Against Arius 1.1–1.13

In the first discourse of this work, my friend Candidus, you set out and treated many arguments, and some even stronger than these; and although they have been refuted as they ought to be, we nonetheless wished to hear these from the letters of those men, so that, while we overcome these with every refutation, we may overcome those also by refuting these. And first we must define the opinions of Arius and Eusebius: in what they agree with us, in what they differ, and in what they seem to contradict themselves. Arius says that the Son is not unbegotten. Eusebius likewise says the same, that there are not two unbegottens. This is our view too. Arius says that the Son is not a part of the unbegotten, nor is he from any substrate; Eusebius says these two things also. And he adds: “nor one divided into two”, that is, that the Son is not a part of the unbegotten. But Eusebius says: “He is neither a part nor an outflow.” This we likewise deny: for the Son is neither a part of the Father nor an outflow which, by flowing out from him, would have made less that from which it flowed. But that he is from no substrate we cannot bear: not that we say he is from some substrate, but that he is from the Father as Son. Arius says: “By the will of God the Son subsists before times and ages.” Eusebius says the same. We say: before all ages and before all times; but we say begotten, not made, not created, not founded. Arius says: “The Son was made, namely full God, only-begotten, unchangeable, who before he was created was not, because he is not unbegotten.” Eusebius says the same, adding that the Son is like his maker in all things. We, on the contrary, say not “like” but “the same”, since he is from the same substance. Eusebius further adds that the Son's beginning cannot be known by man, nor by any higher power or thought; and yet he dares to say that the Son is a thing fashioned, subsisting by the Father's will and decision, not from anything existing. That is to state the Son's beginning. For if he says this, that he is from non-existents, not of the Father, neither a part nor an outflow, he knows not only the beginnings but also the reasons of the beginnings. But if he does not, what daring is it to say: “This is God, this is Christ; this is Father, this is Son”? We, however, say the Father as Father, the Son as Son.

And first, as he believed he had taught by five short verses what he asserted, that the Son was made, not born, so we shall first teach from the whole of sacred reading that the Son was born. Then we shall assert, as far as we can, God's Spirit permitting, that very point, namely that he is Son substantially. Let us take our first starting point from this. Paul to the Ephesians: “For this reason I bend my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom every fatherhood in heaven and on earth is named, that he may grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell through faith in your hearts, rooted and founded in love, so that you may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know also the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled into all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do all things more abundantly than we ask or understand, according to the power that works in us, to him be glory in Christ Jesus and in the church, to all generations of the ages.” What appears from this, if not that it is possible to know God and the Son of God, and how he is Father, how Son? There is also this in the Gospel according to John: “No one has ever seen God; the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known.” It is possible, then, to speak of God, and so also of the Son. For who made known the Father? The Son. Who is he? He who is in the bosom. The Son, then, not only came forth but is also always in the bosom, a sufficient teacher about the Father. What did he make known? How God is. Both Jews and gentiles had spoken of God before; what, then, did he make known? God as Father and himself as Son, and that he is of the same substance, and that he came forth from the Father. For he says: “You know neither me nor my Father. If you knew me, you would know my Father also.” He would never say “you would know” unless he were Son, and Son substantially: “If you knew me, you would know the Father also.” For if he were a thing fashioned, the Father would not be known from him, but only God's power and divinity, as Paul said: “For his wonders from the creation of the world are understood and known through the things that are made: his eternal power also and divinity.” And the Holy Spirit made known Christ, as the Saviour says in the Gospel according to John: “The Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things.” If these things are so, we have learned both the Father and the Son, both in the holy Scriptures and from the Spirit, whom a holy man has as teacher by faith.

Let us speak, then, of the Scriptures, and first according to John. For he says how the Word was in the beginning, and was with God, and how the Word was God. Does he speak of another Word? Entirely of the Son. What, then, is the Word, if he is from no substrate? How does the Word have the power that all things are created through him, if he himself is from no substrate? For it is impossible that what was made from nothing should be the seed of all things that are. Next, if he was in the beginning, how is he not the beginning? Insofar as he is the beginning, he is without beginning; he who was in the beginning always was. What daring, then, what blasphemy, to say “he once was not”, when John says so many times: “The Word was in the beginning, he was with God, the Word himself was God”? “He was in the beginning with God.” For although “was” signifies past time, and frequently not without a beginning, here it must be taken as without beginning, since he said: “In the beginning was.” You too signify this when you say “before times, before ages”. “All things,” he says, “were made through him, and without him nothing was made.” For without the Word what is there that receives its being? For the Word alone, insofar as he is Word, is to himself and to others that which he is; he himself provides it to all things that are. And therefore he is equal to the Father. For the principal cause is cause both to itself and to others, being power and substance. He is the existing cause, but the Father is the pre-cause. The Son, then, will differ in this, that he is moved and operates into manifestation, while the Father, because of his great divinity, operates in a way unknowable to us. For the Father is above blessedness, and therefore it belongs to him to rest. For to operate, if one operates imperfectly, involves the trouble of motion; but this is blessedness, to operate perfectly.

Hear, then, something else. What is being is the Father; what is operating is the Word; and that which is being is prior, that which is operating second. That which is being does have operation implanted within it; for without motion, that is, without operation, what life or what intellect is there? So it is not only being; but it is that very thing which is first being, and for this reason it belongs to it to rest, to be being alone. In this way there is also that which is operating, which is second, since it is called operating not when it operates within but when it operates outwardly. For when the operation appears, it both is and is named operation, and it is both regarded as and is a generation of itself. So that very thing which is operating also has being itself, or rather does not “have” it, for operating itself is being. For at once and simply, both being and operating are the nature of the things above, which declares itself and has been allotted: according to rest, being itself and substance; according to being in motion, action and operation; and this being in motion is the declaration, according to action, of that which is being. And therefore there was the light which is true, which enlightens every man coming into the world. The Word, then, is the light which is true; and therefore what was made, in him is life, and the life is the light of men; and the Word himself, the true light, was in the world, and the world was made through him; and he is the Son of God, of whom he says: “No one has ever seen God; the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known”, speaking of the Word.

All the things above he said and joined together concerning the Son, declaring no other Son than the Word. The Son, then, was with God, and was in the beginning, and he himself was God, and through him all things were made, and he himself is the only-begotten. And as proceeding from the Father, he was with the Father because of operating; but because of being, existing in the bosom of the Father, he made the Father known, having become the declaration of the Father in respect of operating. That the Son himself is most of all the Word, himself the light, himself the life. That the Son is God, John says thus: “And the Word was God.” And again: “No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven.” That the Son is life: “That whoever believes in him may not perish”; and again: “but may have hope, eternal life.” That he is Son: “Hence he gave his only-begotten Son.” He said “Son”, and “his own”, and “only-begotten”. What more could be said of a true son? That he is life: “that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life.” That the Son himself is the Christ: “For God did not send his Son to judge the world, but to save the world.” That he is light, he says of him: “For the light has come into the world.” John was not the true light, and therefore he says: “I am not the Christ, but I have been sent.” John, then, was sent; but Christ the Son, who came from above, is above all. And again: “Coming from heaven.” It is indeed said that he was sent by God; for God sent him as Son. But these two, “coming” and “sent”, signify both that the Son is in the Father and that the Father is in the Son; since Christ, the life, says to the Samaritan woman: “You would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” And again: “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will not thirst for ever; but the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain springing up into eternal life.” That Christ is the Saviour: “And we know that this is the Saviour of the world.” That he is the Son of God: “My Father is working until now.” Who says this? Christ. What blasphemy it would be of him to call Father one who is not Father! What was the anger of the Jews when they heard God called Father, angry at him who said that he was the Son of God, if he was not the Son of God? For if he had not been, he would not have said it. But he said it, and a worshipper of God said it: he said it, then, in truth; and therefore the unbelief of the Jews is punished.

After this, every answer to the Jews declares both Christ as Son and God as Father: “What the Father does, I also do; the Son does nothing of himself unless he sees the Father doing it; for the Father loves the Son; the Father raises from the dead, the Son also raises; the Father has life in himself, the Son also has it”; and so on through all the rest. That the Son is the Word, and the Son is Christ: “And you will not have his word abiding in you, since you do not believe him whom he sent.” That he is Son: “My Father gives you the true bread from heaven.” That Christ is not a man from a man: “For the bread is from God, which came down from heaven.” That he is life: “and gives life to the world.” And afterwards he says: “I am the bread of life.” That he is from God: “No one has seen the Father except him who is from the Father.” That Father and Son are each in the other: “As the living Father sent me.” If the Son is life and the Father living, the Son is in the Father. For as the qualified comes first and then the quality, so the living God is first, then life. For he who begot life is living: life lives from the living Father. It is not that life was first and so God living; the living God is prior. So there is life, and so living life. And therefore he says next: “And I live because of the Father.” So the Father too is in him. That he is both bread and life: “And he who receives me, he shall live because of me. This is the bread that comes down from heaven: not as your fathers ate and died; he who eats this bread will live for ever.”

Does a man who is only a man say these things of himself? For if a man says these things, he blasphemes, and God does not hear sinners. But Christ says that God heard him: he is not, then, a sinner, nor a man. And it is said: “Vain is hope in man”; and it is said: “But we hope in our God.” Christ, then, is God, not from another substance: “The living Father, and I live because of the Father”; and: “I am the bread of life: he who eats this will live for ever.” All these signify one substance. And therefore Jesus, who says these things, says that he is from above: “What, then, if you see the Son of Man ascending where he was before?” That God is spirit, it is said: “God is spirit.” And that the Son is the life-giving spirit, and that this faith in Christ is perfect, Peter says: “You have the word of eternal life; and we believe in you, Lord, that you are the Christ, the Son of God.” What is “the word of eternal life”? That if anyone hears you, he will live for ever. That he is from God: “I know him, because I am from him.” That Christ is of the Father's substance: “I am in the Father, and the Father in me.” This is not by dignity only, but by substance. For if it were by dignity only, how does he himself say, “My Father is greater than I”, and how does the Father send and the Son is sent? Again, dignity is given to the Son by the Father; in this respect, then, the Father is in the Son. Does the Son also give dignity to the Father, as to one without substance? So both the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father.

But enough of this. And again, that Christ himself, who is the Son of the Father, is himself also the Holy Spirit: “Jesus stood and cried out: If anyone thirsts, let him come and drink. He who believes in me, as the Scripture said, rivers of living water flow from his belly.” That indeed is said of the one who receives the Spirit: receiving the Spirit, he becomes a belly pouring out rivers of living water. But Christ gives this Spirit; he also gives living water, as he himself says; Scripture said this of the Spirit. The belly, then, is the one who receives the Spirit, and the Spirit himself is the belly from which flow rivers of living water, as Scripture says: “This he said of the Spirit whom those who believed in him were to receive; for the Spirit had not yet been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.” But again, the rivers are the Spirit, and the belly from which the rivers flow is Jesus; for Jesus is spirit. So Jesus is the belly from which the rivers of the Spirit flow. For as the Son is from the bosom of the Father and in the bosom, so the Spirit is from the belly of the Son. The three, then, are homoousios, and therefore in all there is one God. That he is not from the world: “I am the light of the world”; for because of him the world lived, and will live as long as it obeys him. That all three are spirit, he has already said: “God is spirit.” And when some said, “Where is your Father?”, he said: “You know neither me nor my Father; if you knew me, you could know my Father also.” And the Holy Spirit is manifestly Spirit; and all these are both the Father and from the Father: therefore homoousios. For they are not spirit as others are, for those are from God, not out of God: these three, then, are homoousios. That he is the true Son: “For I came forth from God”, as from the bosom of the Father, “and I come into the world.” That Christ was before he was in the flesh: “Abraham your father rejoiced to see my day; he saw it and was glad.” And again: “Before Abraham, I am.” That he is not a man: “While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” Who gave sight to the blind man? A man? Impossible. And that he is the Son of God: “Do you believe in the Son of God?” He answered: “Who is he, Lord, that I may believe in him?” Jesus said to him: “You have seen him, and he who speaks with you is he.” That he is of the same substance and power: “I and the Father are one.” And again: “The Father is in me, and I in him.”

Hence it is said in Paul: “Who, existing in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God.” These words, then, signify that there is both one substance and one power. For how is it “I and the Father are one”, and how “The Father is in me, and I in the Father”, if he had not had substance and power from the Father, begotten whole from the whole? And how “he did not consider it robbery to be equal with the Father”? For he did not say, “He did not consider himself to be equal”, but “did not consider it robbery”. He wills, then, to be lower, not wishing to consider it robbery to be equal. For to consider it robbery, or not to consider it robbery, to be equal belongs to things that are equal. But we have supposed that “equal” is said in respect of power. First, then, that doctrine of Arius fails, that the Father is greater in dignity, power, glory, divinity and action; for Paul said “equal”. And if they are equal in this respect, it is impossible that they be equal in it unless the substance is also the same; for in God power, substance, divinity and action are one and the same: for all are one, and the one is simple. Add to this: if the Son was from another substance, and above all if from nothing, what substance would be able to receive these divinities and powers? Equality is joined to the equal, and like to like. The Son and the Father, then, are equal, and therefore the Son is in the Father and the Father in the Son, and both are one.

But enough of this for now. Let us look at those words of John. The Saviour himself says: “I am the resurrection”, since he is life. And who is he? Martha says: “That you are the Christ, the Son of God, who have come into the world.” That he is not Son in the way we are: for we are sons by adoption, he by nature. Christ too is Son by a kind of adoption, but according to the flesh: “Today I have begotten you.” For if this alone were so, God would have his Son only as a man; but in saying “Before Abraham, I am”, he declared that he was first Son by nature. The Photinian doctrine, then, is not true. Next, Scripture speaks not only of the nations but also of the sons who are scattered. Christ, then, is Son of God; we too are sons, but we by adoption, we through Jesus Christ, we as scattered sons: is Christ a son in this way? Jesus, then, is Son by nature, we are sons by adoption. That he is Son by nature he himself often says: “Father, I thank you that you have heard me”; and: “Father, save me from this hour”; and again: “I came forth from the mouth of the Father.” These things are not said in the way we say them of God as Father. For God is not a liar, nor impious, calling himself Son and God Father, when God was not his Father at all. But because of the body he took on suffering, that all things might be fulfilled in the mystery. That Christ existed even before he was in the body: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again”; for in the mystery he humbled himself in the flesh. Before this and after it, then, Jesus was glorified. That because of the mystery he is presented as fearing and asking for things: “This voice came not for my sake but for yours.” In the same way: “These things I do not for my sake but for yours.”

That the Son of Man himself is the Christ, the light in the world, the Son of God: “We have heard from the law that the Christ remains for ever; how, then, do you say that the Son of Man must be lifted up? Who is this Son of Man?” Jesus said to them: “For a little while yet the light is among you.” And then: “While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light.” That he is homoousios with God: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you had known me, you would know my Father also; and from now on you know him and have seen him.” And again to Philip: “He who has seen me has seen the Father also. Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?” And again these and similar texts, in which it is plain that the Father is according to what he is and the Son according to what he is, and that therefore they are two. But since the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father, they are homoousioi. One must not say, then, “two persons, one substance”, but two, Father and Son, from one substance, the Father giving the Son substance from his own substance in this, that he begot the Son; and both are homoousioi. That he himself does and will do all things, since “I am from the Father”: “And whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in me.” That the Paraclete is also Christ: “If you love me and keep my commandments, I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Paraclete, to be with you for ever.” Who is the other Paraclete? “The Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot see, because it does not see him.” But the other Paraclete, that is, Christ, they did see; because he was in the flesh, they did not believe in him. That the Paraclete is the power of Christ: “But you know him, since he abides with you.” Christ, then, gave him to them; for he said: “He abides in you and is in you.”

What appears from these texts? If God is spirit, and Jesus is spirit, and the Holy Spirit is spirit, the three are from one substance; the three, then, are homoousia. That the Holy Spirit is from Christ, as Christ is from God, and that therefore the three are one: “I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.” And again he says: “On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.” These things are said according to the Spirit. That the Paraclete is from the Son: “But the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things that I shall say.” It is plain from these texts that God is in Christ and Christ in the Holy Spirit: first, Christ is a Paraclete, the Holy Spirit is a Paraclete. Then God sent Christ; what Christ spoke, the same the Holy Spirit speaks. But Christ spoke in parables and did signs: everything, then, was hidden, because he himself was in the flesh; as he himself was within, so the truth too was within, in parables and signs. But the Spirit teaches all things: for the Holy Spirit speaks to the spirit of men; he speaks what is, and speaks it in no figure: “And therefore he will teach you.” And what does he speak? “Whatever I shall say,” Christ said. “I shall say” refers to the future. To what future? Not to the present, but to the time after he ascends to the Father. And if this Paraclete, coming from God in Christ's name, teaches the things that Jesus says, is he then Jesus himself, or another Jesus? Or is Jesus in that other Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, as God is in Jesus? The three existing in this order, the three are both one and homoousion, since Christ says: “I go and I come to you”; from God another Paraclete will be given you, who has from me whatever he has; and whatever the Father has, he has handed all to me. For this is the whole mystery: the Father is the operation that does not operate, the Son the operation that operates toward generating, and the Holy Spirit the operation that operates toward what is to regenerate.

But these things have been said elsewhere too. That the Word, that is, Jesus or Christ, is equal to the Father, and lower: “I go to the Father, for the Father is greater than I.” Likewise Paul says: “He did not consider it robbery to be equal with God.” And there is what was said: “I and the Father are one”; and that both the Father and the Son are operation; and that he would not say “the Father is greater than I” unless he had been equal. Add also: if he is whole from the whole and light from light, and if the Father gave the Son all that he has, and “all” is substance, power and dignity, then he is equal to the Father. But the Father is greater, because he gave him all things and is the cause for the Son that he is, and that he is in this way. And he is greater in this, that he is action without activity: for he is more blessed in that he is without trouble, and impassible, and the fountain of all that are, resting, perfect from himself and needing nothing; whereas the Son received in order to be, and, proceeding from action into what is acting and coming into perfection, becomes fullness by motion. But since in him, into him and through him all things are begotten, he is always fullness and always receptacle; and for this reason he is both impassible and passible. He is, then, equal and unequal. The Father, then, is greater. That the Paraclete is from God and from Christ: “When the Paraclete comes, whom I shall send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who will come from the Father.” That the power of the Word toward God is twofold: one manifest, Christ in the flesh; the other hidden, the Holy Spirit. While the Word, that is, Christ, was present, the Word in hiddenness, that is, the Holy Spirit, could not come: “For if I do not go away, the Paraclete will not come to you.” These two also, then, are one from the other, the Holy Spirit from the Son, as the Son is from God, in the same rational order; and the Holy Spirit from the Father. That all three are one: the Father a silence that is not silent, but a voice in silence; the Son, now a voice; the Paraclete, the voice of the voice: “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will go before you into all truth; he does not speak the truth from himself” (for Christ is the truth), “but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will tell you things to come. He will honour me, because he will receive from what is mine and announce it to you.” Then he adds: “All that the Father has is mine.” He says, then, “he will receive from what is mine”, because there is one motion: that is, the acting action is Christ and the Holy Spirit. First is living, and from what is living, understanding: Christ is living, the Spirit understanding. So the Spirit receives from Christ, Christ himself from the Father, and therefore the Spirit too from the Father.