Against Praxeas 25–31

After Philip, and the whole substance of this question, which continues to the end of the Gospel, in the same kind of discourse in which the Son is distinguished in his own individuality, he promises that when he has ascended to the Father he will ask the Father for the Paraclete too, and will send him, and indeed “another.” But we have already explained in what sense “another.” Further: “He will take from what is mine,” he says, just as he himself takes from what is the Father's. So the connection of the Father in the Son and of the Son in the Paraclete makes three who cohere, one from another. These three are one thing, not one person, as it was said, “I and the Father are one,” with regard to unity of substance, not to singleness of number. Run through the rest, and you will find that the one you believe to be the Father is called the Father's vine, and the Father the vinedresser; so that the one you think was on earth is again recognized by the Son as in heaven, when, looking up there, he commends his disciples to the Father. And even if it is not revealed in this Gospel, “My God, why have you forsaken me?” and, “Father, into your hands I lay down my spirit,” yet after the resurrection and the glory of death overcome, when the necessity of all humiliation had been set aside, when he could now have shown himself to be the Father to so faithful a woman, who approached to touch him out of love, not out of curiosity nor out of the unbelief of Thomas, he says: “Do not touch me, for I have not yet ascended to my Father; but go to my brothers” (and in this too he shows himself to be the Son; for he would have called them sons if he had been the Father) “and tell them: I am ascending to my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God.” The Father to the Father, and God to God? Or the Son to the Father, and the Word to God? Why, too, does the very close of the Gospel set its seal on these writings, if not, “that you may believe,” he says, “that Jesus Christ is the Son of God”? So whatever of these passages you may think can serve you to prove that the Father and the Son are the same, you are struggling against the defining statement of the Gospel. For they were not written so that you might believe that Jesus Christ is the Father, but the Son.

Because of a single saying of Philip's and the Lord's answer to him we seem to have run through John's Gospel, so that one saying should not overturn so many plain declarations before and after it, a saying which must be interpreted in accordance with all of them rather than against all of them, and even against its own meaning. But to bring in now the other Gospels, which confirm faith in the Lord's birth: it is enough that he who was to be born of the virgin was defined as the Son of God by the very angel who announced him: “The Spirit of God will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore what will be born of you will be called holy, the Son of God.” They will want to argue here too, but the truth will prevail. “Of course,” they say, “the Son of God is God, … and the power of the Most High is the Most High”; and they are not ashamed to suggest what, if it were so, would have been written. For whom was he afraid of, that he should not openly declare, “God will come upon you, and the Most High will overshadow you”? But by saying “the Spirit of God” (although the Spirit of God is God …), yet not naming God directly, he wished to be understood a portion of the whole, which was to pass into the name of the Son. This Spirit of God will be the same as the Word. For as, when John says, “The Word was made flesh,” we also understand the Spirit in the mention of the Word, so here too we recognize the Word also under the name of the Spirit. For the Spirit is the substance of the Word, and the Word is the operation of the Spirit, and the two are one. Otherwise John will declare one who was made flesh, and the angel another who was to be flesh, if the Spirit is not also the Word and the Word the Spirit. As, then, the Word of God is not the one whose Word he is, so neither is the Spirit, even if he is called “of God,” the one whose Spirit he is called. Nothing that belongs to someone is itself the one to whom it belongs. Clearly, when something is from someone and is his in that it is from him, it can be of such a kind as he is himself, from whom it is and whose it is. And so the Spirit is God and the Word is God, because from God, yet not the very one from whom he is. And if God from God, as a substantive thing, will not be God himself, but God to this extent, that he is from the substance of God himself, and as a portion of the whole, much more will the power of the Most High not be the Most High himself, since it is not even a substantive thing, as the Spirit is; just as neither wisdom nor providence is. For these too are not substances but accidents of a substance, and power is an accident of the Spirit and will not itself be the Spirit. So when these things, whatever they are, the Spirit of God, the Word, and the power, were brought into the virgin, what is born of her is the Son of God. This he himself also testifies in these Gospels, from boyhood: “Did you not know,” he says, “that I must be in my Father's house?” This Satan too knew about him in the temptations: “If you are the Son of God”; this the demons too thereafter confess: “We know who you are, the Son of God.” He himself worships the Father. He does not deny that he was recognized by Peter as the Christ of God. Rejoicing in the Spirit, he says to the Father, “I confess to you, Father, that you have hidden these things from the wise.” Here too he affirms that the Father is known to no one but the Son. And as the Son of the Father he will confess before the Father those who confess him and deny those who deny him; he introduces the parable of the son, not of the father, sent into the vineyard after several servants and killed by the wicked tenants, and avenged by the father; he himself does not know the day and the last hour, known to the Father alone; he appoints a kingdom for his disciples, as he says it was appointed for himself by the Father; he has power to ask the Father for legions of angels for help if he wished; he cries out that God had forsaken him; he lays his spirit in the Father's hands; and after the resurrection he promises to send his disciples the promise of the Father; and last of all he commands them to baptize into the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, not into one. For we are dipped not once but three times, at each name, into each person.

But why should I linger on things so plain, when I ought to engage those points by which they try to overshadow what is plain? For, hemmed in on every side by the distinction of Father and Son, which we arrange while their conjunction remains, as of sun and ray and of spring and river, yet through the undivided number of two and three, they try nonetheless to interpret it differently, to suit their own opinion, so as to distinguish both, Father and Son, equally within one person, saying that the Son is the flesh, that is, the man, that is, Jesus; and the Father the Spirit, that is, God, that is, Christ. And those who contend that the Father and the Son are one and the same now begin to divide them rather than unite them. For if Jesus is one and Christ another, the Son will be one and the Father another, since the Son is Jesus and the Father Christ. Such a monarchy they perhaps learned from Valentinus. But this suggestion of theirs too, making Jesus and Christ two, has already been beaten back by what was discussed before: that the one they make the Father has been called the Word of God, or the Spirit of God, and the power of the Most High. For these are not the one whose they are said to be, but are from him and his. And yet on this point they will be refuted another way too. “See,” they say, “it was proclaimed by the angel: ‘Therefore what will be born will be called holy, the Son of God.’ It was flesh that was born; so it will be the flesh that is the Son of God.” No, it was said of the Spirit of God. For certainly the virgin conceived of the Holy Spirit, and what she conceived she bore; so what was to be born was what had been conceived, that is, the Spirit, whose name also will be called Emmanuel, which is interpreted, “God with us.” But flesh is not God, so that it should have been said of it, “It will be called holy, the Son of God,” but he who was born in it, God, of whom the psalm too says, “For God was born a man in her, and built her by the will of the Father.” What God was born in her? The Word, and the Spirit, who was born with the Word by the Father's will. So, since the Word is in the flesh, this too must be asked: how the Word was made flesh, whether as if transfigured into flesh, or as having put on flesh. Rather, as having put it on. For God must be believed to be unchangeable and incapable of being reshaped, as being eternal. But transfiguration is the destruction of what was before. For whatever is transfigured into something else ceases to be what it had been and begins to be what it was not. But God neither ceases to be nor can be anything else. And the Word is God, and “the word of the Lord remains forever,” namely by continuing in its own form. And if it does not admit of being transfigured, it follows that it must be understood to have been made flesh in this way: in that it comes to be in the flesh and is manifested and seen and handled through the flesh; for the other passages too require it to be taken so. For if the Word became flesh by transfiguration and change of substance, Jesus will then be one substance made of two, of flesh and spirit, a kind of mixture, like electrum from gold and silver; and he begins to be neither gold, that is, spirit, nor silver, that is, flesh, since the one is changed by the other and a third thing is produced. Then Jesus will not be God, for the Word that was made flesh has ceased to be; nor man, for what was the Word is not properly flesh. So from both, while it is neither, it is a third thing, far other than either. But we find him set forth directly as both God and man, as this very psalm suggests, “For God was born a man in her, and built her by the will of the Father”; certainly in every respect Son of God and Son of Man, without doubt differing according to each substance in its own individuality, since the Word is nothing but God, and the flesh nothing but man. So the apostle too teaches of both his substances: “who was made,” he says, “of the seed of David”; this will be the man and Son of Man; “who was defined as Son of God according to the Spirit”; this will be God and the Son of God. We see a twofold condition, not confused but conjoined, in one person, God and man, Jesus (of Christ I defer speaking); and the individuality of each substance is so fully preserved that the Spirit carried out in him its own acts, that is, miracles and works and signs, and the flesh underwent its own sufferings: hungry under the devil, thirsty with the Samaritan woman, weeping for Lazarus, troubled even to death, and at last dead. But if it were a third thing, blended from both, like electrum, there would not appear such distinct proofs of each substance; rather, the Spirit would have done fleshly things and the flesh spiritual ones by exchange, or neither fleshly nor spiritual things but those of some third form, from the blending. Indeed, either the Word would have died or the flesh would not have died, if the Word had been converted into flesh; for either the flesh would have been immortal or the Word mortal. But since both substances acted distinctly, each in its own condition, therefore each had its own works and its own end. Learn, then, with Nicodemus, that what is born in the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Flesh does not become spirit, nor spirit flesh. Clearly they can be in one. Of these Jesus consisted: of flesh, man; of Spirit, God. The angel then declared him Son of God with respect to that part in which he was Spirit, reserving for the flesh that it should be called Son of Man. So the apostle too, calling him the mediator between God and men, confirmed that he is of both substances. Lastly: you who interpret the Son of God as the flesh, show who the Son of Man is. Or will he be the Spirit? But you want the Spirit to be held to be the Father himself, because “God is spirit”; as if there were not also the Spirit of God, just as the Word is God and also the Word of God.

Now about Christ. You make him the Father, most foolish man, who do not even consider the force of this name, if indeed Christ is a name and not rather a title; for it means “anointed.” And “anointed” is no more a name than “clothed” or “shod”; so “Christ” is something that attaches to the name. If Jesus were also called “clothed,” for some reason, as he is called Christ from the sacrament of anointing, would you likewise say that Jesus was the Son of God, but believe that “Clothed” was the Father? If Christ is the Father, the Father is anointed, and certainly by another. Or if by himself, prove it. But the Acts of the Apostles do not teach so, in that cry of the church to God: “For there gathered together in this city against your holy Son Jesus, whom you anointed, Herod and Pilate with the nations.” So they bore witness both that Jesus is the Son of God and that the Son was anointed by the Father. So Jesus will be the same as Christ, who was anointed by the Father, not the Father, who anointed the Son. So Peter too: “Let all the house of Israel therefore know most surely that God has made him both Lord and Christ,” that is, anointed, “this Jesus whom you crucified.” And John marks as a liar him who denies that Jesus is the Christ, and on the other hand says that everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God. For this reason he also urges us to believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ, so that we may have fellowship with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. So too Paul everywhere sets down God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. When he writes to the Romans, he gives thanks to God through our Lord Jesus Christ; when to the Galatians, he declares himself an apostle not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father. And you have, throughout his whole instrument, passages that speak in this way and set forth two, God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, and that Jesus himself is the Christ, the Son of God under the other name as well. For from then on, since both names belong to one, that is, to the Son of God, even the one without the other belongs to the same. And whether “Jesus” alone is set down, “Christ” is also understood, since Jesus is the anointed; or whether “Christ” alone, it is also Jesus, since Jesus is the one anointed. Of these names one is proper, which was given by the angel; the other is accidental, which attaches from the anointing; provided always that Christ is the Son, not the Father. Lastly, how blind is he who does not understand that even in the name of Christ another God is indicated, if he ascribes the name of Christ to the Father! For if Christ is God the Father, when he says, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God,” he certainly shows another Father and God above himself. Likewise, if the Father is Christ, there is another who “makes firm the thunder and creates the wind and announces to men his Christ.” And if “the kings of the earth stood up and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against his Christ,” there will be another Lord, against whose Christ the kings and rulers gathered. And if “thus says the Lord to my Lord Christ,” there will be another Lord who speaks to Christ the Father. And when the apostle writes, “that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ may give you the spirit of wisdom and knowledge,” there will be another God of Christ Jesus, the giver of spiritual gifts. Certainly, not to wander through everything: he “who raised Christ” and will raise “our mortal bodies” too will be, as it were, another raiser than the Father who died and was raised, if Christ, who died, is the Father.

Let this blasphemy be silent, let it be silent! Let it be enough to say that Christ, the Son of God, died, and this because it is so written. For the apostle too, not without a sense of its weight, declaring that Christ died, added “according to the Scriptures,” so as to soften the harshness of the statement by the authority of the Scriptures and remove the stumbling block for the hearer. And since two substances are recognized in Christ Jesus, the divine and the human, and it is agreed that the divine is immortal while the human is mortal, it is clear in what sense he says he died: that is, as flesh and man and Son of Man, not as Spirit and Word and Son of God. In short, by saying “Christ died,” that is, the anointed one, he shows that what was anointed died, that is, the flesh. “Then,” you say, “when we say that the Father died, in the same sense as you say the Son did, we do not blaspheme against the Lord God; for we say that he died not in his divine but in his human substance.” But you do blaspheme, not only because you say the Father died, but also because you say he was crucified. For the curse on one crucified, which by the law belongs to the Son (since “Christ became a curse for us,” not the Father), you blaspheme against the Father by turning it onto the Father. But we, saying that Christ was crucified, do not curse him, but repeat the curse of the law; for the apostle did not blaspheme by saying it either. And as what may properly be said of someone is said without blasphemy, so it is blasphemy if it is said of one of whom it may not properly be said. “Then neither did the Father suffer with the Son.” That is, fearing direct blasphemy against the Father, they hope to lessen it in this way, conceding now that the Father and the Son are two: if the Son suffers, while the Father suffers with him. Fools in this too. For what is suffering with but suffering together with another? And if the Father is impassible, he is certainly incapable of suffering with; or if capable of suffering with, he is certainly passible. You grant him nothing even by your fear. You fear to call passible the one you call capable of suffering with. But the Father is as incapable of suffering with as the Son too is impassible, by the condition by which he is God. “But how, if the Son suffered, did not the Father suffer with him?” He is distinguished from the Son, not from God. For if a river is fouled by some turbidity, although one substance flows down from the spring and is not cut off from the spring, yet the river's injury will not reach the spring; and although it is the spring's water that suffers in the river, since it suffers not in the spring but in the river, it is not the spring that suffers but the river, which is from the spring. So too the Spirit of God, even if it could suffer in the Son, yet, since it would suffer not in the Father but in the Son, the Father would not be seen to have suffered. But it is enough that the Spirit of God suffered nothing in its own name, because, if it suffered anything, it suffered in the Son. … [It was another matter] for the Father to suffer with the Son in the flesh. … This has been discussed. No one will deny this, since we cannot suffer for God either unless the Spirit of God is in us, who also speaks from us the things of confession; not suffering himself, however, but granting us the ability to suffer.

Otherwise, if you press further, I can answer you more harshly and set you against the Lord's own declaration, so as to say: Why do you ask about this? You have him crying out in his passion, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” So either the Son was suffering, forsaken by the Father, and the Father, who forsook the Son, did not suffer; or, if it was the Father who was suffering, to what God was he crying out? But this voice of the flesh and soul, that is, of the man, not of the Word and Spirit, that is, not of God, was uttered in order to show that God is impassible, who so forsook the Son, in that he handed over his man to death. This the apostle too understood, writing, “If the Father did not spare the Son.” This Isaiah too declared before: “And the Lord handed him over for our sins.” So he forsook him by not sparing him; so he forsook him by handing him over. But otherwise the Father did not forsake the Son, into whose hands the Son laid his spirit. In fact, he laid it there and at once died; for while the spirit remains in the flesh, the flesh cannot die at all. So to be forsaken by the Father was, for the Son, to die. It is the Son, then, who both dies and is raised by the Father according to the Scriptures; the Son who ascended to the heights of heaven, who also descended to the depths of the earth. He sits at the Father's right hand, not the Father at his own. Him Stephen saw, when he was being stoned, still standing at God's right hand, to sit thereafter until the Father puts all his enemies under his feet. He also will come again on the clouds of heaven, just as he ascended. He meanwhile has poured out the gift he received from the Father, the Holy Spirit, the third name of the Godhead and the third degree of the majesty, the preacher of the one monarchy and also the interpreter of the economy, for anyone who has admitted the words of his New Prophecy, and the guide into all truth, which is in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit according to the Christian sacrament.

Besides, it is a matter of the Jewish faith to believe in one God in such a way as to refuse to count the Son with him, and after the Son the Spirit. For what difference will there be between us and them but this? What is the work of the gospel, what is the substance of the New Testament, which sets the law and the prophets as lasting until John, if from then on the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, believed as three, do not make one God? God willed so to renew the sacrament that he might be believed as one in a new way, through the Son and the Spirit, so that God might now be known openly in his own proper names and persons, who in former times too, though preached through the Son and the Spirit, was not understood. Let them look to it, then, these antichrists, who deny the Father and the Son. For they deny the Father when they say he is the same as the Son, and they deny the Son when they believe him to be the same as the Father, giving them what they are not and taking away what they are. But “whoever confesses” that Christ is the Son of God, not the Father, “God abides in him and he in God.” We believe the testimony of God, by which he testified concerning his Son: “He who does not have the Son does not have life.” And he does not have the Son who believes him to be other than the Son.