be Christ: since no other Christ than he who was in the form of God took the form of a servant; nor did any other die than he who was born; nor did any other rise than he who died; nor is any other in heaven than he who rose; and in heaven is no other than he who first came down from heaven.

So the man Jesus Christ, the only-begotten God, through flesh and Word both Son of Man and Son of God, took a true man in the likeness of our man, not failing from himself as God; in whom, although a blow fell, or a wound went down, or knots were tied, or hanging raised him up, these brought indeed the onset of suffering, yet did not bring the pain of suffering: as a weapon piercing water, pricking fire, or wounding air brings all these sufferings of its own nature, to pierce, to prick, to wound; but the suffering brought does not keep its nature in these, since it is not in nature for water to be pierced, fire to be pricked, or air to be wounded, though it is of the nature of the weapon to wound, prick, and pierce. The Lord Jesus Christ did indeed suffer, when he was struck, hung, crucified, and died; but the suffering rushing upon the Lord's body was not, on the one hand, no suffering, and yet did not put forth the nature of suffering: while it raged in its penal office, and the power of the body, without the sense of punishment, received the force of the punishment raging against it. That body of the Lord would certainly have had the nature of our pain, if our body has such a nature as to tread the waves and walk upon the billows, not be weighed down in walking, the waters not yielding to its standing steps, and to pass through solid things and not be kept out by the barriers of a closed house. But if this is the nature of the Lord's body alone, that by its own power, its own soul, it is borne on the wet, stands on the liquid, and passes through built walls, why do we judge flesh conceived from the Spirit by the nature of a human body? That flesh, that is, that bread, is from heaven; and that man is from God. He had a body for suffering, and he suffered; but he did not have a nature for feeling pain. For that body is of its own proper nature, which is transformed into heavenly glory on the mountain, which drives away fevers by its touch, which forms eyes from its spittle.

But perhaps, since the experience of weeping, thirsting, and hungering remained in him, the nature of the other human sufferings must also be in him. Let him who does not know the mystery of the weeping, thirst, and hunger learn that he who weeps gives life, and weeps not for the death of Lazarus, at which he rejoices; that he who thirsts offers rivers of living water from himself, and is not parched with thirst, he who is able to give drink to the thirsty; and that, hungering, he condemns the tree that did not offer its fruit to the hungry, and that nature is not overcome by want of food which changes the nature of greenness by commanded dryness. But if, beyond the mystery of weeping, thirst, and hunger, the flesh taken up, that is, the whole man, was allowed the natures of sufferings, yet not so as to be worn out by the injuries of sufferings: so that weeping he did not weep for himself; thirsting, he did not drive away thirst by drinking; and hungering, he did not fill himself with the food of any meal. For when he thirsted, hungered, or wept, the Lord is not shown to have drunk, eaten, or grieved; but to show the truth of the body, the habit of the body was taken up, so that the habit of the body was satisfied by the habit of our nature. Or when he took drink and food, he gave himself not to the necessity of the body but to its habit.

For he had a body, but one proper to its origin; not existing out of the defects of human conception, but subsisting in the form of our body by the might of his own power; bearing us through the form of a servant, but free from the sins and defects of the human body; so that we were in him through the Virgin's giving birth, but our defects were not in him through the power of an origin proceeding from himself; since, born man, he was not born with the defects of human conception. For the apostle kept the mystery of showing this birth when he said: "But he humbled himself, taking the form of a servant, made in the likeness of man, and found in condition as a man"; so that, as he took the form of a servant, he might be understood to have been born in the form of a man; but as he was made in the likeness of man and found in condition as a man, the appearance and truth of the body testify to a man, while he who was found in condition as a man does not know the natures of defects. For the generation is in the likeness of nature, not in the property of defects. For since by his taking the form of a servant the nature of birth seemed to be signified, he added that he was made in the likeness of man and found in condition as a man, so that the property of a nature weak through defects should not be believed along with the truth of birth, since there was both a true birth in the form of a servant and a likeness of nature in his being found in condition as a man. He himself, through the Virgin, was born man of himself, and was found in the likeness of the defective flesh of sin. To this very thing the apostle testified when writing to the Romans: "For what was impossible for the law, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending his own Son in the likeness of the flesh of sin, also condemned sin by sin." That condition was not as if of a man, but as of a man; and that flesh was not the flesh of sin but the likeness of the flesh of sin; since both the condition of the flesh is in the truth of birth, and the likeness of the flesh of sin is foreign to the defects of human suffering. So the man Christ Jesus both is in the truth of birth, since he is man, and is not in the property of sin, since he is Christ; because he who is man could not fail to be man in that he was born, and he who is Christ could not have lost being Christ. And so, while he is the man Christ Jesus, he both has the birth of a man, being man, and is not in the defective weakness of man, being Christ.

Although, then, the apostolic faith instructs us toward an understanding of this mystery, testifying that the man Christ Jesus was found in condition as a man and sent in the likeness of the flesh of sin; so that, since he is in condition as a man, he is in the form of a servant and is not in the defects of nature; and since he is in the likeness of the flesh of sin, he is indeed the Word made flesh, but rather in the likeness of the flesh of sin than the very flesh of sin; and since he is the man Christ Jesus, he is indeed man, but in the man can be nothing other than what Christ is; and so he was born man from the birth of a body, and is not in the defects of man, not being in man's origin; because the Word made flesh could not fail to be flesh, which it was made, and the Word, though made flesh, did not lose being what the Word is; and since the Word made flesh cannot lack the nature of its origin, what the Word is could only remain in the origin of its nature, and the Word cannot fail to be truly understood to be the flesh that it was made; yet so that, because it dwelt among us, that flesh is not the Word, but the flesh of the Word dwelling in the flesh: these things being so, let us nevertheless see whether the whole order of the passion, as carried out, allows weakness of bodily pain to be understood in the Lord. For, putting off for a little the causes of those sayings from which heresy ascribes fear to the Lord, let us compare the events themselves as they were done. For it cannot be that fear is signified in the words of one whose confidence is contained in his deeds.

Does it seem to you, heretic, that the Lord of glory feared the passion? But for the error of this ignorance even Peter is Satan to him and an offence. And he, through love of Christ, whom not flesh and blood but the Father in heaven had revealed to him, recoiling from the mystery of the passion, was confirmed in the faith by such a sentence of severity. What hope will you pursue, denying that Christ is God and adding fear of the passion to him? Did he fear, who went out to meet the armed men coming to seize him? And was there weakness in his body, at whose meeting the ranks of his pursuers fell down in dismay, and, not bearing the majesty of one offering himself to be bound, fell back on their backs? What weakness, then, do you believe ruled over this body, whose nature had such great power?

But perhaps he feared the pain of the wounds. What horror, I ask, did he have of the nail entering his flesh, who restored the flesh of a severed ear by his touch alone? Explain to us, you who assert the Lord's weakness, this work of a weakened flesh at the very time of the passion. When Peter drew and drove home his sword, the high priest's servant stood with his ear cut off. How, from the wound of the severed ear, at Christ's touch, was the flesh of the ear restored? How, amid the flowing blood, after the very tracks of the cleaving sword, and in the very injury of the mutilated body, did what is not come forth, what does not exist follow, and what is lacking get repaid? Does the hand that brings forth this ear feel pain from a nail? Does he feel a wound for himself, who does not leave the pain of a wound to another? Is he sorrowful for fear of his flesh being pierced, whose touch can give flesh after slaughter? But if this power was in Christ's body, with what good faith, I ask, is it maintained that he was weak by nature, to whom it was natural to restrain the whole nature of human weaknesses?

But perhaps, by foolish and impious perversity, the assertion of a weak nature in him will be presumed from this, that his soul is sorrowful even to death. I do not yet charge you, heretic, with why you do not understand the force of the saying. Meanwhile, however, I ask you why you do not remember that, when Judas went out to the betrayal, it was said: "Now the Son of Man is glorified." For if the passion was going to glorify him, how had fear of the passion made him sorrowful? Unless perhaps he was so irrational as to fear suffering things that were going to glorify him in his suffering.

But perhaps he will be thought to have feared to the point of praying that the cup be taken from him, saying: "Abba, Father, all things are possible to you; take this cup from me." Not to quibble about the rest, should you not have refuted the dullness of your impiety from this alone, that you had read: "Put your sword back into its sheath: the cup which the Father has given me, shall I not drink it?" For how could he, through fear of suffering, pray that what he was hastening, through zeal for the dispensation, to fulfil should be taken from him? It does not fit that he who wished to suffer should not wish to suffer. And since you knew that he wished to suffer, it would have been more religious to confess that you did not understand the saying than to break out with the madness of impious folly into asserting that he whom you knew to wish to suffer prayed not to suffer.

But, I suppose, you will also arm yourself for the fight of your impiety with this utterance of the Lord's voice: "God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" For you may think that after the shame of the cross the favour of the Father's help withdrew from him, and hence arose the complaint of his forsaken weakness. If, then, contempt and weakness are in Christ for you, and the cross is a shame, you ought not to have forgotten this saying: "Truly I say to you, from now on you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power and coming with the clouds of heaven."

Where, I ask, is fear in the passion? Where weakness? Where pain? Where shame? The impious say he feared? But he himself proclaims that he wishes to suffer. It is maintained that he was weak? But he shows himself powerful, when his persecutors, struck with dismay, cannot withstand his meeting them. It is charged that he felt the pain of the wounds of the flesh? But in that he restores the flesh of the ear from a wound, though he himself is flesh, he is found outside the fleshly nature of feeling the pain of a wound: because, when he touches the severed ear with his hand, that hand belongs to the body; and when the hand brings the ear out from the wound, that hand is signified not to be of a weak body.

But the cross is said to be shameful to him. Yet through it the Son of Man is to be seen sitting at the right hand of power, and, born a man from the Virgin's childbearing, he has returned in his majesty with the clouds of heaven. Irreligious man, you do not hold the causes of natural things; and while, full of the spirit of impiety and error, you do not understand the mystery of the faith, you fall back with heretical dullness even from the common sense of the world. For everything that is feared must be avoided while it is feared; what is weak takes terror from its feebleness; whatever feels pain has in itself an unchangeable nature of feeling pain; and whatever is shameful is always without honour. But by what sense of reason do you understand that our Lord Jesus Christ fears that toward which he hastens; that he who strikes the strong with dismay trembles with weakness; that he who does not allow wounds to cause pain feels pain when wounded; and that he is dishonoured by the shame of the cross, for whom the cross is a sitting with God and a return to the kingdom?

But perhaps you think this occasion for impiety is left you, that he feared the descent to the underworld and the very necessity of death, since he seems to testify to this very thing with this saying: "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit." Reading this and not understanding it, you should either have kept a pious silence or have prayed religiously for its understanding, rather than wander, incapable of truth, with foolish madness through shameless assertion. Are you to believe that he feared the chaos of the underworld, the scorching flames, and the whole abyss of avenging punishments, when he says to the thief on the cross: "Amen I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise"? The power of this nature you will not shut in, I do not say by fear, but even by the region of the lower world; for, descending to the underworld, it is not absent from paradise (just as the Son of Man, speaking on earth, also remains in heaven), promising paradise to his martyr and pledging the delights of completed blessedness. Bodily fear does not hold him who penetrates the underworld indeed, but is extended everywhere by the power of his nature. And the chaos of Gehenna does not claim for itself, by the terror of death, this nature, mistress of the world and immense in the freedom of spiritual power, which the delights of paradise cannot be without. For the Lord, who is to be in the underworld, is also to be in paradise. Cut off, for fear of punishment, a portion of an indivisible nature: place in the underworld something of Christ that may feel pain, and leave in paradise something that may reign. For the thief asks that he remember him in his kingdom. And, believe it, the groan he heard as the nail passed through the palms kindled him to this faith of a blessed confession, and he learned the kingdom of Christ through the pain of a body weakened in Christ! He asks the favour of being remembered in the kingdom; you count the death of the cross as fear. The Lord at once promises him fellowship in paradise; you shut Christ in the underworld under the terror of punishment. This is a faith of a different hope. The thief under the cross won paradise, having confessed the hanging Christ in his kingdom; but you, reckoning Christ in the pain of punishment and the fear of death, must go without both paradise and the kingdom.

When the powers of the sayings and deeds are compared, then, it is shown without ambiguity that in the nature of his body there was not the weakness of bodily nature, since it lay in the power of his nature to drive away every weakness of bodies; and that the passion, though inflicted on the body, did not bring the nature of pain to the body: because, although the form of our body was in the Lord, yet he was not in the body of our defective weakness, not being in the origin of it, since the Virgin brought him forth from the conception of the Holy Spirit; and though she bore him by the office of her sex, she did not receive him from the elements of an earthly conception. For she bore from herself a body, but one conceived from the Spirit; having indeed in itself the truth of its body, but not having the weakness of its nature: since that body which is begotten from the Virgin is the truth of a body, and what took its beginning from a spiritual conception is outside the weakness of our body.

But the heretics seem to strive against the demonstration of the apostolic faith with this saying: "My soul is sorrowful even to death," so that the profession of him who says he is sorrowful testifies to a weakness of nature, through awareness of which he began to be sorrowful. And first I ask the sense of human understanding what it is to be sorrowful even to death. For to be sorrowful because of death and to be sorrowful even to death do not have the same meaning: because where sorrow is because of death, death itself is the cause of the sorrow; but where sorrow is even to death, death is no longer the cause of sorrow but its end. Of him, then, who is sorrowful not because of death but even to death, we must ask why he is sorrowful. And he is sorrowful, not for an uncertain or indefinite time of human ignorance, but even to death. So far was the sorrow not undertaken because of death that it was ended by death.

And so that we may understand the cause of the sorrow, let us see what preceded or follows this profession of sorrow. The Lord had completed the mystery of the whole passion and faith at the paschal supper. After that he teaches that all will be offended in him, but promises that he will go before them into Galilee. Peter pledged with constant faith that, though the rest would be offended, he would not be offended. But the Lord, through the nature of God not ignorant of what would be done, answered that he would deny him three times; so that the offence of the rest might be understood from Peter, since he would fall into so grave a peril of faith by denying him three times. Then, taking Peter, James, and John, two chosen for martyrdom and John to be strengthened for preaching the gospel, he professed himself sorrowful even to death. Then, going forward, he prayed, saying: "My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not as I will, but as you will." He asks that the cup pass from him, a cup surely already abiding with him, which was then being completed, to be poured out in the blood of the New Testament for the sins of many. For he does not ask that it not be with him, but that it pass from him. Then he asks that his own will not be done; and what he wills to be brought about, that very thing he does not will to be granted to him. For he says: "Yet not as I will, but as you will"; so that by the will to pray off the cup he signified fellowship with human anxiety in himself, while he did not separate the judgment of the will united to him and common with the Father. And so that he might not be understood to pray for himself, and the reason of the will signified and the petition not to be granted might be complete, he began this whole petition of his with this opening: "My Father, if it is possible." Is something, then, left to the Father of which it is uncertain whether it is possible for him? And if nothing is impossible for the Father, we must understand to whose condition that "if it is possible" was left. For after the request of this prayer there follows: "And he came to his disciples and found them sleeping, and said to Peter: Could you not watch one hour with me? Watch and pray, that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." Is the cause of the sorrow and of the prayer to take away the cup still obscure? For he bids them watch with him and pray for this reason, that they may not enter into temptation, the spirit being willing but the flesh weak. For those who were promising, through the constancy of a faithful conscience, that they would not be offended, were to be in offence through the weakness of the flesh. He is not, then, sorrowful for himself, nor does he pray for himself, but for those whom he urges to pray, watchful, that the cup of the passion may not fall upon them; the cup which he prays may pass from him, namely so that it may not remain on them.

He prayed that it might be taken from him, "if it were possible," for this reason: because, while nothing is impossible for God, as he himself says, "Father, all things are possible to you," yet it is impossible for man not to be overcome by the terror of suffering, and faith cannot be known except through testing. And therefore, both as man for men he wills the cup to pass, and as the will of God from God he is united to the effect of the Father's will. What he said, "if it is possible," he taught plainly in what he said to Peter: "Behold, Satan has asked to sift you like wheat; but I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail." For through this cup of the Lord's passion all were to be tempted. And the Father is asked for Peter, that his faith may not fail, so that at least the sorrow of repentance might not be absent from the weakness of the one denying; for faith would not fail in him in that he would repent.

The Lord, then, has sorrow even to death: because in his death, by the earthquake, the darkness of the day, the tearing of the veil, the opening of the tombs, and the resurrection of the dead, the faith of the apostles was to be confirmed, a faith which the terror of the night watch, and the mockery of the whole passion in scourges, blows, spitting, the crown of thorns, and the burden of the cross, and finally the condemnation of the accursed cross, would shake. The Lord, knowing, then, that all these things would cease after his passion, is therefore sorrowful even to death; and he knows that this cup cannot pass unless he drinks it, saying: "My Father, this cup cannot pass from me unless I drink it; your will be done": that is, that with the passion completed in himself the fear of the cup would pass, which could not pass unless he had drunk it; that the end of their terror would follow only on the terror of the passion completed in him; because after his death, through the glory of mighty works, the offence of the apostles' weakness would be driven away.

And although in saying "Your will be done" he committed the apostles, in the offence of the cup, that is, of his passion, to the decision of the Father's will, he still used the request of prayer repeated a third time, after which he said: "Sleep now, and take your rest." For not without the awareness of some inner reason does he, who before had rebuked them for sleeping, now bid them sleep and rest. But Luke is thought to have given us the understanding of this exhortation: having said that Satan had asked to sift the apostles like wheat, and that the Lord had prayed for Peter's faith, that it might not fail, he added that after the Lord's long prayer an angel stood by strengthening him; and with the angel present he began to pray at greater length, so that the sweat of his body flowed in drops of blood. For when an angel had been sent to guard the apostles, and the Lord had been strengthened by him so as not to be sorrowful for them, he says now without fear of sorrow: "Sleep now, and take your rest." Matthew and Mark said nothing about the angel or about the devil's demand; but after the sorrow of soul, after the rebuke of the sleepers, after the prayer to take away the cup, the exhortation to the sleepers did not follow for no reason, except that, since he was to be absent from them and was strengthened by the help of the angel granted, he let those to be guarded go to sleep in the security of a guard.

Nor must we be unaware that in very many manuscripts, both Greek and Latin, nothing is found written either of the angel coming or of the sweat of blood. To those, then, who are in doubt whether this is lacking or superfluous in the various books (for this is left uncertain to us by the diversity of the books), certainly, if heresy flatters itself from this, so as to affirm him weak who needed the help of a strengthening angel, let it remember that the Creator of angels did not need the protection of his creature; and then that he was necessarily strengthened in the same way as he was sorrowful. For if he is sorrowful for us, that is, because of us, he must have been strengthened because of us and for us; because he who is sorrowful about us and strengthened about us was strengthened on the same terms on which he was sorrowful. And no one will dare to ascribe the sweat to weakness, because it is against nature to sweat blood. Nor is it weakness which power has done not according to the custom of nature; nor can that in any way belong to the heresy of weakness which serves against the heresy that lies about a phantom, by establishing, through the sweat of blood, the truth of the body. Since, then, both the sorrow is about us and the prayer for us, all things cannot but be understood to have been done because of us, since all things were prayed for us, for whom there was fear.

The Gospels supply each other's fullness, since some are understood from others, because all are the preaching of one Spirit. For John, above all the preacher of spiritual causes, shows this prayer of the Lord for the apostles, passed over in silence by all the others, saying that the Lord prayed thus: "Holy Father, keep them in your name. When I was with them, I kept them in your name; those whom you gave me I have also guarded." That prayer, then, was not for himself but for the apostles; nor is he sorrowful for himself who urges them to pray that they may not be tempted; nor is an angel sent for him who, if he wished, could bring down twelve thousand legions from heaven; nor does he fear because of death who is anxious even to death; nor does he ask that the cup pass him by, but asks that the cup pass from him, which yet cannot pass unless he drinks it. To pass is not to leave a place but to cease to exist altogether, as both gospel and apostolic speech signify when it is said: "Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away." And the apostle: "Behold, the old things have passed away, and new things have come." And also when he says: "And the form of this world will pass away." The cup, then, of which he prays the Father that it pass, cannot pass unless it is drunk; and what the Lord prays, he surely prays for those whom, abiding with them, he himself saved, and whom he also left to the Father to be saved. Now, about to carry out the mystery of death, he prays the Father to be their guardian; and the angel sent to him, if indeed it is so, is an unambiguous presence; and there is plain security that the prayer was obtained, since, having finished his prayer, he urges them to sleep. The evangelist shows the effect of the prayer obtained, and the security of the sleep urged, in the very work of the passion, when, as all the apostles are about to slip out of the hands of their persecutors, he says: "That the word he had spoken might be fulfilled, Of those whom you gave me I have lost none." For the request of the prayer is fulfilled through itself, and all are safe. But the Father is prayed that those saved through him he himself may now save in his own name. And he saves them so that Peter's faith, though frightened, does not fail, repentance following.

So, the Lord's prayer having been shown by John, the devil's demand by Luke, and, in Matthew and Mark, the sorrow even to death, the rebuke of sleep, and again the exhortation, nothing ambiguous is left; since by the prayer in John, in which he commends the apostles to the Father, both the cause of the sorrow and the petition for the passing of the cup are resolved: the Lord not praying that the passion be removed from him, but praying the Father to protect the apostles when he was about to suffer; and, the prayer against the devil having been shown through Luke, the permission of the sleep forbidden before is now secure through confidence.

In that nature, then, which is above man, there is no anxiety of human trembling; and a body not begun from earthly elements is outside the evils of an earthly body, since the Holy Spirit brought in the origin of the Son of Man through the mystery of conception. Surely the power of the Most High also mingled its power with the body which the Virgin was bearing from the conception of the Spirit. For since the sense of an animated body lives through fellowship with the soul poured into the body, and the soul mingled with the body quickens the body itself to feel the pain of things inflicted, when that soul, in the blessed warmth of its heavenly hope and faith, has despised the beginning of its earthly origin in its body, the body too, in pain, is made to share its sense and spirit, so that it ceases to feel that it suffers what it suffers: and what more need we say about the nature of the Lord's body and of the Son of Man who came down from heaven? Earthly bodies themselves sometimes do not know how to fear and feel pain at what must necessarily be feared and felt as pain.

For I ask whether the Israelite youths feared the flames of the Babylonian furnace, fed with fuel to blaze, and whether fear of so great a fire came upon that body of our conception. I ask also whether they felt pain at being surrounded by flames. But perhaps they felt no pain because they were not burned; and then it will be thought that the nature of burning was absent from the fire. Certainly the nature of the body was such that it would both fear being burned and could be burned. But if earthly bodies, that is, bodies begun according to the elements of common causes, through the spirit of faith could neither be burned nor fear, then those things which through faith in God are against nature in man are not to be judged by nature in God, when they were begun by the power of the Spirit for the origin of his nature. The youths are bound in the midst of the fire: they do not fear the fire while they climb into it; they do not feel the flames while they pray; they cannot be burned while they are in the fire. In them both the bodies and the fire lose their nature; for neither are the bodies burned nor does the fire burn: and yet in other things both fire and body are in their own nature; for those standing round are burned, and the ministers of punishment are in punishment. You will not have it, impious heretic, that Christ felt no pain when the nail passed through his palms, nor that that wound brought no sharpness of the piercing weapon. I ask why the youths neither feared nor felt pain from the fires, or what nature was in their bodies that surpassed the nature of fire. And if they, by the warmth of faith and the glory of blessed martyrdom, did not know how to fear what is feared, would Christ, even if he had been conceived from the origin of our defects, yet about to remain God through the cross, to judge the world, and to be the king of the eternal ages, be sorrowful with fear of the cross? Unmindful of such great rewards, would he tremble with the anxiety of shameful fear?

Daniel, about to be fed by the prophet's meal, does not fear the lions' den. The apostles rejoice to be beaten and to suffer for the name of Christ. For Paul his being poured out is a crown of righteousness. Martyrs stretch out their necks with hymns to be cut by the executioners, and climb with songs the fires built for them from heaps of wood. So far does the sense of faith, having destroyed in bodies the fear of natural weakness, change the bodies themselves to a sense of not feeling pain, that firmness of body is brought in by the purpose of the soul, and the animated body feels itself only toward that to which it is moved by the zeal of the soul; so that what the mind, from desire of glory, despises to suffer, the body, the soul quickening it, does not feel itself suffer. If these things are natural in men, through the warmth of a soul burning for glory, so that they do not know their sufferings, are unaware of wounds, and do not perceive deaths: will the Lord of glory, Jesus Christ, whose very fringe is power, whose spittle and word are the nature of a body, when the maimed man, no longer maimed, is bidden to stretch out his hand, the man born blind does not feel the defects of his birth, and the one cut off at the ear is not cut off, be reckoned in that weakness of a pierced and suffering body in which the spirit of their faith did not leave glorious and blessed men?

The only-begotten God, then, suffered all the weaknesses of our sufferings that fell upon him; but he suffered by the power of his own nature, as he was also born by the power of his own nature; for, though he was born, he did not fail in his birth to hold the nature of his omnipotence. For though he was born by the law of men, he was not conceived by the law of men: having in himself both the constitution of the human condition in his birth, and being himself outside the constitution of the human condition in his origin. Accordingly he suffered in the body from the weakness of our body in such a way that he took up the sufferings of our body by the power of his own body. And the prophetic word is also a witness to this faith of ours, when it says: "He bears our sins and grieves for us; and we thought him to be in pains, and in stroke, and in affliction. But he was wounded for our iniquities, and was weakened for our sins." The opinion of human judgment is deceived, then, thinking that he feels the pain of what he suffers. For bearing our sins, that is, taking up the body of our sin, he himself does not sin. For he was sent in the likeness of the flesh of sin; bearing sins indeed in the flesh, but ours. And he grieves for us, but does not grieve with the sense of our grief; because, found in condition as a man, he had in himself a body capable of grief, but not the nature of grieving, since his condition is as of a man, and his origin is not of man, being born from the conception of the Holy Spirit. Hence, then, he was thought to be in pains, in stroke, and in affliction. For he took the form of a servant; and, born a man from the Virgin, he brought upon us the opinion of a pain natural to him in his suffering. But he was wounded; but for our iniquities. For although he was wounded, the wound was not of his own iniquity; and whatever he suffers, he does not suffer for himself. For he was not born man for himself, nor is he unjust of himself. The apostle testifies to the cause of this dispensation, saying: "Praying through Christ that you be reconciled to God: him who knew no sin he made sin for us." For, about to condemn sin in the flesh through sin, though without part in sin, he himself was made sin; that is, condemning sin in the flesh through the flesh, not knowing the flesh himself, he was nevertheless made flesh for us; and therefore he was wounded for our iniquities.

For the rest, the apostle knows no trembling at pain in Christ. For, about to speak of the dispensation of the passion, he preached it in the mystery of divinity, saying: "Forgiving you all sins, blotting out the handwriting that was against us in decrees, which was contrary to us, taking it out of the way and nailing it to the cross; stripping himself of the flesh, he led away principalities and powers with confidence, triumphing over them in himself." Does it seem to you that this Power yields to the nail of a wound, and, terrified at the blow of the piercer, changed itself into the nature of feeling pain? Yet the apostle, speaking with Christ speaking in him, and recalling the work of our salvation through the Lord, signifies the death of Christ in such a way that he strips himself of the flesh, puts the powers to shame with confidence, and triumphs over them in himself. If there is necessity in his passion, and not the gift of your salvation; if in the cross there is the pain of piercing, and not the nailing up of the decree by which death was written against you; if in death there is the force of death, and not the putting off of the flesh by the power of God; if, finally, death itself is anything other than the shaming of the powerful, than confidence, than triumph: ascribe weakness, if there is necessity and nature there, if there is force, distrust, and disgrace there. But if, on the contrary, these things are proclaimed in the mystery of the passion, what madness is it, I ask, to reject the faith of the apostolic teaching, to change the sense of religion, and to snatch all this, which is will and mystery, power and confidence and triumph, to the insult of a feeble nature? It is plainly a triumph to be sought for the cross, and, offering oneself, not to be withstood; to stand to the sentence of death, but thence to sit at the right hand of power; to be pierced with nails, but to pray for the persecutors; to drink vinegar, but to complete the mystery; to be reckoned among the wicked, but to give paradise; to be lifted up on the tree, but to make the earth tremble; to hang on the cross, but to put the sun and the day to flight; to go out of the body, but to call souls back into bodies; to be buried dead, but to rise God; according to man to suffer all weak things for us, but according to God to triumph in them all.

There remains for us still, as it seems to the heretics, a great and grave profession of confessed weakness, uttered above all in the Lord's own words, when he says: "God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" What greater complaint can this protest be understood to be, than to complain that he has been forsaken and given over to weakness? But this is the violent presumption of an impious understanding, which it sets against itself in every kind of the Lord's sayings: that he who hastens to death, who is to be glorified through it, who after it is to sit at the right hand of power, amid so many causes of blessedness feared to die, and for that reason complained that he was forsaken by his God to the necessity of dying, when by undergoing death he was to abide in those blessed things!

Indeed, heretical minds strive toward this irreligion as toward a road prepared for them, through the fact that they hold either that God the Word wholly failed into the soul of the body, so that Jesus Christ, the Son of Man, was not the same as the Son of God, and God the Word failed from himself while he quickens the body in the office of a soul; or that Christ was not born man at all, because the Word of God dwelt in him in the manner of the prophetic spirit. But the error of this ridiculous perversity extends itself to a greater boldness of impiety: that Jesus Christ was not Christ before he was born of Mary, since he who was was not born, but only then first began to be what he was born. To this is added the fault that God the Word, as some part of the powers of God, extending itself by a kind of drawing out in continuity, dwelt in that man who began to be from Mary and equipped him with the powers of divine working, while he lived by the movement and nature of his own soul.

Through this subtle and pestilent teaching, then, they are led into error, so that either God the Word became the soul of the body through a change of a nature weakening itself, and the Word ceased to be God; or, again, that man, of an external and bare nature, was animated only by the life of a soul moving him, and in him the Word of God, that is, a kind of power of an extended voice, dwelt. And so the way is opened in every manner for a most impious understanding: either that God the Word failed into a soul and did not remain God the Word; or that Christ did not exist at all before Mary's childbearing; because Jesus Christ, a man only of common soul and body, would have of himself only the beginning by which he began to be man, whom the power of a word extended from outside strengthened for powerful works; who now, deserted by the Word of God when the extension was drawn back again, cries: "God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Or certainly, at the time when he was changed from the nature of God the Word into the soul of the body, having used the Father's help in everything, now, destitute of it and given over to death, he complains of his loneliness and accuses him who leaves him. And in every way a deadly peril of deceived faith is prepared, if either a weakness of nature is thought to be signified in God the Word by the complaint, or God the Word did not exist at all, since for Christ Jesus the beginning is only Mary's childbearing.

But amid these impious and weak opinions, the faith of the church, steeped in apostolic teachings, knows a birth in Christ but does not know a beginning. It knows a dispensation, but does not know a division. It does not allow Christ Jesus to be such that Jesus is not himself Christ; nor does it distinguish the Son of Man from the Son of God, lest the Son of God perhaps not be understood also to be the Son of Man. It does not absorb the Son of God into the Son of Man. Nor does it cut Christ, whose garment woven from the top was not torn, by a threefold faith, so as to cut Jesus Christ into Word and soul and body; nor again does it absorb God the Word into soul and body. For it, God the Word is whole, and the man Christ is whole; holding this one thing in the mystery of its confession, to believe Christ nothing other than Jesus, and to preach Jesus nothing other than Christ.

I am not unaware how far the magnificence of the heavenly mystery hinders the weakness of human understanding, so that we cannot easily either express these things in words, or judge them by sense, or even embrace them with the mind. The apostle, knowing that it is arduous and most difficult for earthly nature to conceive the working of divine things by our own judgment, as though we were keener to understand than God is mighty to accomplish, writes thus to his lawful son according to the faith, who had taken in the holy letters from infancy: "As I urged you to remain at Ephesus when I was going into Macedonia, that you might charge certain persons not to teach otherwise, nor to give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which provide questions rather than the building up of God which is in faith." He forbids the words of genealogy to be handled and the fables of endless questioning to be touched; and teaches that the building up of God is in faith, so as to enclose the measure of human modesty within a faithful reverence for God's omnipotence, and so that our weakness may not stretch itself to examine things that dull the nature of examining. If, for those who look upon the brightness of the sun, the power of the strained light is so dazzling that, if ever the keen eye of curious contemplation inquires more cleverly into the cause of the radiant light, the nature of the eyes is driven back to a deadened sense of seeing, and it happens that by straining to see more you do not see: what are we to expect in the things of God and in the sun of righteousness? Will not folly fall on those who wish to be wise beyond measure? Will not the stupor of dull foolishness seize that very keen light of understanding? For a lower nature will not understand the cause of a higher nature, nor is heavenly reason subject to human conception. For whatever is subjected to the consciousness of the weak will be within the condition of weakness. The power of God, then, exceeds the human mind; and if weakness stretches toward it, it will be rendered weaker, losing even what it holds, since the nature of heavenly things is stronger and dulls it; because, being greater, by its very embrace it weakens every obstinacy of one pursuing it. As, then, the sun is to be seen so far as it can be seen, and is to be received in as much light as is admitted, lest, if we wish to expect more, we gain even less than we can; so heavenly reason is to be understood so far as it allows itself to be understood, and expected so far as it has given itself to be grasped, lest, if we are not content with the measure of what is granted, we lose what is granted. There is, then, in God what can be perceived; there plainly is, if only you wish for what you can. For as there is in the sun what you may see, if you wish to see what you can, but you lose what you can see while you strain for what you cannot, so too in the things of God you have something to understand, if you wish to understand what you can. But if you hope beyond what you can, you will not be able to do even what you could.

I will not yet touch the mystery of that timeless birth: that discussion belongs to its proper place. Meanwhile I have in words the mystery of the flesh taken up. I now consult those searchers of heavenly secrets, that they may speak, according to their nature, the mystery of Christ born of the Virgin. Whence will they say came the conception to the Virgin? Whence the childbearing to the Virgin? What will they argue was the cause of these birth origins? And what grew together within the recesses of the mother's womb? Whence the body? And whence the man? And then, after these, what is it for the Son of Man, abiding in heaven, to have come down from heaven? For according to bodily causes, to come down and to abide are not the same; one is a change of departing, the other the undisturbedness of abiding. The infant cries, but is in heaven; the boy grows, but remains God of fullness. And when he ascends where he was before, and he who abides comes down, by what sense of human understanding will it be grasped? For the Lord says: "What if you see the Son of Man ascending where he was before?" The Son of Man ascends where he was before; and what sense will conceive this? The Son of Man, who is in heaven, came down from heaven; and what reason will supply this? The Word became flesh; what words will speak this? The Word becomes flesh, that is, God man; and he who is man is in heaven, and he who is God is from heaven. He ascends while descending; but he descends without descending. He is what he was, and what he is he was not. We run through causes and fail in reason; we see the reason and do not understand the causes. But understanding Christ Jesus thus, we shall know; and thinking more that we understand, we shall not know.

And how great is that mystery of words and deeds, that Christ wept, and that tears flowed from his eyes through anguish of mind! Whence these defects of his soul, that the grief of sorrow should draw tears from the body? And what bitterness of things, what unbearableness of pain, dissolved the Son of Man who came down from heaven into tears? And then, what was it in him that wept? God the Word, or the soul of his body? For although the office of tears is in the body, yet a kind of grief of the mind sweats them out in the service of the body. And then, what cause had he for weeping? Is he paying the due honour of tears to impious and parricidal Jerusalem, which would suffer nothing worthy of the slaughter of so many prophets and apostles and of the death of its own Lord? And as the calamities of human deaths are wept for, is the fall of this lost and desperate nation lamented? And what, I ask, is this mystery of weeping? The soul, which is sorrowful, weeps. But did it send the prophets? Did it so often wish to shelter her gathered chicks under the covering of its wings? But grief does not befall God the Word, nor tears the Spirit. Nor is it fitting for the soul to have done anything before the body. And yet there is no doubt that Jesus Christ truly wept.

With equal truth of tears Lazarus too was wept for. And I ask first, what is wept for in Lazarus? Not, surely, death, which is not unto death and is for the glory of God. For the Lord says: "This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it." Death, then, which was the cause of glorifying God, did not bring the sorrow of weeping. Nor was there a need for weeping in the fact that he had been absent when Lazarus died. For he himself says plainly: "Lazarus is dead, and I am glad for your sakes, that you may believe, that I was not there." His absence, then, which served the faith of the apostles, had no cause for tears, since, absent, by the consciousness of divine knowledge he had announced the sick man's death. No need for weeping remains; and yet there was weeping. And still I ask, to whom will that weeping be ascribed? To God, or to the soul, or to the body? But the body by itself does not have the tears that it pours out for the grief of a mourning soul. Much less is it that God wept, who is to be glorified in Lazarus. Nor is it fitting that a soul should call Lazarus from the tomb, and that at the command and power of a soul bound to a body a soul already loosed from it should be called back into its dead body. Does he grieve who is to be glorified? Does he weep who is about to give life? It does not belong to one about to give life to weep, nor to one about to be glorified to grieve; and yet he who gives life both wept and grieved.

We mention few things out of many, not from the necessity of poverty or from ignorance of the sayings, but so that a reasoning not drawn out may commend a complete exposition. The Lord bears and does what is not known though it is perceived, what is not unknown and yet cannot be known, since there is both truth in the things and mystery in the power, as we shall show plainly even from what he says: "For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again; this command I received from the Father." He lays down his life of himself; and I ask, who lays it down? For we do not doubt that Christ is God the Word; nor again are we ignorant that the Son of Man consisted of soul and body, the angel confirming it to Joseph: "Rise, and take the child and his mother, and go into the land of Israel; for those who sought the child's life are dead." Whose, then, is this soul, I ask, the body's or God's? If the body's, what power has the body, which is animated into life through the movement of the soul? Then, has the body received any command, which without the soul is dull and dead? But if anyone thinks that God the Word lays down his soul so as to take it up again, let him show that God the Word died, that is, remained without sense and life in the manner of a dead body, so that he took up his soul again to live, by which he would be made alive again.

But no one sharing in reason will ascribe a soul to God; although it is often written that God's soul hates sabbaths and new moons, and is well pleased in certain things. But this is customarily said with the same meaning by which hands, eyes, fingers, arm, and heart are counted in God as though bodily. For since a spirit, according to the Lord's saying, does not have flesh and bones, no members of bodily parts fit him who is and does not change, for his solidity; but his simple and blessed nature remains one whole, which is all things. God, then, is not animated to life in bodily ways by the office of an inner soul, but he himself lives as life to himself.

And how does he lay down his soul, or take it up again once laid down? Or what is the reason of this command? God, then, neither lays it down to death nor takes it up again to life. Nor does the body have a command to take it up again, because it does not take it up again by itself. For it was said of the temple of his body: "Destroy this temple, and after three days I will raise it up." God, then, raises up the temple of his body. And who lays down his soul so as to take it up again? For the body does not take it up again by itself, but is raised up by God. And what is raised up is what is dead; and what lives does not lay down its soul. God, then, neither died nor was buried; and yet it was said by him: "For in pouring this ointment on my body, she did it to bury me." What was poured on his body was done to bury him; and it is not the same to be oneself and to be one's own; and it is not one thing to be done to bury oneself and for one's body to be anointed; nor is it consistent that the body be his own and he himself be buried.

But this is the understanding of the divine mystery: not to be ignorant of God in him whom you do not fail to know as man; and not to fail to know man in him whom you are not ignorant of as God; not to divide Jesus Christ, because the Word became flesh; not to think him buried whom you understand to have raised himself; not to doubt that he raised himself whom you do not dare to deny was buried. For Jesus Christ was buried, because he also died. And he died who, when about to die, said: "God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" And he said this who also said: "Amen I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise"; and, promising paradise, he cried with a loud voice: "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit." And saying this, he breathed his last.

You now who either divide Christ into three, Word and soul and body, or reduce the whole Christ, God the Word, to a man of common kind only, reveal to us this mystery of great piety, which was manifested in the flesh: what spirit Christ gave up, and who commended his spirit into the Father's hands, and who was in paradise that same day, and who complained that he was forsaken by God. For the complaint of the forsaken is the weakness of one dying; but the promise of paradise is the kingdom of the living God. The commending of the spirit is the confidence of one who commends; the giving up of the spirit is the departure of one dying. I ask, then, who dies? Surely he who gives up the spirit. Then who gives up the spirit? Surely he who commended his spirit to the Father. And if the same who commended it, the same giving up the spirit, died, I ask whether the body commends the soul, or God the soul of the body? For it is not doubtful that the soul is often signified by "spirit," and indeed from this very fact, that Jesus, about to die, gave up the spirit. If, then, anyone thinks it must be held that the soul is commended by the body, the living by what is to be dissolved, the eternal by what is to decay, the abiding by what is to be raised; and there is no doubt that the same one who commended his spirit to the Father was in paradise that same day with the thief; then I ask whether, received into the tomb, he remained in paradise, or whether, remaining in paradise, he complained that he was forsaken by God.

For the Lord Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, is one and the same, signifying himself through all these: who, while he signifies that he is forsaken to death, is man; and yet, while he is man, reigns as God in paradise; and, reigning in paradise, the Son of God commends his spirit to the Father; and the Son of Man gives up to death the spirit commended to the Father. Why now do we make an insult of the mystery? You have him complaining that he is left to death, because he is man; you have him who dies professing that he reigns in paradise, because he is God. Why do we keep only for impiety what he said to us for the understanding of his death, and keep silent about what the same one professed to show his immortality? If this voice and speech belong to the same one, complaining that he is forsaken and professing that he reigns, by what reasoning of unbelief do we divide our faith, so that he who dies at the same time is not the same who reigns, when he himself testified both of himself, both commending his spirit and breathing his last? But if the same, commending the spirit and giving it up, both dies reigning and reigns dead, we have in the mystery of the Son of Man and the Son of God both one reigning who dies and one dying who reigns.

Let every irreligious unbelief, then, incapable of the divine mystery, keep away: that unbelief which does not know that Christ wept not for himself but for us, so that the very feeling of human custom which he took up might bear witness to the truth of the man he took up; which is ignorant that Christ died not for himself but for our life, so that through the death of the immortal God the life of mortals might be renewed; which does not understand the complaint of the forsaken and the confidence of the reigning one, so that, because God reigns and he complains that he is dying, there should be in our understanding both the man dead and God reigning. For he who dies and he who reigns are not different, nor is he who commends the spirit different from him who breathes his last, nor is he who was buried different from him who rises, nor is he who descends not one with him who ascends.

Hear on this the faith of the apostolic teaching, trained not by the sense of the flesh but by the gift of the Spirit, when he speaks to Greeks seeking wisdom and Jews seeking signs: "But we preach Christ Jesus crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness; but to those called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ Jesus the power of God and the wisdom of God." Is Christ divided, so that Jesus crucified is one and Christ the power and wisdom of God another? But this is a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles; to us, however, Christ Jesus is the power of God and the wisdom of God; but a wisdom not known to the world nor understood by the prudent of this age. And how little it is understood, learn from the same blessed apostle, saying: "But we speak the wisdom of God, which is hidden in a mystery, which God foreordained before the ages for our glory, which none of the rulers of this age knew; for if they had known it, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory." Is the apostle ignorant that this wisdom of God is hidden in a mystery and is unknowable to the rulers of the age? Does he divide Christ, so that the Lord of majesty is one and Jesus crucified another? But he contradicts this most foolish and most impious opinion, saying: "For I decided to know nothing among you except Christ Jesus, and him crucified."

The apostle knows nothing else and judges that he knows nothing else; but we, weak of wit and weaker of faith, cut, divide, and double Christ Jesus, judges of mysteries and slanderers of a hidden sacrament. For to us Christ crucified is one, the wisdom of God another; the one buried is one, the one descending another; and the Son of Man one, the Son of God another. Not understanding, we teach; not knowing, we accuse; and we men correct the sayings of God; and we do not deign to believe as the apostle does: "Who will bring a charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies; who is it that condemns? Christ who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us." Does another intercede for us than he who is at the right hand of God? Or is he who is at the right hand of God not himself the one who rose? Or is he who rose not the same who died? Or is he who died not the same who condemns? Or is he who condemns not the same who is God who justifies? Let us separate, then, if it is permitted, Christ who condemns from God who justifies, the dead Christ from Christ who condemns, Christ sitting at the right hand and praying for us from the dead Christ. If, then, all these are one Christ, and the dead Christ is not one and the buried another, or one descending to the lower regions and another ascending into the heavens, according to the apostle's saying: "Now what does 'he ascended' mean, except that he descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is himself the one who ascended above all the heavens, that he might fill all things": how far shall we stretch the foolish-talking ignorance of our impiety, so as to profess that what is hidden in the mystery of God can be explained by us? He who descended is himself the one who ascended. Is it doubted that Jesus Christ the man, rising from the dead and ascending above all the heavens, is at the right hand of God? Will it be said that the body which lay in the tomb descended to the underworld? If, then, he who descended is himself the one who ascended, and the body is neither believed to have descended to the underworld, while it is not doubted that the body rising from the dead ascended into the heavens: what faith is left here except that of a hidden mystery, unknown to the world and to the rulers of the age, so that, since he who descends and ascends is one and the same, Jesus Christ too is one for us: both Son of God and Son of Man, both God the Word and man in the flesh, who suffered, died, was buried, rose, was received into the heavens, and sits at the right hand of God; having in his one and the same self, by dispensation and nature, in the form of God and in the form of a servant, without any partition of himself, what is man, and without division, what is God?

So, forming the faith of our careless and ignorant opinion, the apostle spoke the mystery of this confession thus: "For though he was crucified out of weakness, yet he lives by the power of God." For, preaching the Son of Man as the Son of God, who, though man by dispensation, still remained God by nature, he says that the same one was crucified out of weakness who lives by the power of God; so that, since the weakness was from the form of a servant and the nature remained from the form of God, and he who was in the form of God had taken the form of a servant, it should not be doubtful in what mystery he both suffered and lives; so that, since there were in the same one both weakness for suffering and the power of God for life, he who both suffered and lives should not be another, divided from himself.

The only-begotten God did indeed suffer what men can suffer; but let us use the apostle's faith and saying: "For I delivered to you first of all that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he rose on the third day according to the Scriptures." He did not use bare definitions of sayings, giving occasion for error, but urged that the manner of the death and resurrection be confessed not so much by the names of things as by the force of the Scriptures, so that our understanding of his death might be that which was in the meaning of the Scriptures. Not leaving room for weak thoughts and scrupulous slanders against the faith, he added only this limit for preaching the death and resurrection, "according to the Scriptures"; so that we might not be weakened, carried about by the wind of empty disputes or hindered by the foolish subtleties of deceitful questions, but faith, unharmed, might always recall itself to this harbour of its religion, to believe and confess the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, Son of Man and Son of God, according to the Scriptures; a pious security of resisting slander being set before it, since Christ Jesus was to be understood to die and rise as he is written. For faith carries no danger, and every pious profession is safe in the hidden mystery of God. Christ was born of the Virgin; but according to the Scriptures he was conceived of the Holy Spirit. Christ wept; but according to the Scriptures, so that in weeping he rejoiced. Christ also hungered; but according to the Scriptures, as God he worked, without food, against the tree that had no fruit. Christ suffered; but according to the Scriptures he was then to sit at the right hand of Power. He complained that he was forsaken to death; but according to the Scriptures he then received his confessor with himself into the kingdom of paradise. He died; but according to the Scriptures, rising, he sat as Lord at the right hand of the Lord. In the faith of this mystery, then, is life; this confession does not admit slander.

Certainly the apostle does not leave it open to doubt and to say: "Christ born, suffering, dead, rising: in what way, by what power, by what division, in what parts? Who is weeping, who rejoicing, who complaining, who descending, who ascending?" But showing the merit of faith in this, only through the confession of an unhesitating religion, he says: "But the righteousness that is from faith says this: Do not say in your heart, Who ascends into heaven? that is, to bring Christ down. Or, Who descends into the abyss? that is, to bring Christ back from the dead. But what does the Scripture say? The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart; that is, the word of faith which we preach: because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." Faith perfects the righteous man, according to what was said: "Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness." Did Abraham bring charges against God when he promised him the inheritance of the nations and a number of offspring from him, to abide according to the multitude of the stars and the sand? For a religious faith, not doubting the omnipotence of God, was not held back by the natures of human weakness; but, despising what in itself was frail and earthly, it received faith in the divine promise beyond the measure of bodily constitution; because no human law could measure the powers of God, God bringing forth as much generosity in accomplishing as he showed will in promising. Nothing, then, is more righteous than faith; because, though fairness and moderation in earthly actions are commendable, yet nothing is more righteous for man than to have believed the omnipotence of God with an understanding of his unlimited power.

So the apostle, expecting in us this righteousness which is from faith, removed the irreligion of an uncertain and faithless doubt, forbidding the care of anxious thought to be admitted into the heart, shown also by the authority of a prophetic saying. For he says: "Do not say in your heart, Who ascends into heaven?" These words, said thus by the prophet, he follows up with the resolution of the clause added, saying: "that is, to bring Christ down." For the sense of the human mind does not stretch itself to heavenly knowledge, nor does religious faith doubt about divine works. Christ did not need the help of human power, so as to be brought down into a body from that seat of his blessedness by the aid of someone ascending into heaven; no outward power drove him to the earth. He is to be believed to have come as he came; and true piety is to confess Christ not brought down but descending. The mystery is his own, both in time and in work. Nor, because he came at a certain time, is he to be believed brought down by another; nor is his coming in time to be understood as subject to the power of one bringing him down. But the unbelief of the other doubt also is not permitted. For at once, from the prophetic saying, is added: "Or, Who descends into the abyss?" And soon the reason of the saying is added: "that is, to bring Christ back from the dead." The freedom to return into heaven comes from the freedom to descend to earth. The hesitation of doubting is taken away: knowledge is in faith, reason in power, effect in things, cause in power.

But for this a conscience that does not waver is needed. For the apostle, carrying out the whole mystery of the Scripture, says: "The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart." There is no need of a slow word of confession, sought from afar, nor of any interval left between heart and mouth, so that what is to be spoken to declare religion should be pondered by faithless doubt. But it must be both near us and in us, so that, by no delay between the region of the heart and of the mouth, our faith may not be one way in the sense and another in the words, but, joined to mouth and heart, may have an unhesitating religion both of feeling and of speaking. And of this prophetic saying, as of the others, the apostle added the reason: "This is the word of faith which we preach: because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." It is piety not to doubt, righteousness to believe, and salvation to confess. Not to flow away into uncertainties, nor to boil over into foolish talk, nor to sift the powers of God by any reasoning, nor to circumscribe his power by a measure, nor to go over again the causes of unsearchable mysteries, but to confess Jesus as Lord and believe that he was raised from the dead by God: this is salvation. What madness it is, then, to quibble about what kind of being, and of what sort, Jesus is, when salvation is only this, to know this alone, that he is Lord! And then, what error of human vanity is it to stir up disputes about his resurrection, when it suffices for life to have believed that he was raised by God? Faith, then, is in simplicity, righteousness in faith, piety in confession. God does not call us to the blessed life through difficult questions, nor does he trouble us with the manifold kinds of eloquent speech. Eternity is for us something complete and easy: to believe that Jesus was raised from the dead by God, and to confess that he himself is Lord. Let no one, then, seize on what has been said because of our ignorance as an occasion for irreligion. For Jesus Christ had to be known as dead, so that we might live in him.

If, then, for the understanding of his death he says, "God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" and "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit," did he, consulting for our confession, confess himself weak, rather than refuse to leave us in doubt? For, about to raise Lazarus, he prays to the Father; did he need prayer, when he said: "Father, I thank you that you have heard me; and I knew that you always hear me, but I said it because of the crowd, that they may believe that you sent me"? He prayed, then, for us, so that the Son might not be unknown; and though the words of prayer did not profit him, he spoke for the profit of our faith. He was not, then, in need of help; but we are in need of teaching. He also prays to be glorified, and at once the voice of God the Father glorifying him is heard from heaven. But at the wonder over the voice heard he says: "This voice came not for my sake but for yours." For us the Father is asked, for us the Father speaks; let all serve the effect of our confession. And since the answer of glorification was given not to a petition for glory but to the ignorance of the hearers, how will the complaint of suffering, in the utmost exultation of suffering, not be understood as given for the instruction of our confession? Christ prays for his persecutors, because they do not know what they do. Christ promises paradise from the cross, because God reigns. Christ on the cross rejoices that he has finished all things with the cup of vinegar, because, about to die, he has fulfilled the prophecy. For us he was born, for us he suffered, for us he died, for us he rose. And since for us this alone is the property for salvation, to confess the Son of God raised from the dead, why, I ask, should we die in this irreligion, so that, when Christ, remaining within the confidence of his divinity, showed through the signification of the man he took up that he was dying with the security of one dying, this should serve above all to deny him as God, that the Son of God professed himself to us both Son of Man and dead?

The apostle, treating in many ways the whole and complete mystery of the gospel faith, also spoke to the Ephesians these words among the other precepts of divine knowledge: "As you also were called in the one hope of your calling. One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is through all and in us all." For he did not leave us to the doubtful and wandering pursuits of an undefined teaching, nor give over human wits to uncertain opinions, but shut in the freedom of understanding and will by barriers set and placed by himself, so as not to let us be wise except in what alone had been preached by him, since through the defined establishment of an unchangeable faith it was not permitted to believe in one way and another. Proclaiming to us, then, one Lord, he mentions one faith; then, mentioning the one faith of the one Lord, he also shows one baptism; so that, since there was one faith of one Lord, through this one faith in the one Lord there would also be one baptism. And because the whole mystery both of baptism and of faith is in the one God as in the one Lord, he concluded the completion of our hope with the profession of one God; so that one baptism and one faith would belong to the one God as to the one Lord. For each is one, not by union but by property: since it is proper to each to be one, whether for the Father to be what the Father is, or for the Son to be what the Son is; and the fact that each is one in his property is the mystery of unity for both: because the one Lord Christ cannot take from God the Father his being Lord, and the one God the Father is not understood to deny to the one Lord Christ his being God. Since, if through the fact that God is one it does not seem proper to Christ also to be God, it must be understood that through the fact that Christ is one Lord it is not due to God also to be Lord; if "one" is not the sign of a mystery but the exclusion of a union. There is, then, one baptism and one faith of the one Lord, as of the one God the Father.

But faith is no longer one if it does not keep in the profession of conscience one Lord and one God the Father. And how does a faith which is not one confess one Lord and one God the Father? It will no longer be one amid so great a diversity of preachings, if one man believes that the Lord Jesus Christ, when the nail pierced his palms, groaned with the pain of our weakness, and, lacking the strength of his own nature and power, feared with terror the death now threatening him; if he denies even what is principal, that he was born, and preaches rather that he was created; if he calls him God rather than understands him so; since it is religious to call even gods by that name, but to understand him as God is the consciousness of the divine nature. Then Christ is no longer one Lord, if for some he does not feel pain as God and for others he fears as weak; if for some he is God by nature and for others by title; and if for some he is Son by generation and for others by appellation. And through this neither is God the Father one in faith, if he is believed Father by some by power and by others by generation, since God is also the Father of all things. And who will doubt that whatever is outside the one faith is outside the faith? For in the one faith both the Lord Christ is one and God the Father is one. And the Lord Christ is one, not by name but by faith; he is one Son, but only if he is God, if he is unchangeable, if he has never been lacking in being God or Son. Whoever, then, preaches Christ otherwise than he is, that is, as neither Son nor God, will preach another Christ. Nor is there one faith in the one baptism; because, according to the apostolic teaching, the faith of that one baptism is one, whose one Lord is Christ, both Son of God and God.

For Christ can no longer be denied to be Christ, nor be made unknown to the world. The volumes of prophecy seal him; the fullness of the times, advancing daily, testifies to him; the tombs of apostles and martyrs speak of him through the workings of mighty deeds; the power of his name proves him; unclean spirits confess him; the bellowing of punished demons resounds with him. But in all these is the dispensation of his power. For the rest, he is to be preached by our faith as he is, so that, not by name but by confession, in the one faith of one baptism, he may be to us one Lord: because, as there is one Lord Christ, there is one God the Father.

But now these new preachers of Christ, denying all that is Christ's, preach another Lord Christ as another God the Father: because neither did the one beget, but create; nor was the other born, but created; and through this Christ is God outside the truth, since his being God is not from birth; and God the Father is outside the consciousness of faith, since his being Father is not in generation. They praise God the Father, indeed, deservedly and as is fitting, as of a nature inaccessible, invisible, inviolable, unspeakable, infinite, provident, powerful, kind, moving, passing through, abiding within and without, and perceiving all things in all; but when they add, to the surpassing height of praise, that he alone is good, alone powerful, alone immortal, who does not understand that this reverence of praise tends to this, that the Lord Jesus Christ, remaining outside this blessedness which is offered in honour to God alone by the exception "alone," is himself mortal, weak, and evil, since in these things the Father is alone? And therefore natural birth from God the Father is denied him, so that the blessedness which is natural to God the Father may not remain in him through generation; because birth is in the power of the nature that begot.

Instructed neither by the apostolic nor by the gospel preachings, they exalt the magnificence of God the Father for the use of their impious profession, not by the faith of religion but by the art of impiety: so that, while they set forth that all things of his nature are incomparable, they affirm, by the exception of comparison, that the only-begotten God is of a degenerate and weak nature: God, the living image of the living God, the fullest form of the blessed nature, the only-begotten birth of the unbegotten substance; who, unless he has the perfect glory of the Father's blessedness and renders the complete likeness of the whole nature, is not in the truth of an image. But if the only-begotten God is the image of the unbegotten God, the truth of a perfect and complete nature is in him, through which it comes about that he is the image of the truth. The Father is powerful; but if the Son is weak, he is no longer the image of the powerful. The Father is good; but if the Son is in a divinity of a different kind, an evil nature does not render the image of the good. The Father is incorporeal; if the Son, according to the Spirit, is circumscribed by a body, the bodily is no longer the form of the incorporeal. The Father is ineffable; if speech comprehends the Son, a nature that can be told is outside the image of the untellable. The Father is true God; if the Son is in falsity as God, he who is false is no longer the image of the true. The apostle does not preach him as an image of God in part, or a form of God in a portion; he says that he is the image of the invisible God and that he is the form of God. The nature of divinity could not be preached more expressly by the apostle in the Son of God than that, as regards what is invisible of God, Christ is the image of the invisible God: who, surely, in a visible substance would not render the image of an invisible nature.

But, as we taught in the earlier books, they snatch the dispensation of the body taken up to insult the divinity, and seize causes of impiety from the mystery of our salvation. If they held fast to the apostolic faith, they would understand that he who was in the form of God took the form of a servant; and they would not use the form of a servant to dishonour the form of God, since the form of God contained in itself the fullness of God; and they would treat with pious reasoning what belongs to the times and the mystery, so that the divinity would receive no insult and the dispensation would bring no error. But since all things, I think, have now been shown by us most completely, and the power of the divine nature has been shown under the birth of the body taken up, no room for doubt is left that the only-begotten God and man did all things by the powers of God, and in the powers of God accomplished all things with the whole truth of man: having in himself both the nature of God, powerful in his deeds, since he was born from God, and the completeness of perfect man, since his birth was from the Virgin; both subsisting in the nature of God with the truth of a body, and abiding in the truth of a body with the nature of God.

Although, then, the whole speech of our answer has come down to the very glory of death, and each proposition of the impious profession has been contradicted from the gospel and apostolic teachings, yet, because the impious have dared to presume certain things even after the glory of the resurrection, to show the weakness of a degenerate nature, we must now answer these very things. And, as we have observed in the rest, the reason of those sayings must be brought from those sayings themselves, so that truth may be found where it is denied. For what has been said divinely, simply and for the instruction of faith, must have been said in such a way that, for what it was said for, it is not confirmed by examples of foreign and external sayings.

For among their other impieties the heretics are accustomed to use this saying of the Lord: "I ascend to my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God"; so that, because his Father is their Father and his God their God, he is not in the nature of God: since he professes that God is Father to the rest as he is to himself, the privilege ceasing in the sharing both of nature and of the birth through which he was born God and is Son. Let them hold also this saying of the apostle: "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"; so that, since that subjection will be thought a witness to a weak nature, he whom natural weakness subjected to the power of a stronger nature is not in the power of the Father's nature. And let them take this as the best fortified and impregnable defence of all their impiety, to abolish the truth of birth: that, because through subjection he is not God, and through a God and Father common to himself and to us he is in fellowship with the creature, he himself also is a creation from God rather than a generation; since creation subsists from nothing, but generation has a natural author of birth.

Every slander is shameless, because falsehood contradicts truth when shame has already been thrown off; yet sometimes it puts forward some veil of ambiguous excuse, so as to be modest in its defence while it is shameless in its sense. But now, in the things impiously presumed to weaken the divinity of our Lord, room for modesty or false excuse is shut out, since, the very pardon of ignorance ceasing, the bare will of an irreligious understanding is uncovered. For, to defer a little the demonstration of the gospel saying itself: was this preaching of the apostle unknown, when he says: "And by the confession of all, great is the mystery of piety, which was manifested in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen by angels, preached to the Gentiles, believed in this world, taken up in glory"? Is anyone still of so dull an understanding as to understand the dispensation of the flesh taken up by the Lord as anything other than a mystery of piety? And first, whoever is outside this confession is outside the faith of God. For the apostle does not doubt that all must confess this: that the mystery of our salvation is not an insult to the divinity but a mystery of great piety; and a mystery no longer hidden in secret but manifested in the flesh; and no longer weak through the nature of the flesh but justified in the spirit; so that through the justification of the spirit the weakness of the flesh would be absent from our faith, through the manifestation of the flesh the mystery would not be hidden, and through the unknowable cause of the mystery there would be only the confession of great piety in the sacrament. And so the apostle kept the order of the whole faith: as it is piety, it is a mystery; as it is a mystery, there is knowledge in the flesh; as there is knowledge in the flesh, there is justification in the spirit; because the mystery of piety which is manifested in the flesh, so as to be truly a mystery, is manifested in the flesh through the justification of the spirit. And so that it might not be unknown what kind of justification in the spirit that manifestation in the flesh was, the mystery which was manifested in the flesh and justified in the spirit, and was seen by angels, preached to the Gentiles, and believed in this world, is this very thing taken up in glory; so that it is in all things the mystery of great piety, as it is manifested in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen by angels, preached to the Gentiles, believed in this world, taken up in glory. For preaching follows sight, faith follows preaching, and the taking up in glory completes all; because the taking up in glory is also the mystery of great piety, and through this faith in the dispensation we are prepared to be taken up conformed to the Lord's glory. The taking up of flesh, then, is the mystery of great piety, because through the taking up of flesh there is the manifestation of the mystery in the flesh. Yet the manifestation in the flesh is to be confessed as nothing other than the mystery of great piety, because its manifestation in the flesh is both the justification of the spirit and the taking up in glory. And with what hope, after all, is the mystery of the pious dispensation weakness of divinity in our faith, when through the taking up in glory it is to be confessed as the mystery of great piety? And since it is no longer weakness but mystery, not necessity but piety, the reason of the gospel saying must now be sought, so that what is the mystery of our salvation and glory may not be left as an occasion of impious preaching.

The Lord's profession about himself seems to you, heretic, a weighty authority and not to be undone, where he says: "I ascend to my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God"; so that, because one and the same is both Father as Father and God as God to us and to him, he is in that weakness in which we are: since through the same Father we are made equal as sons, and through the same God we are compared as servants; and since we are both a creation by origin and servants by nature, yet, since the Father and God is common to us, creation by nature and servitude would be common to him with us. And this madness of impious preaching also uses this prophetic saying: "God, your God, has anointed you"; so that he is not in that power of nature by which he is God, since God, anointing him, is preferred to him as his God.

He does not know Christ as God who does not know God as born. And for God to be born is nothing other than to be in that nature by which he is God; because to be born, though it shows a cause of birth, does not fall short of existing in the kind of its author. And what does not fall short in kind owes indeed to its author the cause of its birth, yet has not lost of itself the nature of the author; because the birth of God is neither from elsewhere nor something else. If it is from elsewhere, it is not birth; if it is something else, it is not God. But since he is God from God, through this too God the Father is to God the Son both the God of his birth and the Father of his nature; because the birth of God is both from God and has in it the nature of the kind by which he is God.

The Lord, then, so tempered the measure of this pious and due profession in all that he said that the confession of his birth would bring no insult to his divinity, and the reverence of obedience would not offend the nature of majesty; but so that the birth would profess the honour due from one who owed his subsisting to an author, and the natural confidence would show the consciousness of a nature which subsisted as God by being born. Hence that saying: "He who has seen me has seen the Father also"; but also this: "The words that I speak, I do not speak from myself." For since he does not speak from himself, he must owe to an author what he speaks; but since, when he is seen, the Father is seen, it is the consciousness of the nature which, to show God in itself, subsisted as born God, not foreign to God. Or this: "What the Father has given me is greater than all"; and again: "I and the Father are one." For the Father's giving is a profession of the birth received; and that they are one is the property of nature from birth. Or this: "But he has given all judgment to the Son, that all may honour the Son as they honour the Father." For while judgment is given, the birth is not passed over in silence; but while honour is made equal, the nature is kept. Or this: "I in the Father and the Father in me"; and again: "The Father is greater than I." For in their being in each other, recognize the divinity of God from God; but in the Father's being greater, understand the confession of the Father's authority. So also this: "The Son can do nothing of himself except what he sees the Father doing; for whatever he does, these the Son also does likewise." Since he does not do it of himself, the Father is author to him for what he does, according to his birth; and yet, since the Son does likewise whatever the Father does, he does not subsist as anything other than God, for doing all that God the Father does, the nature of the Father's omnipotence subsisting in him. These things, then, have been so shown according to the unity of Spirit and the property of nature which is according to birth that the birth confesses the God of its subsisting, and the subsisting does not tear apart the consciousness of nature: God the Son professing God the Father as his own since he is born from him, but, as to what he was born, having by nature the whole of what God is.

The dispensation of the great and pious mystery, then, made the Father of the divine birth also the Lord of the condition taken up, since he who was in the form of God was found in the form of a servant. For he was not a servant when, according to the Spirit, he was God the Son of God. And according to common judgment, where there is no servant there is no lord. God is indeed the God and Father of the birth of the only-begotten God; but as to his being a servant, we can only ascribe a lord to him when he is a servant: because, if before he was not by nature a servant, and afterwards began to be by nature what he was not, no other cause of lordship is to be understood than the one that brought about the servitude; having a lord from the dispensation of nature at the time when he made himself a servant by the taking up of man.

Abiding, then, in the form of a servant, he who before abode in the form of God, the man Christ Jesus, said: "I ascend to my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God." If, then, a servant said these things, and to servants, how is this profession not that of a servant, and how will it be transferred rather to that nature which is not in the nature of a servant, when, for him who, abiding in the form of God, took the form of a servant, a fellowship as of a servant with servants can come only from the fact that he is a servant? The Father, then, is Father to himself as he is Father to men, and God to himself as he is God to servants. And since the man Jesus Christ, in the form of a servant, says these things to men who are servants, there is no doubt that the Father is Father to him as to the rest on that side by which he is man, and God to him as to all from that nature by which he is a servant.

In fact he began this same speech with an opening of this kind of profession, saying: "But go to my brothers and say to them, I ascend to my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God." And I ask now whether they are to be understood as his brothers according to the form of God or according to the form of a servant; and whether our bodily nature has any fellowship with him according to the fullness of divinity dwelling in him, so that we are reckoned his brothers as regards his being God? But the prophetic Spirit too knows in what respect there are brothers to the only-begotten God; for not so much a man as a worm said this: "I will tell your name to my brothers." And the worm, either living not from the conception of common origins, or emerging alive from the depths of the earth, professed this to signify the flesh taken up and made alive by himself even from the underworld; and having foretold in the whole psalm, by the prophetic Spirit, the mysteries of his passion, he must have brothers from that dispensation in which he suffered. The apostle too knows the mystery of brothers in him, preaching him as the firstborn from the dead and also the firstborn among many brothers. He is firstborn among many brothers, then, in the same respect in which he is firstborn from the dead; and since the mystery of death is in the body, the mystery of brotherhood also is in the flesh. So God has brothers from the flesh, because the Word became flesh and dwelt among us; but the only-begotten God, in the exception of being only-begotten, is without brothers.

But he, containing in himself the nature of us all by the taking up of flesh, was what we are and had not lost being what he had remained; having God as Father, then by birth and now by constitution. Now by constitution, because all things are from God the Father. For God is Father to all, since all things are from him and in him. But to the only-begotten God, because the Word became flesh, he is not Father from this only; for he is Father as to the fact that in the beginning God the Word was with God. But when the Word became flesh, what the Father is remains both in the birth of the Word of God and in the constitution of the flesh. For God is the Father of all flesh, but not in the way he is Father to God the Word. And God the Word neither ceased to be the Word nor failed to be flesh. For the Word which became flesh and dwelt among us is not, while dwelling, not truly the Word, nor, while the Word is flesh, is he not truly God and man: because to dwell must belong to one who remains, and to become flesh is to be understood to belong to one who is born. And that he dwells in us is the taking up of our flesh; because, through the Word made flesh dwelling in us, God is in the truth of our body. If, then, Christ Jesus, man according to the flesh, takes away the nature of God the Word, or if God the Word is not the man Christ Jesus according to the mystery of piety, let it be an insult to his nature that, as for us, the Father is his Father and God his God. But if God the Word, the man Christ Jesus, did not cease to be God the Word, the fellowship of us and him toward the Father and God comes only from that nature by which he is brother; because "I ascend to my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God" was announced to the brothers not through the fact that he is the only-begotten God the Word, but through the fact that the Word became flesh.

The apostolic word does not speak in careless meanings or ones uncertain enough to give occasion for impiety. So now the evangelist, beginning the Lord's saying with the profession of brothers, taught that the profession of the whole saying pertains to the fellowship of that nature from which he is brother, because the speech is addressed to brothers; so that what was preached for the mystery of piety might not be counted as an insult to the divinity, since our fellowship with him, by which the Father is our Father and his, and God our God and his, existed according to the dispensation of the flesh, we being reckoned brothers to him by the birth of the body. No one, then, doubts that God the Father is also the God of our Lord Jesus Christ; but this pious profession of ours does not lie open to occasion for impiety. He is his God, not so that he is God of a kind different from him. But because he was born God from the Father, and is a servant by dispensation, let him have both a Father, since he is God from him, and his God, since he is flesh from the Virgin. The apostle seals this in a brief and complete saying: "Making mention in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation." For where Jesus Christ is, there is his God; but where glory is, there is the Father. He, then, who is Father to Christ according to glory is God to Christ according to Jesus. For the angel names Jesus Christ the Lord, whom Mary was to bear; but prophecy speaks of Christ the Lord as Spirit. And to many this saying seems more obscure in Latin, because Latin does not use the articles which Greek always uses, by a fitting and necessary custom. For it is written thus: ὁ θεὸς τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, ὁ πατὴρ τῆς δόξης. With us, if the custom of articles always existed, it would be pronounced thus: "That God of that our Lord Jesus Christ, that Father of that glory." For through the fact that "that God" is "of that Jesus Christ" and "that Father" is "of that glory," a certain property of understanding has been expressed according to the capacity of our sense: so that where Christ's glory is, there God is his Father; but where Christ Jesus is, there the Father is his God; having his God in the dispensation when he is a servant, and the Father in glory when he is God.

Times and ages do not bring a diversity of Spirit, so that the same Christ who abode by the Spirit in the prophets is not himself and the same in the body. For speaking through the mouth of the holy patriarch David, "God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your fellows," he spoke according to no other mystery than that of the dispensation of the body taken up. For he who now, charging his brothers, said that their Father is his Father and their God his God, then also said that he was anointed by his God above his fellows; so that, while he has no fellow as the only-begotten Christ, God the Word, he might be known to have a fellow from that taking up by which he is flesh. For that anointing did not profit that blessed, incorruptible birth abiding in the nature of God, but the mystery of the body and the sanctification of the man taken up, as the apostle Peter testifies when he says: "For they gathered together in truth in this city against your holy Son Jesus, whom you anointed." And again: "You know the word that went through all Judea, beginning from Galilee after the baptism which John preached: Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed him with the Holy Spirit and with power." Jesus, then, is anointed for the mystery of the regenerated flesh. And how he was anointed with the Spirit of God and with power is not doubtful, at the time when, as he came up from the Jordan, the voice of God the Father was heard: "You are my Son; today I have begotten you"; so that through this testimony of the flesh sanctified in him the anointing of spiritual power might be known.

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.

Showing, then, the dispensation of this glory to his apostles with a complete meaning of words, he says: "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." We have first the glory of the Son of Man, then the glory of God in the Son of Man, in the words: "Now the Son of Man is glorified, and God is glorified in him." For this first concerns the glory of the body, which would borrow glory from fellowship with the divine nature. Then follows the advance of a fuller glory, to be taken up from the increase of the glory already granted to the body: "If God is glorified in him, God also has glorified him in himself, and God has glorified him at once." For through this God glorified him in himself, that God was already glorified in him. For that God is glorified in him concerns the glory of the body, through which the glory of God was understood through the body, the glory of God being understood through the glory of the Son of Man. But that, because God was glorified in him, therefore God glorified him in himself: through the increase of God glorified in him, God glorified him in himself, so that, because he already reigns in the glory which is from God's glory, he himself might thereafter pass into the glory of God. For God glorified him in himself, that is, in that nature by which God is what he is; so that God may be all in all, the whole, from the dispensation by which he is man, now to abide in God. Nor did he keep silent about the time, saying: "And God has glorified him in himself, and God has glorified him at once"; so that, since, as Judas went out to the betrayal, he had signified as present the glory which would follow for him after the passion in the resurrection, he reserved for later that glory by which God would glorify him in himself; the glory of God being shown in him through the power of the resurrection, while he himself would abide in the glory of God, that is, in God all in all, by the dispensation of the subjection.

And in this, how great is the folly of heretical madness, to despair of for God what flatters its own human hopes; that God, who is powerful in man, should be weak in accomplishing it in himself? Neither speech nor a sense capable of reason says this: that God, bound by some natural necessity to provide for us, can bring no blessedness to himself; not that one of undisturbed nature and power needs advance, but that, through the dispensation and mystery of great piety, he who is God and is also man would be unable to grant himself to be wholly what God is, when he will without doubt grant us also to be what we are not. For the end of human life and death is resurrection; and the surest pay of our service is incorrupt eternity, not abiding for the continuance of punishment, but unceasing for the fruit and delight of perpetual glory. Since, then, this origin of our earthly bodies passes into the condition of a higher nature and becomes conformed to the glory of the Lord's body, will God, found in the form of a servant, though already glorified in the body according to his being in the form of a servant, not be conformed to God? So that he who will give us the form of his glorified body can give his own body nothing beyond what is common to us and to him? For this saying, "Then he himself will be subjected to him who subjected all things to him, that God may be all in all," many of the heretics take in such a way that the Son is to be subjected to God the Father so that the Father, through the Son's subjection, may be all in all; as though perfection were still lacking to God, which he will gain through the Son's subjection: so that he is to be understood as lacking complete and blessed divinity, if he will attain to being all in all through the advance of times.

To me, indeed, who understand God by veneration alone, it seems no less impious to answer these men than to agree with them: to be confident that one can speak, about a nature which surpasses the conception of human sense, in words whose meaning is still narrower than understanding; and first to doubt whether God lacks anything, or whether he himself is full, or whether it remains for one already full to be fuller. But if God, whose being God always is from nowhere else, has advance, so as to be more at some time, he still cannot reach the point of lacking nothing: because a nature for which advance remains is never understood to have advanced without some remainder of increase, since a nature looking to advance, though always advancing, is always open to advance. But what abides in perfect fullness and always is leaves itself nothing by which to be fuller, because perfect fullness does not admit the addition of a fuller fullness. And this is the form of a pious understanding in thinking thus of God: that God lacks nothing and is full.

But the apostle is not ignorant with what voice of confession one must testify about God, saying: "O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How incomprehensible are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counsellor? Or who has first given to him, and it will be repaid to him? For from him and through him and in him are all things; to him be glory for ever and ever." God is not circumscribed by an earthly mind, nor is this depth of his wisdom reached by the sense of a penetrating understanding, nor are the judgments of his ordinances grasped by the wit of those who search, nor do the ways of his knowledge, past finding out, yield themselves to the efforts of those who pursue them. All things of his are sunk in an incomprehensible depth, and nothing of his matters will be found, nothing tracked down. For no one has known his mind, and he needed no outside counsel. But this whole speech now concerns us, not also him through whom all things are, who is the Angel of great counsel, who also says: "No one knows the Son except the Father, nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and he to whom the Son wills to reveal him." But against our feeble minds, plunging themselves into the depth of defining and circumscribing the divine nature, the confession of the apostle's declaration must be used, so that rash opinion may not claim for itself anything about God beyond what is taught.

And this is the common understanding of natural causes: that nothing falls into sense except what lies under sense, either a thing set before the eyes or some work later than our sense and mind themselves. Of these, the one, which is touched or seen, yields within the judgment of our opinion, to be measured by the very touch and sight; while the other, which is made in time and is either begotten or established by a beginning more recent than ourselves, because it does not precede the sense of understanding, is also subject to the judgment of the sense that judges it. For neither does our sight judge invisible things, since it discerns only things seen; nor will our mind stretch itself into a time in which it did not exist, and search out things older than its birth, since only the opinion of things than which it is older is left to it; which mind, itself mostly uncertain through the necessity of its natural weakness, does not hold complete knowledge in the understanding of causes; much less would it perceive, by a sense going back beyond its birth, the manner of things which are before it by an eternal reason.

And therefore the apostle, because nothing would ever fall into knowledge except what succeeds later than sense, having mentioned the depth of God's wisdom, the infinity of his unsearchable judgments, the secrecy of his ways past finding out, the unknowing of his unknown mind, and the incomprehensibility of his uncommunicated counsel, added: "For who has first given to him, and it will be repaid to him? For from him and through him and in him are all things; to him be glory for ever and ever." God, who always is, is not subject to measure, nor is he anticipated by any prior movement of mind or understanding. And therefore he himself is wholly an unsearchable and inscrutable depth. And wholly so, not that he is thereby defined in measure, but that he is understood in immensity: because he took what he is from no one, nor has anyone first given to him, so that a return must be made to the giver. For from him and through him and in him are all things. He does not need things abiding from him, through him, and within him; he who is origin, maker, and container, external to things within, founder of things made; and he himself is never in need of what is his. Nothing is before, nothing from elsewhere, nothing outside him. What advance of fullness, then, does he lack, so that through time God is yet to be all in all? Or whence will he take, outside of whom there is nothing? Nothing, I mean, in such a way that he himself always is. And he who himself always is, and outside whom there is nothing, with what increase is he to be filled, or by what growth to be changed, when he says, "I am, and I do not change," since no room is left for change, no cause for advance, nothing earlier for eternity, nothing for God other than what God himself is? God, then, will not be all in all through the Son's subjection; nor will he be completed through a cause, from whom and through whom and within whom every cause consists. God therefore remains as he always is, nor does he need advance, who for what he is always is from himself and for himself.

But not even upon the only-begotten God does a necessity of changing nature fall. For he is God, which is the name of full and perfect divinity. For, as we taught above, both the meaning of the glory sought again and the cause of the subjection is that God may be all in all; and that God is all in all is a mystery, not a necessity. For abiding in the form of God he took the form of a servant, not changed, but emptying himself, hidden within himself, and made empty below his own power: while he tempers himself even to the form of the human condition, so that the weakness of the lowliness taken up might not fail to bear the powerful and immense nature; but the uncircumscribed power would restrain itself as far as was needed for it to obey even to the endurance of the body joined to it. And that he restrained himself, emptying himself within himself, brought no loss to his power, since within this lowliness of self-emptying he still used the power of all the power emptied within himself.

That God will be all in all, then, is the advance of what he took up from us. For he who, being in the form of God, was found in the form of a servant, is again to be confessed in the glory of God the Father; so that he may be understood without ambiguity to abide in the form of him in whose glory he will be confessed. It is, then, only a dispensation, not a change; for he is in that in which he was. But since there is a middle term, what he began to be, that is, a man born, the whole is gained for that nature which before was not God, when after the mystery of the dispensation he is shown to be God all in all. These, then, are our gains and our advances, namely that we are to be made conformed to the glory of the body of God. For the rest, the only-begotten God, though he was also born man, is nothing other than God all in all. For that subjection of the body, through which what is fleshly in him is swallowed up into the nature of spirit, will establish as God all in all him who, besides being God, is also man; and that man of ours advances into this. But we shall advance into a glory conformed to our man, and, renewed into the knowledge of God, we shall be re-formed into the image of the Creator, according to the apostle's saying: "Having put off the old man with his deeds, and having put on the new, who is renewed into the knowledge of God according to the image of him who created him." Man, then, is perfected as the image of God. For, made conformed to the glory of the body of God, he passes into the image of the Creator, according to the appointed fashioning of the first man. And after sin and the old man, made a new man into the knowledge of God, he attains the perfection of his constitution, knowing his God and thereby his image; and advancing through religion to eternity, and through eternity to abide as the image of his Creator.

At last, with the Holy Spirit now accompanying us, we are heading for the safe and calm harbour of a secure faith. And as very often happens to those tossed by much sea and wind, that, when heavy and difficult waves sometimes delay them about the mouths of harbours, in the end the very surge of the huge and terrible wave drives them into a station known and trusted by them: so, I hope, it will happen to us as we struggle in this twelfth book against the heretical storm, that, as we set our strengthened stern to the wave of the gravest impiety, that very wave may carry us into the bay of the rest we long for. For to all who are carried about by the uncertain wind of doctrine there is fear on one side, danger on another, and often shipwreck too, because the only-begotten God is maintained, on prophetic authority, to be a creature: so that in him there is not birth but creation, because it was said in the person of Wisdom: "The Lord created me the beginning of his ways." This is the greatest wave of their winter, this the heavy billow of their twisting whirlwind: which, met by us and broken by a secure ship, carries us on to the very safest harbour of the shore we long for.

We do not rely on uncertain or idle hopes, as sailors do, whom, sailing sometimes on prayers rather than confidence, wandering and unstable winds either desert or drive off course. But the Spirit of faith is with us, inseparable, abiding by the gift of the only-begotten God, and leading us on an unchanging course to calm waters. For we know the Lord Christ not as a creature, because he is not; nor as a thing made, because he is himself the Lord of all things made; but as God, God the proper offspring of God the Father. We all, indeed, according to the condescension of his goodness, have been called and taken up as sons of God; but he is the one true Son to God the Father, and his is a true and complete birth, abiding only in the knowledge of both. This alone is our religion: to confess the Son not as adopted but as born; not as chosen but as begotten. For we do not preach him as made or as not born, because we neither compare the Creator with creatures nor falsely speak of a birth without generation. He who is through birth is not from himself; nor is he not born who is Son; nor can he who is Son be what a son is otherwise than by being born.

No one doubts that the causes of impiety are always contrary to and striving against the causes of religion, and that what is judged to have been impiously received cannot be piously received: so that either these new correctors of the apostolic faith divide the Spirit of the Gospels and the prophets into quarrels and parcel him out into disputes, or the one prophesied one thing and the other preached another; because Solomon would call us to venerate a creature, while Paul rebukes those who serve the creature. These certainly do not seem, according to the understanding of impiety, to agree, so that the apostle, taught through the law, set apart by predestination, and speaking through Christ speaking in him, should either have been ignorant of the prophecy or, not ignorant of it, have undone it: and should not have known that Christ was a creature, whom he called creator; and should have forbidden the worship of a creature, he who warned that the Creator alone is to be served, saying: "Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and served the creature, passing over the Creator, who is blessed for ever and ever."

Does Christ, God speaking in Paul, too little refute this impiety of lying speech? Too little condemn the lie of changed truth? For all things were created through the Lord Christ; and therefore his proper name is that he is Creator. The nature and name of his own product do not fall upon him. Melchizedek is our witness, proclaiming God the creator of heaven and earth thus: "Blessed be Abraham by God most high, who created heaven and earth." Hosea the prophet is a witness, saying: "Making firm the heaven and creating the earth, I am the Lord your God, whose hands created all the host of heaven." Peter too is a witness, writing thus: "Commending your souls as to a faithful creator." Why do we impose the name of the work on the worker? Why do we name God after our own things? He is our creator, the creator of all the heavenly host.

Since these things, to be understood by apostolic and gospel faith, are referred to the Son, through whom all things were made, how will he be made equal to the very things he made, and be under the name of that nature by which all things are? First, the sense of human understanding rejects this, that the creator should be a creature, because creation is through the creator. If he is a creature, he is subject to corruption, liable to expectation, and subjected to servitude. For the same blessed apostle Paul says: "For the long expectation of the creature waits for the revelation of the sons of God. For the creature was subjected to vanity, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it in hope; because the creature itself also will be set free from the servitude of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the sons of God." If, then, Christ is a creature, he must be uncertain under the hope of a long expectation, and his long expectation must wait rather for what is ours, and, waiting, he must be subject to vanity, and through the subjection of necessity subject not willingly. And since he is subject not willingly, he must also be a servant; and since he is a servant, he must also remain in the corruption of nature. For the apostle teaches that all these are proper to the creature, from which, to be set free through long expectation, it will shine according to human glory. And O imprudent and impious profession about God, to assign him these mockeries through the insult of being a creature: that he hopes, that he serves, that he is compelled, that he is known, that he is to be set free into what is ours, not his own, when it is from what is his that we are advanced to anything!

But our impiety proceeds, with a huge increase of unbelief, through this boldness of an unlawful word, so that, because the Son is a creature, the Father too does not differ from a creature. For Christ, abiding in the form of God, took the form of a servant; and if he who is in the form of God is a creature, God will not be removed from a creature, since a creature is in the form of God. And to be in the form of God has no other meaning than to abide in the nature of God: through which God too is a creature, since a creature is in his nature. But he who was in the form of God did not grasp at being equal to God, because he would go down from equality with God, that is, from his form, into the form of a servant. And God could go down from God into man only by emptying himself out of the form of God. But in emptying himself he was not abolished so as not to be, since he was other than he had been. For he who emptied himself into himself did not fail from himself, since the power of might remains even in the power of emptying himself; and to have passed into the form of a servant is not to have lost the nature of God, since to have emptied the form of God is nothing other than the might of divine power.

To be in the form of God is so much nothing other than to be equal to God that equality of honour is due to the Lord Jesus Christ, who is in the form of God, as he himself says: "That all may honour the Son as they honour the Father. He who does not honour the Son does not honour the Father who sent him." A difference of things never exists except in a different honour also. For the same things are of the same veneration; because either the highest honour will be unworthily given to lower things, or lower things will be made equal in honour to higher things to the insult of the higher. But if the Son, as a creation rather than a birth, is made equal to the Father in veneration, we have no reverence of honour toward the Father, since so much veneration of him is laid on us as is of a creature; but because he is equal to God the Father in that he was born God from him, he is also equal in honour. For he is Son, not creature.

And this is the Father's splendid word about him: "From the womb before the morning star I begot you." But, as we have often said, no prejudgment is made of God through the weakness of our understanding, as though, because he said he begot from the womb, he consisted of inner and outer parts coming together through members, like the origins of bodily causes; since, free and absolute outside the cause of natural necessities, remaining Lord of all nature, he signifies the property of the birth of his Only-begotten from the power of his unchangeable nature. For spirit, being born from spirit, though born from the property of spirit by which it is itself spirit, still has no other cause for what is born than that of perfect and unchangeable causes. And, being born from a cause however perfect and unchangeable, it must be born from the cause in the property of the cause itself. Now the property of human necessities is contained within the causes of the womb. But God, not perfect from parts but unchangeable through spirit, because God is spirit, has no natural necessity of inner causes. But because the Spirit was proclaiming to us a birth of spirit from spirit, he trained our sense by the example of our causes; not as a pattern of the birth, but for the understanding of the generation; so that the example might serve not necessity but sense. If, then, the only-begotten God is a creation, what is the meaning of the signification of understanding which, through the custom of human birth, shows the understanding of divine generation?

For very often, signifying to us the moments of his workings through these members of our bodies, God has taught our sense by the use of common understanding, when he says: "Whose hands created all the host of heaven"; or again: "The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous"; or again: "I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after my heart." For since the will through which David pleased by uprightness of conduct is signified by the heart, the knowledge of the universe, so that nothing is outside God's knowledge, is expressed under the word "eyes," and the accomplishing of works, since nothing is not from God, is understood by the name "hands": God, willing, foreseeing, and doing all things, to be understood under the signification of bodily causes without bodily service, how is not the sense of understanding a spiritual birth also brought in by "he begot from the womb," not through the bodily cause of human origin, since through the other significations of members the effect of the other workings in God is shown?

Since, then, the heart is put for will, the eyes for sight, the hand for effect, though God, beyond any incomplete comparison of parts, wills, foresees, and accomplishes, and these same things are expressed by heart, eyes, and hand: is not the signification "he begot from the womb" the showing of a true birth? Not that he begot from a womb, just as he neither acts by a hand, nor sees by eyes, nor wills by a heart; but because through the signification of these he truly acts, sees, and wills all things, so through the signification of the womb he truly begot from himself him whom he begot, not by the cause of a womb but for the profession of truth; just as he neither wills, nor sees, nor acts by the causes of bodies, but uses these names of parts so that through the service of bodily things the power of incorporeal workings may be perceived.

The nature of human custom, then, does not allow, nor does the judgment of the Lord's teaching permit, that the disciple be above the master or the servant command the lord: because the one is subject to the other both through ignorance, as the ignorant to the knowing, and is weak through condition, as servitude to lordship. Since common judgment holds that this is so, by the example of what rashness shall we now both say and think that God is a creature and the Son a thing made, when nowhere has our Master and Lord spoken this of himself to his servants and disciples, nor taught that his birth was a creation or a making? But both the Father has never testified anything other than that he is Son, and the Son has never professed anything other than that God is his own Father; asserting, surely, that he was born, not made or created, as he says: "Everyone who loves the Father loves also the Son who was born of him."

Things made are works of creatures, not the birth of generation. For heaven is not a son, nor the earth a son, nor the world a birth, of which it was said, "All things were made through him," and through the prophet, "The heavens are the works of your hands," and through the same, "Do not forsake the works of your hands." Is a painting the painter's son, or a sword the smith's son, or a house the builder's son? These are works of their makers; but to a father only he who is born from him is son.

We too are sons to God, but sons by making. For we were once sons of wrath; but, made sons to God through the Spirit of adoption, we rather earn to be called so than are born so. And because everything that is made did not exist before it was made, we, not having been sons, are made into what we are. For before, we were not sons; but after we earned it, we are this. And we are not born but made; not begotten but acquired. For God acquired a people for himself, and through this he begot. But we never know that God begot sons with the signification of what is proper. For he does not say, "I have begotten and raised up my sons," but only this: "I have begotten and raised up sons."

Unless perhaps, in his saying "Israel is my firstborn son," someone will understand his saying "my firstborn" so as to take from the Son the property of generation; so that, because he also said "my" of Israel, the adoption of sons made would be usurped for the property of birth; and therefore what was said of him, "This is my beloved Son," would not be proper to God's birth, since "my" is said to be proper also to those who manifestly were not born. And that they were not born, though they are said to be born, is taught by this, when it is said: "To a people that will be born, whom the Lord has made."

The people of Israel, then, is born so as to be made; and through its being said to be born, it is understood also to be made. For it is son by adoption, not by generation; and it has not the property but the name. For though "my firstborn" is written of it, "my beloved Son" and "my firstborn son" differ long and much. For where there is birth, there is "my beloved Son"; but where there is choice from the nations and adoption by will, there is "my firstborn son." Here his being his own goes with "firstborn"; there his being his own goes with "son." And in birth the son is first his own and so beloved; in election the son is first firstborn and so afterwards his own: so that for Israel, a son adopted out of all peoples, being firstborn is what is proper; but for the one born to the one God it is manifest that being son is proper. There is, then, no true and perfect birth where one is reckoned rather than begotten: because there is no doubt that the people which is born into a son is also made. But what is made when it had not been, and is said to be born through being made, has no true birth in it, because before it was something other than what was born. And therefore it was not before it was born, that is, before it was made: because one who is a son from the nations is a nation before he is a son, and through this not truly son, because not always son. But the only-begotten God was never not a son, nor was he anything before he was son, nor is he himself anything except son. And so he who is always son left no room for the understanding that he once was not.

And human births have it that they did not exist in time: first, because all are born from all those who did not exist before. For although each one born has his origin from one who existed, yet that very one from whom he is born did not exist before he was born. Then he who was born was born after not existing, the time remaining before he is born. For one born today did not exist in what was yesterday; and he began into what he is from what he was not; and it is within our understanding that what is born today did not exist yesterday. And so his birth, through which he is, remains after what he was not; because today must first be after yesterday's time, so that it belongs to him not to have existed in time. And these things are common in the origin of human things, that all receive their beginning when they had not existed before: first, as we have taught, through time, then through cause. Through time, there is no doubt that the things which have now begun did not exist before; through cause, because their being, by which they remain, does not stand from a cause. For go over all the causes of origins and turn your understanding back to earlier things: you will find that nothing began through a cause, since all things are created into what they are through the power of God, and are not born from anything. Hence it is natural to every kind, through the very succession, that it did not exist and began, since it is in time after time; and since all things are always after time, they also take the cause of themselves from things not previously existing, since they are born from things which did not exist before: Adam himself, the first parent of the human race, being formed from earth, which is from nothing, and after time, that is, after heaven, earth, day, sun, moon, and stars; who had no origin of birth and began when he had not existed.

But for the only-begotten God, whom no earlier time precedes, there is no room for his once not having been: because that very "once" is already prior, and then "not to have been" belongs already to time; and it will not be that time begins after him, but that he begins to be after time, when, in his not having been before he was born, the very thing in which he was not will be put before him. Then, he who was born from him who is cannot be understood to have been born from what was not: because he who is is the cause of his being, not that which is not the origin of his birth. He, then, for whom it is neither in time that he once was not, nor in the Father, that is, the author, that he subsists from nothing, has left no occasion concerning himself for saying either that he was born from nothing or that he was not before he was born.

I am not unaware that many of those whose mind, dulled by impiety, does not grasp the mystery of God, or whose madness, prone to disparage God under the appearance of religion, is under the dominion of a hostile spirit, are accustomed to affirm this to the ears of the simpler: that we, since we say that the Son always was, and that there was not at any time anything that was not, preach him without birth through his always having been; because, in the opinion of human sense, what always was does not allow itself to have been born; "the cause of being born is that what was not may be; and to be what was not is, in common sense, nothing other than to be born." And they add these clever words, pleasing to the ear: "If," they say, "he was born, he began; and when he began, he was not; and when he was not, it does not allow that he was." And therefore they maintain that it is the language of pious understanding to say, "He was not before he was born; because one who was not, not one who was, was born so that he might be." Nor did he who was need birth, since he was born so that one who was not might be.

And first, men who put forward a religious knowledge of divine things ought, where the truth of the gospel and apostolic preaching was set before them, to have cast away the twisting questions of cunning philosophy and rather to follow the faith which is in God: because the sophism of a syllogistic question would easily strip a weak sense of the protection of its faith, since a captious proposition would at last despoil, by questioning its own sense, a simple answer that went along with the question according to things, so that what it had lost in profession it would no longer hold in conscience. For what will go along with a question so necessarily as this: when we are asked, "Is anything before it is born?", that our profession should be that what is born was not before? For it is neither in nature nor in necessity that what is should be born, since it is necessary that something be born only so that it may be, not because it was. When this has been conceded by us, since it is rightly conceded, stripped of the consciousness of faith, already captured, we acquiesce in impious and foreign pursuits.

The blessed apostle Paul, foreseeing this, as we have often shown, warned us to beware, saying: "See that no one despoils you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the elements of the world, and not according to Christ, in whom dwells all the fullness of divinity bodily." We must, then, beware of philosophy, and the pursuits of human traditions are not so much to be avoided as refuted. Nor are we to yield to them as though they conquer rather than deceive: because, preaching Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God, it is right for us not so much to flee human teachings as to refute them, and both to block them and to instruct the simpler, so that they may not be despoiled by them. For since God can do all things, and in all those things can do them wisely, and reason does not stand apart from his power nor power from his reason, those who preach Christ to the world must oppose the irreligious and imperfect teachings of the world through the knowledge of a wise omnipotence, according to the saying of the blessed apostle: "For our weapons are not fleshly but powerful for God, for the destruction of strongholds, destroying reasonings and every height raised against the knowledge of God." The apostle did not leave faith bare and poor in reason: though it is most powerful for salvation, yet unless it is instructed through teaching, it will indeed have among adversities a safe retreat for flight, but will not keep a steady security for resisting; and it will be like a camp after flight for the weak, not the undaunted courage present to those who hold the camp. Insolent disputes against God, then, must be crushed, the fortifications of deceitful reasonings destroyed, and wits raised up to impiety broken; not with fleshly weapons but with spiritual ones, not with earthly teaching but with heavenly wisdom; so that as great as the distinction is between divine and human things, so far heavenly reason surpasses earthly pursuits.

Let the anxiety of unbelief cease, then, and let it not think that we deny what alone is both well understood and believed by us, merely because it does not understand. For in the very wording, when we profess him born, we still do not preach him as unborn. For to be unborn and to be born are not the same: because the one is from another, the other from no one. And it is one thing to be always eternal without an author, another to be co-eternal with the Father, that is, the author. For where the Father is author, there is also birth; but where the author is eternal, there is also the eternity of the birth: because as birth is from an author, so from an eternal author there is an eternal birth. And everything that always is is also eternal. Yet not everything that is eternal is also unborn. For what is born from the eternal has it that what is born is eternal. But what is unborn is unborn together with eternity. And what is born from the eternal, if it is not born eternal, the Father will no longer be an eternal author either. If, then, anything of eternity was lacking to him who was born from the eternal Father, there is no doubt that this very thing was lacking to the author: because what is infinite for the one begetting is infinite also for the one born. For neither reason nor sense admits anything between the birth of God the Son and the generation of God the Father: because there is birth in the generation and generation in the birth. Both are without interval from each other, because without both neither is. What, then, does not stand except from both does not remain in all things except as both: because in nothing is one left so that that other could be in anything without the other.

But someone incapable of this divine mystery will say: "Everything that is born was not, because it was born in order to be."

And who will doubt that the things born among human affairs once were not? But it is one thing to be born from one who was not, another to have been born from one who always is. For all infancy, not having existed before, began from time. And growing again into boyhood, it later drove even youth into fatherhood. And he is not always father who earlier advanced into youth through boyhood, and into boyhood through infancy once begun. He, then, who is not always father has not always begotten. But where there is always a father, there is always a son too. If, then, you have in thought or sense a God, in the mystery of whose knowledge it is proper that he is Father, who is not always Father of the Son begotten, you have also in understanding and knowledge that he who was begotten is not always Son. But if it is always proper to the Father that he is always Father, it must always be proper to the Son that he is always Son. And how will it fall within our speech and understanding that he was not before he was born, to whom it is proper always to be what he was born?

The only-begotten God, then, containing in himself the form and image of the invisible God, is made equal, through the fullness of true divinity in him, in all the things that are proper to God the Father. For, as we taught in the earlier books, by power and veneration he is both to be honoured and powerful as the Father is; so also, in that the Father always is, it is common to the Son too, in that he is Son, always to be. For according to the saying to Moses, "He who is has sent me to you," the sense does not doubt that "that which is" is proper to God: because what is cannot be understood or said not to be. For to be and not to be are contraries; and these different meanings do not come together into one and the same, because while one remains, the other will not be. Where, then, it is, "not to be" cannot enter sense or speech. When our sense is driven back and always called back to the understanding of him who is, only this, that he is, is always prior about him: because what is infinite in God always withdraws itself from the going back of our sense, though infinite; so that before what is proper to God, always to be, our backward-reaching effort grasps nothing else; because nothing other ever meets the understanding of God, however far one proceeds into eternity, than that God always is. What, then, was signified about God through Moses, and what common sense allows us to understand as nothing else, the Gospels testify to be proper to the only-begotten God: since "in the beginning was the Word," and this "was with God," and "was the true light," and "the only-begotten God is in the bosom of the Father," and "Jesus Christ is God over all."

He was, then, and is: because he is from him who always is what he is. And to be from him, that is, to be from the Father, is birth. And always to be from him who always is, is eternity: an eternity not from himself but from the eternal. And from the eternal nothing but the eternal. But if not eternal, then neither is the Father, who is the author of the generation, eternal. And since it is proper to the one always to be Father and to the other always to be Son, and eternity is signified in "that which is," through this too the eternal is proper to him to whom "that which is" is proper. No one doubts that generation signifies birth, and that birth teaches one who remains, not one who does not remain. Again, it cannot be doubted that no one who was is born. For the cause of being born does not serve one who remains eternal through himself. But the only-begotten God, who is the Wisdom of God, the Power of God, and the Word, since he was born, testifies to the Father as author. Since he was born from one who remains, he was not born from nothing. Since he was born before eternal times, he must by being born precede every sense. He has left nothing in words for saying that he was not before he was born. For if it falls under our sense that he was not before he was born, then both our sense and time are prior to his birth: because everything that was not is already subject both to sense and to time in the very meaning in which it was not; because "not to have been" is a part of time. But he who is from the eternal and always was is neither without birth nor did he not exist; since both always to have been is above time, and to have been born is birth.

We confess, then, that the only-begotten God was born, but born before eternal times; because we must confess that within which the sayings of the apostolic and prophetic preachings enclose us: although human sense does not grasp the understanding of a timeless birth, because it does not fit earthly natures that anything should be born before times. Since this will be preached so by us, how again, in the embrace of the same understanding, shall we say that he was not before he is born, when, according to the apostle, the only-begotten God is before eternal times? If, then, "born before eternal times" is not a reasoning of human understanding but the profession of faithful prudence, because birth is through an author, and what exceeds times is eternal, and what was born before eternal times is outside earthly sense: we are surely now exalting, with impious will, the sense of human reason, so that by the understanding of the world he was not before he is born, when the eternal is born beyond human sense and the understanding of the world. And eternal is whatever exceeds time.

For we grasp all times either by opinion or by knowledge: since we know that what is now did not also exist the day before, because what was the day before is not now, and what is now is only now and did not exist the day before. By opinion we so measure the past that there is no doubt that before some city was founded there was a time when the city had not been founded. Since, then, times are subject either to our knowledge or our opinion, we judge by the sense of human understanding, so that we are thought to have said with reason of something, "it was not before it is born," because times always set before precede the origin of each thing. But since in the things of God, that is, in God's birth, there is nothing that is not before eternal time, it does not fit that he, before whom eternal life was promised before eternal times, according to the blessed apostle's saying, "in hope of eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised before eternal times," should be said once not to have been before he was born: because he cannot be understood to have begun after anything who is to be confessed to be before eternal times.

If, then, for anything to be born before eternal times is neither in human natures nor in understanding, and yet in this case it is believed from God's professions about himself: how, when the apostolic faith has spoken of what was born without the sense of understanding as eternal always, that is, as being before eternal times, does the unbelief of our time again declare, through the sense of human understanding, that he was not before he is born? Since what was born before time was always born, because what is before eternal time always is. And what was always born does not admit that it once was not, because once not to have been is no longer always to be. And always to be excludes not always having been. And when "not always having been" is excluded through his having always been born, it does not fall within sense that he was not before he was born: because he who was born before eternal times is always in sense as having been born; although to have been born before times does not enter sense. For if, as is surely fitting, he is to be confessed to have been born before every creature, invisible or bodily, and before all ages and eternal times, and before every sense, who through being so born always is, it is permitted by no sense to conceive that he was not before he is born; because he who was born before eternal times is before every sense, and it is never in sense that he, who is to be confessed always to be, was not.

But the slander of a clever question is put forward: "If," he says, "it does not fall within sense that he was not before he is born, it remains for sense that he who was was born."

And I will answer the slanderer: Will he remember that anything other than "born" was said by me? Or is being before eternal times the same thing as "he who was is born"? Because for what was to be born is no longer to be born, but to change oneself by being born. But always to be born is to outrun the sense of times by being born, and not to lie open to the understanding that he was once not born. It is not, then, the same thing to be always, having been born before eternal times, and to be before being born. But always to be, having been born before eternal times, excludes his not having been before he is born.

For the rest, it does not leave room for being before being born, because what is beyond sense is in nothing subject to sense. For if always being born is beyond sense, it is no longer permitted to be after sense that he was not before he is born. Since, then, always to be born is to be confessed as nothing other than born, it is not subject to sense either to have been or not to have been before he is born, because nothing other than having been born before eternal times always comes before sense. He was born, then, and always is, who allows nothing else to be understood and said of him except that he was born. For since he is prior to the very time of the senses (because before sense there is eternal time), he does not admit sense judging of him that he either was or was not before he is born: because both to be before being born does not belong to birth, and not to have been already belongs to time. So both the infinity of eternal times consumes what belongs to time, that is, not to have been, and birth does not allow what is not its own, that is, to be before it is born. But if either being or not having been is subject to sense, then birth itself is after time: because what is not always must have begun to be after something.

The end, then, of faith, speech, and sense is that the Lord Jesus was both born and always is: because if the mind, going back, searches anything about the Son, nothing will ever meet the sense of the searcher except that he was born and always is. As, then, it is proper to God the Father to be without birth, so it is owed to the Son always to be through birth. And birth will declare nothing other than a Father, nor will a Father declare anything other than birth. For neither these names nor nature permits anything in between. For either the Father is not always, if the Son is not always too; or, if the Father is always, the Son is always too: because as much time as is denied to the Son, so that he was not always Son, so much is lacking to the Father, so that he was not always Father; so that, though always God, he would not also have been Father in that infinity by which he is God.

The profession of impiety stretches even so far as to ascribe times not to the Son's birth but to the Father's generating, on the ground that the manner of generation is set within the times of birth.

Do you think it pious and religious, heretic, to confess God as always, but not always Father? If you think it pious to hold this, you must condemn Paul for impiety, who says the Son is before eternal times; you must also accuse Wisdom herself, testifying of herself that she was founded before the ages, who was present with the Father when he was preparing the heaven. But you, in order to give God a beginning by which he is Father, first decide on a beginning for times by which they began: and if they began, the apostle is a liar, who professed them eternal. For you are accustomed to count times from the creation of the sun and moon, because it is written of them: "And let them be for signs and times and years." But he who is before heaven, which on your view is also before time, is the same who is before the age. And he is not only before the age, but also before the generations of generations that go before the ages. Why do you shut divine and infinite things inside frail, earthly, and narrow ones? Paul knows nothing in Christ but an eternity of times. Wisdom says that she is not after anything, but before all things. With you, times were established from the sun and moon; but David signifies that Christ abides before the sun, saying: "Before the sun is his name." And so that you would not think the things of God began with the origin of this world, he says also: "And before the moon, generations of generations." Times are here looked down on by such great men, worthy of the Spirit of prophecy; and nothing is left to human sense into which it may stretch itself before the birth that surpasses eternal times: but let the faith of a religious opinion have only this measure, that it remember the Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten God, as born, for the confession of a perfect birth, and not be ignorant that he is eternal, in the veneration of divinity.

But we are accused of lying, and together with us the teaching of the apostolic preaching is charged, which confessed a birth but professed the eternity of the birth: so that the birth would testify to an author, and the eternity, in the mystery of the divine birth, would surpass the sense of human opinion. For the declaration of Wisdom about herself is brought forward against us, which taught that she was created, in these words: "The Lord created me for the beginning of his ways."

O wretched heretic, who seize the weapons granted to the church against the synagogue and turn them against the faith of the church's preaching, and snatch the best-fortified understanding of saving teaching against the salvation of all, contending through these words that Christ is a creature, rather than destroying through these words of subsisting Wisdom the Jew who denies the divinity of Christ before the eternal ages and his effective working in all the works and teachings of God! For Wisdom now said that she was created for the beginning of the ways of God and for his works from the age, so that she would not perhaps be thought not to exist before Mary; and yet she did not refer her being created to the understanding of her birth, since she was created for the beginning of the ways and for the works; but so that no one would count this beginning of the ways, which surely is the beginning of human knowledge of divine things, as subjecting her infinite birth to time, she professed that she was founded before the ages: so that, since to be created for the beginning of the ways and for the works is one thing, and to be founded before the ages another, the founding would be understood as prior to the creation; and the very fact that she was founded for the works before the age would show the mystery of the creation, because the founding is before the age, and the creation for the beginning of the ways and for the works is after the age.

And so that creation and founding would not offend faith in the divine birth, there follows: "Before he made the earth, before he established the mountains, before all the hills he begot me." He who was founded before the age was begotten before the earth; and not only before the earth, but also before the mountains and hills. And in these words, because Wisdom speaks of herself, she says more than is heard. For all things signified for the understanding of infinity must be such as not to be second in time to any thing or kind. But temporal things will in no way be fitted to show eternity: because, through being later than others, they do not of themselves show the beginning of infinity, since they themselves have received a temporal beginning. For what great thing is it that God begot the Lord Christ before the earth, when the origin of the angels is found to be older than the creation of the earth? Or why would he who is said to be begotten before the earth be shown to have been born also before the mountains, and not only before the mountains but also before the hills, when the meaning of hills comes after the mountains, and the understanding of mountains after the earth? Through this it cannot be thought that these things were said so that he might be understood to be before hills, mountains, and earth, he who surpasses by the eternity of his infinity the things that are before earth, mountains, and hills.

But the divine word did not leave our sense without reason; for it shows the cause of the saying through what follows: "God made the regions, and the uninhabitable places, and the heights that are inhabited under heaven. When he was preparing the heaven, I was with him, and when he was setting apart his throne. When he was making strong clouds above the winds on high, and when he was setting sure fountains under heaven, and when he was making strong the foundations of the earth, I was with him, setting in order." What place is there here for times? Or how far is the sense of human understanding allowed to stretch beyond the infinite birth of the only-begotten God? For his generation cannot be comprehended through these things whose creation we conceive in our minds, as though he were prior to all these in such a way that, though in time, he would not be infinite, to whom only this would be granted, that he was born before temporal things. For since they are subject to time in their constitution, he, though prior to all these, would not be free from time: because the temporal constitution of these would show the time of the birth of him who was born before them, since this very thing would be time for him, that he is set before temporal things.

But the word of God and the teaching of true wisdom speaks perfect things and signifies complete things, teaching that she is prior not to temporal things but to infinite ones. For when the heaven was being prepared, she was present with God. Is the preparing of heaven temporal for God, so that a sudden movement of thought crept into a mind before torpid and dull, and he sought in human fashion the cost and instruments of building heaven? Yet the sense of another prophet about God's workings is this, when he says: "By the word of the Lord the heavens were made firm, and all their power by the breath of his mouth." Yet the heavens needed God's command to be made firm; for their furnishing and power, in this firmness of their undisturbed constitution, exist not from the tempering and mixing of some material, but from the breath of the divine mouth. What, then, does it mean that the Wisdom begotten by him was present with God preparing the heaven, when neither does the creation of heaven consist in preparation, nor is it of the nature of God to linger in the preparation of a planned work? For nothing that exists in things has not always been with God; things which, though they began as to their creation, were not begun as to God's knowledge or power. And the prophet is our witness, saying: "God, who made all things that are to be." For the things that are to be, though, in that they are to be created, they will still be made, are already made for God, for whom nothing in creating things is new or sudden: since there is a dispensation of times for their being created, and they have already been created in the foreknowing working of divine power. And therefore Wisdom, now teaching that she was born before the ages, teaches that she is prior not only to the things that have been created, but co-eternal with eternal things, namely the preparing of heaven and the setting apart of God's throne. For the throne was not set apart when it was made, because to set apart a throne is one thing and to arrange it another. Nor was the heaven prepared when it was prepared: for she was with the one preparing and setting apart. But afterwards she arranged together with the one making ready: showing her eternity when she is present with the one preparing, and her ministry when she arranges together with the one making ready. Therefore she now said also that she was begotten before earth, mountains, and hills, because she was teaching that she was present also at the preparing of heaven: to show that these things were already then made with God, when heaven was being prepared, through the fact that nothing is new to God.

For the preparation of things to be created is perpetual and eternal; and the body of this universe was not made by parts of thoughts, so that first heaven was thought of, then afterwards the care and handling of the earth entered God's mind, and it was thought out piece by piece: that it would first be spread out in a plain, then afterwards by better counsel be raised into mountains, again varied with hills, fourthly be made habitable even on the very heights; and heaven be prepared and God's throne set apart, and strong clouds on high hold the breathings of the winds; and then sure fountains flow under heaven, and lastly the earth be made firm with strong foundations. For Wisdom professes herself prior to each of all these. But since all things under heaven were made through God, and Christ was present at the setting in order of heaven, and precedes even the eternity of the prepared heaven, this does not allow piecemeal thoughts of small things to be supposed in God, because the whole preparation of these things is co-eternal with God. For although, according to Moses, the making firm of the firmament, the uncovering of the dry land, the gathering of the sea, the establishing of the stars, and the bringing forth of living creatures by the waters and the earth have their own dispensation, yet the creation of heaven, earth, and the other elements is not distinguished by even a slight moment of working; because their preparation stood with God in an equal infinity of eternity.

When Christ, then, was present with God in these infinite and eternal things, he allowed us only the knowledge of his birth: so that, as far as the understood birth of God would profit faith, so far the known eternity of the birth would avail for the religion we have taken up: because from the Father who is eternal neither reason nor sense admits anything but that an eternal Son be preached.

But the name and profession of creation disturbs us. Let the name of creation disturb us, by all means, if birth before the ages and creation for the beginning of God's ways and for his works are not both proclaimed. For birth cannot be taken for creation, since birth is before cause, but creation is through cause. For he who was created for the beginning of God's ways and for his works existed before the preparing of heaven and was founded before the age. Or is it of the same meaning to be created for the beginning of God's ways and for his works, and to be born before all things? Of these the one has time in its deeds, but the other contains a timeless understanding.

Or perhaps you would have "created for the works" understood to mean that it was created on account of the works: that is, that Christ was created for the sake of works to be done, so that he would remain rather a servant and workman of the world, not born the Lord of glory; and would be created for the service of making the age, not always be the Son of love and King of the ages? But although common understanding extinguishes this most impious sense of yours, because to be created for the beginning of God's ways and for his works is one thing, and to be born before the ages another, yet this same passage meets you, so that you would not falsely say that the Lord Christ was created for the working of the world, since it shows God the Father as the maker and worker of the universe. Safely so, indeed, because he himself was present with him who prepared all things, setting them in order. But although all Scripture would speak of the Lord Jesus Christ as the creator of the world, yet now Wisdom, to kill the occasion of impiety, professed God the Father as maker of the world, and taught that she was not absent from him as he made it, since she was present even with him preparing; and since the Father was making ready and Wisdom was setting in order with the one making ready, and was present also with the one preparing, through this very thing she would be understood not to have been created on account of the works, since she had been present at the eternal preparing of the future works; nor would she make Scripture a liar, since she set in order with the one making ready.

But at last, by the revelation of catholic teaching, learn, heretic, at the beginning, what it is that Christ was created for the beginning of God's ways and for his works; and learn from Wisdom's own words the folly of your impious dullness. For she began thus: "If I declare to you the things that are daily, I will remember to recount the things that are from the age"; for she had said before: "To you, O men, I appeal, and I send forth my voice to the sons of men. Understand cleverness, you simple; and you unlearned, apply your heart"; and again: "By me kings reign, and the powerful write justice. By me princes are magnified, and tyrants by me hold the earth"; and again: "I walk in the ways of equity, and I go about in the midst of the paths of justice, to divide substance to those who love me and fill their treasures with good things." Wisdom does not keep silent about her daily work. And first, appealing to all, she warns both the simple to understand cleverness and the unlearned to apply their heart, so that the earnest and diligent reader might weigh the distinct and separate force of the words. She teaches, then, that all things are done, understood, praised, and held by her own ways and ordinances; and shows that within her are contained the kingdoms of kings, the prudence of the powerful, the famous works of princes, and the right of tyrants who hold the earth; and that she herself is not mixed with iniquities nor present in injustices; and this so that, by intervening in all the works of equity and justice, she may supply to those who love her the wealth of eternal goods and incorrupt treasures. Having professed, then, that she would recount the things that are done daily, she promises that she will also remember to enumerate the things that are from the age. And now, what dullness of sense is it to think that things recalled as being "from the age" were done before the age? Because among the things that are from the age every work is after the age; but the things that are before the age precede the constitution of the age that is later than them. Having professed, then, that she would remember to tell the things that are from the age, Wisdom says: "The Lord created me for the beginning of his ways, for his works." This, then, is the signification of things done from the age; and it is the teaching not of a generation proclaimed before the ages, but of a dispensation begun from the age.

And we must ask what it is for God, born before the ages, to be created again for the beginning of God's ways and for his works. For where there is birth before the age, there is the eternity of an infinite generation; but where there is creation from the age, the same for the ways of God and for his works, the cause of creation is fitted to the works and ways. And first, since Christ is Wisdom, we must see whether he himself is the beginning of the way of God's works. Nor, I think, is it doubted; for he says: "I am the way"; and: "No one goes to the Father except through me." A way is the guide of those who go, the course of those who hasten, the security of the ignorant, and a kind of teacher of things unknown and desired. He is created, then, for the beginning of the ways, for the works of God, because he is both the way and leads to the Father. But the reason of this creation, which is from the age, must be sought. For it is the mystery of the last dispensation, by which, created even in the body, he professed himself the way of God's works. And he was created for the ways of God from the age when, made subject to the creature for a visible appearance, he took up the condition of creation.

Let us see, then, for what ways of God and for what works the Wisdom born from God before the ages was created from the ages. Adam heard the voice of one walking in paradise. Do you think the step of one walking was heard except in the appearance of a creation taken up, so that he who was heard walking stood in some created form? I do not ask in what form he spoke to Cain and Abel and Noah, and in what form he was present blessing Enoch. An angel speaks to Hagar; and surely the same is God. Is he of the same appearance when he is seen as an angel as he is in that nature by which he is God? Certainly the appearance of an angel is shown where afterwards the nature of God is mentioned. But why should I speak of the angel? A man came to Abraham. Does Christ stand there, in the condition of this creation as a man, such as he is as God? But a man speaks, stands in a body, is fed with food; and yet God is worshipped. Certainly he who before was an angel is now also a man, so that the very diversity of this creation taken up would not allow this to be understood as the natural appearance of God. He is present also to Jacob in human condition, even to the grip of wrestling; he joins hands, strains with limbs, bends with his sides, and stands in every movement and step of ours. But the same is afterwards shown to Moses as fire, so that you might learn that faith in a created nature was then for the appearance rather than for the substance of the nature. He had in himself then the power of burning, yet did not take up the natural necessity of consuming, because the blazing of fire appeared without harm to the bush.

Run through the times and understand how he was seen: by Joshua son of Nun, the prophet of his name; by Isaiah, who proclaims, with the testimony of the Gospel too, that he was seen; by Ezekiel, taken up even to the knowledge of the resurrection; by Daniel, confessing the Son of Man in the eternal kingdom of the ages; and by all the others, to whom he showed himself in the condition of a varied creation, for the ways of God and for the works of God, that is, for the knowledge of God and the advance of our eternity. Why now does this dispensation of human salvation work so impious an insult to the eternal birth? This creation is from the ages; but the infinite birth is before the ages. Contend, by all means, that we do violence to the sayings, if a prophet, if the Lord, if the apostle, if any word has referred the name of creature to the birth of eternal divinity. For in all these God, who is a consuming fire, is present as created in such a way as to consume the creation by that power by which he took it up: able to abolish again what had come to exist only for the purpose of being seen.

But that blessed and true birth of the flesh conceived within the Virgin, because then the nature and appearance of our creatureliness was being born, the apostle named a creature and a thing made. And certainly, with him, this is the name of a true birth according to man, when he says: "But when the fullness of time came, God sent his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons." He is, then, his own Son, who is, in man and from man, a thing made; and not only a thing made but also a creature, as it is said: "As the truth is in Jesus, to put off, as regards your former manner of life, the old man, who is corrupted according to the desires of deceit; and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new man, who has been created according to God." That new man, then, is to be put on who has been created according to God. For he who was Son of God had been born also Son of Man. Because it was not the birth of divinity but the creature of the flesh, the new man received the signification of his kind, created according to God born before the ages. And why the new man was created according to God he shows, adding after this: "In righteousness and holiness and truth." For there was no deceit in him; and he was made for us righteousness and sanctification, and he himself is the truth. We put on, then, this Christ, who is created as the new man according to God. [And he is created according to God because, according to God's righteousness, sanctification, and truth, he was created a man who knew no sin.]

If, then, Wisdom, saying that she remembered the things done from the age, said that she was created for the works of God and for the ways of God; and was so created as to teach that she was founded before the ages, so that the mystery of that varied and frequent creation she took up might not seem to have changed her nature, since the firmness of a foundation would not receive the disturbance of a shaken state; but so that the founding might not seem to show anything other than birth, she professed that she was begotten before all things: why now is creation assigned to birth, when she who was begotten before all things was herself founded before the ages, and she who was founded before the age was herself created from the ages for the beginning of God's ways and for his works; so that the creation from the ages would be understood to differ from the birth which is before the ages and before all things? Impiety does not even have the excuse of pleading the error of impiety.

For even if weakness of understanding hindered the sense of a religious opinion, so that it could not now attain what the property of creation is, yet, at least according to the apostle's saying, which assigns "made" to a true birth, it ought to have thought that creation too, though unlearnedly, yet not impiously, served faith in the generation. For the apostle seems, about to preach the birth of one from one, that is, of the Lord from the Virgin without the conception of human passions, to have said "made of a woman" not without reason, of one whom he knew to be born and had often said so: so that the birth would show the truth of the generation, and "made" would declare the birth of one from one; because the name "made" would exclude the conception of human intercourse, since he who was rather without doubt born would be learned to have been made from the Virgin. But see how impious you are, heretic. No prophetic, gospel, or apostolic word has said that Jesus Christ was created from God rather than born; but you deny the birth and affirm a creature, not according to the apostle's meaning, who says "made" so that it might not be doubted that one was born from one, but for the most impious sense that God would not subsist by a natural birth, having rather subsisted as a creature from nothing. This is the first poison of your unhappy mind: not to call the birth a creature, but to fit faith in creation in place of birth. Although it would be the mark of a poor wit, yet not a greatly irreligious one, to have said "created" so that the impassible birth from God might be known as of one from one.

But the steadfast apostolic faith allows none of these things. For it knows in what dispensation of time Christ was created, and in what eternity of times he was born. He is God born from God, and in him is the unambiguous divinity of a true birth and a perfect generation. For in the things of God we confess nothing but what is born and eternal. Born, however, not after anything, but before all things: so that the birth only testifies to an author, and does not signify in itself anything coming after from the author. And indeed, by common confession, the birth is second from the author, because it is from God; yet not separable from the author, because as far as our sense tries to go beyond the understanding of the birth, so far it must go beyond that of the generation too. This alone, then, is pious speech about God: to know the Father, and to know with him him who is the Son from him. Nor are we taught anything else about God than that he is the Father of the only-begotten God and Creator. Let human weakness, then, not stretch beyond itself, and let it say this only, in which alone is its salvation: that before the mystery of the flesh it always knows this in the Lord Jesus Christ, that he was born.

I, at least, as long as I have strength in this spirit granted me by you, holy Father, almighty God, will confess you eternal God and also eternal Father. Nor will I ever break out into such folly and impiety as to make myself judge of your omnipotence and mysteries, raising this sense of my weakness beyond the religious opinion of your infinity and the faith of eternity signified to me, so as to lay down that you were at some time without your Wisdom, Power, and Word, the only-begotten God, my Lord Jesus Christ. For the weak and imperfect speech of our nature does not prejudge my sense about you, so that poverty of expression should strangle faith in silence. For although word, wisdom, and power in us are our own work, of our inner movement, in the case of the perfect God, who is your Word, Wisdom, and Power, it is a complete generation; so that he who is shown to be born from you under these names of your eternal properties is always inseparable from you: born, however, in such a way as to signify nothing other than you as his author; not, however, so as to lose faith in his infinity through his being recalled as born before eternal times.

For you have provided many such things in human affairs, whose cause is unknown though their effect is not. And faith is religious where there is also natural ignorance. For when I have raised these weak eyes of my light to your heaven, I have believed it to be nothing other than your heaven. For seeing in it these starry circles, the yearly returns, the Pleiades, the Great Bear, and the morning star, each allotted the different duties of its service, I understand you as God in these things, whose understanding I do not grasp. And when I have seen the wonderful swellings of your sea, not having grasped either the origin of the waters or the movement of this measured alternation, yet laying hold of faith in a reason, though impenetrable to me, I do not fail to know you also in the things of which I am ignorant. And when I turn my mind to the earth, which by the power of hidden causes dissolves all seeds it receives, gives life to them dissolved, multiplies them when alive, and strengthens them when multiplied, I have found nothing in these that I could understand by my sense: but my ignorance serves to understand you, since, unskilled in the nature that serves me, I understand you only by the use of my benefit. Not knowing even myself, I so perceive myself that I admire you the more because I am ignorant of myself. For I perceive, without understanding, the movement or reason or life of my judging mind; and perceiving it I owe it to you, who impart, beyond the understanding of natural beginning, the sense of a nature that delights. And since, ignorant of my own things, I understand you, and understanding I venerate you, I will not loosen faith in your omnipotence in your own things because I do not know them; so that my sense should seize upon the origin of your Only-begotten and subject it to itself, and there should be something in me which I could stretch beyond my Creator and my God.

His birth is before eternal times. If there is anything in things that comes before eternity, there will truly be something that surpasses the sense of eternity. For he is your own, and he is your Only-begotten: not a portion, not an extension, not some empty name according to an opinion of workings; but Son, Son from you, God the Father, true God, begotten by you in the unity of your nature; to be confessed after you in such a way as to be with you, because you are the eternal author of his eternal origin. For while he is from you, he is second from you; but while he is yours, you are not to be separated from him; because you are never to be confessed to have been without your own, lest you be charged with being either imperfect without the generation or superfluous after it. And so the eternal birth serves only this purpose, that we know you as the eternal Father of the only-begotten Son from you before eternal times.

And for me it is too little, by the office of my faith and voice, to deny that my Lord and God, your Only-begotten, Jesus Christ, is a creature: I will not allow the fellowship of this name even in your Holy Spirit, who proceeded from you and was sent through him. For I have great reverence toward your things. Nor, because, knowing you alone as unbegotten and the Only-begotten born from you, I will not say that the Holy Spirit is begotten, will I ever say that he is created. I fear the insults of this word, which I share with the rest of the things established by you, creeping even up to you. Your Holy Spirit, according to the apostle, searches and knows your depths, and, your intercessor for me, speaks to you for me things unspeakable: and shall I not only speak of, but even defame, the power of his nature, abiding from you through your Only-begotten, by the name of creation? Nothing penetrates you but what is your own; nor does the cause of a strange power, foreign to you, measure the depth of your immense majesty. Whatever enters you is yours; nor is anything foreign to you that is in you by the power of searching.

But to me he is unspeakable whose groanings for me are unspeakable to me. For as, in your Only-begotten's being born from you before eternal times, all ambiguity of speech and difficulty of understanding ceasing, there remains only that he was born: so I hold in my conscience, though I do not perceive it by sense, that your Holy Spirit is from you through him. For in your spiritual things I am dull, as your Only-begotten says: "Do not wonder that I said to you, You must be born again. The Spirit breathes where he wills, and you hear his voice, but you do not know where he comes from and where he goes. So is everyone who is born of water and the Holy Spirit." Holding faith in my regeneration, I do not know it; and what I am ignorant of, I already hold. For I am reborn without my sense, with the effect of being reborn. And there is no measure for the Spirit, who speaks when he wills, what he wills, where he wills. And shall I place among creatures the nature of him the cause of whose coming and going is unknown, though under the consciousness of one present, and shall I bound him by a definition of his origin? John, yours, says that all things were made through the Son, who was in the beginning God the Word with you, God. And Paul lists all things created in him, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible. And while he recalled that all things were created in Christ and through Christ, of the Holy Spirit he thought it a sufficient signification to say that he was your Spirit. With these men, specially chosen by you, I will so think these things that, as I will say nothing else about your Only-begotten, beyond the sense of my understanding, according to them, than that he was born, so I will also say nothing else, according to them, beyond the opinion of human wit, about your Holy Spirit than that he is your Spirit. And may there be for me no useless battle of words, but the steadfast profession of an unhesitating faith.

Keep, I pray, this religion of my faith undefiled, and to the departing of my spirit grant me this voice of my conscience: that I may always hold what I professed in the creed of my regeneration, when I was baptized in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit: namely, that I may adore you our Father, and your Son together with you; that I may be worthy of your Holy Spirit, who is from you through your Only-begotten. For he is a sufficient witness to my faith who says: "Father, all mine are yours, and yours are mine," my Lord Jesus Christ, abiding in you and from you and with you, always God: who is blessed for ever and ever. Amen.