(NOTE: The electronic text obtained from The Electronic Bible Society was
not completely corrected. EWTN has corrected all mistakes found.)

Transliteration of Greek words: All phonetical except: w = omega; h serves
three puposes: 1. = Eta; 2. = rough breathing, when appearing intially
before a vowel; 3. = in the aspirated letters theta = th, phi = ph, chi =
ch. Accents are given immediately after their corresponding vowels: acute =
' , grave = `, circumflex = ^. The character ' doubles as an apostrophe,
when necessary.

TERTULLIAN.

AGAINST PRAXEAS;[1]

IN WHICH HE DEFENDS, IN ALL ESSENTIAL POINTS, THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY
TRINITY.[2]

[TRANSLATED BY DR. HOLMES.]

CHAP. I.--SATAN'S WILES AGAINST THE TRUTH. HOW THEY TAKE THE FORM OF THE
PRAXEAN HERESY. ACCOUNT OF THE PUBLICATION OF THIS HERESY.

   IN various ways has the devil rivalled and resisted the truth.
Sometimes his aim has been to destroy the truth by defending it. He
maintains that there is one only Lord, the Almighty Creator of the world,
in order that out of this doctrine of the unity he may fabricate a heresy.
He says that the Father Himself came down into the Virgin, was Himself born
of her, Himself suffered, indeed was Himself Jesus Christ. Here the old
serpent has fallen out with himself, since, when he tempted Christ after
John's baptism, he approached Him as "the Son of God;" surely intimating
that God had a Son, even on the testimony of the very Scriptures, out of
which he was at the moment forging his temptation: "If thou be the Son of
God, command that these stones be made bread."[3] Again: "If thou be the
Son of God, cast thyself down from hence;[4] for it is written, He shall
give His angels charge concerning thee"--referring no doubt, to the Father-
-"and in their hands they shall bear thee up, that thou hurt not thy foot
against a stone."[5] Or perhaps, after all, he was only reproaching the
Gospels with a lie, saying in fact: "Away with Matthew; away with Luke! Why
heed their words? In spite of them, I declare that it was God Himself that
I approached; it was the Almighty Himself that I tempted face to face; and
it was for no other purpose than to tempt Him that I approached Him. If, on
the contrary, it had been only the Son of God, most likely I should never
have condescended to deal with Him." However, he is himself a liar from the
beginning,[6] and whatever man he instigates in his own way; as, for
instance, Praxeas. For he was the first to import into Rome from Asia this
kind of heretical pravity, a man in other respects of restless disposition,
and above all inflated with the pride of confessorship simply and solely
because he had to bear for a short time the annoyance of a prison; on which
occasion, even "if he had given his body to be burned, it would have
profiled him nothing," not having the love of God,[7] whose very gifts he
has resisted and destroyed. For after the Bishop of Rome[8] had
acknowledged the prophetic gifts of Montanus, Prisca, and Maximilla, and,
in consequence of the acknowledgment, had bestowed his peace[9] on the
churches of Asia and Phrygia, he, by importunately urging false accusations
against the prophets themselves and their churches, and insisting on the
authority of the bishop's predecessors in the see, compelled him to recall
the pacific letter which he had issued, as well as to desist from his
purpose of acknowledging the said gifts. By this Praxeas did a twofold
service for the devil at Rome: he drove away prophecy, and he brought in
heresy; he put to flight the Paraclete, and he crucified the Father.
Praxeas' tares had been moreover sown, and had produced their fruit here
also,[10] while many were asleep in their simplicity of doctrine; but these
tares actually seemed to have been plucked up, having been discovered and
exposed by him whose agency God was pleased to employ. Indeed, Praxeas had
deliberately resumed his old (true) faith, teaching it after his
renunciation of error; and there is his own handwriting in evidence
remaining among the carnally-minded,[1] in whose society the transaction
then took place; afterwards nothing was heard of him. We indeed, on our
part, subsequently withdrew from the carnally-minded on our acknowledgment
and maintenance of the Paraclete.[2] But the tares of Praxeas had then
everywhere shaken out their seed, which having lain hid for some while,
with its vitality concealed under a mask, has now broken out with fresh
life. But again shall it be rooted up, if the Lord will, even now; but if
not now, in the day when all bundles of tares shall be gathered together,
and along with every other stumbling-block shall be burnt up with
unquenchable fire.[3]

CHAP. II.--THE CATHOLIC DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY AND UNITY, SOMETIMES CALLED
THE DIVINE ECONOMY, OR DISPENSATION OF THE PERSONAL RELATIONS OF THE
GODHEAD.

   In the course of time, then, the Father forsooth was born, and the
Father suffered,God Himself, the Lord Almighty, whom in their preaching
they declare to be Jesus Christ. We, however, as we indeed always have done
and more especially since we have been better instructed by the Paraclete,
who leads men indeed into all truth), believe that there is one only God,
but under the following dispensation, or oikonomi'a, as it is called, that
this one only God has also a Son, His Word, who proceeded[4] from Himself,
by whom all things were made, and without whom nothing was made. Him we
believe to have been sent by the Father into the Virgin, and to have been
born of her--being both Man and God, the Son of Man and the Son of God, and
to have been called by the name of Jesus Christ; we believe Him to have
suffered, died, and been buried, according to the Scriptures, and, after He
had been raised again by the Father and taken back to heaven, to be sitting
at the right hand of the Father, and that He will come to judge the quick
and the dead; who sent also from heaven from the Father, according to His
own promise, the Holy Ghost, the Paraclete,[5] the sanctifier of the faith
of those who believe in the Father, and in the Son, and in the Holy Ghost.
That this rule of faith has come down to us from the beginning of the
gospel, even before any of the older heretics, much more before Praxeas, a
pretender of yesterday, will be apparent both from the lateness of date[6]
which marks all heresies, and also from the absolutely novel character of
our new-fangled Praxeas. In this principle also we must henceforth find a
presumption of equal force against all heresies whatsoever--that whatever
is first is true, whereas that is spurious which is later in date.[7] But
keeping this prescriptive rule inviolate, still some opportunity must be
given for reviewing (the statements of heretics), with a view to the
instruction and protection of divers persons; were it only that it may not
seem that each perversion of the truth is condemned without examination,
and simply prejudged;[8] especially in the case of this heresy, which
supposes itself to possess the pure truth, in thinking that one cannot
believe in One Only God in any other way than by saying that the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Ghost are the very selfsame Person. As if in this way
also one were not All, in that All are of One, by unity (that is) of
substance; while the mystery of the dispensation[9] is still guarded, which
distributes the Unity into a Trinity, placing in their order[10] the three
Persons--the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost: three, however, not in
condition,[11] but in degree;[12] not in substance, but in form; not in
power, but in aspect;[13] yet of one substance, and of one condition, and
of one power, inasmuch as He is one God, from whom these degrees and forms
and aspects are reckoned, under the name of the Father, and of the Son, and
of the Holy Ghost.[14] How they are susceptible of number without division,
will be shown as our treatise proceeds.

CHAP. III.--SUNDRY POPULAR FEARS AND PREJUDICES. THE DOCTRINE OF THE
TRINITY IN UNITY RESCUED FROM THESE MISAPPREHENSIONS.

   The simple, indeed, (I will not call them unwise and unlearned,) who
always constitute the majority of believers, are startled at the
dispensation[1] (of the Three in One), on the ground that their very rule
of faith withdraws them from the world's plurality of gods to the one only
true God; not understanding that, although He is the one only God, He must
yet be believed in with His own oikonomi'a. The numerical order and
distribution of the Trinity they assume to be a division of the Unity;
whereas the Unity which derives the Trinity out of its own self is so far
from being destroyed, that it is actually supported by it. They are
constantly throwing out against us that we are preachers of two gods and
three gods, while they take to themselves pre-eminently the credit of being
worshippers of the One God; just as if the Unity itself with irrational
deductions did not produce heresy, and the Trinity rationally considered
constitute the truth. We, say they, maintain the Monarchy (or, sole
government of God).[2] And so, as far as the sound goes, do even Latins
(and ignorant ones too) pronounce the word m such a way that you would
suppose their understanding of the monarchi'a (or Monarchy) was as complete
as their pronunciation of the term. Well, then Latins take pains to
pronounce the monarchi'a (or Monarchy), while Greeks actually refuse to
understand the oikonomi'a, or Dispensation (of the Three in One). As for
myself, however, if I have gleaned any knowledge of either language, I am
sure that monarchi'a (or Monarchy) has no other meaning than single and
individual[3] rule; but for all that, this monarchy does not, because it is
the government of one, preclude him whose government it is, either from
having a son, or from having made himself actually a son to himself,[4] or
from ministering his own monarchy by whatever agents he will. Nay more, I
contend that no dominion so belongs to one only, as his own, or is in such
a sense singular, or is in such a sense a monarchy, as not also to be
administered through other persons most closely connected with it, and whom
it has itself provided as officials to itself. If, moreover, there be a son
belonging to him whose monarchy it is, it does not forthwith become divided
and cease to be a monarchy, if the son also be taken as a sharer in it; but
it is as to its origin equally his, by whom it is communicated to the son;
and being his, it is quite as much a monarchy (or sole empire), since it is
held together by two who are so inseparable.[5] Therefore, inasmuch as the
Divine Monarchy also is administered by so many legions and hosts of
angels, according as it is written, "Thousand thousands ministered unto
Him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before Him;"[6] and since it
has not from this circumstance ceased to be the rule of one (so as no
longer to be a monarchy), because it is administered by so many thousands
of powers; how comes it to pass that God should be thought to suffer
division and severance in the Son and in the Holy Ghost, who have the
second and the third places assigned to them, and who are so closely joined
with the Father in His substance, when He suffers no such (division and
severance) in the multitude of so many angels? Do you really suppose that
Those, who are naturally members of the Father's own substance, pledges of
His love,[7] instruments of His might, nay, His power itself and the entire
system of His monarchy, are the overthrow and destruction thereof? You are
not right in so thinking. I prefer your exercising yourself on the meaning
of the thing rather than on the sound of the word. Now you must understand
the overthrow of a monarchy to be this, when another dominion, which has a
framework and a state peculiar to itself (and is therefore a rival), is
brought in over and above it: when, e.g., some other god is introduced in
opposition to the Creator, as in the opinions of Marcion; or when many gods
are introduced, according to your Valentinuses and your Prodicuses. Then it
amounts to an overthrow of the Monarchy, since it involves the destruction
of the Creator.[8]

CHAP. IV.--THE UNITY OF THE GODHEAD AND THE SUPREMACY AND SOLE GOVERNMENT
OF THE DIVINE BEING. THE MONARCHY NOT AT ALL IMPAIRED BY THE CATHOLIC
DOCTRINE.

   But as for me, who derive the Son from no other source but from the
substance of the Father, and (represent Him) as doing nothing without the
Father's will, and as having received all power from the Father, how can I
be possibly destroying the Monarchy from the faith, when I preserve it in
the Son just as it was committed to Him by the Father? The same remark (I
wish also to be formally) made by me with respect to the third degree in
the Godhead, because I believe the Spirit to proceed from no other source
than from the Father through the Son.[9] Look to it then, that it be not
you rather who are destroying the Monarchy, when you overthrow the
arrangement and dispensation of it, which has been constituted in just as
many names as it has pleased God to employ. But it remains so firm and
stable in its own state, notwithstanding the introduction into it of the
Trinity, that the Son actually has to restore it entire to the Father; even
as the apostle says in his epistle, concerning the very end of all: "When
He shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; for He must
reign till He hath put all enemies under His feet;"[1] following of course
the words of the Psalm: "Sit Thou on my right hand, until I make Thine
enemies Thy footstool."[2] "When, however, all things shall be subdued to
Him, (with the exception of Him who did put all things under Him,) then
shall the Son also Himself be subject unto Him who put all things under
Him, that God may be all in all."[3] We thus see that the Son is no
obstacle to the Monarchy, although it is now administered by[4] the Son;
because with the Son it is still in its own state, and with its own state
will be restored to the Father by the Son. No one, therefore, will impair
it, on account of admitting the Son (to it), since it is certain that it
has been committed to Him by the Father, and by and by has to be again
delivered up by Him to the Father. Now, from this one passage of the
epistle of the inspired apostle, we have been already able to show that the
Father and the Son are two separate Persons, not only by the mention of
their separate names as Father and the Son, but also by the fact that He
who delivered up the kingdom, and He to whom it is delivered up--and in
like manner, He who subjected (all things), and He to whom they were
subjected--must necessarily be two different Beings.

CHAP. V.--THE EVOLUTION OF THE SON OR WORD OF GOD FROM THE FATHER BY A
DIVINE PROCESSION. ILLUSTRATED BY THE OPERATION OF THE HUMAN THOUGHT AND
CONSCIOUSNESS.

   But since they will have the Two to be but One, so that the Father
shall be deemed to be the same as the Son, it is only right that the whole
question respecting the Son should be examined, as to whether He exists,
and who He is and the mode of His existence. Thus shall the truth itself[5]
secure its own sanction[6] from the Scriptures, and the interpretations
which guard[7] them. There are some who allege that even Genesis opens thus
in Hebrew: "In the beginning God made for Himself a Son."[8] As there is no
ground for this, I am led to other arguments derived from God's own
dispensation,[9] in which He existed before the creation of the world, up
to the generation of the Son. For before all things God was alone--being in
Himself and for Himself universe, and space, and all things. Moreover, He
was alone, because there was nothing external to Him but Himself. Yet even
not then was He alone; for He had with Him that which He possessed in
Himself, that is to say, His own Reason. For God is rational, and Reason
was first in Him; and so all things were from Himself. This Reason is His
own Thought (or Consciousness)[10] which the Greeks call lo'gos, by which
term we also designate Word or Discourse[11] and therefore it is now usual
with our people, owing to the mere simple interpretation of the term, to
say that the Word[12] was in the beginning with God; although it would be
more suitable to regard Reason as the more ancient; because God had not
Word[13] from the beginning, but He had Reason[14] even before the
beginning; because also Word itself consists of Reason, which it thus
proves to have been the prior existence as being its own substance.[15] Not
that this distinction is of any practical moment. For although God had not
yet sent out His Word,[16] He still had Him within Himself, both in company
with and included within His very Reason, as He silently planned and
arranged within Himself everything which He was afterwards about to
utter[17] through His Word. Now, whilst He was thus planning and arranging
with His own Reason, He was actually causing that to become Word which He
was dealing with in the way of Word or Discourse.[18] And that you may the
more readily understand this, consider first of all, from your own self,
who are made "in the image and likeness of God,"[19] for what purpose it is
that you also possess reason in yourself, who are a rational creature, as
being not only made by a rational Artificer, but actually animated out of
His substance. Observe, then, that when you are silently conversing with
yourself, this very process is carried on within you by your reason, which
meets you with a word at every movement of your thought, at every impulse
of your conception. Whatever you think, there is a word; whatever you
conceive, there is reason. You must needs speak it in your mind; and while
you are speaking, you admit speech as an interlocutor with you, involved in
which there is this very reason, whereby, while in thought you are holding
converse with your word, you are (by reciprocal action) producing thought
by means of that converse with your word. Thus, in a certain sense, the
word is a second person within you, through which in thinking you utter
speech, and through which also, (by reciprocity of process,) in uttering
speech you generate thought. The word is itself a different thing from
yourself. Now how much more fully is all this transacted in God, whose
image and likeness even you are regarded as being, inasmuch as He has
reason within Himself even while He is silent, and involved in that Reason
His Word! I may therefore without rashness first lay this down (as a fixed
principle) that even then before the creation of the universe God was not
alone, since He had within Himself both Reason, and, inherent in Reason,
His Word, which He made second to Himself by agitating it within Himself.

CHAP. VI.--THE WORD OF GOD IS ALSO THE WISDOM OF GOD. THE GOING FORTH OF
WISDOM TO CREATE THE UNIVERSE, ACCORDING TO THE DIVINE PLAN.

   This power and disposition[1] of the Divine Intelligence[2] is set
forth also in the Scriptures under the name of Sophi'a, Wisdom; for what
can be better entitled to the name of Wisdom[3] than the Reason or the Word
of God? Listen therefore to Wisdom herself, constituted in the character of
a Second Person: "At the first the Lord created me as the beginning of His
ways, with a view to His own works, before He made the earth, before the
mountains were settled; moreover, before all the hills did He beget me;"[4]
that is to say, He created and generated me in His own intelligence. Then,
again, observe the distinction between them implied in the companionship of
Wisdom with the Lord. "When He prepared the heaven," says Wisdom, "I was
present with Him; and when He made His strong places upon the winds, which
are the clouds above; and when He secured the fountains, (and all things)
which are beneath the sky, I was by, arranging all things with Him; I was
by, in whom He delighted; and daily, too, did I rejoice in His
presence."[3] Now, as soon as it pleased God to put forth into their
respective substances and forms the things which He had planned and ordered
within Himself, in conjunction with His Wisdom's Reason and Word, He first
put forth the Word Himself, having within Him His own inseparable Reason
and Wisdom, in order that all things might be made through Him through whom
they had been planned and disposed, yea, and already made, so far forth as
(they were) in the mind and intelligence of God. This, however, was still
wanting to them, that they should also be openly known, and kept
permanently in their proper forms and substances

CHAP. VII.--THE SON BY BEING DESIGNATED WORD AND WISDOM, (ACCORDING TO THE
IMPERFECTION OF HUMAN THOUGHT AND LANGUAGE) LIABLE TO BE DEEMED A MERE
ATTRIBUTE. HE IS SHOWN TO BE A PERSONAL BEING.

   Then, therefore, does the Word also Himself assume His own form and
glorious garb,[6] His own sound and vocal utterance, when God says, "Let
there be light."[7] This is the perfect nativity of the Word, when He
proceeds forth from God--formed[8] by Him first to devise and think out all
thinks under the name of Wisdom--"The Lord created or formed[9] me as the
beginning of His ways;"[10] then afterward begotten, to carry all into
effect--"When He prepared the heaven, I was present with Him."[11] Thus
does He make Him equal to Him: for by proceeding from Himself He became His
first-begotten Son, because begotten before all things;[12] and His only-
begotten also, because alone begotten of God, m a way peculiar to Himself,
from the womb of His own heart--even as the Father Himself testifies: "My
heart," says He, "hath emitted my most excellent Word."[13] The father took
pleasure evermore in Him, who equally rejoiced with a reciprocal gladness
in the Father's presence: "Thou art my Son, to-day have I begotten
Thee;"[14] even before the morning star did I beget Thee. The Son likewise
acknowledges the Father, speaking in His own person, under the name of
Wisdom: "The Lord formed Me as the beginning of His ways, with a view to
His own works; before all the hills did He beget Me."[1] For if indeed
Wisdom in this passage seems to say that She was created by the Lord with a
view to His works, and to accomplish His ways, yet proof is given in
another Scripture that "all things were made by the Word, and without Him
was there nothing made;"[2] as, again, in another place (it is said), "By
His word were the heavens established, and all the powers thereof by His
Spirit"[3]--that is to say, by the Spirit (or Divine Nature) which was in
the Word: thus is it evident that it is one and the same power which is in
one place described under the name of Wisdom, and in another passage under
the appellation of the Word, which was initiated for the works of God?
which "strengthened the heavens;"[5] "by which all things were made,"[6]
"and without which nothing was made."[7] Nor need we dwell any longer on
this point, as if it were not the very Word Himself, who is spoken of under
the name both of Wisdom and of Reason, and of the entire Divine Soul and
Spirit. He became also the Son of God, and was begotten when He proceeded
forth from Him. Do you then, (you ask,) grant that the Word is a certain
substance, constructed by the Spirit and the communication of Wisdom?
Certainly I do. But you will not allow Him to be really a substantive
being, by having a substance of His own; in such a way that He may be
regarded as an objective thing and a person, and so be able (as being
constituted second to God the Father,) to make two, the Father and the Son,
God and the Word. For you will say, what is a word, but a voice and sound
of the mouth, and (as the grammarians teach) air when struck against,[8]
intelligible to the ear, but for the rest a sort of void, empty, and
incorporeal thing. I, on the contrary, contend that nothing empty and void
could have come forth from God, seeing that it is not put forth from that
which is empty and void; nor could that possibly be devoid of substance
which has proceeded from so great a substance, and has produced such mighty
substances: for all things which were made through Him, He Himself
(personally) made. How could it be, that He Himself is nothing, without
whom nothing was made? How could He who is empty have made things which are
solid, and He who is void have made things which are full, and He who is
incorporeal have made things which have body? For although a thing may
sometimes be made different from him by whom it is made, yet nothing can be
made by that which is a void and empty thing. Is that Word of God, then, a
void and empty thing, which is called the Son, who Himself is designated
God? "The Word was with God, and the Word was God."[9] It is written, "
Thou shalt not take God's name in vain."[10] This for certain is He "who,
being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God."[11]
In what form of God? Of course he means in some form, not in none. For who
will deny that God is a body, although "GOd is a Spirit?"[12] For Spirit
has a bodily substance of its own kind, in its own form.[13] Now, even if
invisible things, whatsoever they be, have both their substance and their
form in God, whereby they are visible to God alone, how much more shall
that which has been sent forth from His substance not be without substance!
Whatever, therefore, was the substance of the Word that I designate a
Person, I claim for it the name of Son; and while I recognize the Son, I
assert His distinction as second to the Father.[14]

CHAP.VIII.--THOUGH THE SON OR WORD OF GOD EMANATES FROM THE FATHER, HE IS
NOT, LIKE THE EMANATIONS OF VALENTINUS, SEPARABLE FROM THE FATHER. NOR IS
THE HOLY GHOST SEPARABLE FROM EITHER. ILLUSTRATIONS FROM NATURE.

   If any man from this shall think that I am introducing some probolh'--
that is to say, some prolation[15] of one thing out of another, as
Valentinus does when he sets forth AEon from AEon, one after another--then
this is my first reply to you: Truth must not therefore refrain from the
use of such a term, and its reality and meaning, because heresy also
employs it. The fact is, heresy has rather taken it from Truth, in order to
mould it into its own counterfeit. Was the Word of God put forth or not?
Here take your stand with me, and flinch not. If He was put forth, then
acknowledge that the true doctrine has a prolation;[1] and never mind
heresy, when in any point it mimics the truth. The question now is, in what
sense each side uses a given thing and the word which expresses it.
Valentinus divides and separates his prolations from their Author, and
places them at so great a distance from Him, that the AEon does not know
the Father: he longs, indeed, to know Him, but cannot; nay, he is almost
swallowed up and dissolved into the rest of matter.[2] With us, however,
the Son alone knows the Father,[3] and has Himself unfolded "the Father's
bosom."[4] He has also heard and seen all things with the Father; and what
He has been commanded by the Father, that also does He speak.[5] And it is
not His own will, but the Father's, which He has accomplished,[6] which He
had known most intimately, even from the beginning. "For what man knoweth
the things which be in God, but the Spirit which is in Him?"[7] But the
Word was formed by the Spirit, and (if I may so express myself) the Spirit
is the body of the Word. The Word, therefore, is both always in the Father,
as He says, "I am in the Father;"[8] and is always with God, according to
what is written, "And the Word was with God;"[9] and never separate from
the Father, or other than the Father, since "I and the Father are one."[10]
This will be the prolation, taught by the truth,[11] the guardian of the
Unity, wherein we declare that the Son is a prolation from the Father,
without being separated from Him. For God sent forth the Word, as the
Paraclete also declares, just as the root puts forth the tree, and the
fountain the river, and the sun the ray.[12] For these are probolai', or
emanations, of the substances from which they proceed. I should not
hesitate, indeed, to call the tree the son or offspring of the root, and
the river of the fountain, and the ray of the sun; because every original
source is a parent, and everything which issues from the origin is an
offspring. Much more is (this true of) the Word of God, who has actually
received as His own peculiar designation the name of Son. But still the
tree is not severed from the root, nor the river from the fountain, nor the
ray from the sun; nor, indeed, is the Word separated from God. Following,
therefore, the form of these analogies, I confess that I call God and His
Word--the Father and His Son--two. For the root and the tree are distinctly
two things, but correlatively joined; the fountain and the river are also
two forms, but indivisible; so likewise the sun and the ray are two forms,
but coherent ones. Everything which proceeds from something else must needs
be second to that from which it proceeds, without being on that account
separated: Where, however, there is a second, there must be two; and where
there is a third, there must be three. Now the Spirit indeed is third from
God and the Son; just as the fruit of the tree is third from the root, or
as the stream out of the river is third from the fountain, or as the apex
of the ray is third from the sun. Nothing, however, is alien from that
original source whence it derives its own properties. In like manner the
Trinity, flowing down from the Father through intertwined and connected
steps, does not at all disturb the Monarchy,[13] whilst it at the same time
guards the state of the Economy.[14]

CHAP. IX.--THE CATHOLIC RULE OF FAITH EXPOUNDED IN SOME OF ITS POINTS.
ESPECIALLY IN THE UNCONFUSED DISTINCTION OF THE SEVERAL PERSONS OF THE
BLESSED TRINITY.

   Bear always in mind that this is the rule of faith which I profess; by
it I testify that the Father, and the Son, and the Spirit are inseparable
from each other, and so will you know in what sense this is said. Now,
observe, my assertion is that the Father is one, and the Son one, and the
Spirit one, and that They are distinct from Each Other. This statement is
taken in a wrong sense by every uneducated as well as every perversely
disposed person, as if it predicated a diversity, in such a sense as to
imply a separation among the Father, and the Son, and the Spirit. I am,
moreover, obliged to say this, when (extolling the Monarchy at the expense
of the Economy) they contend for the identity of the Father and Son and
Spirit, that it is not by way of diversity that the Son differs from the
Father, but by distribution: it is not by division that He is different,
but by distinction; because the Father is not the same as the Son, since
they differ one from the other in the mode of their being.[15] For the
Father is the entire substance, but the Son is a derivation and portion of
the whole,x as He Himself acknowledges: "My Father is greater than I."[1]
In the Psalm His inferiority is described as being "a little lower than the
angels."[3] Thus the Father is distinct from the Son, being greater than
the Son, inasmuch as He who begets is one, and He who is begotten is
another; He, too, who sends is one, and He who is sent is another; and He,
again, who makes is one, and He through whom the thing is made is another.
Happily the Lord Himself employs this expression of the person of the
Paraclete, so as to signify not a division or severance, but a disposition
(of mutual relations in the Godhead); for He says, "I will pray the Father,
and He shall send you another Comforter. ... even the Spirit of truth,"[4]
thus making the Paraclete distinct from Himself, even as we say that the
Son is also distinct from the Father; so that He showed a third degree in
the Paraclete, as we believe the second degree is in the Son, by reason of
the order observed in the Economy. Besides, does not the very fact that
they have the distinct names of Father and San amount to a declaration that
they are distinct in personality?[5] For, of course, all things will be
what their names represent them to be; and what they are and ever will be,
that will they be called; and the distinction indicated by the names does
not at all admit of any confusion, because there is none in the things
which they designate. "Yes is yes, and no is no; for what is more than
these, cometh of evil."[6]

CHAP. X.--THE VERY NAMES OF FATHER AND SON PROVE THE PERSONAL DISTINCTION
OF THE TWO. THEY CANNOT POSSIBLY BE IDENTICAL, NOR IS THEIR IDENTITY
NECESSARY TO PRESERVE THE DIVINE MONARCHY.

   So it is either the Father or the Son, and the day is not the same as
the night; nor is the Father the same as the Son, in such a way that Both
of them should be One, and One or the Other should be Both,--an opinion
which the most conceited "Monarchians" maintain. He Himself, they say, made
Himself a Son to Himself.[7] Now a Father makes a Son, and a Son makes a
Father;[2] and they who thus become reciprocally related out of each other
to each other cannot in any way by themselves simply become so related to
themselves, that the Father can make Himself a Son to Himself, and the Son
render Himself a Father to Himself. And the relations which God
establishes, them does He also guard. A father must needs have a son, in
order to be a father; so likewise a son, to be a son, must have a father.
It is, however, one thing to have, and another thing to be. For instance,
in order to be a husband, I must have a wife; I can never myself be my own
wife. In like manner, in order to be a father, I have a son, for I never
can be a son to myself; and in order to be a son, I have a father, it being
impossible for me ever to be my own father. And it is these relations which
make me (what I am), when I come to possess them: I shall then be a father,
when I have a son; and a son, when I have a father. Now, if I am to be to
myself any one of these relations, I no longer have what I am myself to be:
neither a father, because I am to be my own father; nor a son, because I
shall be my own son. Moreover, inasmuch as I ought to leave one of these
relations in order to be the other; so, if I am to be both together, I
shall fail to be one while I possess not the other. For if I must be myself
my son, who am also a father, I now cease to have a son, since I am my own
son. But by reason of not having a son, since I am my own son, how can I be
a father? For I ought to have a son, in order to be a father. Therefore I
am not a son, because I have not a father, who makes a son. In like manner,
if I am myself my father, who am also a son, I no longer have a father, but
am myself my father. By not having a father, however, since I am my own
father, how can I be a son? For I ought to have a father, in order to be a
son. I cannot therefore be a father, because I have not a son, who makes a
father. Now all this must be the device of the devil--this excluding and
severing one from the other--since by including both together in one under
pretence of the Monarchy, he causes neither to be held and acknowledged, so
that He is not the Father, since indeed He has not the Son; neither is He
the Son, since in like manner He has not the Father: for while He is the
Father, He will not be the Son. In this way they hold the Monarchy, but
they hold neither the Father nor the Son. Well, but "with God nothing is
impossible."[9] True enough; who can be ignorant of it? Who also can be
unaware that "the things which are impossible with men are possible with
God?"[1] The foolish things also of the world hath God chosen to confound
the things which are wise."[2] We have read it all. Therefore, they argue,
it was not difficult for God to make Himself both a Father and a Son,
contrary to the condition of things among men. For a barren woman to have a
child against nature was no difficulty with God; nor was it for a virgin to
conceive. Of course nothing is "too hard for the Lord."[3] But if we choose
to apply this principle so extravagantly and harshly in our capricious
imaginations, we may then make out God to have done anything we please, on
the ground that it was not impossible for Him to do it. We must not,
however, because He is able to do all things suppose that He has actually
done what He has not done. But we must inquire whether He has really done
it. God could, if He had liked, have furnished man with wings to fly with,
just as He gave wings to kites. We must not, however, run to the conclusion
that He did this because He was able to do it. He might also have
extinguished Praxeas and all other heretics at once; it does not follow,
however, that He did, simply because He was able. For it was necessary that
there should be both kites and heretics; it was necessary also that the
Father should be crucified.[4] In one sense there will be something
difficult even for God--namely, that which He has not done---not because He
could not, but because He would not, do it. For with God, to be willing is
to be able, and to be unwilling is to be unable; all that He has willed,
however, He has both been able to accomplish, and has displayed His
ability. Since, therefore, if God had wished to make Himself a Son to
Himself, He had it in His power to do so; and since, if He had it in His
power, He effected His purpose, you will then make good your proof of His
power and His will (to do even this) when you shall have proved to us that
He actually did it.

CHAP.XI.--THE IDENTITY OF THE FATHER AND THESON, AS PRAXEAS HELD IT,
SHOWN TO BE FULL OF PERPLEXITY AND ABSURDITY. MANY SCRIPTURES QUOTED     IN
PROOF OF THE DISTINCTION OF THE DIVINE PERSONS OF THE TRINITY.

   It will be your duty, however, to adduce your proofs out of the
Scriptures as plainly as we do, when we prove that He made His Word a Son
to Himself. For if He calls Him Son, and if the Son is none other than He
who has proceeded from the other Himself, and if the Word has proceeded
from the Father Himself, He will then be the Son, and not Himself from whom
He proceeded. For the Father Himself did not proceed from Himself. Now, you
who say that the Father is the same as the Son, do really make the same
Person both to have sent forth from Himself (and at the same time to have
gone out from Himself as) that Being which is God. If it was possible for
Him to have done this, He at all events did not do it. You must bring forth
the proof which I require of you--one like my own; that is, (you must prove
to me) that the Scriptures show the Son and the Father to be the same, just
as on our side the Father and the Son are demonstrated to be distinct; I
say distinct, but not separate:[5] for as on my part I produce the words of
God Himself, "My heart hath emitted my most excellent Word,"[6] so you in
like manner ought to adduce in opposition to me some text where God has
said, "My heart hath emitted Myself as my own most excellent Word," in such
a sense that He is Himself both the Emitter and the Emitted, both He who
sent forth and He who was sent forth, since He is both the Word and God. I
bid you also observe,[7] that on my  side I advance the passage where the
Father said to the Son, "Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten
Thee."[8] If you want me to believe Him to be both the Father and the Son,
show me some other passage where it is declared, "The Lord said unto
Himself, I am my own Son, to-day have I begotten myself;" or again, "Before
the morning did I beget myself;"[9] and likewise, "I the Lord possessed
Myself the beginning of my ways for my own works; before all the hills,
too, did I beget myself; "[10] and whatever other passages are to the same
effect. Why, moreover, could God the Lord of all things, have hesitated to
speak thus of Himself, if the fact had been so? Was He afraid of not being
believed, if He had in so many words declared Himself to be both the Father
and the Son? Of one thing He was at any rate afraid--of lying. Of Himself,
too, and of His own truth, was He afraid. Believing Him, therefore, to be
the true God, I am sure that He declared nothing to exist in any other way
than according to His own dispensation and arrangement, and that He had
arranged nothing in any other way than according to His own declaration. On
your side, however, you must make Him out to be a liar, and an impostor,
and a tamperer with His word, if, when He was Himself a Son to Himself, He
assigned the part of His Son to be played by another, when all the
Scriptures attest the clear existence of, and distinction in (the Persons
of) the Trinity, and indeed furnish us with our Rule of faith, that He who
speaks; and He of whom He speaks, and to whom He speaks, cannot possibly
seem to be One and the Same. So absurd arid misleading a statement would be
unworthy of God, that, widen it was Himself to whom He was speaking, He
speaks rather to another, and not to His very self. Hear, then, other
utterances also of the Father concerning the Son by the mouth of Isaiah:
"Behold my Son, whom I have chosen; my beloved, in whom I am well pleased:
I will put my Spirit upon Him, and He shall bring forth judgment to the
Gentiles. "[1] Hear also what He says to the Son: "Is it a great thing for
Thee, that Thou shouldest be called my Son to raise up the tribes of Jacob,
and to restore the dispersed of Israel? I have given Thee for a light to
the Gentiles, that Thou mayest be their salvation to the end of the earth.
"[2] Hear now also the Son's utterances respecting the Father: "The Spirit
of the Lord is upon me, because He hath anointed me to preach the gospel
unto men."[3] He speaks of Himself likewise to the Father in the Psalm:
"Forsake me not until I have declared the might of Thine arm to all the
generation that is to come. "[4] Also to the same purport in another Psalm:
"O Lord, how are they increased that trouble me !"[5] But almost all the
Psalms which prophesy of[6] the person of Christ, represent the Son as
conversing with the Father--that is, represent Christ (as speaking) to God.
Observe also the Spirit speaking of the Father and the Son, in the
character of[7] a third Person: "The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit Thou on my
right hand, until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool. "[2] Likewise in the
words of Isaiah: "Thus saith the Lord to the Lord[9] mine Anointed. "[10]
Likewise, in the same prophet, He says to the Father respecting the Son:
"Lord, who hath believed our report, and to whom is the arm of  the Lord
revealed? We brought a report concerning Him, as if He were a little child,
as if He were a root in a dry ground, who had no form nor comeliness."[11]
These are a few testimonies out of many; for we do not pretend to bring up
all the passages of Scripture, because we have a tolerably large
accumulation of them in the various heads of our subject, as we in our
several chapters call them in as our witnesses in the fulness of their
dignity and authority.[12] Still, in these few quotations the distinction
of Persons in the Trinity is clearly set forth. For there is the Spirit
Himself who speaks, and the Father to whom He speaks, and the Son of whom
He speaks.[13] In the same manner, the other passages also establish each
one of several Persons in His special character--addressed as they in some
cases are to the Father or to the Son respecting the Son, in other cases to
the Son or to the Father concerning the Father, and again in other
instances to the (Holy) Spirit.

CHAP. XII.--OTHER QUOTATIONS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE ADDUCED IN PROOF OF THE
PLURALITY OF PERSONS IN THE GODHEAD.

   If the number of the Trinity also offends you, as if it were not
connected in the simple Unity, I ask you how it is possible for a Being who
is merely and absolutely One and Singular, to speak in plural phrase,
saying, "Let us make man in our own image, and after our own likeness;"[14]
whereas He ought to have said, "Let me make man in my own image, and after
my own likeness," as being a unique and singular Being? In the following
passage, however, "Behold the man is become as one of us,"[15] He is either
deceiving or amusing us in speaking plurally, if He is One only and
singular. Or was it to the angels that He spoke, as the Jews interpret the
passage, because these also acknowledge not the Son? Or was it because He
was at once the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, that He spoke to Himself
in plural terms, making Himself plural on that very account? Nay, it was
because He had already His Son close at His side, as a second Person, His
own Word, and a third Person also, the Spirit in the Word, that He
purposely adopted the plural phrase, "Let us make;" and, "in our image;"
and, "become as one of us." For with whom did He make man? and to whom did
He make him like? (The answer must be), the Son on the one hand, who was
one day to put on human nature; and the Spirit on the other, who was to
sanctify man. With these did He then speak, in the Unity of the Trinity, as
with His ministers and witnesses In the following text also He
distinguishes among the Persons: "So God created man in His own image; in
the image of God created He him."[1] Why say "image of God?" Why not "His
own image" merely, if He was only one who was the Maker, and if there was
not also One in whose image He made man? But there was One in whose image
God was making man, that is to say, Christ's image, who, being one day
about to become Man (more surely and more truly so), had already caused the
man to be called His image, who was then going to be formed of clay--the
image and similitude of the true and perfect Man. But in respect of the
previous works of the world what says the Scripture? Its first statement
indeed is made, when the Son has not yet appeared: "And God said, Let there
be light, and there was light."[2] Immediately there appears the Word,
"that true light, which lighteth man on his coming into the world,"[3] and
through Him also came light upon the world.[4] From that moment God willed
creation to be effected in the Word, Christ being present and ministering
unto Him: and so God created. And God said, "Let there be a firmament, ...
and God made the firmament;"[5] and God also said. "Let there be lights (in
the firmament); and so God made a greater and a lesser light."[6] But all
the rest of the created things did He in like manner make, who made the
former ones--I mean the Word of God. "through whom all things were made,
and without whom nothing was made."[7] Now if He too is God, according to
John, (who says.) "The Word was God,"[8] then you have two Beings--One that
commands that the thing be made. and the Other that executes the order and
creates. In what sense, however, you ought to understand Him to be another.
I have already explained, on the ground of Personality, not of Substance--
in the way of distinction, not of division.[9] But although I must
everywhere hold one only substance in three coherent and inseparable
(Persons), yet I am bound to acknowledge, from the necessity of the case,
that He who issues a command is different from Him who  executes it. For,
indeed, He would not be  issuing a command if He were all the while doing
the work Himself, while ordering it to be done by the second.[10] But still
He did issue the command, although He would not have intended to command
Himself if He were only one; or else He must have worked without any
command, because He would not have waited to command Himself.

CHAP. XIII.--THE FORCE OF SUNDRY PASSAGES OF SCRIPTURE ILLUSTRATED IN
RELATION TO THE PLURALITY OF PERSONS AND UNITY OF SUBSTANCE. THERE IS NO
POLYTHEISM HERE, SINCE THE UNITY IS INSISTED ON AS A REMEDY AGAINST
POLYTHEISM.

   Well then, you reply, if He was God who spoke, and He was also God who
created, at this rate, one God spoke and another created; (and thus) two
Gods are declared. If you are so venturesome and harsh, reflect a while;
and that you may think the better and more deliberately, listen to the
psalm in which Two are described as God: "Thy throne, O God, is for ever
and ever; the sceptre of Thy kingdom is a sceptre of righteousness. Thou
hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity: therefore God, even Thy God,
hath anointed Thee or made Thee His Christ."[11] Now, since He here speaks
to God, and affirms that God is anointed by God, He must have affirmed that
Two are God, by reason of the sceptre's royal power. Accordingly, Isaiah
also says to the Person of Christ: "The Sabaeans, men of stature, shall
pass over to Thee; and they shall follow after Thee, bound in fetters; and
they shall worship Thee, because God is in Thee: for Thou art our God, yet
we knew it not; Thou art the God of Israel."[12] For here too, by saying,
"God is in Thee, and "Thou art God," he sets forth Two who were God: (in
the former expression in Thee, he means) in Christ, and (in the other he
means) the Holy Ghost. That is a still grander statement which you will
find expressly made in the Gospel: "In the beginning was the Word, and the
Word was with God, and the Word was God."[13] There was One "who was," and
there was another "with whom" He was. But I find in Scripture the name LORD
also applied to them Both: "The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit Thou on my
right hand."[14] And Isaiah says this: "Lord, who hath believed our report,
and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?"[15] Now he would most
certainly have said Thine Arm, if he had not wished us to understand that
the Father is Lord, and the Son also is Lord. A much more ancient testimony
we have also in Genesis: "Then the Lord rained upon Sodore and upon
Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven."[1] Now, either
deny that this is Scripture; or else (let me ask) what sort of man you are,
that you do not think words ought to be taken and understood in the sense
in which they are written, especially when they are not expressed in
allegories and parables, but in determinate and simple declarations? If,
indeed, you follow those who did not at the time endure the Lord when
showing Himself to be the Son of God, because they would not believe Him to
be the Lord, then (I ask you)call to mind along with them the passage where
it is written, "I have said, Ye are gods, and ye are children of the Most
High;"[2] and again, "God standeth in the congregation of gods;"[3] in
order that, if the Scripture has not been afraid to designate as gods human
beings, who have become sons of God by faith, you may be sure that the same
Scripture has with greater propriety conferred the name of the Lord on the
true and one-only Son of God. Very well! you say, I shall challenge you to
preach from this day forth (and that, too, on the authority of these same
Scriptures) two Gods and two Lords, consistently with your views. God
forbid, (is my reply.) For we, who by the grace of God possess an insight
into both the times and the occasions of the Sacred Writings, especially we
who are followers of the Paraclete, not of human teachers, do indeed
definitively declare that Two Beings are God, the Father and the Son, and,
with the addition of the Holy Spirit, even Three, according to the
principle of the divine economy, which introduces number, in order that the
Father may not, as you perversely infer, be Himself believed to have been
born and to have suffered, which it is not lawful to believe, forasmuch as
it has not been so handed down. That there are, however, two Gods or two
Lords, is a statement which at no time proceeds out of our mouth: not as if
it were untrue that the Father is God, and the Son is God, and the Holy
Ghost is God, and each is God; but because in earlier times Two were
actually spoken of as God, and two as Lord, that when Christ should come He
might be both acknowledged as God and designated as Lord, being the Son of
Him who is both God and Lord. Now, if there were found in the Scriptures
but one Personality of Him who is God and Lord, Christ would justly enough
be inadmissible to the title of God and Lord: for (in the Scriptures) there
was declared to be none other than One God and One Lord, and it must have
followed that the Father should Himself seem to have come down (to earth),
inasmuch as only One God and One Lord was ever read of (in the Scriptures),
and His entire Economy would be involved in obscurity, which has been
planned and arranged with so clear a foresight in His providential
dispensation as matter for our faith. As soon, however, as Christ came, and
was recognised by us as the very Being who had from the beginning[4] caused
plurality[5] (in the Divine Economy), being the second from the Father, and
with the Spirit the third, and Himself declaring and manifesting the Father
more fully (than He had ever been before), the title of Him who is God and
Lord was at once restored to the Unity (of the Divine Nature), even because
the Gentiles would have to pass from the multitude of their idols to the
One Only God, in order that a difference might be distinctly settled
between the worshippers of One God and the votaries of polytheism. For it
was only right that Christians should shine in the world as "children of
light," adoring and invoking Him who is the One God and Lord as "the light
of the world." Besides, if, from that perfect knowledge[6] which assures us
that the title of God and Lord is suitable both to the Father, and to the
Son, and to the Holy Ghost, we were to invoke a plurality of gods and
lords, we should quench our torches, and we should become less courageous
to endure the martyr's sufferings, from which an easy escape would
everywhere lie open to us, as soon as we swore by a plurality of gods and
lords, as sundry heretics do, who hold more gods than One. I will therefore
not speak of gods at all, nor of lords, but I shall follow the apostle; so
that if the Father and the Son, are alike to be invoked, I shall call the
Father "God," and invoke Jesus Christ as "Lord."[7] But when Christ alone
(is mentioned), I shall be able to call Him "God," as the same apostle
says: "Of whom is Christ, who is over all, God blessed for ever."[8] For I
should give the name of" sun" even to a sunbeam, considered in itself; but
if I were mentioning the sun from which the ray emanates, I certainly
should at once withdraw the name of sun from the mere beam. For although I
make not two suns, still I shall reckon both the sun and its ray to be as
much two things and two forms[1] of one undivided substance, as God and His
Word, as the Father and the Son.

CHAP. XIV.--THE NATURAL INVISIBILITY OF THE FATHER, AND THE VISIBILITY OF
THE SON WITNESSED IN MANY PASSAGES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. ARGUMENTS OF THEIR
DISTINCTNESS, THUS SUPPLIED.

   Moreover, there comes to our aid, when we insist upon the Father and
the Son as being Two, that regulating principle which has determined God to
be invisible. When Moses in Egypt desired to see the face of the Lord,
saying, "If therefore I have found grace in Thy sight, manifest Thyself
unto me, that I may see Thee and know Thee,"[2] God said, "Thou canst not
see my face; for there shall no man see me, and live: "[3] in other words,
he who sees me shall die. Now we find that God has been seen by many
persons, and yet that no one who saw Him died (at the sight). The truth is,
they saw God according to the faculties of men, but not in accordance with
the full glory of the Godhead. For the patriarchs are said to have seen God
(as Abraham and Jacob), and the prophets (as, for instance Isaiah and
Ezekiel), and yet they did not die. Either, then, they ought to have died,
since they had seen Him--for (the sentence runs), "No man shall see God,
and live ;" or else if they saw God, and yet did not die, the Scripture is
false in stating that God said, "If a man see my face, he shall not live."
Either way, the Scripture misleads us, when it makes God invisible, and
when it produces Him to our sight. Now, then, He must be a different Being
who was seen, because of one who was seen it could not be predicated that
He is invisible. It will therefore follow, that by Him who is invisible we
must understand the Father in the fulness of His majesty, while we
recognise the Son as visible by reason of the dispensation of His derived
existence;[4] even as it is not permitted us to contemplate, the sun, in
the full amount of his substance which is in the heavens, but we can only
endure with our eyes a ray, by reason of the tempered condition of this
portion which is projected from him to the earth. Here some one on the
other side may be disposed to contend that the Son is also invisible as
being the Word, and as being also the Spirit;[5] and, while claiming one
nature for the Father and the Son, to affirm that the Father is rather One
and the Same Person with the Son. But the Scripture, as we have said,
maintains their difference by the distinction it makes between the Visible
and the Invisible. They then go on to argue to this effect, that if it was
the Son who then spake to Moses, He must mean it of Himself that His face
was visible to no one, because He was Himself indeed the invisible Father
in the name of the Son. And by this means they will have it that the
Visible and the Invisible are one and the same, just as the Father and the
Son are the same; (and this they maintain) because in a preceding passage,
before He had refused (the sight of) His  face to Moses, the Scripture
informs us that "the Lord spake face to face with Moses, even as a man
speaketh unto his friend; "[6]   just as Jacob also says, "I have seen God
face to face."[7] Therefore the Visible and the Invisible are one and the
same; and both being thus the same, it follows that He is invisible as the
Father, and visible as the Son. As if the Scripture, according to our
exposition of it, were inapplicable to the Son, when the Father is set
aside in His own invisibility. We declare, however, that the Son also,
considered in Himself (as the Son), is invisible, in that He is God, and
the Word and Spirit of God; but that He was visible before the days of His
flesh, in the way that He says to Aaron and Miriam, "And if there shall be
a prophet amongst you, I will make myself known to him in a vision, and
will speak to him in a dream; not as with Moses, with whom I shall speak
mouth to mouth, even apparently, that is to say, in truth, and not
enigmatically" that is to say, in image;[8] as the apostle also expresses
it, "Now we see through a glass, darkly (or enigmatically), but then face
to face."[9] Since, therefore, He reserves to some future time His presence
and speech face to face with Moses--a promise which was afterwards
fulfilled in the retirement of the mount (of transfiguration), when as we
read in the Gospel," Moses appeared talking with Jesus"[10]--it is evident
that in early times it was always in a glass, (as it were,)and an enigma,
in vision and dream, that God, I mean the Son of God, appeared--to the
prophets and the patriarchs, as also to Moses indeed himself. And even if
the Lord did possibly[11] speak with him face to face, yet it was not as
man that he could behold His face, unless indeed it was in a glass, (as it
were,) and by enigma. Besides, if the Lord so spake with Moses, that Moses
actually discerned His face, eye to eye,[12] how comes it to pass that
immediately afterwards, on the same occasion, he desires to see His
face,[1] which he ought not to have desired, because he had already seen
it? And how, in like manner, does the Lord also Say that His face cannot be
seen, because He had shown it, if indeed He really had, (as our opponents
suppose.) Or what is that fade of God, the sight of which is refused, if
there was one which was visible to man? "I have seen God," says Jacob,
"face to face, and my life is preserved."[2] There ought to be some other
face which kills if it be only seen. Well, then, was the Son visible?
(Certainly not,[3]) although He was the face of God, except only in vision
and dream, and in a glass and enigma, because the Word and Spirit (of God)
cannot be seen except in an imaginary form. But, (they say,) He calls the
invisible Father His face. For who is the Father? Must He not be the face
of the Son, by reason of that authority which He obtains as the begotten of
the Father? For is there not a natural propriety in saying of some
personage greater (than yourself), That man is my face;  he gives me his
countenance? "My Father,"  says Christ, "is greater than I."[4] Therefore
the Father must be the face of the Son. For what does the Scripture say?
"The Spirit of His person is Christ the Lord."[5] As therefore Christ is
the Spirit of the Father's person, there is good reason why, in virtue
indeed of the unity, the Spirit of Him to whose person He belonged--that is
to say, the Father--pronounced Him to be His "face." Now this, to be sure,
is an astonishing thing, that the Father can be taken to be the face of the
Son, when He is His head; for "the head of Christ is God."[6]

CHAP. XV.--NEW TESTAMENT PASSAGES QUOTED. THEY ATTEST THE SAME TRUTH OF
THE SON'S VISIBILITY CONTRASTED WITH THE FATHER'S INVISIBILITY.

   If I fail in resolving this article (of our faith) by passages which
may admit of dispute[7] out of the Old Testament, I will take out of the
New Testament a confirmation of our view, that you may not straightway
attribute to the Father every possible (relation and condition) which I
ascribe to the Son. Behold, then, I find both in the Gospels and in the
(writings of the) apostles a visible and an invisible God (revealed to us),
under a manifest and personal distinction in the condition of both. There
is a certain emphatic saying by John: "No man hath seen God at any
time;''[8] meaning, of course, at any previous time But he has indeed taken
away all question of time, by saying that God had never been seen. The
apostle confirms this statement; for, speaking of God, he says, "Whom no
man hath seen, nor can see;"[9] because the man indeed would die who should
see Him.[10] But the very same apostles testify that they had both seen and
"handled" Christ." Now, if Christ is Himself both the Father and the Son,
how can He be both the Visible and the Invisible? In order, however, to
reconcile this diversity between the Visible and the Invisible, will not
some one on the other side argue that the two statements are quite correct:
that He was visible indeed in the flesh, but was invisible before His
appearance in the flesh; so that He who as the Father was invisible before
the flesh, is the same as the Son who was visible in the flesh? If,
however, He is the same who was invisible before the incarnation, how comes
it that He was actually seen in ancient times before (coming in) the flesh?
And by parity of reasoning, if He is the same who was visible after (coming
in) the flesh, how happens it that He is now declared to be invisible by
the apostles? How, I repeat, can all this be, unless it be that He is one,
who anciently was visible only in mystery and enigma, and became more
clearly visible by His incarnation, even the Word who was also made flesh;
whilst He is another whom no man has seen at any time, being none else than
the Father, even Him to whom the Word belongs? Let us, in short, examine
who it is whom the apostles saw. "That," says John, "which we have seen
with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of
the Word of life."[12] Now the Word of life became flesh, and was heard,
and was seen, and was handled, because He was flesh who, before He came in
the flesh, was the "Word in the beginning with God" the Father,[13] and not
the Father with the Word. For although the Word was God, yet was He with
God, because He is God of God; and being joined to the Father, is with the
Father.[14] "And we have seen His glory, the glory as of the only begotten
of the Father; "[15] that is, of course, (the glory) of the Son, even Him
who was visible, and was glorified by the invisible Father. And therefore,
inasmuch as he had said that the Word of God was God, in order that he
might give no help to the presumption of the adversary, (which pretended)
that he had seen the Father Himself and in order to draw a distinction
between the invisible Father and the visible Son, he makes the additional
assertion, ex abundanti as it were: "No man hath seen God at any time.''[1]
What God does he mean? The Word? But he has already said: "Him we have seen
and heard, and our hands have handled the Word of life." Well, (I must
again ask,) what God does he mean? It is of course the Father, with whom
was the Word, the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, and
has Himself declared Him.[2] He was both heard and seen and, that He might
not be supposed to be a phantom, was actually handled. Him, too, did Paul
behold; but yet he saw not the Father. "Have I not," he says, "seen Jesus
Christ our Lord?"[3] Moreover, he expressly called Christ God, saying: "Of
whom are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who
is over all, God blessed for ever."[4] He shows us also that the Son of
God, which is the Word of God, is visible, because He who became flesh was
called Christ. Of the Father, however, he says to Timothy: "Whom none among
men hath seen, nor indeed can see;" and he accumulates the description in
still ampler terms: "Who only hath immortality, and dwelleth in the light
which no man can approach unto."[5] It was of Him, too, that he had said in
a previous passage: "Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, to the
only God;"[6] so that we might apply even the contrary qualities to the Son
Himself--mortality, accessibility--of whom the apostle testifies that "He
died according to the Scriptures,"[7] and that "He was seen by himself last
of all,"[8]--by means, of course, of the light which was accessible,
although it was not without imperilling his sight that he experienced that
light.[9] A like danger to which also befell Peter, and John, and James,
(who confronted not the same light) without risking the loss of their
reason and mind; and if they, who were unable to endure the glory of the
Son,[10] had only seen the Father, they must have died then and there: "For
no man shall see God, and live."[11] This being the case, it is evident
that He was always seen from the beginning, who became visible in the end;
and that He, (on the contrary,) was not seen in the end who had never been
visible from the beginning; and that accordingly there are two--the Visible
and the Invisible. It was the Son, therefore, who was always seen, and the
Son who always conversed with men, and the Son who has always worked by the
authority and will of the Father; because "the Son can do nothing of
Himself, but what He seeth the Father do"[12]--"do" that is, in His mind
and thought.[13] For the Father acts by mind and thought; whilst the Son,
who is in the Father's mind and thought,[14] gives effect and form to what
He sees. Thus all things were made by tile Son, and without Him was not
anything made.[15]

CHAP. XVI.--EARLY MANIFESTATIONS OF THE SON OF GOD, AS RECORDED IN THE
OLD TESTAMENT; REHEARSALS OF HIS SUBSEQUENT INCARNATION.

   But you must not suppose that only the works which relate to the
(creation of the) world were made by the Son, but also whatsoever since
that time has been done by God. For "the Father who loveth the Son, and
hath given all things into His hand,"[16] loves Him indeed from the
beginning, and from  the very first has handed all things over to Him.
Whence it is written, "From the beginning the Word was with God, and the
Word was God;"[17] to whom "is given by the Father all power in heaven and
on earth."[18] "The Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment
to the Son"[19]--from the very beginning even. For when He speaks of all
power and all judgment, and says that all things were made by Him, and all
things have been delivered into His hand, He allows no exception (in
respect) of time, because they would not be all things unless they were the
things of all time. It is the Son, therefore, who has been from the
beginning administering judgment, throwing down the haughty tower, and
dividing the tongues, punishing the whole world by the violence of waters,
raining upon Sodom and Gomorrah fire and brimstone, as the LORD from the
LORD. For He it was who at all times came down to hold converse with men,
from Adam on to the patriarchs and the prophets, in vision, in dream, in
mirror, in dark saying; ever from the beginning laying the foundation of
the course of His dispensations, which He meant to follow out to the very
last. Thus was He ever learning even as God to converse with men upon
earth, being no other than the Word which was to be made flesh. But He was
thus learning (or rehearsing), in order to level for us the way of faith,
that we might the more readily believe that the Son of God had come down
into the world, if we knew that in times past also something similar had
been done.[1] For as it was on our account and for our learning that these
events are described in the Scriptures, so for our sakes also were they
done--(even ours, I say), "upon whom the ends of the world are come."[2] In
this way it was that even then He knew full well what human feelings and
affections were, intending as He always did to take upon Him man's actual
component substances, body and soul, making inquiry of Adam (as if He were
ignorant),[3] "Where art thou, Adam? "[4]--repenting that He had made man,
as if He had lacked foresight;[5] tempting Abraham, as if ignorant of what
was in man; offended with persons, and then reconciled to them; and
whatever other (weaknesses and imperfections) the heretics lay hold of (in
their assumptions) as unworthy of God, in order to discredit the Creator,
not considering that these circumstances are suitable enough for the Son,
who was one day to experience even human sufferings--hunger and thirst, and
tears, and actual birth and real death, and in respect of such a
dispensation "made by the Father a little less than the angels."[6] But the
heretics, you may be sure, will not allow that those things are suitable
even to the Son of God, which you are imputing to the very Father Himself,
when you pretend[7] that He made Himself less (than the angels) on our
account; whereas the Scripture informs us that He who was made less was so
affected by another, and not Himself by Himself. What, again, if He was One
who was "crowned with glory and honour," and He Another by whom He was so
crowned,[8]--the Son, in fact, by the Father? Moreover, how comes it to
pass, that the Almighty Invisible God, "whom no man hath seen nor can see;
He who dwelleth in light unapproachable;"[9] "He who dwelleth not in
temples made with hands;"[10] " from before whose sight the earth trembles,
and the mountains melt like wax; "[12] who holdeth the whole world in His
hand "like a nest;"[12] "whose throne is heaven, and earth His
footstool;"[13] in whom is every place, but Himself is in no place; who is
the utmost bound of the universe;--how happens it, I say, that He (who,
though) the Most High, should yet have walked in paradise towards the coal
of the evening, in quest of Adam; and should have shut up the ark after
Noah had entered it; and at Abraham's tent should have refreshed Himself
under an oak; and have called to Moses out of the burning bush; and have
appeared as "the fourth" in the furnace of the Babylonian monarch (although
He is there called the Son of man),--unless all these events had happened
as an image, as a mirror, as an enigma (of the future incarnation)? Surely
even these things could not have been believed even of the Son of God,
unless they had been given us in the Scriptures; possibly also they could
not have been believed of the Father, even if they had been given in the
Scriptures, since these men bring Him down into Mary's womb, and set Him
before Pilate's judgment-seat, and bury Him in the sepulchre of Joseph.
Hence, therefore, their error becomes manifest; for, being ignorant that
the entire order of the divine administration has from the very first had
its course through the agency of the Son, they believe that the Father
Himself was actually seen, and held converse with men. and worked, and was
athirst, and suffered hunger (in spite of the prophet who says: "The
everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, shall
never thirst at all, nor be hungry;"[14] much more, shall neither die at
any time, nor be buried!), and therefore that it was uniformly one God,
even the Father, who at all times did Himself the things which were really
done by Him through the agency of the Son.

CHAP. XVII.--SUNDRY AUGUST TITLES, DESCRIPTIVE OF DEITY, APPLIED TO THE
SON, NOT, AS PRAXEAS WOULD HAVE IT, ONLY TO THE FATHER.

   They more readily supposed that the Father acted in the Son's name,
than that the Son acted in the Father's; although the Lord says Himself, "I
am come in my Father's name;"[15] and even to the Father He declares, "I
have manifested Thy name unto these men;"[1] whilst the Scripture likewise
says, "Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord,"[2] that is to
say, the Son in the Father's name. And as for the  Father's names, God
Almighty, the Most High, the Lord of hosts, the King of Israel, the "One
that is," we say (for so much do the Scriptures teach us) that they
belonged suitably to the Son also, and that the Son came under these
designations, and has always acted in them, and has thus manifested them in
Himself to men. "All things," says He, "which the Father hath are mine."[3]
Then why not His names also? When, therefore, you read of Almighty God, and
the Most High, and the God of hosts, and the King of Israel the "One that
is," consider whether the Son also be not indicated by these designations,
who in His own right is God Almighty, in that He is the Word of Almighty
God, and has received power over all; is the Most High, in that He is
"exalted at the right hand of God," as Peter declares in the Acts;[4] is
the Lord of hosts, because all things are by the Father made subject to
Him; is the King of Israel because to Him has especially been committed the
destiny of that nation; and is likewise "the One that is," because there
are many who are called Sons, but are not. As to the point maintained by
them, that the name of Christ belongs also to the Father, they shall hear
(what I have to say) in the proper place. Meanwhile, let this be my
immediate answer to the argument which they adduce from the Revelation of
John: "I am the Lord which is, and which was, and which is to come, the
Almighty; "[5] and from all other passages which in their opinion make the
designation of Almighty God unsuitable to the Son. As if, indeed, He which
is to came were not almighty; whereas even the Son of the Almighty is as
much almighty as the Son of God is God.

CHAP. XVIII.--THE DESIGNATION OF THE ONE GOD IN THE PROPHETIC SCRIPTURES.
INTENDED AS A PROTEST AGAINST HEATHEN IDOLATRY, IT DOES NOT PRECLUDE THE
CORRELATIVE IDEA OF THE SON OF GOD. THE SON IS IN THE FATHER.

   But what hinders them from readily perceiving this community of the
Father's titles in the Son, is the statement of Scripture, whenever it
determines God to be but One; as if the selfsame Scripture had not also set
forth Two both as God and Lord, as we have shown above.[6] Their argument
is: Since we find Two and One, therefore Both are One and the Same, both
Father and Son. Now the Scripture is not in danger of requiring the aid of
any one's argument, lest it should seem to be self-contradictory. It has a
method of its own, both when it sets forth one only God, and also when it
shows that there are Two, Father and Son; and is consistent with itself. It
is clear that the Son is mentioned by it. For, without any detriment to the
Son, it is quite possible for it to have rightly determined that God is
only One, to whom the Son belongs; since He who has a Son ceases not on
that account to exist,--Himself being One only, that is, on His own
account, whenever He is named without the Son. And He is named without the
Son whensoever He is defined as the principle (of Deity)in the character of
"its first Person," which had to be mentioned before the name of the Son;
because it is the Father who is acknowledged in the first place, and after
the Father the Son is named. Therefore "there is one God," the Father, "and
without Him there is none else."[7] And when He Himself makes this
declaration, He denies not the Son, but says that there is no other God;
and the Son is not different from the Father. Indeed, if you only look
carefully at the contexts which follow such statements as this, you will
find that they nearly always have distinct reference to the makers of idols
and the worshippers thereof, with a view to the multitude of false gods
being expelled by the unity of the Godhead, which nevertheless has a Son;
and inasmuch as this Son is undivided and inseparable from the Father, so
is He to be reckoned as being in the Father, even when He is not named. The
fact is, if He had named Him expressly, He would have separated Him, saying
in so many words: "Beside me there is none else, except my Son." In short
He would have made His Son actually another, after excepting Him from
others. Suppose the sun to say, "I am the Sun, and there is none other
besides me, except my ray," would you not have remarked how useless was
such a statement, as if the ray were not itself reckoned in the sun? He
says, then, that there is no God' besides Himself in respect of the
idolatry both of the Gentiles as well as of Israel; nay, even on account of
our heretics also, who fabricate idols with their words, just as the
heathen do with their hands; that is to say, they make another God and
another Christ. When, therefore, He attested His own unity, the Father took
care of the Son's interests, that Christ should not be supposed to have
come from another God, but from Him who had already said, "I am God and
there is none other beside me,"[1] who shows us that He is the only God,
but in company with His Son, with whom "He stretcheth out the heavens
alone." [2]

CHAP. XIX.--THE SON IN UNION WITH THE FATHER IN THE CREATION OF ALL THINGS.
THiS UNION OF THE TWO IN CO-OPERATION IS NOT OPPOSED TO THE TRUE UNITY OF
GOD. IT IS OPPOSED ONLY TO PRAXEAS' IDENTIFICATION THEORY.

   But this very declaration of His they will hastily pervert into an
argument of His singleness. "I have," says He, "stretched out the heaven
alone." Undoubtedly alone as regards all other powers; and He thus gives a
premonitory evidence against the conjectures of the heretics, who maintain
that the world was constructed by various angels and powers, who also make
the Creator Himself to have been either an angel or some subordinate agent
sent to form external things, such as the constituent parts of the world,
but who was at the same time ignorant of the divine purpose. If, now, it is
in this sense that He stretches out the heavens alone, how is it that these
heretics assume their position so perversely, as to render inadmissible the
singleness of that Wisdom which says, "When He prepared the heaven, I was
present with Him? "[3]--even though the apostle asks, "Who hath known the
mind of the Lord, or who hath been His counsellor?"[4] meaning, of course,
to except that wisdom which was present with Him.[5] In Him, at any rate,
and with Him, did (Wisdom) construct the universe, He not being ignorant of
what she was making. "Except Wisdom," however, is a phrase of the same
sense exactly as "except the Son," who is Christ, "the Wisdom and Power of
God,"[6] according to the apostle, who only knows the mind of the Father.
"For who knoweth the things that be in God, except the Spirit which is in
Him?"[7] Not, observe, without Him. There was therefore One who caused God
to be not alone, except "alone" from all other gads. But (if we are to
follow the heretics), the Gospel itself will have to be rejected, because
it tells us that all things were made by God through the Word, without whom
nothing was made.[8] And if I am not mistaken, there is also another
passage in which it is written: "By the Word of the Lord were the heavens
made, and all the hosts of them by His Spirit."[9] Now this Word, the Power
of God and the Wisdom of God, must be the very Son of God. So that, if (He
did) all things by the Son, He must have stretched out the heavens by the
Son, and so not have stretched them out alone, except in the sense in which
He is "alone" (and apart) from all other gods. Accordingly He says,
concerning the Son, immediately afterwards: "Who else is it that
frustrateth the tokens of the liars, and maketh diviners mad, turning wise
men backward, and making their knowledge foolish, and confirming the
words[10] of His Son?"[11]--as, for instance, when He said, "This is my
beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye Him."[12] By thus attaching
the Son to Himself, He becomes His own interpreter in what sense He
stretched out the heavens alone, meaning alone with His Son, even as He is
one with His Son. The utterance, therefore, will be in like manner the
Son's, "I have stretched out the heavens alone,''[13] because by the Word
were the heavens established.[14] Inasmuch, then, as the heaven was
prepared when Wisdom was present in the Word, and since all things were
made by the Word, it is quite correct to say that even the Son stretched
out the heaven alone, because He alone ministered to the Father's work. It
must also be He who says, "I am the First, and to all futurity I AM."[15]
The Word, no doubt, was before all things. "In the beginning was the
Word;"[16] and in that beginning He was sent forth[17] by the Father. The
Father, however, has no beginning, as proceeding from none; nor can He be
seen, since He was not begotten. He who has always been alone could never
have had order or rank. Therefore, if they have determined that the Father
and the Son must be regarded as one and the same, for the express purpose
of vindicating the unity of God, that unity of His is preserved intact; for
He is one, and yet He has a Son, who is equally with Himself comprehended
in the same Scriptures. Since they are unwilling to allow that the Son is a
distinct Person, second from the Father, lest, being thus second, He should
cause two Gods to be spoken of, we have shown above[18] that Two are
actually described in Scripture as God and Lord. And to prevent their being
offended at this fact, we give a reason why they are not said to be two
Gods and two Lords, but that they are two as Father and Son; and this not
by severance of their substance, but from the dispensation wherein we
declare the Son to be undivided and inseparable from the Father,--distinct
in degree, not in state. And although, when named apart, He is called God,
He does not thereby constitute two Gods, but one; and that from the very
circumstance that He is entitled to be called God, from His union with the
Father.

CHAP. XX.--THE SCRIPTURES RELIED ON BY PRAXEAS TO SUPPORT HIS HERESY BUT
FEW. THEY ARE MENTIONED BY TERTULLIAN.

   But I must take some further pains to rebut their arguments, when they
make selections from the Scriptures in support of their opinion, and refuse
to consider the other points, which obviously maintain the rule of faith
without any infraction of the unity of the Godhead, and with the full
admission[1] of the Monarchy. For as in the Old Testament Scriptures they
lay hold of nothing else than, "I am God, and beside me there is no God
;"[2] so in the Gospel they simply keep in view the Lord's answer to
Philip, "I and my Father are one;"[3] and, "He that hath seen me hath seen
the Father; and I am in the Father, and the Father in me."[4] They would
have the entire revelation of both Testaments yield to these three
passages, whereas the only proper course is to understand the few
statements in the light of the many. But in their contention they only act
on the principle of all heretics. For, inasmuch as only a few testimonies
are to be found (making for them) in the general mass, they pertinaciously
set off the few against the many, and assume the later against the earlier.
The rule, however, which has been from the beginning established for every
case, gives its prescription against the later assumptions, as indeed it
also does against the fewer.

CHAP. XXI.--IN THIS AND THE FOUR FOLLOWING CHAPTERS IT IS SHEWN, BY A
MINUTE ANALYSIS OF ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL, THAT THE FATHER AND SON ARE
CONSTANTLY SPOKEN OF AS DISTINCT PERSONS.

   Consider, therefore, how many passages present their prescriptive
authority to you in, this very Gospel before this inquiry of Philip, and
previous to any discussion on your part. And first of all there comes at
once to hand the preamble of John to his Gospel, which shows us what He
previously was who had to become flesh. "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 by Him, and without Him was nothing made."[5]
Now, since these words may not be taken otherwise than as they are written,
there is without doubt shown to be One who was from the beginning, and also
One with whom He always was: one the Word of God, the other God although
the Word is also God, but God regarded as the Son of God, not as the
Father); One through whom were all things, Another by whom were all things.
But in what sense we call Him Another we have already often described. In
that we called Him Another, we must needs imply that He is not identical--
not identical indeed, yet not as if separate; Other by dispensation, not by
division. He, therefore, who became flesh was not the very same as He from
whom the Word came. "His glory was beheld--the glory as of the only-
begotten of the Father;''[6] not, (observe,) as of the Father. He
"declared" (what was in) "the bosom of the Father alone;"[7] the Father did
not divulge the secrets of His own bosom. For this is preceded by another
statement: "No man hath seen God at any time."[8] Then, again, when He is
designated by John (the Baptist) as "the Lamb of God,"[9] He is not
described as Himself the same with Him of whom He is the beloved Son. He
is, no doubt, ever the Son of God, but yet not He Himself of whom He is the
Son. This (divine relationship) Nathanael at once recognised in Him,[10]
even as Peter did on another occasion: "Thou art the Son of God."[11] And
He affirmed Himself that they were quite right in their convictions; for He
answered Nathanael: "Because I said, I saw thee under the fig-tree,
therefore dose thou believe?''[12] And in the same manner He pronounced
Peter to be "blessed," inasmuch as "flesh and blood had not revealed it to
him"--that he had perceived the Father--"but the Father which is in
heaven."[13] By asserting all this, He determined the distinction which is
between the two Persons: that is, the Son then on earth, whom Peter had
confessed to be the Son of God; and the Father in heaven, who had revealed
to Peter the discovery which he had made, that Christ was the Son of God.
When He entered the temple, He called it "His Father's house,"[1] speaking
as the Son. In His address to Nicodemus He says: "So God loved the world,
that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should
not perish, but have everlasting life."[2] And again: "For God sent not His
Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him
might be saved. He that believeth on Him is not condemned; but he that
believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the
name of the only-begotten Son of God."[3] Moreover, when John (the Baptist)
was asked what he happened to know of Jesus, he said: "The Father loveth
the Son, and hath given all things into His hand. He that believeth on the
Son hath everlasting life; and he that believeth not the Son shall not see
life, but the wrath of God abideth on him.''[4] Whom, indeed, did He reveal
to the woman of Samaria? Was it not "the Messias which is called
Christ?''[5] And so lie showed, of course, that He was not the Father, but
the Son; and elsewhere He is expressly called "the Christ, the Son of God,"
[6] and not the Father. He says, therefore," My meat is to do the will of
Him that sent me, and to finish His work;''[7] whilst to the Jews He
remarks respecting the cure of the impotent man, "My Father worketh
hitherto, and  I work."[8] "My Father and I"--these are  the Son's words.
And it was on this very account that "the Jews sought the more intently  to
kill Him, not only because He broke the Sabbath, but also because He said
that God was His Father, thus making Himself equal with God. Then indeed
did He answer and say unto them, The Son can do nothing of Himself, but
what He seeth the Father do; for what things soever He doeth these also
doeth the Son likewise. For the Father loveth the Son, and showeth Him all
things that He Himself doeth; and He will also show Him greater works than
these, that ye may marvel. For as the Father raiseth up the dead and
quickeneth them, even so the Son also quickeneth whom He will. For the
Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son, that
all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father. He that
honoureth not the Son, honoureth not the Father, who hath sent the Son.
Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my words, and believeth on
Him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into
condemnation, but is passed from death unto life. Verily I say unto you,
that the hour is coming, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of
God; and when they have heard it, they shall live. For as the Father hath
eternal life in Himself, so also hath He given to the Son to have eternal
life in Himself; and He hath given Him authority to execute judgment also,
because He is the Son of man"[9]--that is, according to the flesh, even as
He is also the Son of God through His Spirit.[10] Afterwards He goes on to
say: "But I have greater witness than that of John; for the works which the
Father hath given me to finish--those very works bear witness of me that
the Father hath sent me. And the Father Himself, which hath sent me, hath
also borne witness of me."[11] But He at once adds, "Ye have neither heard
His voice at any time, nor seen His shape;"[12] thus affirming that in
former times it was not the Father, but the Son, who used to be seen and
heard. Then He says at last: "I am come in my Father's name, and ye have
not received me."[13] It was therefore always the Son (of whom we read)
under the designation of the Almighty and Most High God, and King, and
Lord. To those also who inquired "what the should do to work the works o
God,"[14] He answered, This is the work of God, that ye believe on Him whom
He hath sent."[15] He also declares Himself to be "the bread which the
Father sent from heaven;"[16] and adds, that "all that the Father gave Him
should come to Him, and that He Himself would not reject them," because He
had come down from heaven not to do His own will, but the will of the
Father; and that the will of the Father was that every one who saw the Son,
and believed on Him, should obtain the life (everlasting,) and the
resurrection at the last day. No man indeed was able to come to Him, except
the Father attracted him; whereas every one who had heard and learnt of the
Father came to Him."[18] He goes on then expressly to say, "Not that any
man hath seen the Father;"[19] thus showing us that it was through the Word
of the Father that men were instructed and taught. Then, when many departed
from Him,[1] and He turned to the apostles with the inquiry whether "they
also would go away,"[2] what was Simon Peter's answer? "To whom shall we
go? Thou hast the words of eternal life, and we believe that Thou an the
Christ."[3] (Tell me now, did they believe) Him to be the Father, or the
Christ of the Father?

CHAP. XXII.--SUNDRY PASSAGES OF ST. JOHN QUOTED, TO SHOW THE DISTINCTION
BETWEEN THE FATHER AND THE SON. EVEN PRAXEAS' CLASSIC TEXT--I AND MY FATHER
ARE ONE--SHOWN TO BE AGAINST HIM.

   Again, whose doctrine does He announce, at which all were
astonished?[4] Was it His own or the Father's? So, when they were in doubt
among themselves whether He were the Christ (not as being the Father, of
course but as the Son), He says to them "You are not ignorant whence I am;
and I am not come of myself, but He that sent me is true, whom ye know not;
but I know Him, because I am from Him."[5] He did not say, Because I myself
am He; and, I have sent mine own self: but His words are, "He hath sent
me." When, likewise, the Pharisees sent men to apprehend Him, He says: "Yet
a little while am I with you, and (then) I go unto Him that sent me."[6]
When, however, He declares that He is not alone, and uses these words, "but
I and the Father that sent me,"[7] does He not show that there are Two--
Two, and yet inseparable? Indeed, this was the sum: and substance of what
He was teaching them, that they were inseparably Two; since, after citing
the law when it affirms the truth of two men's testimony,[8] He adds at
once: "I am one who am bearing witness of myself; and  the Father (is
another,) who hath sent me, and beareth witness of me."[9] Now, if He were
one--being at once both the Son and the Father--He certainly would not have
quoted the sanction of the law, which requires not the testimony of one,
but of two. Likewise, when they asked Him where His Father was,[10] He
answered them, that they had known neither Himself nor the Father; and in
this answer He plainly told them of Two, whom they were ignorant of.
Granted that "if they had known Him, they would have known the Father
also,"[11] this certainly does not imply that He was Himself both Father
and Son; but that, by reason of the inseparability of the Two, it was
impossible for one of them to be either acknowledged or unknown without the
other. "He that sent me," says He, "is true; and I am telling the world
those things which I have heard of Him."[12] And the Scripture narrative
goes  on to explain in an exoteric manner, that "they understood not that
He spake to them concerning the Father,"[13] although they ought certainly
to have known that the Father's words were uttered in the Son, because they
read in Jeremiah, "And the Lord said to me, Behold, I have put my words in
thy mouth;"[14] and again in Isaiah, "The Lord hath given to me the tongue
of learning that I should understand when to speak a word in season."[15]
In accordance with which, Christ Himself says: "Then shall ye know that I
am He and that I am saying nothing of my own self; but that, as my Father
hath taught me, so I speak, because He that sent me is with me."[16] This
also amounts to a proof that they were Two, (although) undivided. Likewise,
when upbraiding the Jews in His discussion with them, because they wished
to kill Him, He said, "I speak that which I have seen with my Father, and
ye do that which ye have seen with your father;"[17] "but now ye seek to
kill me, a man that hath told you the truth which I have heard of God;"[18]
and again, "If God were your Father, ye would love me, for I proceeded
forth and came from God "[19] (still they are not hereby separated,
although He declares that He proceeded forth from the Father. Some persons
indeed seize the opportunity afforded them in these words to propound their
heresy of His separation; but His coming out from God is like the ray's
procession from the sun, and the river's from the fountain, and the tree's
from the seed); "I have not a devil, but I honour my Father;"[20] again,
"If I honour myself, my honour is nothing: it is my Father that honoureth
me, of whom ye say, that He is your God: yet ye have not known Him, but I
know Him; and if I should say, I know Him not, I shall be a liar like unto
you; but I know Him, and keep His saying."[21] But when He goes on to say,
"Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day; and he saw it, and was
glad,"[1] He certainly proves that it was not the Father that appeared to
Abraham, but the Son. In like manner He declares, in the case of the man
barn blind, "that He must do the works of the Father which had sent
Him;"[2] and after He had given the man sight, He said to him, "Dost thou
believe in the Son of God?" Then, upon the man's inquiring who He was, He
proceeded to reveal Himself to him, as that Son of God whom He had
announced to him as the right object of his faith.[3] In a later passage He
declares that He is known by the Father, and the Father by Him;[4] adding
that He was so wholly loved by the Father, that He was laying down His
life, because He had received this commandment from the Father.[5] When He
was asked by the Jews if He were the very Christ[6] (meaning, of course,
the Christ of God; for to this day the Jews expect not the Father Himself,
but the Christ of God, it being nowhere said that the Father will come as
the Christ), He said to them, "I am telling you, and yet ye do not believe:
the works which I am doing, in my Father's name, they actually bear witness
of me."[7] Witness of what? Of that very thing, to be sure, of which they
were making in-quiry--whether He were the Christ of God. Then, again,
concerning His sheep, and (the assurance) that no man should pluck them out
of His hand,[8] He says, "My Father, which gave them to me, is greater than
all;"[9] adding immediately, "I am and my Father are one."[10] Here, then,
they take their stand, too infatuated, nay, too blind, to see in the first
place that there is in this passage an intimation of Two Beings--"I and my
Father;" then that there is a plural predicate, "are," inapplicable to one
person only; and lastly, that (the predicate terminates in an abstract, not
a personal noun)--"we are one thing" Unum, not "one person" Unus. For if He
had said "one Person," He might have rendered some assistance to their
opinion. Unus, no doubt, indicates the singular number; but (here we have a
case where) "Two" are still the subject in the masculine gender. He
accordingly says Unum, a neuter term, which does not imply singularity of
number, but unity of essence, likeness, conjunction, affection on the
Father's part, who loves the Son, and submission on the Son's, who obeys
the Father's will. When He says, "I and my Father are one" in essence--
Unum--He shows that there are Two, whom He puts on an equality and unites
in one. He therefore adds to this very statement, that He "had showed them
many works from the Father," for none of which did He deserve to be
stoned.[11] And to prevent their thinking Him deserving of this fate, as if
He had claimed to be considered as God Himself, that is, the Father, by
having said, "I and my Father are One," representing Himself as the
Father's divine Son, and not as God Himself, He says, "If it is written in
your law, I said, Ye are gods; and if the Scripture cannot be broken, say
ye of Him whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into the world, that He
blasphemeth, because He said, I am the Son of God? If I do not the works of
my Father, believe me not; but if I do, even if ye will not believe me,
still believe the works; and know that I am in the Father, and the Father
in me."[12] It must therefore be by the works that the Father is in the
Son, and the Son in the Father; and so it is by the works that we
understand that the Father is one with the Son. All along did He therefore
strenuously aim at this conclusion, that while they were of one power and
essence, they should still be believed to be Two; for otherwise, unless
they were believed to be Two, the Son could not possibly be believed to
have any existence at all.

CHAP. XXIII.--MORE PASSAGES FROM THE SAME GOSPEL IN PROOF OF THE SAME
PORTION OF THE CATHOLIC FAITH. PRAXEAS' TAUNT OF WORSHIPPING TWO GODS
REPUDIATED.

   Again, when Martha in a later passage acknowledged Him to be the Son of
God,[13] she no more made a mistake than Peter" and Nathanael[13] had; and
yet, even if she had made a mistake, she would at once have learnt the
truth: for, behold, when about to raise her brother from the dead, the Lord
looked up to heaven, and, addressing the Father, said--as the Son, of
course: "Father, I thank Thee that Thou always hearest me; it is because of
these crowds that are standing by that I have spoken to Thee, that they may
believe that Thou hast sent me." " But in the trouble of His soul, (on a
later occasion,) He said: "What shall I say? Father, save me from this
hour: but for this cause is it that I am come to this hour; only, O Father,
do Thou glorify Thy name"[17]--in which He spake as the Son. (At another
time) He said: "I  am come in my Father's name."[1] Accordingly, the Son's
voice was indeed alone sufficient, (when addressed) to the Father. But,
behold, with an abundance (of evidence)[2] the Father from heaven replies,
for the purpose of testifying to the Son: "This is my beloved Son, in whom
I am well pleased; hear ye Him."[3] So, again, in that asseveration, "I
have both glorified, and will glorify again,"[4] how many Persons do you
discover, obstinate Praxeas? Are there not as many as there are voices? You
have the Son on earth, you have the Father in heaven. Now this is not a
separation; it is nothing but the divine dispensation. We know, however,
that God is in the bottomless depths, and exists everywhere; but then it is
by power and authority. We are also sure that the Son, being indivisible
from Him, is everywhere with Him. Nevertheless, in the Economy or
Dispensation itself, the Father willed that the Son should be regarded[5]
as on earth, and Himself in heaven; whither the Son also Him. self looked
up, and prayed, and made supplication of the Father; whither also He taught
us to raise ourselves, and pray, "Our Father which art in heaven,"
etc.,[6]--although, indeed, He is everywhere present. This heaven the
Father willed to be His own throne; while He made the Son to be "a little
lower than the angels,"[7] by sending Him down to the earth, but meaning at
the same time to "crown Him with glory and honour,"[8] even by taking Him
back to heaven. This He now made good to Him when He said: "I have both
glorified Thee, and will glorify Thee again." The Son offers His request
from earth, the Father gives His promise from heaven. Why, then, do you
make liars of both the Father and the Son? If either the Father spake from
heaven to the Son when He Himself was the Son on earth, or the Son prayed
to the Father when He was Himself the Son in heaven, how happens it that
the Son made a request of His own very self, by asking it of the Father,
since the Son was the Father? Or, on the other hand, how is it that the
Father made a promise to Himself, by making it to the Son, since the Father
was the Son? Were we even to maintain that they are two separate gods, as
you are so fond of throwing out against us, it would be a more tolerable
assertion than the maintenance of so versatile and changeful a God as
yours! Therefore it was that in the passage before us the Lord declared to
the people present: "Not on my own account has this voice addressed me, but
for your sakes,"[9] that these likewise may believe both in the Father and
in the Son, severally, in their own names and persons and positions. "Then
again, Jesus exclaims, and says, He that believeth on me, believeth not on
me, but on Him that sent me;"[10] because it is through the Son that men
believe in the Father, while the Father also is the authority whence
springs belief in the Son. "And he that seeth me, seeth Him that sent
me."[11] How so? Even because, (as He afterwards declares,) "I have not
spoken from myself, but the Father which sent me: He hath given me a
commandment what I should say, and what I should speak."[12] For "the Lord
God hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know when I
ought to speak"[13] the word which I actually speak. "Even as the Father
hath said unto me, so do I speak."[14] Now, in what way these things were
said to Him, the evangelist and beloved disciple John knew better than
Praxeas; and therefore he adds concerning i his own meaning: "Now before
the feast of the passover, Jesus knew that the Father had given all things
into His hands, and that He had come from God, and was going to God."[15]
Praxeas, however, would have it that it was the Father who proceeded forth
from Himself, and had returned to Himself; so that what the devil put into
the heart of Judas was the betrayal, not of the Son, but of the Father
Himself. But for the matter of that, things have not turned out well either
for the devil or the heretic; because, even in the Son's case, the treason
which the devil wrought against Him contributed nothing to his advantage.
It was, then, the Son of God, who was in the Son of man, that was betrayed,
as the Scripture says afterwards: "Now is the Son of man glorified, and God
is glorified in Him."[16] Who is here meant by "God?" Certainly not the
Father, but the Word of the Father, who was in the Son of man--that is in
the flesh, in which Jesus had been already glorified by the divine power
and word. "And God," says He, "shall also glorify Him in Himself;"[17] that
is to say, the Father shall glorify the Son, because He has Him within
Himself; and even though prostrated to the earth, and put to death, He
would soon glorify Him by His resurrection, and making Him conqueror over
death.

CHAP. XXIV.--ON ST. PHILIP'S CONVERSATION WITH CHRIST. HE THAT HATH SEEN
ME, HATH SEEN THE FATHER. THIS TEXT EXPLAINED IN AN ANTI-PRAXEAN SENSE.

   But there were some who even then did not understand. For Thomas, who
was so long incredulous, said: "Lord, we know not whither Thou goest; and
how can we know the way? Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and
the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. If ye had known me, ye
would have known the Father also: but henceforth ye know Him, and have seen
Him."[1] And now we come to Philip, who, roused with the expectation of
seeing the Father, and not understanding in what sense he was to take
"seeing the Father," says: "Show us the Father, and it sufficeth us."[2]
Then the Lord answered him: "Have I been so long time with you, and yet
hast thou not known me, Philip?"[3] Now whom does He say that they ought to
have known?--for this is the sole point of discussion. Was it as the Father
that they ought to have known Him, or as the Son? If it was as the Father,
Praxeas must tell us how Christ, who had been so long time with them, could
have possibly ever been (I will not say understood, but even) supposed to
have been the Father. He is clearly defined to us in all Scriptures--in the
Old Testament as the Christ of God, in the New Testament as the Son of God.
In this character was He anciently predicted, in this was He also declared
even by Christ Himself; nay, by the very Father also, who openly confesses
Him from heaven as His Son, and as His Son glorifies Him. "This is my
beloved Son;" "I have glorified Him, and I will glorify Him." In this
character, too, was He believed on by His disciples, and rejected by the
Jews. It was, moreover, in this character that He wished to be accepted by
them whenever He named the Father, and gave preference to the Father, and
honoured the Father. This, then, being the case, it was not the Father
whom, after His lengthened intercourse with them, they were ignorant of,
but it was the Son; and accordingly the Lord, while upbraiding Philip for
not knowing Himself who was the object of their ignorance, wished Himself
to be acknowledged indeed as that Being whom He had reproached them for
being ignorant of after so long a time--in a word, as the Son. And now it
may be seen in what sense it was said, "He that hath seen me hath seen the
Father,"[4]--even in the same in which it was said in a previous passage,
"I and my Father are one."[5] Wherefore? Because "I came forth from the
Father, and am come into the world"[6] and, "I am the way: no man cometh
unto the Father, but by me;"[7] and, "No man can come to me, except the
Father draw him;"[8] and, "All things are delivered unto me by the
Father;"[9] and, "As the Father quickeneth (the dead), so also doth the
Son;"[10] and again, "If ye had known me, ye would have known the Father
also." "For in all these passages He had shown Himself to be the Father's
Commissioner," through whose agency even the Father could be seen in His
works, and heard in His words, and recognised in the Son's administration
of the Father's words and deeds. The Father indeed was invisible, as Philip
had learnt in the law, and ought at the moment to have remembered: "No man
shall see God, and live."[13] So he is reproved for desiring to see the
Father, as if He were a visible Being, and is taught that He only becomes
visible in the Son from His mighty works, and not in the manifestation of
His person. If, indeed, He meant the Father to be understood as the same
with the Son, by saying, "He who seeth me seeth the Father," how is it that
He adds immediately afterwards, "Believest thou not that I am in the
Father, and the Father in me?"[14] He ought rather to have said: "Believest
thou not that I am the Father?" With what view else did He so emphatically
dwell on this point, if it Were not to clear up that which He wished men to
understand--namely, that He was the Son? And then, again, by saying,
"Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me,"[15] He
laid the greater stress on His question on this very account, that He
should not, because He had said, "He that hath seen me, hath seen the
Father," be supposed to be the Father; because He had never wished Himself
to be so regarded, having always professed Himself to be the Son, and to
have come from the Father. And then He also set the conjunction of the two
Persons in the clearest light, in order that no wish might be entertained
of seeing the Father as if He were separately visible, and that the Son
might be regarded as the representative of the Father. And yet He omitted
not to explain how the Father was in the Son and the Son in the Father.
"The words," says He, "which I speak unto you, are not mine,"[1] because
indeed they were the Father's words; "but the Father that dwelleth in me,
He doeth the works."[2] It is therefore by His mighty works, and by the
words of His doctrine, that the Father who dwells in the Son makes Himself
visible--even by those wards and works whereby He abides in Him, and also
by Him in whom He abides; the special properties of Both the Persons being
apparent from this very circumstance, that He says, "I am in the Father,
and the Father is in me."[3] Accordingly He adds: "Believe--" What? That I
am the Father? I do not find that it is so written, but rather, "that I am
in the Father, and the Father in me; or else believe me for my works'
sake;"[4] meaning those works by which the Father manifested Himself to be
in the Son, not indeed to the sight of man, but to his intelligence.

CHAP. XXV.--THE PARACLETE, OR HOLY GHOST. HE IS DISTINCT FROM THE FATHER
AND THE SON AS TO THEIR PERSONAL EXISTENCE. ONE AND INSEPARABLE FROM THEM
AS TO THEIR DIVINE NATURE. OTHER QUOTATIONS OUT OF ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL.

   What follows Philip's question, and the Lord's whole treatment of it,
to the end of John's Gospel, continues to furnish us with statements of the
same kind, distinguishing the Father and the Son, with the properties of
each. Then there is the Paraclete or Comforter, also, which He promises to
pray for to the Father, and to send from heaven after He had ascended to
the Father. He is called "another Comforter," indeed;[3] but in what way He
is another we have already shown,[6] "He shall receive of mine," says
Christ,[7] just as Christ Himself received of the Father's. Thus the
connection of the Father in the Son, and of the Son in the Paraclete,
produces three coherent Persons, who are yet distinct One from Another.
These Three are, one[8] essence, not one Person,[9] as it is said, "I and
my Father are One,"[10]in respect of] unity of substance  not singularity
of number. Run through the whole Gospel, and you will find that He whom you
believe to be the Father (described as acting for the Father, although you,
for your part, forsooth, suppose that "the Father, being the
husbandman,"[11] must surely have been on earth) is once more recognised by
the Son as in heaven, when, "lifting up His eyes thereto,"[12] He commended
His disciples to the safe-keeping of the Father.[13] We have, moreover, in
that other Gospel a clear revelation, i.e. of the Son's distinction from
the Father, "My God, why hast Thou forsaken me?"[14] and again, (in the
third Gospel,) "Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit."[15] But even
if (we had not these passages, we meet with satisfactory evidence) after
His resurrection and glorious victory over death. Now that all the
restraint of His humiliation is taken away, He might, if possible, have
shown Himself as the Father to so faithful a woman (as Mary Magdalene) when
she approached to touch Him, out of love, not from curiosity, nor with
Thomas' incredulity. But not so; Jesus saith unto her, "Touch me not, for I
am not yet ascended to my Father; but go to my brethren" (and even in this
He proves Himself to be the Son; for if He had been the Father, He would
have called them His children, (instead of His brethren), "and say unto
them, I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and to my God and your
God."[16] Now, does this mean, I ascend as the Father to the Father, and as
God to God? Or as the Son to the Father, and as the Word to God? Wherefore
also does this Gospel, at its very termination, intimate that these things
were ever written, if it be not, to use its own words, "that ye might
believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God?"[17] Whenever, therefore, you
take any of the statements of this Gospel, and apply them to demonstrate
the identity of the Father and the Son, supposing that they serve your
views therein, you are contending against the definite purpose of the
Gospel. For these things certainly are not written that you may believe
that Jesus Christ is the Father, but the Son.[18]

CHAP. XXVI.--A BRIEF REFERENCE TO THE GOSPELS OF ST. MATTHEW AND ST. LUKE.
THEIR AGREEMENT WITH ST. JOHN, IN RESPECT TO THE DISTINCT PERSONALITY OF
THE FATHER AND THE SON.

   In addition to Philip's conversation, and the Lord's reply to it, the
reader will observe that we have run through John's Gospel to show that
many other passages of a clear purport, both before and after that chapter,
are only in strict accord with that single and prominent statement, which
must be interpreted agreeably to all other places, rather than in
opposition to them, and indeed to its own inherent and natural sense. I
will not here largely use the support of the other Gospels, which confirm
our belief by the Lord's nativity: it is sufficient to remark that He who
had to be born of a virgin is announced in express terms by the angel
himself as 'the Son of God: "The Spirit of God shall come upon thee, and
the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee; therefore also the Holy
Thing that shall be born of thee shall be called the San of God."[1] On
this passage even they will wish to raise a cavil; but truth will prevail.
Of course, they say, the Son of God is God, and the power of the highest is
the Most High. And they do not hesitate to insinuate[2] what, if it had
been true, would have been written. Whom was he[3] so afraid of as not
plainly to declare, "God shall come upon thee, and the Highest shall
overshadow thee?" Now, by saying "the Spirit of God" (although the Spirit
of God is God,) and by not directly naming God, he wished that portion[4]
of the whole Godhead to be understood, which was about to retire into the
designation of "the Son." The Spirit of God in this passage must be the
same as the Word. For just as, when John says, "The Word was made
flesh,"[5] we understand the Spirit also in the mention of the Word: so
here, too, we acknowledge the Word likewise in the name of the Spirit. For
both the Spirit is the substance of the Word, and the Word is the operation
of the Spirit, and the Two are One (and the same).[6] Now John must mean
One when he speaks of Him as "having been made flesh," and the angel
Another when he announces Him as "about to be born," if the Spirit is not
the Word, and the Word the Spirit. For just as the Word of God is not
actually He whose Word He is, so also the Spirit (although He is called
God) is not actually He whose Spirit He is said to be. Nothing which
belongs to something else is actually the very same thing as that to which
it belongs. Clearly, when anything proceeds from a personal subject,[7] and
so belongs to him, since it comes from him, it may possibly be such in
quality exactly as the personal subject himself is from whom it proceeds,
and to whom it belongs. And thus the Spirit is God, and the Word is God,
because proceeding from God, but yet is not actually the very same as He
from whom He proceeds. Now that which is God of God, although He is an
actually existing thing,[8] yet He cannot be God Himself[9] (exclusively),
but so far God as He is of the same substance as God Himself, and as being
an actually existing thing, and as a portion of the Whole. Much more will
"the power of the Highest" not be the Highest Himself, because It is not an
actually existing thing, as being Spirit--in the same way as the wisdom (of
God) and the providence (of God) is not God: these attributes are not
substances, but the accidents of the particular substance. Power is
incidental to the Spirit, but cannot itself be the Spirit. These things,
therefore, whatsoever they are--(I mean) the Spirit of God, and the Word
and the Power--having been conferred on the Virgin, that which is born of
her is the Son of God. This He Himself, in those other Gospels also,
testifies Himself to have been from His very boyhood: "Wist ye not," says
He, "that I must be about my Father's business?"[10] Satan likewise knew
Him to be this in his temptations: "Since Thou art the Son of God."[11]
This, accordingly, the devils also acknowledge Him to be: "we know Thee,
who Thou art, the Holy Son of God."[12] His "Father" He Himself adores.[13]
When acknowledged by Peter as the "Christ (the Son) of God,"[14] He does
not deny the relation. He exults in spirit when He says to the Father, "I
thank Thee, O Father, because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and
prudent."[15] He, moreover, affirms also that to no man is the Father
known, but to His Son;[16] and promises that, as the Son of the Father, He
will confess those who confess Him, and deny those who deny Him, before His
Father.[17] He also introduces a parable of the mission to the vineyard of
the Son (not the Father), who was sent after so many servants,[18] and
slain by the husbandmen, and avenged by the Father. He is also ignorant of
the last day and hour, which is known to the Father only.[1] He awards the
kingdom to His disciples, as He says it had been appointed to Himself by
the Father.[2] He has  power to ask, if He will, legions of angels  from
the Father for His help.[3] He exclaims that God had forsaken Him.[4] He
commends His spirit into the hands of the Father.[5] After His resurrection
He promises in a pledge to His disciples that He will send them the promise
of His Father;[6] and lastly, He commands them to baptize into the Father
and the Son and the Holy Ghost, not into a unipersonal God.[7] And indeed
it is not once only, but three times, that we are immersed into the Three
Persons, at each several mention of Their names.

CHAP. XXVII.--THE DISTINCTION OF THE FATHER AND THE SON, THUS ESTABLISHED,
HE NOW PROVES THE DISTINCTION OF THE TWO NATURES, WHICH WERE, WITHOUT
CONFUSION, UNITED IN THE PERSON OF THE SON. THE SUBTERFUGES OF PRAXEAS THUS
EXPOSED.

   But why should I linger over matters which are so evident, when I ought
to be attacking points on which they seek to obscure the plainest proof?
For, confuted on all sides on the distinction between the Father and the
Son, which we maintain without destroying their inseparable union--as (by
the examples) of the sun and the ray, and the fountain and the river--yet,
by help of (their conceit)an indivisible number, (with issues)of two and
three, they endeavour to interpret this distinction in a way which shall
nevertheless tally with their own opinions: so that, all in one Person,
they distinguish two, Father and Son, understanding the Son to be flesh,
that is man, that is Jesus; and the Father to be spirit, that is God, that
is Christ. Thus they, while contending that the Father and the Son are one
and the same, do in fact begin by dividing them rather than uniting them.
For if Jesus is one, and Christ is another, then the Son will be different
from the Father, because the Son is Jesus, and the Father is Christ. Such a
monarchy as this they learnt, I suppose, in the school of Valentinus,
making two--Jesus and Christ. But this conception of theirs has been, in
fact, already confuted in what we have previously advanced, because the
Word of God or the Spirit of God is also called the power of the Highest,
whom they make the Father; whereas these relations[8] are not themselves
the same as He whose relations they are said to be, but they proceed from
Him and appertain to Him. However, another refutation awaits them on this
point of their heresy. See, say they, it was announced by the angel:
"Therefore that Holy Thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the
Son of God."[9] Therefore, (they argue,) as it was the flesh that was born,
it must be the flesh that is the Son of God. Nay, (I answer,) this is
spoken concerning the Spirit of God. For it was certainly of the Holy
Spirit that the virgin conceived; and that which He conceived, she brought
forth. That, therefore, had to be born which was conceived and was to be
brought forth; that is to say, the Spirit, whose "name should be called
Emmanuel which, being interpreted, is, God with us."[10] Besides, the flesh
is not God, so that it could not have been said concerning it, "That Holy
Thing shall be called the Son of God," but only that Divine Being who was
born in the flesh, of whom the psalm also says, "Since God became man in
the midst of it, and established it by the will of the Father."[11] Now
what Divine Person was born in it? The Word, and the Spirit which became
incarnate with the Word by the will of the Father. The Word, therefore, is
incarnate; and this must be the point of our inquiry: How the Word became
flesh,--whether it was by having been transfigured, as it were, in the
flesh, or by having really clothed Himself in flesh. Certainly it was by a
real clothing of Himself in flesh. For the rest, we must needs believe God
to be unchangeable, and incapable of form, as being eternal. But
transfiguration is the destruction of that which previously existed. For
whatsoever is transfigured into some other thing ceases to be that which it
had been, and begins to be that which it previously was not. God, however,
neither ceases to be what He was, nor can He be any other thing than what
He is. The Word is God, and "the Word of the Lord remaineth for ever,"--
even by holding on unchangeably in His own proper form. Now, if He admits
not of being transfigured, it must follow that He be understood in this
sense to have become flesh, when He comes to be in the flesh, and is
manifested, and is seen, and is handled by means of the flesh; since all
the other points likewise require to be thus understood. For if the Word
became flesh by a transfiguration and change of substance, it follows at
once that Jesus must be a substance compounded of[1] two substances--of
flesh and spirit,--a kind of mixture, like electrum, composed of gold and
silver; and it begins to be neither gold (that is to say, spirit) nor
silver (that is to say, flesh),--the one being changed by the other, and a
third substance produced. Jesus, therefore, cannot at this rate be God for
He has ceased to be the Word, which was made flesh; nor can He be Man
incarnate for He is not properly flesh, and it was flesh which the Word
became. Being compounded, therefore, of both, He actually is neither; He is
rather some third substance, very different from either. But the truth is,
we find that He is expressly set forth as both God and Man; the very psalm
which we have quoted intimating (of the flesh), that "God became Man in the
midst of it, He therefore established it by the will of the Father,"--
certainly in all respects as the Son of God and the Son of Man, being God
and Man, differing no doubt according to each substance in its own especial
property, inasmuch as the Word is nothing else but God, and the flesh
nothing else but Man. Thus does the apostle also teach respecting His two
substances, saying, "who was made of the seed of David;"   in which words
He will be Man and Son of Man. "Who was declared to be the Son of God,
according to the Spirit;"[3] in which words He will be God, and the Word--
the Son of God. We see plainly the twofold state, which is not confounded,
but conjoined in One Person--Jesus, God and Man. Concerning Christ, indeed,
I defer what I have to say.[4] (I remark here), that the property of each
nature is so wholly preserved, that the Spirit s on the one hand did all
things in Jesus suitable to Itself, such as miracles, and mighty deeds, and
wonders; and the Flesh, on the other hand, exhibited the affections which
belong to it. It was hungry under the devil's temptation, thirsty with the
Samaritan woman, wept over Lazarus, was troubled even unto death, and at
last actually died. If, however, it was only a tertium quid, some composite
essence formed out of the Two substances, like the electrum (which we have
mentioned), there would be no distinct proofs apparent of either nature.
But by a transfer of functions, the Spirit would have done things to be
done by the Flesh, and the Flesh such as are effected by the Spirit; or
else such things as are suited neither to the Flesh nor to the Spirit, but
confusedly of some third character. Nay more, on this supposition, either
the Word underwent death, or the flesh did not die, if so be the Word was
converted into flesh; because either the flesh was immortal, or the Word
was modal. Forasmuch, however, as the two substances acted distinctly, each
in its own character, there necessarily  accrued to them severally their
own operations, and  their own issues. Learn then, together with
Nicodemus, that "that which is born in the flesh is flesh, and that which
is born of the Spirit is Spirit."[6] Neither the flesh becomes Spirit, nor
the Spirit flesh. In one Person they no doubt are well able to be co-
existent. Of them Jesus consists--Man. of the flesh; of the Spirit, God--
and the angel designated Him as "the Son of God,"[7] in respect of that
nature, in which He was Spirit, reserving for the flesh the appellation
"Son of Man." In like manner, again, the apostle calls Him "the Mediator
between God and Men,"" and so affirmed His participation of both
substances. Now, to end the matter, will you, who interpret the Son of God
to be flesh, be so good as as to show us what the Son of Man is? Will He
then, I want to know, be the Spirit? But you insist upon it that the Father
Himself is the Spirit, on the ground that "God is a Spirit," just as if we
did not read also that there is "the Spirit of God;" in the same manner as
we find that as "the Word was God," so also there is "the Word of God."

CHAP. XXVIII.--CHRIST NOT THE FATHER, AS PRAXEAS SAID. THE INCONSISTENCY OF
THIS OPINION, NO LESS THAN ITS ABSURDITY, EXPOSED. THE TRUE DOCTRINE OF
JESUS CHRIST ACCORDING TO ST. PAUL, WHO AGREES WITH OTHER SACRED WRITERS.

   And so, most foolish heretic, you make Christ to be the Father, without
once considering the actual force of this name, if indeed Christ is a name,
and not rather a surname, or designation; for it signifies "Anointed." But
Anointed is no more a proper name than Clothed or Shod; it is only an
accessory to a name. Suppose now that by some means Jesus were also called
Vestitus (Clothed), as He is actually called Christ from the mystery of His
anointing, would you in like manner say that Jesus was the Son of God, and
at the same time suppose that Vestitus was the Father? Now then, concerning
Christ, if Christ is the Father, the Father is an Anointed One, and
receives the unction of course from another. Else if it is from Himself
that He receives it, then you must prove it to us. But we learn no such
fact from the Acts of the Apostles in that ejaculation of the Church to
God, "Of a truth, Lord, against Thy Holy Child Jesus, whom Thou hast
anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate with the Gentiles and the people of
Israel were gathered together."[1] These then testified both that Jesus was
the Son of God, and that being the Son, He was anointed by the Father.
Christ therefore must be the same as Jesus who was anointed by the Father,
and not the Father, who anointed the Son. To the same effect are the words
of Peter: "Let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God hath made
that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ," that is,
Anointed.[2] John, moreover, brands that man as "a liar" who "denieth that
Jesus is the Christ;" whilst on the other hand he declares that "every one
is born of God who believeth that Jesus is the Christ."[3] Wherefore he
also exhorts us to believe in the name of His (the Father's,) Son Jesus
Christ, that "our fellowship may be with the Father, and with His Son Jesus
Christ."[4] Paul, in like manner, everywhere speaks of "God the Father, and
our Lord Jesus Christ." When writing to the Romans, he gives thanks to God
through our Lord Jesus Christ.[5] To the Galatians he declares himself to
be "an apostle not of men, neither by man, but through Jesus Christ and God
the Father."[6] You possess indeed all his writings, which testify plainly
to the same effect, and set forth Two--God the Father, and our Lord Jesus
Christ, the Son of the Father. (They also testify) that Jesus is Himself
the Christ, and under one or the other designation the Son of God. For
precisely by the same right as both names belong to the same Person, even
the Son of God, does either name alone without the other belong to the same
Person. Consequently, whether it be the name Jesus which occurs alone,
Christ is also understood, because Jesus is the Anointed One; or if the
name Christ is the only one given, then Jesus is identified with Him,
because the Anointed One is Jesus. Now, of these two names Jesus Christ,
the   former is the proper one, which was given to Him by the angel; and
the latter is only an adjunct, predicable of Him from His anointing,--thus
suggesting the proviso that Christ must be the Son, not the Father. How
blind,   to be sure, is the man who fails to perceive that by the name of
Christ some other God is implied, if he ascribes to the Father this name of
Christ! For if Christ is God the Father, when He says, "I ascend unto my
Father and your Father, and to my God and your God,"[7] He of course shows
plainly enough that there is above Himself another Father and another God.
If, again, the Father is Christ, He must be some other Being who
"strengtheneth the thunder, and createth the wind, and declareth unto men
His Christ."[8] And if "the kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers
were gathered together against the Lord and against His Christ,"[9] that
Lord must be another Being, against whose Christ were gathered together the
kings and the rulers. And if, to quote another passage, "Thus saith the
Lord to my Lord Christ,"[10] the Lord who speaks to the Father of Christ
must be a distinct Being. Moreover, when the apostle in his epistle prays,
"That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ may give unto you the spirit of
wisdom and of knowledge,"[11] He must be other (than Christ), who is the
God of Jesus Christ, the bestower of spiritual gifts. And once for all,
that we may not wander through every passage, He "who raised up Christ from
the dead, and is also to raise up our mortal bodies,"[12] must certainly
be, as the quickener, different from the dead Father,[13] or even from the
quickened Father, if Christ who died is the Father.

CHAP. XXIX.--IT WAS CHRIST THAT DIED, THE FATHER IS INCAPABLE OF SUFFERING
EITHER SOLELY OR WITH ANOTHER. BLASPHEMOUS CONCLUSIONS SPRING FROM PRAXEAS'
PREMISES,

   Silence! Silence on such blasphemy. Let us be content with saving that
Christ died, the Son of the Father; and let this suffice, because the
Scriptures have told us so much. For even the apostle, to his declaration--
which he makes not without feeling the weight of it--that "Christ died,"
immediately adds, "according to the Scriptures," [14] in order that he may
alleviate the harshness of the statement by the authority of the
Scriptures, and so remove offence from the reader. Now, although when two
substances are alleged to be in Christ--namely, the divine and the human-it
plainly follows that the divine nature is immortal, and that which is human
is mortal, it is manifest in what sense he declares "Christ died"--even in
the sense in which He was flesh and Man and the Son of Man, not as being
the Spirit and the Word and the Son of God. In short, since he says that it
was Christ (that is, the Anointed One) that died, he shows us that that
which died was the nature which was anointed; in a word, the flesh. Very
well, say you; since we on our side affirm our doctrine in precisely the
same terms which you use on your side respecting the Son, we are not guilty
of blasphemy against the Lord God, for we do not maintain that He died
after the divine nature, but only after the human. Nay, but you do
blaspheme; because you allege not only that the Father died, but that He
died the death of the cross. For "cursed are they which are hanged on a
tree,"[1]--a curse which, after the law, is compatible to the Son (inasmuch
as "Christ has been made a curse for us,"[2] but certainly not the Father);
since, however, you convert Christ into the Father, you are chargeable with
blasphemy against the Father. But when we assert that Christ was crucified,
we do not malign Him with a curse; we only re-affirm[3] the curse
pronounced by the law:[4] nor indeed did the apostle utter blasphemy when
he said the same thing as we.[5] Besides, as there is no blasphemy in
predicating of the subject that which is fairly applicable to it; so, on
the other hand, it is blasphemy when that is alleged concerning the subject
which is unsuitable to it. On this principle, too, the Father was not
associated in suffering with the Son. The heretics, indeed, fearing to
incur direct blasphemy against the Father, hope to diminish it by this
expedient: they grant us so far that the Father and the Son are Two; adding
that, since it iS the Son indeed who suffers, the Father is only His
fellow-sufferer.[6] But how absurd are they even in this conceit! For what
is the meaning of "fellow-suffering," but the  endurance of suffering along
with another?   Now if the Father is incapable of suffering, He  . is
incapable of suffering in company with another; otherwise, if He can suffer
with another,   He is of course capable of suffering. You, in fact, yield
Him nothing by this subterfuge  of your fears. You are afraid to say that
He   is capable of suffering whom you make to be   capable of fellow-
suffering. Then, again, the Father is as incapable of fellow-suffering as
the Son even is of suffering under the conditions of His existence as God.
Well, but how could the Son suffer, if the Father did not suffer with Him?
My answer is, The Father is separate from the Son, though not from Him as
God. For even if a river be soiled with mire and mud, alhough it flows from
the fountain identical in nature with it, and is not separated from the
fountain, yet the injury which affects the stream reaches not to the
fountain; and although it is the water of the fountain which suffers down
the stream, still, since it is not affected at the fountain, but only in
the river, the fountain suffers nothing, but only the river which issues
from the fountain. So likewise the Spirit of God,[7] whatever suffering it
might be capable of in the Son, yet, inasmuch as it could not suffer in the
Father, the fountain of the Godhead, but only in the Son, it evidently
could not have suffered,[8] as the Father. But it is enough for me that the
Spirit of God suffered nothing as the Spirit of God,[9] since all that It
suffered It suffered in the Son. It was quite another matter for the Father
to suffer with the Son in the flesh. This likewise has been treated by us.
Nor will any one deny this, since even we are ourselves unable to suffer
for God, unless the Spirit of God be in us, who also utters by our
instrumentality[10] whatever pertains to our own conduct and suffering;
not, however, that He Himself suffers in our suffering, only He bestows on
us the power and capacity of suffering.

CHAP. XXX.--HOW THE SON WAS FORSAKEN BY THE FATHER UPON THE CROSS. THE TRUE
MEANING THEREOF FATAL TO PRAXEAS. SO TOO, THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST, HIS
ASCENSION, SESSION AT THE FATHER'S RIGHT HAND, AND MISSION OF THE HOLY
GHOST.

   However, if you persist in pushing your views further, I shall find
means of answering you with greater stringency, and of meeting you with the
exclamation of the Lord Himself, so as to challenge you with the question,
What is your inquiry and reasoning about that? You have Him exclaiming in
the midst of His passion: "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?"[11]
Either, then, the Son suffered, being "forsaken" by the Father, and the
Father consequently suffered nothing, inasmuch as He forsook the Son; or
else, if it was the Father who suffered, then to what God was it that He
addressed His cry? But this was the voice of flesh and soul, that is to
say, of man--not of the Word and Spirit, that is to say, not of God; and it
was uttered so as to prove the impassibility of God, who "forsook" His Son,
so far as He handed over His human substance to the suffering of death.
This verity the apostle also perceived, when he writes to this effect: "If
the Father spa. red not His own Son."[1] This did Isaiah before him
likewise perceive, when he declared: "And the Lord hath delivered Him up
for our offences."[2] In this manner He "forsook" Him, in not sparing Him;
"forsook" Him, in delivering Him up. In all other respects the Father did
not forsake the Son, for it was into His Father's hands that the Son
commended His. spirit.[3] Indeed, after so commending it, He instantly
died; and as the  Spirit[4] remained with the flesh, the flesh cannot
undergo the full extent of death, i.e., in corruption and decay. For the
Son, therefore, to die, amounted to His being forsaken by the Father. The
Son, then, both dies and rises again, according to the Scriptures.[5] It is
the Son, too, who ascends to the heights of heaven,[6] and also descends to
the inner parts of the earth.[7] "He sitteth at the Father's right hand
"[8]--not the Father at His own. He is seen by Stephen, at his martyrdom by
stoning, still sitting at the right hand of God? where He will continue to
sit, until the Father shall make His enemies His footstool.[10] He will
come again on the clouds of heaven, just as He appeared when He ascended
into heaven." Meanwhile He has received from the Father the promised gift,
and has shed it forth, even the Holy Spirit--the Third Name in the Godhead,
and the Third Degree of the Divine Majesty; the Declarer of the One
Monarchy of God, but at the same time the Interpreter of the Economy, to
every one who hears and receives the words of the new prophecy;[12] and
"the Leader into all truth,"[13] such as is in the Father, and the Son, and
the Holy Ghost, according to the mystery of the doctrine of Christ.

CHAP. XXXI.--RETROGRADE CHARACTER OF THE HERESY OF PRAXEAS. THE DOCTRINE OF
THE BLESSED TRINITY CONSTITUTES THE GREAT DIFFERENCE BETWEEN JUDAISM AND
CHRISTIANITY.

   But, (this doctrine of yours bears a likeness) to the Jewish faith, of
which this is the substance--so to believe in One God as to refuse to
reckon the Son besides Him, and after the Son the Spirit. Now, what
difference would there be between us and them, if there were not this
distinction which you are far breaking down? What need would there be of
the gospel, which is the substance of the New Covenant, laying down (as it
does) that the Law anti the Prophets lasted until John the Baptist, if
thenceforward the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are not both believed in
as Three, and as making One Only God? God was pleased to renew His covenant
with man in such a way as that His Unity might be believed in, after a new
manner, through the Son and the Spirit, in order that God might now be
known openly," in His proper Names and Persons, who in ancient times was
not plainly understood, though declared through the Son and the Spirit.
Away, then, with[15] those "Antichrists who deny the Father and the Son."
For they deny the Father, when they say that He is the same as the Son; and
they deny the Son, when they suppose Him to be the same as the Father, by
assigning to Them things which are not Theirs, and taking away from Them
things which are Theirs. But "whosoever shall confess that (Jesus) Christ
is the Son of God" (not the Father), "God dwelleth in him, and he in God.
"[16] We believe not the testimony of God in which He testifies to us of
His Son. "He that hath not the Son, hath not life."[17] And that man has
not the Son, who believes Him to be any other than the Son.


Taken from "The Early Church Fathers and Other Works" originally published
by Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co. in English in Edinburgh, Scotland beginning in
1867. (ANF 3, Roberts and Donaldson). The digital version is by The
Electronic Bible Society, P.O. Box 701356, Dallas, TX 75370, 214-407-WORD.

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