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NOVATIAN
A TREATISE OF NOVATIAN CONCERNING THE TRINITY.
CHAP. I. ARGUMENT.--NOVATIAN, WITH THE VIEW OF TREATING OF THE TRINITY,
SETS FORTH FROM THE RULE OF FAITH THAT WE SHOULD FIRST OF ALL BELIEVE IN
GOD THE FATHER AND LORD OMNIPOTENT, THE ABSOLUTE FOUNDER OF ALL THINGS. THE
WORKS OF CREATION ARE BEAUTIFULLY DESCRIBED. MAN'S FREE-WILL IS ASSERTED;
GOD'S MERCY IN INFLICTING PENALTYON MAN IS SHOWN; THE CONDITION AFTER DEATH
OF THE SOULS OF THE RIGHTEOUS AND UNRIGHTEOUS IS DETERMINED.
The Rule of truth requires that we should first of all things believe
on God the Father and Lord n Omnipotent; that is, the absolutely perfect
Founder of all things, who has suspended the heavens in lofty sublimity,
has established the earth with its lower mass, has diffused the seas with
their fluent moisture, and has distributed all these things, both adorned
and supplied with their appropriate and fitting instruments. For in the
solid vault of heaven He has both awakened the light-bringing Sunrisings;
He has filled up the white globe of the moon in its monthly s waxings as a
solace for the night; He, moreover, kindles the starry rays with the varied
splendours of glistening light; and He has willed all these things in their
legitimate tracks to circle the entire compass of the world, so as to cause
days, months, years, signs, and seasons, and benefits of other kinds for
the human race. On the earth, moreover, He has lifted up the loftiest
mountains to a peak, He has thrown down valleys into the depths, He has
smoothly levelled the plains, He has ordained the animal herds usefully for
the various services of men. He has also established the oak trees of the
woods for the future benefit of human uses. He has developed the harvests
into food. He has unlocked the mouths of the springs, and has poured them
into the flowing rivers. And after these things, lest He should not also
provide for the very delights of the eyes, He has clothed all things with
the various colours of the flowers for the pleasure of the beholders. Even
in the sea itself, moreover, although it was in itself marvellous both for
its extent and its utility, He has made manifold creatures, sometimes of
moderate, sometimes of vast bodily size, testifying by the variety of His
appointment to the intelligence of the Artificer. And, not content with
these things, est perchance the roaring and rushing waters should seize
upon a foreign element at the expense of its human possessor, He has
enclosed its limits with shores;[4] so that when the raving billow and the
foaming water should come from its deep bosom, it should return again unto
itself, and not transgress its concealed bounds, but keep its prescribed
laws, so that man might the rather be careful to observe the divine laws,
even as the elements themselves observed them. And after these things He
also placed man at the head of the world, arid man, too, made in the image
of God, to whom He imparted mind, and reason, and foresight, that he might
imitate God; and although the first elements of his body were earthly, yet
the substance was inspired by a heavenly and divine breathing. And when He
had given him all things for his service, He willed that he alone should be
free. And lest, again, an unbounded freedom should fall into peril, He laid
down a command, in which man was taught that there was no evil in the fruit
of the tree; but he was forewarned that evil would arise if perchance he
should exercise his free will, in the contempt of the law that was given.
For, on the one hand, it had behoved him to be free, lest the image of God
should, unfittingly be in bondage; and on the other, the law was to be
added, so that an unbridled liberty might not break forth even to a
contempt of the Giver. So that he might receive as a consequence both
worthy rewards and a deserved punishment, having in his own power that
which he might choose to do, by the tendency of his mind in either
direction: whence, therefore, by envy, mortality comes back upon him;
seeing that, although he might escape it by obedience, he rushes into it by
hurrying to be God under the influence of perverse counsel. Still,
nevertheless, God indulgently tempered his punishment by cursing, not so
much himself, as his labours upon earth. And, moreover, what is required
does not come without man's knowledge; but He shows forth man's hope of
future discovery[1] and salvation in Christ. And that he is prevented from
touching of the wood of the tree of life, is not caused by the malignant
poison of envy, but lest, living for ever without Christ's previous pardon
of his sins, he should always bear about with him for his punishment an
immortality of guilt. Nevertheless also, in higher regions; that is, above
even the firmament itself, regions which are not now discernible by our
eyes, He previously ordained angels, he arranged spiritual powers, He put
in command thrones and powers, and founded many other infinite spaces of
heavens, and unbounded works of His mysteries; so that this world, immense
as it is, might almost appear rather as the Latest, than the only work of
corporeal things. And truly,[2] what lies beneath the earth is not itself
void of distributed and arranged powers. For there is a place whither the
souls of the just and the unjust are taken, conscious of the anticipated
dooms of fixture judgment; so that we might behold the overflowing
greatness of God's works in all directions, not shut up within the bosom of
this world, however capacious as we have said, but might also be able to
conceive of them beneath both the abysses and the depths I of the world
itself. And thus considering the greatness of the works, we should
worthily admire the Artificer of such a structure.
CHAP. II. ARGUMENT.--GOD IS ABOVE ALl, THINGS, HIMSELF CONTAINING ALL
THINGS, IMMENSE, ETERNAL, TRANSCENDING THE MIND OF MAN; INEXPLICABLE IN
DISCOURSE, LOFTIER THAN ALL SUBLIMITY.
And over all these things He Himself, containing all things, having
nothing vacant beyond Himself, has left room for no superior God, such as
some people conceive. Since, indeed, He Himself has included all things in
the bosom of perfect greatness and power, He is always intent upon His own
work, and pervading all things, and moving all things, and quickening all
things, and beholding all things, and so linking together discordant
materials into the concord of all elements, that out of these unlike
principles one world is so established by a conspiring union, that it can
by no force be dissolved, save when He alone who made it commands it to be
dissolved, for the purpose of bestowing other and greater things upon us.
For we read that He contains all things, and therefore that there could
have been nothing beyond Himself. Because, since He has not any beginning,
so consequently He is not conscious of an ending; unless perchance--and
far from us be the thought--He at some time began to be, and is not above
all things, but as He began to be after something else, He would be
beneath that which was before Himself, and would so be found to be of less
power, in that He is designated as subsequent even in time itself. For this
reason, therefore, He is always unbounded, because nothing is greater than
He; always eternal, because nothing is more ancient than He. For that which
is without beginning can be preceded by none, in that He has no time. He is
on that account immortal, that He does not come to an end by any ending of
His completeness. And since everything that is without beginning is without
law, He excludes the mode of time by feeling Himself debtor to none.
Concerning Him, therefore, and concerning those things which are of
Himself, and are in Him, neither can the mind of man worthily conceive what
they are, how great they are, and what they are like; nor does the
eloquence of human discourse set forth a power that approaches the level of
His majesty. For to conceive and to speak of His majesty, as well all
eloquence is with reason mute, as all mind poor. For He is greater than
mind itself; nor can it be conceived how great He is, seeing that, if He
could be conceived, He would be smaller than the human mind wherein He
could be conceived. He is greater, moreover, than all discourse, nor can He
be declared; for if He could be declared, He would be less than human
discourse, whereby being declared, He can both be encompassed and
contained. For whatever could be thought concerning Him must be less than
Himself; and whatever could be declared must be less than He, when compared
in respect of Himself. Moreover, we can in some degree be conscious of Him
in silence, but we cannot in discourse unfold Him as He is. For should you
call Him Light, you would be speaking of His creature rather than of
Himself--you would not declare Him; or should you call Him Strength, you
would rather be speaking of and bringing out His power than speaking of
Himself; or should you call Him Majesty, you would rather be describing His
honour than Himself. And why should I make a long business of going through
His attributes one by one? I will at once unfold the whole. Whatever in any
respect you might declare of Him, you would rather be unfolding some
condition and power of His than Himself. For what can you fittingly either
say or think concerning Him who is greater than all discourses and
thoughts? Except that in one manner--and how can we do this? how can we by
possibility conceive how we may grasp these very things?--we shall mentally
grasp what God is, if we shall consider that He is that which cannot be
understood either in quality or quantity, nor, indeed, can come even into
the thought itself. For if the keenness of our eyes grows dull on looking
at the sun, so that the gaze, overcome by the brightness of the rays that
meet it, cannot look upon the orb itself, the keenness of our mental
perception suffers the same thing in all our thinking about God, and in
proportion as we give our endeavours more directly to consider God, so
much the more the mind itself is blinded by the light of its own thought.
For--to repeat once more--what can you worthily say of Him, who is loftier
than all sublimity, and higher than all height, and deeper than all depth,
and clearer than all light, and brighter than all brightness, more
brilliant than all splendour, stronger than all strength, more powerful,
than all power, and more mighty than all might, and greater than all
majesty, and more potent than all potency, and richer than all riches, more
wise than all wisdom, and more benignant than all kindness, better than
all goodness, juster than all justice, more merciful than all clemency? For
all kinds of virtues must? needs be less than Himself, who is both. God and
Parent of all virtues, so that it may truly be said that God is that, which
is such that nothing can be compared to Him. For He is above all that can
be said. For He is a certain Mind generating and filling all things, which,
without any beginning or end of time, controls, by the highest and most
perfect reason, the naturally linked causes of things, so as to result in
benefit to all.
CHAP. III. ARGUMENT.--THAT GOD IS THE FOUNDER OF ALL THINGS, THEIR LORD AND
PARENT, IS PROVED FROM THE HOLY SCRIPTURES.
Him, then, we acknowledge and know to be God, the Creator of all
things--Lord on account of His power, Parent on account of His discipline--
Him, I say, who "spake, and all things were made; "(2) He commanded, and
all things went forth: of whom it is written, "Thou hast made all things in
wisdom;"(3) of whom Moses said, "God in heaven above, and in the earth
beneath;"(4) who, according to Isaiah, "hath meted out the heaven with a
span, the earth with the hollow of His hand;"(5) "who looketh on the earth,
and maketh it tremble; whoboundeth the circle of the earth, and those that
dwell in it like locusts; who hath weighed themountains in a balance, and
the groves in scales,"(6)that is, by the sure test of divine arrangement;
easily fall into ruins if it were not balanced with equal weights, He has
poised this burden of the earthly mass with equity. Who says by the
prophet, "I am God, and there is none beside me"(7) Who says by the same
prophet "Because I will not give my majesty to another,"(8) that He may
exclude all heathens and heretics with their figments; proving that that is
not God who is made by the hand of the workman, nor that which is feigned
by the intellect of a heretic. For he is not God for whose existence the
workman must be asked. And He has added hereto by the prophet, "The heaven
is my throne, and the earth is my footstool: what house will ye build me,
and where is the place of my rest?"(9) that He may show that He whom the
world does not contain is much less contained in a temple; and He says
these things not for boastfulness of Himself, but for our knowledge. For He
does not desire from us the glory of His magnitude; but He wishes to confer
upon us, even as a father, a religious wisdom. And He, wishing moreover to
attract to gentleness our minds, brutish, and swelling, and stubborn with
cloddish ferocity, says, "And upon whom shall my Spirit rest, save upon him
that is lowly, and quiet, and that trembleth at my words?"(1)--so that in
some degree one may recognise how great God is, in learning to fear Him by
the Spirit given to him: Who, similarly wishing still more to come into our
knowledge, and, by way of stirring up our minds to His worship, said, "I am
the Lord, who made the light and created the darkness;"(2) that we might
deem not that some Nature,--what I know not,--was the artificer of those
vicissitudes whereby nights and days are controlled, but might rather, as
is more true, recognise God as their Creator. And since by the gaze of our
eyes we cannot see Him, we rightly learn of Him from the greatness, and the
power, and the majesty of His works. "For the invisible things of Him,"
says the Apostle Paul," from the creation of the world, are clearly seen,
being understood by those things which are made, even His eternal power and
godhead;"(3) so that the human mind, learning hidden things from those that
are manifest, from the greatness of the works which it should behold, might
with the eyes of the mind consider the greatness of the Architect. Of whom
the same apostle, "Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only
God, be honour and glory."(4) For He has gone beyond the contemplation of
the eyes who has surpassed the greatness of thought. "For," it is said," of
Him, and through Him, and in Him are all things."(5) For all things are by
His command, because they are of Him; and are ordered by His word as being
through Him; and all things return to His judgment; as in Him expecting
liberty when corruption shall be done away, they appear to be recalled to
Him.
CHAP. IV. ARGUMENT.--MOREOVER, HE IS GOOD, ALWAYS THE SAME, IMMUTABLE, ONE
AND ONLY, INFINITE; AND HIS OWN NAME CAN NEVER BE DECLARED, AND HE IS
INCORRUPTIBLE AND IMMORTAL.
Him alone the Lord rightly declares good, of whose goodness the whole
world is witness; which world He would not have ordained if He had not been
good. For if "everything was very good,"(6) consequently, and reasonably,
both those things which were ordained have proved that He that ordained
them is good, and those things which are the work of a good Ordainer cannot
be other than good; wherefore every evil is a departure from God. For it
cannot happen that He should be the originator or architect of any evil
work, who claims to Himself the name of "the Perfect," both Parent and
Judge, especially when He is the avenger and judge of every evil work;
because, moreover, evil does not occur to man from any other cause than by
his departure from the good God. Moreover, this very thing is specified in
man, not because it was necessary, but because he himself so willed it.
Whence it manifestly appeared also what was evil; and lest there should
seem to be envy in God, it was evident whence evil had arisen. He, then, is
always like to Himself; nor does He ever turn or change Himself into any
forms, lest by change He should appear to be mortal. For the change implied
in turning from one thing to another is comprehended as a portion of a
certain death. Thus there is never in Him any accession or increase of any
part or honour, lest anything should appear to have ever been wanting to
His perfection, nor is any loss sustained in Him, lest a degree of
mortality should appear to have been suffered by Him. But what He is, He
always is; and who He is, He is always Himself; and what character He has,
He always has.(7) For increasing argues beginning, as well as losses prove
death and perishing. And therefore He says, "I am God, I change not;"(8) in
that, what is not born cannot suffer change, holding His condition always.
For whatever it be in Him which constitutes Divinity, must necessarily
exist always, maintaining itself by its own powers, so that He should
always be God. And thus He says, "I am that I am."(9) For what He is has
this name, because it always maintains the same quality of Himself. For
change takes away the force of that name "That I Am;" for whatever, at any
time, is changed, is shown to be mortal in that very particular which is
changed. For it ceases to be that which it had been, and consequently
begins to be what it was not; and therefore, reasonably, there remains
always in God His position, in that without any loss arising from change,
He is always like and equal to Himself. And what is not born cannot be
changed: for only those things undergo change which are made, or which are
begotten; in that those things which bad not been at one time, learn to be
by coming into being, and therefore to suffer change by being born.
Moreover, those things which neither have nativity nor maker, have excluded
from themselves the capacity of change, not having a beginning wherein is
cause of change. And thus He is declared to be one, having no equal. For
whatever can be God, must as God be of necessity the Highest. But whatever
is the Highest, must certainly be the Highest in such sense as to be
without any equal. And thus that must needs be alone and one on which
nothing can be conferred, having no peer; because there cannot be two
infinites, as the very nature of things dictates. And that is infinite
which neither has any sort of beginning nor end. For whatever has occupied
the whole excludes the beginning of another. Because if He does not contain
all which is, whatever it is--seeing that what is found in that whereby it
is contained is found to be less than that whereby it is contained--He will
cease to be God; being reduced into the power of another, in whose
greatness He, being smaller, shall have been included. And therefore what
contained Him would then rather claim to be God. Whence it results that
God's own name also cannot be declared, because He cannot be conceived. For
that is contained in a name which is, in any way, comprehended from the
condition of His nature. For the name is the signification of that thing
which could be comprehended from a name. But when that which is treated of
is such that it cannot be worthily gathered into one form by the very
understanding itself, how shall it be set forth fittingly in the one word
of an appellation, seeing that as it is beyond the intellect, it must also
of necessity be above the significancy of the appellation? As with reason
when He applies and prefers from certain reasons and occasions His name of
God, we know that it is not so much the legitimate propriety of the
appellation that is set forth, as a certain significancy determined for it,
to which, while men betake themselves, they seem to be able thereby to
obtain God's mercy. He is therefore also both immortal and incorruptible,
neither conscious of any kind of loss nor ending. For because He is
incorruptible, He is therefore immortal; and because He is immortal, He is
certainly also incorruptible,--each being involved by turns in the other,
with itself and in itself, by a mutual connection, and prolonged by a
vicarious concatenation to the condition of eternity; immortality arising
from incorruption, as well as incorruption coming from immortality.
CHAP. V. ARGUMENT.--IF WE REGARD THE ANGER, AND INDIGNATION, AND HATRED OF
GOD DESCRIBED IN THE SACRED PAGES, WE MUST REMEMBER THAT THEY ARE NOT TO BE
UNDERSTOOD AS BEARING THE CHARACTER OF HUMAN VICES.
Moreover, if we read of His wrath, and consider certain descriptions of
His indignation, and learn that hatred is asserted of Him, yet we are not
to understand these to be asserted of Him in the sense in which they are
human vices. For all these things, although they may corrupt man, cannot at
all corrupt the divine power. For such passions as these will rightly be
said to be in men, and will not rightly be judged to be in God. For man may
be corrupted by these things, because he can be corrupted; God may not be
corrupted by them, because He cannot be corrupted. These things, forsooth,
have their force which they may exercise, but only where a material
capable of impression precedes them, not where a substance that cannot be
impressed precedes them. For that God is angry, arises from no vice in Him.
But He is so for our advantage; for He is merciful even then when He
threatens, because by these threats men are recalled to rectitude. For fear
is necessary for those who want the motive to a virtuous life, that they
who have forsaken reason may at least be moved by terror. And thus all
those, either angers of God or hatreds, or whatever they are of this kind,
being displayed for our medicine,--as the case teaches,--have arisen of
wisdom, not from vice, nor do they originate from frailty; wherefore also
they cannot avail for the corruption of God. For the diversity in us of the
materials of which we consist, is accustomed to arouse the discord of anger
which corrupts us; but this, whether of nature or of defect, cannot subsist
in God, seeing that He is known to be constructed assuredly of no
associations of bodily parts. For He is simple and without any corporeal
commixture, being wholly of that essence, which, whatever it be,--He alone
knows,--constitutes His being, since He is called Spirit. And thus those
things which in men are faulty and corrupting, since they arise from the
corruptibility of the body, and matter itself, in God cannot exert the
force of corruptibility, since, as we have said, they have come, not of
vice, but of reason.
CHAP. VI. ARGUMENT.-- AND THAT, ALTHOUGH SCRIPTURE OFTEN CHANGES THE DIVINE
APPEARANCE INTO A HUMAN FORM, YET THE MEASURE OF THE DIVINE MAJESTY IS NOT
INCLUDED WITHIN THESE LINEAMENTS OF OUR BODILY NATURE.
And although the heavenly Scripture often turns the divine appearance
into a human form,--as when it says, "The eyes of the Lord are over the
righteous;"(1) or when it says, "The Lord God smelled the smell of a good
savour;"(2) or when there are given to Moses the tables "written with the
finger of God;"(3) or when the people of the children of Israel are set
free from the land of Egypt "with a mighty hand and with a stretched out
arm;"(4) or when it says, "The mouth of the Lord hath spoken these
things;"(5) or when the earth is set forth as "God's footstool;"(6) or when
it says, "Incline thine ear, and hear,"(1)--we who say that the law is
spiritual do not include within these lineaments of our bodily nature any
mode or figure of the divine majesty, but diffuse that character of
unbounded magnitude (so to speak) over its plains without any limit. For it
is written, "If I shall ascend into heaven, Thou art there; if I shall
descend into hell, Thou art there also; and if I shall take my wings, and
go away across the sea, there Thy hand shall lay hold of me, and Thy right
hand shall hold me."(2) For we recognise the plan of the divine Scripture
according to the proportion of its arrangement. For the prophet then was
still speaking about God in parables according to the period of the faith,
not as God was, but as the people were able to receive Him. And thus, that
such things as these should be said about God, must be imputed not to God,
but rather to the people. Thus the people are permitted to erect a
tabernacle, and yet God is not contained within the enclosure of a
tabernacle. Thus a temple is reared, and yet God is not at all bounded
within the restraints of a temple. It is not therefore God who is limited,
but the perception of the people is limited; nor is God straitened, but the
understanding of the reason of the people is held to be straitened.
Finally, in the Gospel the Lord said, "The hour shall come when neither in
this mountain nor in Jerusalem shall ye worship the Father;"(3) and gave
the reasons, saying, "God is a Spirit; and those therefore who worship,
must worship in spirit and in truth." (4) Thus the divine agencies are
there(5) exhibited by means of members; it is not the appearance of God nor
the bodily lineaments that are described. For when the eyes are spoken of,
it is implied that He sees all things; and when the ear, it is set forth
that He hears all things; and when the finger, a certain energy of His will
is opened up; and when the nostrils, His recognition of prayers is shown
forth as of odours; and when the hand, it is proved that He is the author
of every creature; and when the arm, it is announced that no nature can
withstand the power of His arm; and when the feet it is unfolded that He
fills all things, and that there is not any place where God is not. For
neither members nor the offices of members are needful to Him to whose sole
judgment, even unexpressed, all things serve and are present. For why
should He require eyes who is Himself the light? or why should He ask for
feet who is everywhere? or why should He wish to go when there is nowhere
where He can go beyond Himself? or why should He seek for hands whose will
is, even when silent, the architect for the foundation of all things? He
needs no ears who knows the wills that are even unexpressed; or for what
reason should He need a tongue whose thought is a command? These members
assuredly were necessary to men, but not to God, because man's design would
be ineffectual if the body did not fulfil the thought. Moreover, they are
not needful to God, whose will the works attend not so much without any
effort, as that the works themselves proceed simultaneously with the will.
Moreover, He Himself is all eye, because He all sees; and all ear, because
He all hears; and all hand, because He all works; and all foot, because He
all is everywhere. For He is the same, whatever it is. He is all equal, and
all everywhere. For He has not in Him any diversity in Himself, being
simple. For those are the things which are reduced to diversity of members,
which arise from birth and go to dissolution. But things which are not
concrete cannot be conscious of these things.(6) And what is immortal,
whatever it is, that very thing is one and simple, and for ever. And thus
because it is one it cannot be dissolved; since whatever is that very thing
which is placed beyond the claim of dissolution, it is freed from the laws
of death.
CHAP. VII. ARGUMENT.--MOREOVER, THAT WHEN GOD IS CALLED A SPIRIT,
BRIGHTNESS, AND LIGHT, GOD IS NOT SUFFICIENTLY EXPRESSED BY THOSE
APPELLATIONS.
But when the Lord says that God is a Spirit, I think that Christ spoke
thus of the Father, as wishing that something still more should be
understood than merely that God is a Spirit. For although, in His Gospel,
He is reasoning for the purpose of giving to men an increase of
intelligence, nevertheless He Himself speaks to men concerning God, in such
a way as they can as yet hear and receive; although, as we have said, He is
now endeavouring to give to His hearers religious additions to their
knowledge of God. For we find it to be written that God is called Love, and
yet from this the substance of God is not declared to be Love; and that He
is called Light, while in this is not the substance of God. But the whole
that is thus said of God is as much as can be said, so that reasonably
also, when He is called a Spirit, it is not all that He is which is so
called; but so that, while men's mind by understanding makes progress even
to the Spirit itself, being already changed in spirit, it may conjecture
God to be something even greater through the Spirit. For that which is,
according to what it is, can neither be declared by human discourse, nor
received by human ears, nor gathered by human perceptions. For if "the
things which God hath prepared for them that love Him, neither eye hath
seen, nor ear hath heard, nor the heart of man, nor even his mind has
perceived;"(1) what and how great is He Himself who promises these things,
in understanding which both the mind and nature of man have failed!
Finally, if you receive the Spirit as the substance of God, you will make
God a creature. For every spirit is a creature. And therefore, then, God
will be made. In which manner also, if, according to Moses, you should
receive God to be fire, in saying that He is a creature, you will have
declared what is ordained, you will not have taught who is its ordainer.
But these things are rather used as figures than as being so in fact. For
as, in the Old Testament,(2) God is for this reason called Fire, that fear
may be struck into the hearts of a sinful people, by suggesting to them a
Judge; so in the New Testament He is announced as Spirit, that, as the
Renewer and Creator of those who are dead in their sins, He may be attested
by this goodness of mercy granted to those that believe.
CHAP. VIII. ARGUMENT. -- IT IS THIS GOD, THEREFORE, THAT THE CHURCH HAS
KNOWN AND ADORES; AND TO HIM THE TESTIMONY OF THINGS AS WELL VISIBLE AS
INVISIBLE IS GIVEN BOTH AT ALL TIMES AND IN ALL FORMS, BY THE NATURE WHICH
HIS PROVIDENCE RULES AND GOVERNS.
This God, then, setting aside the fables and figments of heretics, the
Church knows and worships, to whom the universal and entire nature of
things as well visible as invisible gives witness; whom angels adore, stars
wonder at, seas bless, lands revere, and all things under the earth look up
to; whom the whole mind of man is conscious of, even if it does not express
itself; at whose command all things are set in motion, springs gush forth,
rivers flow, waves arise, all creatures bring forth their young, winds arc
compelled to blow, showers descend, seas arc stirred up, all things
everywhere diffuse their fruitfulness. Who ordained, peculiar to the
protoplasts of eternal life, a certain beautiful paradise in the east; He
planted the tree of life, and similarly placed near it another tree of the
knowledge of good and evil, gave a command, and decreed a judgment against
sin; He preserved the most righteous Noe from the perils of the deluge, for
the merit of His innocence and faith; He translated Enoch: He elected
Abraham into the society of his friendship; He protected Isaac: He
increased Jacob; He gave Moses for a leader unto the people; He delivered
the groaning children of Israel from the yoke of slavery; He wrote the law;
He brought the offspring of our fathers into the land of promise; He
instructed the prophets by His Spirit, and by all of them He promised His
Son Christ; and at the time at which He had covenanted that He would give
Him, He sent Him, and through Him He desired to come into our knowledge,
and shed forth upon us the liberal stores of His mercy, by conferring His
abundant Spirit on the poor and abject. And, because He of His own free-
will is both liberal and kind, lest the whole of this globe, being turned
away from the streams of His grace, should wither, He willed the apostles,
as founders of our family, to be sent by His Son into the whole world, that
the condition of the human race might be conscious of its Founder; and, if
it should choose to follow Him, might have One whom even in its
supplications it might now call Father instead of God.(3) And His
providence has had or has its course among men, not only individually, but
also among cities themselves, and states whose destructions have been
announced by the words of prophets; yea, even through the whole world
itself; whose end, whose miseries, and wastings, and sufferings on account
of unbelief He has allotted. And lest moreover any one should think that
such an indefatigable providence of God does not reach to even the very
least things, "One of two sparrows," says the Lord, "shall not fall without
the will of the Father; but even the very hairs of your head are all
numbered."(4) And His care and providence did not permit even the clothes
of the Israelites to be worn out, nor even the vilest shoes on their feet
to be wasted; nor, moreover, finally, the very garments of the captive
young men to be burnt. And this is not without reason; for if He embraces
all things, and contains all things,--and all things, and the whole,
consist of individuals,--His care will consequently extend even to every
individual thing, since His providence reaches to the whole, whatever it
is. Hence it is that He also sitteth above the Cherubim; that is, He
presides over the variety of His works, the living creatures which hold the
control over the rest being subjected to His throne:(5) a crystal covering
being thrown over all things; that is, the heaven covering all things,
which at the command of God had been consolidated into a firmament(6) from
the fluent material of the waters, that the strong hardness that divides
the midst of the waters that covered the earth before, might sustain as if
on its back the weight of the superincumbent water, its strength being
established by the frost. And, moreover, wheels lie below--that is to say,
the seasons--whereby all the members of the world are always being rolled
onwards; such feet being added by which those things do not stand still for
ever, but pass onward. And, moreover, throughout all their limbs they are
studded with eyes; for the works of God must be contemplated with an ever
watchful inspection: in the heart of which things, a fire of embers is in
the midst, either because this world of ours is hastening to the fiery day
of judgment; or because all the works of God are fiery, and are not
darksome, but flourish.(1) Or, moreover, lest, because those things had
arisen from earthly beginnings, they should naturally be inactive, from the
rigidity of their origin, the hot nature of an interior spirit was added to
all things; and that this nature concreted with the cold bodies might
minister(2) for the purpose of life equal measures for all.(3) This,
therefore, according to David, is God's chariot. "For the chariot of God,"
says he, "is multiplied ten thousand times;"(4) that is, it is innumerable,
infinite, immense. For, under the yoke of the natural law given to all
things, some things are restrained, as if withheld by reins; others, as if
stimulated, are urged on with relaxed reins. For the world,s which is that
chariot of God with all things, both the angels themselves and the stars
guide; and their movements, although various, yet bound by certain laws, we
watch them guiding by the bounds of a time prescribed to themselves; so
that rightly we also are now disposed to exclaim with the apostle, as he
admires both the Architect and His works: "Oh the depth of the riches of
the wisdom and knowledge of God! how inscrutable are His judgments, and His
ways past finding out!" And the rest.(6)
CHAP. IX. ARGUMENT.-- FURTHER, THAT THE SAME RULE OF TRUTH TEACHES US TO
BELIEVE, AFTER THE FATHER, ALSO IN THE SON OF GOD, JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD
GOD, BEING THE SAME THAT WAS PROMISED IN THE OLD TESTAMENT, AND MANIFESTED
IN THE NEW.
The same rule of truth teaches us to believe, after the Father, also on
the Son of God, Christ Jesus, the Lord our God, but the Son of God--of that
God who is both one and alone, to wit the Founder of all things, as already
has been expressed above. For this Jesus Christ, I will once more say, the
Son of this God, we read of as having been promised in the Old Testament,
and we observe to be manifested in the New, fulfilling the shadows and
figures of all the sacraments, with the presence of the truth embodied. For
as well the ancient prophecies as the Gospels testify Him to be the son of
Abraham and the son of David. Genesis itself anticipates Him, when it says:
"To thee will I give it, and to thy seed."(7) He is spoken of when it shows
how a man wrestled with Jacob; He too, when it says: "There shall not fail
a prince from Judah, nor a leader from between his thighs, until He shall
come to whom it has been promised; and He shall be the expectation of the
nations." 8 He is spoken of by Moses when he says: "Provide another whom
thou mayest send."(9) He is again spoken of by the same, when he testifies,
saying: "A Prophet will God raise up to you from your brethren; listen to
Him as if to me."(10) It is He, too, that he speaks of when he says: "Ye
shall see your life hanging in doubt night and day, and ye shall not
believe Him."(11) Him, too, Isaiah alludes to: "There shall go forth a rod
from the root of Jesse, and a flower shall grow up from his root."(12) The
same also when he says: "Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a
son."(13) Him he refers to when he enumerates the healings that were to
proceed from Him, saying: "Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened, and
the ears of the deaf shall hear: then shall the lame man leap as an hart,
and the tongue of the dumb shall be eloquent."(14) Him also, when he sets
forth the virtue of patience, saying: "His voice shall not be heard in the
streets; a bruised reed shall He not destroy, and the smoking flax shall He
not quench."(15) Him, too, when he described His Gospel: "And I will ordain
for you an everlasting covenant, even the sure mercies of David."(16) Him,
too, when he foretells that the nations should believe on Him: "Behold, I
have given Him for a Chief and a Commander to the nations. Nations that
knew not Thee shall call upon Thee, and peoples that knew Thee not shall
flee unto Thee."(17) It is the same that he refers to when, concerning His
passion, he exclaims, saying: "As a sheep He is led to the slaughter; and
as a lamb before his shearer is dumb, so He opened not His mouth in His
humility."[1] Him, moreover, when he described the blows and stripes of His
scourgings: "By His bruises we were healed."[2] Or His humiliation: "And we
saw Him, and He had neither form nor comeliness, a man in suffering, and
who knoweth how to bear infirmity."[3] Or that the people would not believe
on Him: "All day long I have spread out my hands unto a people that
believeth not."[4] Or that He would rise again from the dead: "And in that
day there shall be a root of Jesse, and one who shall rise to reign over
the nations; on Him shall the nations hope, and His rest shall be
honour."[5] Or when he speaks of the time of the resurrection: "We shall
find Him, as it were, prepared in the morning." [6] Or that He should sit
at the right hand of the Father: "The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit Thou at
my right hand, until I shall place Thine enemies as the stool of Thy
feet."[7] Or when He is set forth as possessor of all things: "Ask of me,
and I will give Thee the heathen for Thine inheritance, and the boundaries
of the earth for Thy possession." [8] Or when He is shown as Judge of all:
"O God, give the King Thy judgment, and Thy righteousness to the King's
Son."[9] And I shall not in this place pursue the subject further: the
things which are announced of Christ are known to all heretics, but are
even better known to those who hold the truth.
CHAP. X. ARGUMENT.--THAT JESUS CHRIST IS THE SON OF GOD AND TRULY MAN, AS
OPPOSED TO THE FANCIES OF HERETICS, WHO DENY THAT HE TOOK UPON HIM TRUE
FLESH.
But of this I remind you, that Christ was not to be expected in the
Gospel in any other wise than as He was promised before by the Creator, in
the Scriptures of the Old Testament; especially as the things that were
predicted of Him were fulfilled, and those things that were fulfilled had
been predicted. As with reason I might truly and constantly say to that
fanciful--I know not what--of those heretics who reject the authority of
the Old Testament, as to a Christ feigned and coloured up from old wives'
fables: "Who art thou? Whence art thou? By whom art thou sent? Wherefore
hast thou now chosen to come? Why such as thou art? Or how hast thou been
able to come? Or wherefore hast thou not gone to thine own, except that
thou hast proved that thou hast none of thine own, by coming to those of
another? What hast thou to do with the Creator's world? What hast thou to
do with the Creator's man? What hast thou to do with the image of a body
from which thou takest away the hope of resurrection? Why comest thou to
another man's servant, and desirest thou to solicit another man's son? Why
dost thou strive to take me away from the Lord? Why dost thou compel me to
blaspheme, and to be impious to my Father? Or what shall I gain from thee
in the resurrection, if I do not receive myself when I lose my body? If
thou wishest to save, thou shouldest have made a man to whom to give
salvation. If thou desirest to snatch from sin, thou shouldest have granted
to me previously that I should not fall into sin. But what approbation of
law dost thou carry about with thee? What testimony of the prophetic word
hast thou? Or what substantial good can I promise myself from thee, when I
see that thou hast come in a phantasm and not in a bodily substance? What,
then, hast thou to do with the form of a body, if thou hatest a body? Nay,
thou wilt be refitted as to the hatred of bearing about the substance of a
body, since thou hast been willing even to take up its form. For thou
oughtest to have hated the imitation of a body, if thou hatedst the
reality; because, if thou art something else, thou oughtest to have come as
something else, lest thou shouldest be called the Son of the Creator if
thou hadst even the likeness of flesh and body. Assuredly, if thou hatedst
being born because thou hatedst ' the Creator's marriage-union,' thou
oughtest to refuse even the likeness of a man who is born by the 'marriage
of the Creator.'"
Neither, therefore, do we acknowledge that that is a Christ of the
heretics who was--as it is said--in appearance and not in reality; for of
those things which he did, he could have done nothing real, if he himself
was a phantasm, and not reality. Nor him who wore nothing of our body in
himself, seeing "he received nothing from Mary ;" neither did he come to
us, since he appeared "as a vision, not in our substance." Nor do, we
acknowledge that to the Christ who chose an ethereal or starry flesh, as
some heretics have pretended. Nor can we perceive any salvation of ours in
him, if in him we do not even recognise the substance of our body; nor, in
short, any other who may have worn any other kind of fabulous body of
heretical device. For all such fables as these are confuted as well by the
nativity as by the death itself of our Lord. For John says: "The Word was
made flesh, and dwelt among us;"[10] so that, reasonably, our body should
be in Him, because indeed the Word took on Him our flesh. And for this
reason blood flowed forth from His hands and feet, and from His very side,
so that He might be proved to be a sharer in our body by dying according to
the laws of our dissolution. And that He was raised again in the same
bodily substance in which He died, is proved by the wounds of that very
body, and thus He showed the laws of our resurrection in His flesh, in that
He restored the same body in His resurrection which He had from us. For a
law of resurrection is established, in that Christ is raised up in the
substance of the body as an example for the rest; because, when it is
written that "flesh and blood do not inherit the kingdom of God,"[1] it is
not the substance of the flesh that is condemned, which was built up by the
divine hands that it should not perish, but only the guilt of the flesh is
rightly rebuked, which by the voluntary daring of man rebelled against the
claims of divine law. Because in baptism and in the dissolution of death
the flesh is raised up and returns to salvation, by being recalled to the
condition of innocency when the mortality of guilt is put away.
CHAP. XI.-- AND INDEED THAT CHRIST WAS NOT ONLY MAN, BUT GOD ALSO; THAT
EVEN AS HE WAS THE SON OF MAN, SO ALSO HE WAS THE SON OF GOD.
But lest, from the fact of asserting that our Lord Jesus Christ, the
Son of God, the Creator, was manifested in the substance of the true body,
we should seem either to have given assent to other heretics, who in this
place maintain that He is man only and alone, and therefore desire to prove
that He was a man bare and solitary; and lest we should seem to have
afforded them any ground for objecting, we do not so express doctrine
concerning the substance of His body, as to say that He is only and alone
man, but so as to maintain, by the association of the divinity of the Word
in that very materiality, that He was also God according to the Scriptures.
For there is a great risk of saying that the Saviour of the human race was
only man; that the Lord of all, and the Chief of the world, to whom all
things were delivered, and all things were granted by His Father, by whom
all things were ordained, all things were created, all things were
arranged, the King of all ages and times, the Prince of all the angels,
before whom there is none but the Father, was only man, and denying to Him
divine authority in these things. For this contempt of the heretics will
recoil also upon God the Father, if God the Father could not beget God the
Son. But, moreover, no blindness of the heretics shall prescribe to the
truth. Nor, because they maintain one thing in Christ and, do not maintain
another, they see one side of Christ and do not see another, shall there be
taken away from us that which they do not see for the sake of that which
they do. For they regard the weaknesses in Him as if they were a man's
weaknesses, but they do not count the powers as if they were a God's
powers. They keep in mind the infirmities of the flesh, they exclude the
powers of the divinity; when if this argument from the infirmities of
Christ is of avail to the result of proving Him to be man from His
infirmities, the argument of divinity in Him gathered from His powers
avails to the result also of asserting Him to be God from His works. For if
His sufferings show in Him human frailty, why may not His works assert in
Him divine power? For if this should not avail to assert Him to be God from
His powers, neither can His sufferings avail to show Him to be man also
from them. For whatever principle be adopted on one or the other side, will
be found to be maintained.[2] For there will be a risk that He should not
be shown to be man from His sufferings, if He could not also be approved as
God by His powers. We must not then lean to one side and evade the other
side, because any one who should exclude one portion of the truth will
never hold the perfect truth. For Scripture as much announces Christ as
also God, as it announces God Himself as man. It has as much described
Jesus Christ to be man, as moreover it has also described Christ the Lord
to be God. Because it does not set forth Him to be the Son of God only, but
also the Son of man; nor does it only say, the Son of man, but it has also
been accustomed to speak of Him as the Son of God. So that being of both,
He is both, lest if He should be one only, He could not be the other. For
as nature itself has prescribed that he must be believed to be a man who is
of man, so the same nature prescribes also that He must be believed to be
God who is of God; but if he should not also be God when be is of God, no
more should he be man although he should be of man. And thus both doctrines
would be endangered in one and the other way, by one being convicted to
have lost belief in the other. Let them, therefore, who read that Jesus
Christ the Son of man is man, read also that this same Jesus is called also
God and the Son of God. For in the manner that as man He is of Abraham, so
also as God He is before Abraham himself. And in the same manner as He is
as man the "Son of David,"[3] so as God He is proclaimed David's Lord. And
in the same manner as He was made as man "under the law,"[4] so as God He
is declared to be "Lord of the Sabbath."[5] And in the same manner as He
suffers, as man, the condemnation, so as God He is found to have all
judgment of the quick and dead. And in the same manner as He is born as man
subsequent to the world, so as God He is manifested to have been before the
world. And in the same way as He was begotten as man of the seed of David,
so also the world is said to have been ordained by Him as God. And in the
same way as He was as man after many, so as God He was before all. And in
the same manner as He was as man inferior to others, so as God He was
greater than all. And in the same manner as He ascended as man into heaven,
so as God He had first descended thence. And in the same manner as He goes
as man to the Father, so as the Son in obedience to the Father He shall
descend thence. So if imperfections in Him prove human frailty, majesties
in Him affirm divine power. For the risk is, in reading of both, to believe
not both, but one of the two. Wherefore as both are read of in Christ, let
both be believed; that so finally the faith may be true, being also
complete. For if of two principles one gives way in the faith, and the
other, and that indeed which is of least importance, be taken up for
belief, the rule of truth is thrown into confusion; and that boldness will
not confer salvation, but instead of salvation will effect a great risk of
death from the overthrow of the faith.
CHAP. XII. ARGUMENT.--THAT CHRIST IS GOD, IS PROVED BY THE AUTHORITY OF THE
OLD TESTAMENT SCRIPTURES.
Why, then, should we hesitate to say what Scripture does not shrink
from declaring? Why shall the truth of faith hesitate in that wherein the
authority of Scripture has never hesitated? For, behold, Hosea the prophet
says in the person of the Father: "I will not now save them by bow, nor by
horses, nor by horsemen; but I will save them by the Lord their God."[1] If
God says that He saves by God, still God does not save except by Christ.
Why, then, should man hesitate to call Christ God, when he observes that He
is declared to be God by the Father according to the Scriptures? Yea, if
God the Father does not save except by God, no one can be saved by God the
Father unless he shall have confessed Christ to be God, in whom and by whom
the Father promises that He will give him salvation: so that, reasonably,
whoever acknowledges Him to be God, may find salvation in Christ God;
whoever does not acknowledge Him to be God, would lose salvation which he
could not find elsewhere than in Christ God. For in the same way as Isaiah
says, "Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and ye shall call
His name Emmanuel, which is, interpreted, God with us;"[2] so Christ
Himself says, "Lo, I am with you, even to the consummation of the
world."[3] Therefore He is" God with us;" yea, and much rather, He is in
us. Christ is with us, therefore it is He whose name is God with us,
because He also is with us; or is He not with us? How then does He say that
He is with us? He, then, is with us. But because He is with us He was
called Emmanuel, that is, God with us. God, therefore, because He is with
us, was called God with us, The same prophet says: "Be ye strengthened, ye
relaxed hands, and ye feeble knees; be consoled, ye that are cowardly in
heart; be strong; fear not. Lo, our God shall return judgment; He Himself
shall come, and shall save you: then shall the eyes of the blind be opened,
and the ears of the deaf shall hear; then shall the lame man leap as an
hart, and the tongue of the dumb shall be eloquent."[4] Since the prophet
says that at God's advent these should be the signs which come to pass; let
men acknowledge either that Christ is the Son of God, at whose advent and
by whom these wonders of healings were performed; or, overcome by the truth
of Christ's divinity, let them rush into the other heresy, and refusing to
confess Christ to be the Son of God, and God, let them declare Him to be
the Father. For, being bound by the words of the prophets, they can no
longer deny Christ to be God. What, then, do they reply when those signs
are said to be about to take place on the advent of God, which were
manifested on the advent of Christ? In what way do they receive Christ as
God? For now they cannot deny Him to be God. As God the Father, or as God
the Son? If as the Son, why do they deny that the Son of God is God? If as
the Father, why do they not follow those who appear to maintain blasphemies
of that kind? unless because in this contest against them concerning the
truth, this is in the meantime sufficient for us, that, being convinced in
any kind of way, they should confess Christ to be God, seeing they have
even wished to deny that He is God. He says by Habakkuk the prophet: "God
shall come from the south, and the Holy One from the dark and dense
mountain."[5] Whom do they wish to represent as coming from the south? If
they say that it is the Almighty God the Father, then God the Father comes
from a place, from which place, moreover, He is thus excluded, and He is
bounded within the straitnesses of some abode; and thus by such as these,
as we have said, the sacrilegious heresy of Sabellius is embodied. Since
Christ is believed to be not the Son, but the Father; since by them He is
asserted to be in strictness a bare man, in a new manner, by those, again,
Christ is proved to be God the Father Almighty. But if in Bethlehem, the
region of which local division looks towards the southern portion of
heaven, Christ is born, who by the Scriptures is also said to be God, this
God is rightly described as coming from the south, because He was foreseen
as about to come from Bethlehem. Let them, then, choose of the two
alternatives, the one that they prefer, that He who came from the south is
the Son, or the Father; for God is said to be about to come from the south.
If the Son, why do they shrink from calling Him Christ and God? For the
Scripture says that God shall come. If the Father, why do they shrink from
being associated with the boldness of Sabellius, who says that Christ is
the Father? unless because, whether they call Him Father or Son, from his
heresy, however unwillingly, they must needs withdraw if they are
accustomed to say that Christ is merely man; when compelled by the facts
themselves, they are on the eve of exalting Him as God, whether in wishing
to call Him Father or in wishing to call Him Son.
CHAP. XIII. ARGUMENT. --THAT THE SAME TRUTH IS PROVED FROM THE SACRED
WRITINGS OF THE NEW COVENANT.
And thus also John, describing the nativity of Christ, says: "The Word
was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, the glory as of
the only begotten of the Father, full Of grace and truth.". For, moreover,
"His name is called the Word of God,"[2] and not without reason. "My heart
has emitted a good word; "[3] which word He subsequently calls by the name
of the King inferentially, "I will tell my works to the King."[3] For "by
Him were made all the works, and without Him was nothing made."[4]
"Whether" says the apostle "they be thrones or dominations, or powers, or
mights, visible things and invisible, all things subsist by Him."[5]
Moreover, this is I d which came unto His own, and His own received Him
not. For the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not."[6]
Moreover, this Word "was in the beginning with God, and God was the
Word."[7] Who then can doubt, when in the last clause it is said, "The Word
was made flesh, and dwelt among us," that Christ, whose is the nativity,
and because He was made flesh, is man; and because He is the Word of God,
who can shrink from declaring without hesitation that He is God, especially
when he considers the evangelical Scripture, that it has associated both of
these substantial natures into one concord of the nativity of Christ? For
He it is who "as a bride-groom goeth forth from his bride-chamber; He
exulted as a giant to run his way. His going forth is from the end of the
heaven, and His return unto the ends of it."[8] Because, even to the
highest, "not any one hath ascended into heaven save He who came down from
heaven, the Son of man who is in heaven."[9] Repeating this same thing, He
says: "Father, glorify me with that glory wherewith I was with Thee before
the world was."[10] And if this Word came down from heaven as a bridegroom
to the flesh, that by the assumption of flesh He might ascend thither as
the Son of man, whence the Son of God had descended as the Word,
reasonably, while by the mutual connection both flesh wears the Word of
God, and the Son of God assumes the frailty of the flesh; when the flesh
being espoused ascending thither, whence without the flesh it had
descended, it at length receives that glory which in being shown to have
had before the foundation of the world, it is most manifestly proved. to
be God. And, nevertheless, while the world itself is said to have been
founded after Him, it is found to have been created by Him; by that very
divinity in Him whereby, the world was made, both His glory and His
authority are proved. Moreover, if, whereas it is the property of none but
God to know the secrets of the heart, Christ beholds the secrets of the
heart; and if, whereas it belongs to none but God to remit sins, the same
Christ remits sins; and if, whereas it is the portion of no man to come
from heaven, He descended by coming from heaven; and if, whereas this word
can be true of no man, "I and the Father are one,"[11] Christ alone
declared this word out of the consciousness of His divinity; and if,
finally, the Apostle Thomas, instructed in all the proofs and conditions of
Christ's divinity, says in reply to Christ, "My Lord and my God ;" [12] and
if, besides, the Apostle Paul says, " Whose are the fathers, and of whom
Christ came according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed for
evermore,"[13] writing in his epistles; and if the same apostle declares
that he was ordained "an apostle not by men, nor of man, but by Jesus
Christ;"[14] and if the same contends that he learned the Gospel not from
men or by man, but received it from Jesus Christ, reasonably Christ is God.
Therefore, in this respect, one of two things must needs be established.
For since it is evident that all things were made by Christ, He is either
before all things, since all things were by Him, and so He is justly God;
or because He is man He is subsequent to all things, and justly nothing was
made by Him. But we cannot say that nothing was made by Him, when we
observe it written that all things were made by Him. He is not therefore
subsequent to all things; that is, He is not man only, who is subsequent to
all things, but God also, since God is prior to all things. For He is
before all things, because all things are by Him, while if He were only
man, nothing would be by Him; or if all things were by Him, He would not be
man only, because if He were only man, all things would not be by Him; nay,
nothing would be by Him. What, then, do they reply? That nothing is by Him,
so that He is man only? How then are all things by Him? Therefore He is not
man only, but God also, since all things are by Him; so that we reasonably
ought to understand that Christ is not man only, who is subsequent to all
things, but God also, since by Him all things were made. For how can you
say that He is man only, when you see Him also in the flesh, unless because
when both aspects are considered, both truths are rightly believed?
CHAP. XIV. ARGUMENT,--THE AUTHOR PROSECUTES THE SAME ARGUMENT.
And yet the heretic still shrinks from urging that Christ is God, whom
he perceives to be proved God by so many words as well as facts. If Christ
is only man, how, when He came into this world, did He come unto His own,
since a man could have made no world? If Christ was only man, how is the
world said to have been made by Him, when the world was not by man, but man
was ordained after the world? If Christ was only man, how was it that
Christ was not only of the seed of David; but He was the Word made flesh
and dwelt among us? For although the Protoplast was not born of seed, yet
neither was the Protoplast formed of the conjunction of the Word and the
flesh. For He is not the Word made flesh, nor dwelt in us. If Christ was
only man, how does He "who cometh from heaven testify what He hath seen and
heard,"[1] when it is plain that man cannot come from heaven, because he
cannot be born there? If Christ be only man, how are "visible things and
invisible, thrones, powers, and dominions," said to be created by Him and
in Him; when the heavenly powers could not have been made by man, since
they must needs have been prior to man? If Christ is only man, how is He
present wherever He is called upon; when it is not the nature of man, but
of God, that it can be present in every place? If Christ is only man, why
is a man invoked in prayers as a Mediator, when the invocation of a man to
afford salvation is condemned as ineffectual? If Christ is only man, why is
hope rested upon Him, when hope in man is declared to be accursed? If
Christ is only man, why may not Christ be denied without destruction of the
soul, when it is said that a sin committed against man may be forgiven? If
Christ is only man, how comes John the Baptist to testify and say, "He who
cometh after me has become before me, because He was prior to me;"[2] when,
if Christ were only man, being born after John, He could not be before
John, unless because He preceded him, in that He is God? If Christ is only
man, how is it that "what things the Father doeth, these also doeth the Son
likewise,"[3] when man cannot do works like to the heavenly operations of
God? If Christ is only man, how is it that "even as the Father hath life in
Himself, so hath He given to the Son to have life in Himself,"[4] when man
cannot have life in him after the example of God the Father, because he is
not glorious in eternity, but made with the materials of mortality? If
Christ is only man, how does He say, "I am the bread of eternal life which
came down from heaven,"[5] when man can neither be the bread of life, he
himself being mortal, nor could he have come down from heaven, since no
perishable material is established in heaven? If Christ is only man, how
does He say that "no man hath seen God at any time, save He which is of
God; He hath seen God?"[6] Because if Christ is only man, He could not see
God, because no man has seen God; but if, being of God, He has seen God, He
wishes it to be understood that He is more than man, in that He has seen
God. If Christ is only man, why does He say, "What if ye shall see the Son
of man ascending thither where He was before?"[7] But He ascended into
heaven, therefore He was there, in that He returned thither where He was
before. But if He was sent from heaven by the Father, He certainly is not
man only; for man, as we have said, could not come from heaven. Therefore
as man He was not there before, but ascended thither where He was not. But
the Word of God descended which was there, --the Word of God, I say, and
God by whom all things were made, and without whom nothing was made. It was
not therefore man that thus came thence from heaven, but the Word of God;
that is, God descended thence.
CHAP. XV.[1] ARGUMENT.--AGAIN HE PROVES FROM THE GOSPEL THAT CHRIST IS
GOD.
If Christ is only man, how is it that He says, "Though I bear record of
myself, yet my record is true: because I know whence I came, and whither I
go; ye know not whence I came, and whither I go. Ye judge after the
flesh?"[2] Behold, also He says, that He shall return thither whence He
bears witness that He came before, as being sent,--to wit, from heaven. He
came down therefore from whence He came, in the same manner as He goes
thither from whence He descended. Whence if Christ were only man, He would
not have come thence, and therefore would not depart thither, because He
would riot have come thence. Moreover, by coming thence, whence as man He
could not have come, He shows Himself to have come as God. For the Jews,
ignorant and untaught in the matter of this very descent of His, made these
heretics their successors, seeing that to them it is said, "Ye know not
whence I come, and whither I go: ye judge after the flesh." As much they as
the Jews, holding that the carnal birth of Christ was the only one,
believed that Christ was nothing else than man; not considering this point,
that as man could not come from heaven, so as that he might return thither,
He who descended thence must be God, seeing that man could not come thence.
If Christ is only man, how does He say, "Ye are from below, I am from
above; ye are of this world, I am not of this world?"[3] But therefore if
every man is of this world, and Christ is for that reason in this world, is
He only man? God forbid !But consider what He says: "I am not of this
world." Does He then speak falsely when He says "of this world," if He is
only man? Or if He does not speak falsely, He is not of this world; He is
therefore not man only, because He is not of this world. But that it should
not 1 be a secret who He was, He declared whence He was: "I," said He, "am
from above," that is, from heaven, whence man cannot come, for he was not
made in heaven. He is God, therefore, who is from above, and therefore He
is not of this world; although, moreover, in a certain manner He is of this
word: wherefore Christ is not God only, but man also. As reasonably in the
way in which He is not of this world according to the divinity of the Word,
so He is of this world according to the frailty of the body that He has
taken upon Him. For man is joined with God, and God is linked with man. But
on that account this Christ here laid more stress on the one aspect of His
sole divinity, because the Jewish blindness contemplated in Christ the
aspect alone of the flesh; and thence in the present passage He passed over
in silence the frailty of the body, which is of the world, and spoke of His
divinity alone, which is not of the world: so that in proportion as they
had inclined to believe Him to be only man, in that proportion Christ might
draw them to consider His divinity, so as to believe Him to be God,
desirous to overcome their incredulity concerning His divinity by omitting
in the meantime any mention of His human condition, and by setting before
them His divinity alone. If Christ is man only, how does He say, "I
proceeded forth and came from God,"[4] when it is evident that man was
made by God, and did not proceed forth from Him? But in the way in which as
man He proceeded not from God, thus the Word of God proceeded, of whom it
is said, "My heart hath uttered forth a good Word ;"[5] which, because it
is from God, is with reason also with God. And this, too, since it was not
uttered without effect, reasonably makes all things: "For all things were
made by Him, and without Him was nothing made.''[6] But this Word whereby
all things were made (is God). "And God," says he, "was the Word."[7]
Therefore God proceeded from God, in that the Word which proceeded is God,
who proceeded forth from God. If Christ is only man, how does He say, "If
any man shall keep my word, he shall not see death for ever?"[8] Not to see
death for ever! what is this but immortality? But immortality is the
associate of divinity, because both the divinity is immortal, and
immortality is the fruit of divinity. For every man is mortal; and
immortality cannot be from that which is mortal. Therefore from Christ, as
a mortal man, immortality cannot arise. "But," says He, "whosoever keepeth
my word, shall not see death for ever;" therefore the word of Christ
affords immortality, and by immortality affords divinity. But although it
is not possible to maintain that one who is himself mortal can make another
immortal, yet this word of Christ not only sets forth, but affords
immortality: certainly He is not man only who gives immortality, which if
He were only man He could not give; but by giving divinity by immortality,
He proves Himself to be God by offering divinity, which if He were not God
He could not give. If Christ was only man, how did He say, "Before Abraham
was, I Am?"(1) For no man can be before Him from whom he himself is; nor
can it be that any one should have been prior to him of whom he himself has
taken his origin. And yet Christ, although He is born of Abraham, says that
He is before Abraham. Either, therefore, He says what is not true, and
deceives, if He was not before Abraham, seeing that He was of Abraham; or
He does not deceive, if He is also God, and was before Abraham. And if this
were not so, it follows that, being of Abraham, He could not be before
Abraham. If Christ was only man, how does He say, "And I know them, and
my sheep follow me; and I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never
perish?"(2) And yet, since every man is bound by the laws of mortality, and
therefore is unable to keep himself for ever, much more will he be unable
to keep another for ever. But Christ promises to give salvation for ever,
which if He does not give, He is a deceiver; if He gives, He is God. But He
does not deceive, for He gives what He promises. Therefore He is God who
proffers eternal salvation, which man, being unable to keep himself for
ever, cannot be able to give to another. If Christ is only man, what is
that which He says, "I and the Father are one?"(3) For how can it be that
"I and the Father are one," if He is not both God and the Son?--who may
therefore be called one, seeing that He is of Himself, being both His Son,
and being born of Him, being declared to have proceeded from Him, by which
He is also God; which when the Jews thought to be hateful, and believed to
be blasphemous, for that He had shown Himself in these discourses to be
God, and therefore rushed at once to stoning, and set to work passionately
to hurl stones, He strongly refuted His adversaries by the example and
witness of the Scriptures. "If," said He, "He called them gods to whom the
words of God were given, and the Scriptures cannot be broken, ye say of
Him whom the Father sanctified, and sent into this world, Thou blasphemest,
because I said, I am the Son of God."(4) By which words He did not deny
Himself to be God, but rather He confirmed the assertion that He was God.
For because, undoubtedly, they are said to be gods unto whom the words of
God were given, much more is He God who is found to be superior to all
these. And nevertheless He refuted the calumny of blasphemy in a fitting
manner with lawful tact.(5) For He wishes that He should be thus understood
to be God, as the Son of God, and He would not wish to be understood to be
the Father Himself. Thus He said that He was sent, and showed them that He
had manifested many good works from the Father; whence He desired that He
should not be understood to be the Father, but the Son. And in the latter
portion of His defence He made mention of the Son, not the Father, when He
said, "Ye say, Thou blasphemest, because I said, I am the Son of God."
Thus, as far as pertains to the guilt of blasphemy, He calls Himself the
Son, not the Father; but as pertaining to His divinity, by saying, "I and
the Father are one," He proved that He was the Son of God. He is God,
therefore, but God in such a manner as to be the Son, not the Father.
CHAP. XVI.(6) ARGUMENT.--AGAIN FROM THE GOSPEL HE PROVES CHRIST TO BE GOD.
If Christ was only man, how is it that He Himself says, "And every one
that believeth in me shall not die for evermore?"(7) And yet he who
believes in man by himself alone is called accursed; but he who believes on
Christ is not accursed, but is said not to die for evermore. Whence, if on
the one hand He is man only, as the heretics will have it, how shall not
anybody who believes in Him die eternally, since he who trusts in man is
held to be accursed? Or on the other, if he is not accursed, but rather, as
it is read, destined for the attainment of everlasting life, Christ is not
man only, but God also, in whom he who believes both lays aside all risk of
curse, and attains to the fruit of righteousness. If Christ was only man,
how does He say that the Paraclete "shall take of His, those things which
He shall declare?"(8) For neither does the Paraclete receive anything from
man, but the Paraclete offers knowledge to man; nor does the Paraclete
learn things future from man, but instructs man concerning futurity.
Therefore either the Paraclete has not received from Christ, as man, what
He should declare, since man could give nothing to the Paraclete, seeing
that from Him man himself ought to receive, and Christ in the present
instance is both mistaken and deceives, in saying that the Paraclete shall
receive from Him, being a man, the things which He may declare; or He does
not deceive us,--as in fact He does not,--and the Paraclete has received
from Christ what He may declare. But if He has received from Christ what He
may declare to us, Christ is greater than the Paraclete, because the
Paraclete would not receive from Christ unless He were less than Christ.
But the Paraclete being less than Christ, moreover, by this very fact
proves Christ to be God, from whom He has received what He declares: so
that the testimony of Christ's divinity is immense, in the Paraclete being
found to be in this economy less than Christ, and taking from Him what He
gives to others; seeing that if Christ were only man, Christ would receive
from the Paraclete what He should say, not the Paraclete receive from
Christ what He should declare. If Christ was only man, wherefore did He lay
down for us such a rule of believing as that in which He said, "And this is
life eternal, that they should know Thee, the only and true God, and Jesus
Christ, whom Thou hast sent?"(1) Had He not wished that He also should be
understood to be God, why did He add, "And Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast
sent," except because He wished to be received as God also? Because if He
had not wished to be understood to be God, He would have added, "And the
man Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent;" but, in fact, He neither added
this, nor did Christ deliver Himself to us as than only, but associated
Himself with God, as He wished to be understood by this conjunction to be
God also, as He is. We must therefore believe, according to the rule
prescribed,(2) on the Lord, the one true God, and consequently on Him whom
He has sent, Jesus Christ, who by no means, as we have said, would have
linked Himself to the Father had He not wished to be understood to be God
also: for He would have separated Himself from Him had He not wished to be
understood to be God. He would have placed Himself among men only, had He
known Himself to be only man; nor would He have linked Himself with God had
He not known Himself to be God also. But in this case He is silent about
His being man, because no one doubts His being man, and with reason links
Himself to God, that He might establish the formula of His divinity(2) for
those who should believe. If Christ was only man, how does He say, "And
now glorify me with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was?"
(3) If, before the world was, He had glory with God, and maintained His
glory with the Father, He existed before the world, for He would not have
had the glory unless He Himself had existed before, so as to be able to
keep the glory. For no one could possess anything, unless he himself should
first be in existence to keep anything. But now Christ has the glory before
the foundation of the world; therefore He Himself was before the
foundation of the world. For unless He were before the foundation of the
world, He could not have glory before the foundation of the world, since He
Himself was not in existence. But indeed man could not have glory before
the foundation of the world, seeing that he was after the world; but
Christ had--therefore He was before the world. Therefore He was not man
only, seeing that He was before the world. He is therefore God, because He
was before the world, and held His glory before the world. Neither let this
be explained by predestination, since this is not so expressed, or let them
add this who think so, but woe is denounced to them who add to, even as to
those who take away from, that which is written. Therefore that may not be
said, which may not be added. And thus, predestination being set aside,
seeing it is not so laid down, Christ was in substance before the
foundation of the world. For He is "the Word by which all things were made,
and without which nothing was made." Because even if He is said to be
glorious in predestination, and that this predestination was before the
foundation of the world, let order be maintained, and before Him a
considerable number of men was destined to glory. For in respect of that
destination, Christ will be perceived to be less than others if He is
designated subsequent to them. For if this glory was in predestination,
Christ received that predestination to glory last of all; for prior to Him
Adam will be seen to have been predestinated, and Abel, and Enoch, and
Noah, and Abraham, and many others. For since with God the order of all,
both persons and things, is arranged, many will be said to have been
predestinated before this predestination of Christ to glory. And on these
terms Christ is discovered to be inferior to other men, although He is
really found to be better and greater, and more ancient than the angels
themselves. Either, then, let all these things be set on one side, that
Christ's divinity may be destroyed; or if these things cannot be set aside,
let His proper divinity be attributed to Christ by the heretics.
CHAP. XVII.(4) ARGUMENT.--IT IS, MOREOVER, PROVED BY MOSES IN THE BEGINNING
OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES.
What if Moses pursues this same rule of truth, and delivers to us in
the beginning of his sacred writings, this principle by which we may learn
that all things were created and rounded by the Son of God, that is, by the
Word of God? For He says the same that John and the rest say; nay, both
John and the others are perceived to have received from Him what they say.
For if John says, "All things were made by Him, and without Him was nothing
made,"(5) the prophet David too says, "I tell my works to the King."(6)
Moses, moreover, introduces God commanding that there should be light at
the first, that the heaven should be established, that the waters should be
gathered into one place, that the dry land should appear, that the fruit
should be brought forth according to its seed, that the animals should be
produced, that lights should be established in heaven, and stars. He shows
that none other was then present to God--by whom these works were commanded
that they should be made--than He by whom all things were made, and without
whom nothing was made. And if He is the Word of God--"for my heart has
uttered forth a good Word"(1)--He shows that in the beginning the Word was,
and that this Word was with the Father, and besides that the Word was God,
and that all things were made by Him. Moreover, this "Word was made flesh
and dwelt among us,"(2)--to wit, Christ the Son of God; whom both on
receiving subsequently as man according to the flesh, and seeing before the
foundation of the world to be the Word of God, and God, we reasonably,
according to the instruction of the Old and New Testament, believe and hold
to be as well God as man, Christ Jesus. What if the same Moses introduces
God saying, "Let us make man after our image and likeness;"(3) and below,
"And God made man; in the image of God made He him, male and female made He
them?"(4) If, as we have already shown, it is the Son of God by whom all
things were made, certainly it was the Son of God by whom also man was
ordained, on whose account all things were made. Moreover, when God
commands that man should be made, He is said to be God who makes man; but
the Son of God makes man, that is to say, the Word of God, "by whom all
things were made, and without whom nothing was made." And this Word was
made flesh, and dwelt among us: therefore Christ is God; therefore man was
made by Christ as by the Son of God. But God made man in the image of God;
He is therefore God who made man in the image of God; therefore Christ is
God: so that with reason neither does the testimony of the Old Testament
waver concerning the person of Christ, being supported by the
manifestation of the New Testament; nor is the power of the New Testament
detracted from, while its truth is resting on the roots of the same Old
Testament. Whence they who presume Christ the Son of God and man to be only
man, and not God also, do so in opposition to both Old and New Testaments,
in that they corrupt the authority and the truth both of the Old and New
Testaments. What if the same Moses everywhere introduces God the Father
infinite and without end, not as being enclosed in any place, but as one
who includes every place; nor as one who is in a place, but rather one in
whom every place is, containing all things and embracing all things, so
that with reason He can neither descend nor ascend, because He Himself both
contains and fills all things, and yet nevertheless introduces God
descending to consider the tower which the sons of men were building,
asking and saying, "Come;" and then, "Let us go down and there confound
their tongues, that each one may not understand the words of his
neighbour."(5) Whom do they pretend here to have been the God who descended
to that tower, and asking to visit those men at that time? God the Father?
Then thus He is enclosed in a place; and how does He embrace all things? Or
does He say that it is an angel descending with angels, and saying, "Come;"
and subsequently, "Let us go down and there confound their tongues?" And
yet in Deuteronomy we observe that God told these things, and that God
said, where it is written, "When He scattered abroad the children of Adam,
He determined the bounds of the nations according to the number of the
angels of God."(6) Neither, therefore, did the Father descend, as the
subject itself indicates; nor did an angel command these things, as the
fact shows. Then it remains that He must have descended, of whom the
Apostle Paul says, "He who descended is the same who ascended above all the
heavens, that He might fill all things,"(7) that is, the Son of God, the
Word of God. But the Word of God was made flesh, and dwelt among us. This
must be Christ. Therefore Christ must be declared to be God.
CHAP. XVIII.(8) ARGUMENT.--MOREOVER ALSO, FROM THE FACT THAT HE WHO WAS
SEEN OF ABRAHAM IS CALLED GOD; WHICH CANNOT BE UNDERSTOOD OF THE FATHER,
WHOM NO MAN HATH SEEN AT ANY TIME; BUT OF THE SON IN THE LIKENESS OF AN
ANGEL.
Behold, the same Moses tells us in another place that "God was seen of
Abraham."(9) And yet the same Moses hears from God, that "no man can see
God and live."(10) If God cannot be seen, how was God seen? Or if He was
seen, how is it that He cannot be seen? For John also says, "No man hath
seen God at any time;"(11) and the Apostle Paul, "Whom no man hath seen,
nor can see."(12) But certainly the Scripture does not lie; therefore,
truly, God was seen. Whence it may be understood that it was not the Father
who was seen, seeing that He never was seen; but the Son, who has both been
accustomed to descend, and to be seen because He has descended. For He is
the image of the invisible God, as the imperfection and frailty of the
human condition was accustomed sometimes even then to see God the Father in
the image of God, that is, in the Son of God. For gradually and by
progression human frailty was to be strengthened by the image to that glory
of being able one day to see God the Father. For the things that are great
are dangerous if they are sudden. For even the sudden light of the sun
after darkness, with its too great splendour, will not make manifest the
light of day to unaccustomed eyes, but will rather strike them with
blindness.
And lest this should occur to the injury of human eyes, the darkness is
broken up and scattered by degrees; and the rising of that luminary,
mounting by small and unperceived increments, gently accustoms men's eyes
to bear its full orb by the gentle increase of its rays. Thus, therefore,
Christ also--that is, the image of God, and the Son of God--is looked upon
by men, inasmuch as He could be seen. And thus the weakness and
imperfection of the human destiny is nourished, led up, and educated by
Him; so that, being accustomed to look upon the Son, it may one day be able
to see God the Father Himself also as He is, that it may not be stricken by
His sudden and intolerable brightness, and be hindered from being able to
see God the Father, whom it has always desired.(1) Wherefore it is the Son
who is seen; but the Son of God is the Word of God: and the Word of God was
made flesh, and dwelt among us; and this is Christ. What in the world is
the reason that we should hesitate to call Him God, who in so many ways is
acknowledged to be proved God? And if, moreover, the angel meets with
Hagar, Sarah's maid, driven from her home as well as turned away, near the
fountain of water in the way to Shur; asks and learns the reason of her
flight, and after that offers her advice that she should humble herself;
and, moreover, gives her the hope of the name of mother, and pledges and
promises that from her womb there should be a numerous seed, and that she
should have Ismael to be born from her; and with other things unfolds the
place of his habitation, and describes his mode of life; yet Scripture sets
forth this angel as both Lord and God--for He would not have promised the
blessing of seed unless the angel had also been God. Let them ask what the
heretics can make of this present passage. Was that the Father that was
seen by Hagar or not? For He is declared to be God. But far be it from us
to call God the Father an angel, lest He should be subordinate to another
whose angel He would be. But they will say that it was an angel. How then
shall He be God if He was an an gel? Since this name is nowhere conceded to
angels, except that on either side the truth compels us into this opinion,
that we ought to understand it to have been God the Son, who, because He is
of God, is rightly called God, because He is the Son of God. But, because
He is subjected(3) to the Father, and the Announcer of the Father's will,
He is declared to be the Angel of Great Counsel.(2) Therefore, although
this passage neither is suited to the person of the Father, lest He should
be called an angel, nor to the person of an angel, lest he should be called
God; yet it is suited to the person of Christ that He should be both God
because He is the Son of God, and should be an angel because He is the
Announcer of the Father's mind. And the heretics ought to understand that
they are setting themselves against the Scriptures, in that, while they say
that they believe Christ to have been also an angel, they are unwilling to
declare Him to have been also God, when they read in the Old Testament that
He often came to visit the human race. To this, moreover, Moses added the
instance of God seen of Abraham at the oak of Mature, when he was sitting
at the opening of his tent at noon-day. And nevertheless, although he had
beheld three men, note that he called one of them Lord; and when he had
washed their feet, he offers them bread baked on the ashes, with butter and
abundance of milk itself, and urges them that, being detained as guests,
they should eat. And after I this he hears also that he should be a father,
and learns that Sarah his wife should bring forth a son by him; and
acknowledges concerning the destruction of the people of Sodom, what they
deserve to suffer; and learns that God had come down on account of the cry
of Sodom. in which place, if they will have it that the Father was seen at
that time to have been received with hospitality in company with two
angels, the heretics have believed the Father to be visible. But if an
angel, although of the three angels one is called Lord, why, although it is
not usual, is an angel called God? Unless because, in order that His proper
invisibility may be restored to the Father, and the proper inferiority(3)
be remitted to the angel, it was only God the Son, who also is God, who was
seen by Abraham, and was believed to have been received with hospitality.
For He anticipated sacramentally what He was hereafter to become. He was
made a guest of Abraham, being about to be among the sons of Abraham. And
his children's feet, by way of proving what He was, He washed; returning in
the children the claim of hospitality which formerly the Father had put out
to interest to Him. Whence also, that there might be no doubt but that it
was He who was the guest of Abraham on the destruction of the people of
Sodom, it is declared: "Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrha
fire and brimstone from the Lord out of heaven."(1) For thus also said the
prophet in the person of God: "I have overthrown you, as the Lord
overturned Sodom and Gomorrha."(2) Therefore the Lord overturned Sodom,
that is, God overturned Sodom; but in the overturning of Sodom, the Lord
rained fire from the Lord. And this Lord was the God seen by Abraham; and
this God was the guest of Abraham, certainly seen because He was also
touched. But although the Father, being invisible, was assuredly not at
that time seen, He who was accustomed to be touched and seen was seen and
received to hospitality. But this the Son of God, "The Lord rained from the
Lord upon Sodom and Gomorrha brimstone and fire." And this is the Word of
God. And the Word of God was made flesh, and dwelt among us; and this is
Christ. It was not the Father, then, who was a guest with Abraham, but
Christ. Nor was it the Father who was seen then, but the Son; and Christ
was seen. Rightly, therefore, Christ is both Lord and God, who was not
otherwise seen by Abraham, except that as God the Word He was begotten of
God the Father before Abraham himself. Moreover, says the Scripture, the
same Angel and God visits and consoles the same Hagar when driven with her
son from the dwelling of Abraham. For when in the desert she had exposed
the infant, because the water had fallen short from the pitcher; and when
the lad had cried out, and she had lifted up her weeping and lamentation,
"God heard," says the Scripture, "the voice of the lad from the place where
he was."(3) Having told that it was God who heard the voice of the infant,
it adds: "And the angel of the Lord called Hagar herself out of heaven,"
saying that that was an angel(4) whom it had called God, and pronouncing
Him to be Lord whom it had set forth as an angel; which Angel and God
moreover promises to Hagar herself greater consolations, in saying, "Fear
not; for I have heard the voice of the lad from the place where he was.
Arise, take up the lad, and hold him; for I will make of him a great
nation."(5) Why does this angel, if angel only, claim to himself this right
of saying, I will make of him a great nation, since assuredly this kind of
power belongs to God, and cannot belong to an angel? Whence also He is
confirmed to be God, since He is able to do this; because, by way of
proving this very point, it is immediately added by the Scripture: "And God
opened her eyes, and she saw a well of running water; and she went and
filled the bottle from the well, and gave to the lad: and God was with the
lad."(6) If, then, this God was with the Lord, who opened the eyes of Hagar
that she might see the well of running water, and might draw the water on
account of the urgent need of the lad's thirst, and this God who calls her
from heaven is called an angel when, in previously hearing the voice of the
lad crying, He was rather God; is not understood to be other than angel, in
like manner as He was God also. And since this cannot be applicable or
fitting to the Father, who is God only, but may be applicable to Christ,
who is declared to be not only God, but angel also,(7) it manifestly
appears that it was not the Father who thus spoke to Hagar, but rather
Christ, since He is God; and to Him also is applied the name of angel,
since He became the "angel of great counsel."(8) And He is the angel, in
that He declares the bosom of the Father, as John sets forth. For if John
himself says, that He Himself who sets forth the bosom of the Father, as
the Word, became flesh in order to declare the bosom of the Father,
assuredly Christ is not only man, but angel also; and not only angel, but
He is shown by the Scriptures to be Cod also. And this is believed to be
the case by us; so that, if we will not consent to apprehend that it was
Christ who then spoke to Hagar, we must either make an angel God, or we
must reckon God the Father Almighty among the angels.(9)
CHAP. XIX.(10) ARGUMENT.--THAT GOD ALSO APPEARED TO JACOB AS AN ANGEL;
NAMELY, THE SON OF GOD.
What if in another place also we read in like manner that God was
described as an angel? For when, to his wives Leah and Rachel, Jacob
complained of the injustice of their father, and when he told them that he
desired now to go and return into his own land, he moreover inter posed
the authority of his dream; and at this time he says that the angel of
God had said to him in a dream, "Jacob, Jacob. And I said," says he, "What
is it? Lift up thine eyes, said He, and see, the he-goats and the rams
leaping upon the sheep, and the she-goats are black and white, and many-
coloured, and grizzled, and speckled: for I have seen all that Laban hath
done to thee. I am God, who appeared to thee in the place of God, where
thou anointedst for me there the standing stone, and there vowedst a vow
unto me: now therefore arise, and go forth from this land, and go unto the
land of thy nativity, and I will be with thee."(1) If the Angel of God
speaks thus to Jacob, and the Angel himself mentions and says, "I am God,
who appeared unto thee in the house of God," we see without any hesitation
that this is declared to be not only an angel, but God also; because He
speaks of the vow directed to Himself by Jacob in the place of God, and He
does not say, in my place. It is then the place of God, and He also is God.
Moreover, it is written simply in the place of God, for it is not said in
the place of the angel and God, but only of God; and He who promises those
things is manifested to be both God and Angel, so that reasonably there
must be a distinction between Him who is called God only, and Him who is
declared to be not God simply, but Angel also. Whence if so great an
authority cannot here be regarded as belonging to any other angel, that He
should also avow Himself to be God, and should bear witness that a vow was
made to Him, except to Christ alone, to whom not as angel only, but as to
God, a vow can be vowed; it is manifest that it is not to be received as
the Father, but as the Son, God and Angel.(2) Moreover, if this is Christ,
as it is, he is in terrible risk who says that Christ is either man or
angel alone, withholding from Him the power of the divine name,--an
authority which He has constantly received on the faith of the heavenly
Scriptures, which continually say that He is both Angel and God. To all
these things, moreover, is added this, that in like manner as the divine
Scripture has frequently declared Him both Angel and God, so the same
divine Scripture declares Him also both man and God, expressing thereby
what He should be, and depicting even then in figure what He was to be in
the truth of His substance. "For," it says, "Jacob remained alone; and
there wrestled with him a man even till daybreak. And He saw that He did
not prevail against him; and He touched the broad part of Jacob's thigh
while He was wrestling with him and he with Him, and said to him, Let me
go, for the morning has dawned. And he said, I will not let Thee go, except
Thou bless me. And He said, What is thy name? And he said, Jacob. And He
said to him, Thy name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel shall be
thy name; because thou hast prevailed with God, and thou an powerful with
men."(3) And it adds, moreover: "And Jacob called the name of that place
the Vision of God: for I have seen the Lord face to face, and my soul has
been made safe. And the sun arose upon him. Afterwards he crossed over the
Vision of God, but he halted upon his thigh."(4) A man, it says, wrestled
with Jacob. If this was a mere man, who is he? Whence is he? Wherefore does
he contend and wrestle with Jacob? What had intervened? What had happened?
What was the cause of so great a dispute as that, and so great a struggle?
Why, moreover, is Jacob, who is found to be strong enough to hold the man
with whom he is wrestling, and asks for a blessing from Him whom he is
holding, asserted to have asked therefore, except because this struggle was
prefigured as that which should be between Christ and the sons of Jacob,
which is said to be completed in the Gospel? For against this man Jacob's
people struggled, in which struggle Jacob's people was found to be the more
powerful, because against Christ it gained the victory of its iniquity: at
which time, on account of the crime that it committed, hesitating and
giving way, it began most sorely to halt in the walk of its own faith and
salvation; and although it was found the stronger, in respect of the
condemnation of Christ, it still needs His mercy, still needs His blessing.
But, moreover, the man who wrestled with Jacob says, "Moreover, thy name
shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel shall be thy name;" and if
lsrael is the man who sees God, the Lord was beautifully showing that it
was not only a man who was then wrestling with Jacob, but God also.
Certainly Jacob saw God, with whom he wrestled, although he was holding the
man in his own struggle. And in order that there might still be no
hesitation, He Himself laid down the interpretation by saying, "Because
thou hast prevailed with God, and art powerful with men." For which reason
the same Jacob, perceiving already the force of the Mystery, and
apprehending the authority of Him with whom he had wrestled, called the
name of that place in which he had wrestled, the Vision of God. He,
moreover, superadded the reason for his interpretation being offered of the
Vision of God: "For I have seen," said he, "God face to face, and my soul
has been saved." Moreover, he saw God, with whom he wrestled as with a man;
but still indeed he held the man as a conqueror, though as an inferior he
asked a blessing as from God. Thus he wrestled with God and with man; and
thus truly was that struggle prefigured, and in the Gospel was fulfilled,
between Christ and the people of Jacob, wherein, although the people had
the mastery, yet it proved to be inferior by being shown to be guilty. Who
will hesitate to acknowledge that Christ, in whom this type of a wrestling
was fulfilled, was not man only, but God also, since even that very type of
a wrestling seems to have proved Him man and God? And yet, even after this,
the same divine Scripture justly does not cease to call the Angel God, and
to pronounce God the Angel. For when this very Jacob was about to bless
Manasseh and Ephraim, the sons of Joseph, with his hands placed across on
the heads of the lads, he said, "The God which fed me from my youth even
unto this day, the Angel who delivered me from all evils, bless these
lads."(1) Even to such a point does he affirm the same Being to be an
Angel, whom he had called God, as in the end of his discourse, to express
the person of whom he was speaking as one, when he said(2) "bless these
lads." For if he had meant the one to be understood as God, and the other
as an angel, he would have comprised the two persons in the plural number;
but now he defined the singular number of one person in the blessing,
whence he meant it to be understood that the same person is God and Angel.
But yet He cannot be received as God the Father; but as God and Angel, as
Christ He can be received. And Him, as the author of this blessing, Jacob
also signified by placing his hands crossed upon the lads, as if their
father was Christ, and showing, from thus placing his hands, the figure and
future form of the passion.(3) Let no one, therefore, who does not shrink
from speaking of Christ as an Angel, thus shrink from pronouncing Him God
also, when he perceives that He Himself was invoked in the blessing of
these lads, by the sacrament of the passion, intimated in the type of the
crossed hands, as both God and Angel.
CHAP. XX.(4) ARGUMENT.--IT IS PROVED FROM THE SCRIPTURES THAT CHRIST WAS
CALLED AN ANGEL. BUT YET IT IS SHOWN FROM OTHER PARTS OF HOLY SCRIPTURE
THAT HE IS GOD ALSO.
But if some heretic, obstinately struggling against the truth, should
persist in all these instances either in understanding that Christ was
properly an angel, or should contend that He must be so understood, he must
in this respect also be subdued by the force of truth. For if, since all
heavenly things, earthly things, and things under the earth, are subjected
to Christ, even the angels themselves, with all other creatures, as many as
are subjected to Christ, are called gods,(5) rightly also Christ is God.
And if any angel at all subjected to Christ can be called God, and this, if
it be said, is also professed without blasphemy, certainly much more can
this be fitting for Christ, Himself the Son of God, for Him to be
pronounced God. For if an angel who is subjected to Christ is exalted as
God, much more, and more consistently, shall Christ, to whom all angels are
subjected, be said to be God. For it is not suitable to nature, that what
is conceded to the lesser should be denied to the greater. Thus, if an
angel be inferior to Christ, and yet an angel is called god, rather by
consequence is Christ said to be God, who is discovered to be both greater
and better, not than one, but than all angels. And if "God standeth in the
assembly of the gods, and in the midst God distinguisheth between the
gods,"(6) and Christ stood at various times in the synagogue, then Christ
stood in the synagogue as God,--judging, to wit, between the gods, to whom
He says, "How long do ye accept the persons of men?" That is to say,
consequently, charging the men of the synagogue with not practising just
judgments. Further, if they who are reproved and blamed seem even for any
reason to attain this name without blasphemy, that they should be called
gods, assuredly much more shall He be esteemed God, who not only is said to
have stood as God in the synagogue of the gods, but moreover is revealed by
the same authority 9f the reading as distinguishing and judging between
gods. But even if they who "fall like one of the princes" are still called
gods, much rather shall He be said to be God, who not only does not fall
like one of the princes, but even overcomes both the author and prince of
wickedness himself. And what in the world is the reason, that although they
say that this name was given even to Moses, since it is said, "I have made
thee as a god to Pharaoh,"(7) it should be denied to Christ, who is
declared to be ordained(8) not to Pharaoh only, but to every creature, as
both Lord and God? And in the former case indeed this name is given with
reserve, in the latter lavishly; in the former by measure, in the latter
above all kind of measure: "For," it is said, "the Father giveth not to the
Son by measure, for the Father loveth the Son."(9) In the former for the
time, in the latter without reference to time;(10) for He received the
power of the divine name, both above all things and for all time. But if he
who has received the power of one man, in respect to this limited power
given him, still without hesitation attains that name of God, how much more
shall He who has power over Moses himself as well be believed to have
attained the authority of that name?
CHAP. XXI.(1) ARGUMENT.--THAT THE SAME DIVINE MAJESTY IS AGAIN CONFIRMED IN
CHRIST BY OTHER SCRIPTURES.
And indeed I could set forth the treatment of this subject by all
heavenly Scriptures, and set in motion, so to speak, a perfect forest of
texts concerning that manifestation of the divinity of Christ, except that
I have not so much undertaken to speak against this special form of heresy,
as to expound the rule of truth concerning the person of Christ. Although,
however, I must hasten to other matters, I do not think that I must pass
over this point, that in the Gospel the Lord declared, by way of signifying
His majesty, saying, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will build
it up again."(2) Or when, in another passage, and on another subject, He
declares, "I have power to lay down my life, and again to take it up; for
this commandment I have received of my Father."(3) Now who is it who says
that He can lay down His life, or can Himself recover His life again,
because He has received it of His Father? Or who says that He can again
resuscitate and rebuild the destroyed temple of His body, except because He
is the Word who is from the Father, who is with the Father, "by whom all
things were made, and without whom nothing was made;"(4) the imitator(5) of
His Father's works and powers, "the image of the invisible God ;"(6) "who
came down from heaven;"(7) who testified what things he had seen and heard;
who "came not to do His own will, but rather to do the will of the
Father,"(8) by whom He had been sent for this very purpose, that being made
the "Messenger of Great Counsel,"(9) He might unfold to us the laws of the
heavenly mysteries; and who as the Word made flesh dwelt among us, of us
this Christ is proved to be not man only, because He was the son of man,
but also God, because He is the Son of God? And if by the apostle Christ is
called "the first-born of every creature,"(10) how could He be the first-
born of every creature, unless because according to His divinity the Word
proceeded from the Father before every creature? And unless the heretics
receive it thus, they will be constrained to show that Christ the man was
the first-born of every creature; which they will not be able to do.
Either, therefore, He is before every creature, that He may be the first-
born of every creature, and He is not man only, because man is after every
creature; or He is man only, and He is after every creature. And how is He
the first-born of every creature, except because being that Word which is
before every creature; and therefore, the first-born of every creature, He
becomes flesh and dwells in us, that is, assumes that man's nature which is
after every creature, and so dwells with him and in him, in us, that
neither is humanity taken away from Christ, nor His divinity denied? For if
He is only before every creature, humanity is taken away from Him; but if
He is only man, the divinity which is before every creature is interfered
with. Both of these, therefore, are leagued together in Christ, and both
are conjoined, and both are linked with one another. And rightly, as there
is in Him something which excels the creature, the agreement of the
divinity and the humanity seems to be pledged in Him: for which reason He
who is declared as made the "Mediator between God and man"(11) is revealed
to have associated in Himself God and man. And if the same apostle says of
Christ, that "having put off the flesh, He spoiled powers, they being
openly triumphed over in Himself,"(12) he certainly did not without a
meaning propound that the flesh was put off, unless because he wished it to
be understood that it was again put on also at the resurrection. Who,
therefore, is He that thus put off and put on the flesh? Let the heretics
seek out. For we know that the Word of God was invested with the substance
of flesh, and that He again was divested of the same bodily material, which
again He took up in the resurrection and resumed as a garment. And yet
Christ could neither have been divested of nor invested with manhood, had
He been only man: for man is never either deprived of nor invested with
himself. For that must be something else, whatever it may be, which by any
other is either taken away or put on. Whence, reasonably, it was the Word
of God who put off the flesh, and again in the resurrection put it on,
since He put it off because at His birth He had been invested with it.
Therefore in Christ it is God who is invested, and moreover must be
divested, because He who is invested must also likewise be He who is
divested; whereas, as man, He is invested with and divested of, as it were,
a certain tunic of the compacted body.(1) And therefore by consequence He
was, as we have said, the Word of God, who is revealed to be at one time
invested, at another time divested of the flesh. For this, moreover, He
before predicted in blessings: "He shall wash His garment in wine, and His
clothing in the blood of the grape."(2) If the garment in Christ be the
flesh, and the clothing itself be the body, let it be asked who is He whose
body is clothing, and garment flesh? For to us it is evident that the flesh
is the garment, and the body the clothing of the Word; and He washed His
bodily substance, and purified the material of the flesh in blood, that is,
in wine, by His passion, in the human character that He had undertaken.
Whence, if indeed He is washed, He is man, because the garment which is
washed is the flesh; but He who washes is the Word of God, who, in order
that He might wash the garment, was made the taker-up of the garment.
Rightly, from that substance which is taken that it might be washed, He is
revealed as a man, even as from the authority of the Word who washed it He
is manifested to be God.
CHAP. XXII.(3) ARGUMENT--THAT THE SAME DIVINE MAJESTY IS IN CHRIST, HE ONCE
MORE ASSERTS BY OTHER SCRIPTURES.
But why, although we appear to hasten to another branch of the
argument, should we pass over that passage in the apostle: "Who, although
He was in the form of God, did not think it robbery that He should be equal
with God; but emptied Himself, taking up the form of a servant, being made
in the likeness of men; and found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself,
becoming obedient even unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore
also God hath highly exalted Him, and hath given Him a name which is above
every name; that in the name of Jesus every knee should be bent, of things
in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and every
tongue should confess that Jesus is Lord, in the glory of God the
Father?"(4) "Who, although He was in the form of God," he says. If Christ
had been only man, He would have been spoken of as in "the image" of God,
not "in the form" of God. For we know that man was made after the image or
likeness, not after the form, of God. Who then is that angel who, as we
have said, was made in the form of God? But neither do we read of the form
of God in angels, except because this one is chief and royal above all--the
Son of God, the Word of God, the imitator of all His Father's works, in
that He Himself worketh even as His Father. He is--as we have declared--in
the form of God the Father. And He is reasonably affirmed to be in the form
of God, in that He Himself, being above all things, and having the divine
power over every creature, is also God after the example of the Father. Yet
He obtained, this from His own Father, that He should be both God of all
and should be Lord, and be begotten and made known from Himself as God in
the form of God the Father. He then, although He was in the form of God,
thought it not robbery that He should be equal with God. For although He
remembered that He was God from God the Father, He never either compared or
associated Himself with God the Father, mindful that He was from His
Father, and that He possessed that very thing that He is, because the
Father had given it Him.(5) Thence, finally, both before the assumption of
the flesh, and moreover after the assumption of the body, besides, after
the resurrection itself, He yielded all obedience to the Father, and still
yields it as ever. Whence it is proved that He thought that the claim of a
certain divinity would be robbery, to wit, that of equalling Himself with
God the Father; but, on the other hand, obedient and subject to all His
rule and will, He even was contented to take on Him the form of a servant--
that is, to become man; and the substance of flesh and body which, as it
came to Him from the bondage of His forefathers' sins according to His
manhood, He undertook by being born, at which time moreover He emptied
Himself, in that He did not refuse to take upon Him the frailty incident to
humanity. Because if He had been born man only, He would not have been
emptied in respect of this; for man, being born, is increased, not emptied.
For in beginning to be that which He could not possess, so long as He did
not exist, as we have said, He is not emptied, but is rather increased and
enriched. But if Christ is emptied in being born, in taking the form of a
servant, how is He man only? Of whom it could more truly have been said
that He was enriched, not emptied, at the time that He was born, except
because the authority of the divine Word, reposing for awhile in taking
upon itself humanity, and not exercising itself with its real strength,
casts itself down, and puts itself off for the time, in bearing the
humanity which it has undertaken? It empties itself in descending to
injuries and reproaches, in bearing abominations, in experiencing things
unworthy; and yet of this humility there is present at once an eminent
reward. For He has "received a name which is above every name," which
assuredly we understand to be none other than the name of God. For since it
belongs to God alone to be above all things, it follows that the name which
is that God's who is above all things, is above every name; which name by
consequence is certainly His who, although He was "in the form of God,
thought it not robbery for Him to be equal with God." For neither, if
Christ were not God, would every knee bend itself in His name, "of things
in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth;" nor would
things visible and invisible, even every creature of all things, be
subjected or be placed under man, when they might remember that they were
before man. Whence, since Christ is said to be in the form of God, and
since it is shown that for His nativity according to the flesh He emptied
Himself; and since it is declared that He received from the Father that
name which is above every name; and since it is shown that in His name
"every knee of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the
earth, bend and bow" themselves; and this very thing is asserted to be a
furtherance of the glory of God the Father; consequently He is not man
only, from the fact that He became obedient to the Father, even to death,
yea, the death of the cross; but, moreover, from the proclamation by these
higher matters of the divinity of Christ, Christ Jesus is shown to be Lord
and God, which the heretics will not have.
CHAP. XXIII.(1) ARGUMENT.--AND THIS IS SO MANIFEST, THAT SOME HERETICS HAVE
THOUGHT HIM TO BE GOD THE FATHER, OTHERS THAT HE WAS ONLY GOD WITHOUT THE
FLESH.
In this place I may be permitted also to collect arguments from the
side of other heretics. It is a substantial kind of proof which is gathered
even from an adversary, so as to prove the truth even from the very enemies
of truth. For it is so far manifest that He is declared in the Scriptures
to be God, that many heretics, moved by the magnitude and truth of this
divinity, exaggerating His honours above measure, have dared to announce or
to think Him not the Son, but God the Father Himself.(2) And this, although
it is contrary to the truth of the Scriptures, is still a great and
excellent argument for the divinity of Christ, who is so far God, except as
Son of God, born of God, that very many heretics--as we have said--have so
accepted Him as God, as to think that He must be pronounced not the Son,
but the Father. Therefore let it be considered whether He is God or not,
since His authority has so affected some, that, as we have already said
above, they have thought Him God the Father Himself, and have confessed the
divinity in Christ with such impetuosity and effusion--compelled to it by
the manifest divinity in Christ--that they thought that He whom they read
of as the Son, because they perceived Him to be God, must be the Father.
Moreover, other heretics have so far embraced the manifest divinity of
Christ, as to say that He was without flesh, and to withdraw from Him the
whole humanity which He took upon Him, lest, by associating with Him a
human nativity, as they conceived it, they should diminish in Him the power
of the divine name.(3) This, however, we do not approve; but we quote it as
an argument to prove that Christ is God, to this extent, that some, taking
away the manhood, have thought Him God only, and some have thought Him God
the Father Himself; when reason and the proportion of the heavenly
Scriptures show Christ to be God, but as the Son of God; and the Son of
man, having been taken up, moreover by God, that He must be believed to be
man also. Because if He came to man, that He might be Mediator of God and
men, it behoved Him to be with man, and the Word to be made flesh, that in
His own self He might link together the agreement of earthly things with
heavenly things, by associating in Himself pledges of both natures, and
uniting God to man and man to God; so that reasonably the Son of God might
be made by the assumption of flesh the Son of man, and the Son of man by
the reception of the Word of God the Son of God. This most profound and
recondite mystery, destined before the worlds for the salvation of the
human race, is found to be fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ, both God and
man, that the human race might be placed within the reach of the enjoyment
of eternal salvation.
CHAP. XXIV.(4) ARGUMENT.--THAT THESE HAVE THEREFORE ERRED, BY THINKING THAT
THERE WAS NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE SON OF GOD AND THE SON OF MAN; BECAUSE
THEY HAVE ILL UNDERSTOOD THE SCRIPTURE.
But the material of that heretical error has arisen. as I judge, from
this, that they think that there is no distinction between the Son of God
and the Son of man; because if a distinction were made, Jesus Christ would
easily be proved to be both man and God. For they will have it that the
self-same that is man, the Son of man, appears also as the Son of God; that
man and flesh and that same frail substance may be said to be also the Son
of God Himself. Whence, since no distinction is discerned between the Son
of man and the Son of God, but the Son of man Himself is asserted to be the
Son of God, the same Christ and the Son of God is asserted to be man only;
by which they strive to exclude, "The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among
us."(1) And ye shall call His name Emmanuel; which is, interpreted, God
with us."(2) For they propose and put forward what is told in the Gospel of
Luke, whence they strive to maintain not what is the truth, but only what
they want it to be: "The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of
the Highest shah overshadow thee; therefore also the Holy Thing which is
born of thee shall be called the Son of God."(3) If, then, say they, the
angel of God says to Mary, "that Holy Thing which is born of thee," the
substance of flesh and body is of Mary; but he has set forth that this
substance, that is, that Holy Thing which is born of her, is the Son of
God. Man, say they, himself, and that bodily flesh; that which is called
holy, itself is the Son of God. That also when the Scripture says that
"Holy Thing," we should understand thereby Christ the man, the Son of man;
and when it places before us the Son of God, we ought to perceive, not man,
but God. And yet the divine Scripture easily convicts and discloses the
frauds and artifices of the heretics. For if it were thus only, "The Spirit
shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee;
therefore that Holy Thing which is born of thee shall be called the Son of
God," perchance we should have had to strive against them in another sort,
and to have sought for other arguments, and to have taken up other weapons,
with which to overcome both their snares and their wiles; but since the
Scripture itself, abounding in heavenly fulness, divests itself of the
calumnies of these heretics, we easily depend upon that that is written,
and overcome those errors without any hesitation. For it said, not as we
have already stated, "Therefore the Holy Thing which shall be born of
thee;" but added the conjunction, for it says, "Therefore also that Holy
Thing which shall be born of thee," so as to make it plain that that Holy
Thing which is born of her--that is, that substance of flesh and body--is
not the Son of God primarily, but consequently, and in the secondary
place;(4) but primarily, that the Son of God is the Word of God, incarnate
by that Spirit of whom the angel says, "The Spirit shall come upon thee,
and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee." For He is the
legitimate Son of God who is of God Himself; and He, while He assumes that
Holy Thing, and links to Himself the Son of man, and draws Him and
transfers Him to Himself, by His connection and mingling of association
becomes responsible for and makes Him the Son of God, which by nature He
was not, so that the original cause(5) of that name Son of God is in the
Spirit of the Lord, who descended and came, and that there is only the
continuance of the name in the case of the Son of man;(6) and by
consequence He reasonably became the Son of God, although originally He is
not the Son of God. And therefore the angel, seeing that arrangement, and
providing for that order of the mystery, did not confuse every thing in
such a way as to leave no trace of a distinction, but established the
distinction by saying, "Therefore also that Holy Thing which shall be born
of thee shall be called the Son of God;" lest, had he not arranged that
distribution with his balances, but had left the matter all mixed up in
confusion, it had really afforded occasion to heretics to declare that the
Son of man, in that He is man, is the same as the Son of God and man. But
now, explaining severally the ordinance and the reason of so great a
mystery, he evidently set forth in saying, "And that Holy Thing which shall
be born of thee shall be called the Son of God;" the proof that the Son of
God descended, and that He, in taking up into Himself the Son of man,
consequently made Him the Son of God, because the Son of God associated and
joined Him to Himself. So that, while the Son of man cleaves in His
nativity to the Son of God, by that very mingling He holds that as pledged
and derived which of His own nature He could not possess. And thus by the
word of the angel the distinction is made, against the desire of the
heretics, between the Son of God and man; yet with their association, by
pressing them to understand that Christ the Son of man is man, and also to
receive the Son of God and man the Son of God; that is, the Word of God as
it is written as God; and thus to acknowledge that Christ Jesus the Lord,
connected on both sides, so to speak, is on both sides woven in and grown
together, and associated in the same agreement of both substances, by the
binding to one another of a mutual alliance--man and God by the truth of
the Scripture which declares this very thing.
CHAP. XXV.(7) ARGUMENT.--AND THAT IT DOES NOT FOLLOW THENCE, THAT BECAUSE
CHRIST DIED IT MUST ALSO BE RECEIVED THAT GOD DIED; FOR SCRIPTURE SETS
FORTH THAT NOT ONLY WAS CHRIST GOD, BUT MAN ALSO.
Therefore, say they, if Christ is not man only, but God also--and
Scripture tells us that He died for us, and was raised again--then
Scripture teaches us to believe that God died; or if God does not die, and
Christ is said to have died, then Christ will not be God, because God
cannot be admitted to have died. If they ever could understand or had
understood what they read, they would never speak after such a perilous
fashion. But the folly of error is always hasty in its descent, and it is
no new thing if those who have forsaken the lawful faith descend even to
perilous results. For if Scripture were to set forth that Christ is God
only, and that there was no association of human weakness mingled in His
nature, this intricate argument of theirs might reasonably avail something.
If Christ is God, and Christ died, then God died. But when Scripture
determines, as we have frequently shown, that He is not only God, but man
also, it follows that what is immortal may be held to have remained
uncorrupted. For who cannot understand that the divinity is impassible,
although the human weakness is liable to suffering? When, therefore, Christ
is understood to be mingled and associated as well of that which God is, as
of that which man is--for "the Word was made flesh, and dwelt in us"--who
cannot easily apprehend of himself, without any teacher and interpreter,
that it was not that in Christ that died which is God, but that in Him died
which is man? For what if the divinity in Christ does not die, but the
substance of the flesh only is destroyed, when in other men also, who are
not flesh only, but flesh and soul, the flesh indeed alone suffers the
inroads of wasting and death, while the soul is seen to be uncorrupted, and
beyond the laws of destruction and death? For this also our Lord Himself
said, exhorting us to martyrdom and to contempt of all human power: "Fear
not those who slay the body, but cannot kill the soul."(1) But if the
immortal soul cannot be killed or slain in any other, although the body and
flesh by itself can be slain, how much rather assuredly could not the Word
of God and God in Christ be put to death at all, although the flesh alone
and the body was slain! For if in any man whatever, the soul has this
excellence of immortality that it cannot be slain, much more has the
nobility of the Word of God this power of not being slain. For if the power
of men fails to slay the sacred power of God, and if the cruelty of man
fails to destroy the soul, much more ought it to fail to slay the Word of
God. For as the soul itself, which was made by the Word of God, is not
killed by men, certainly much rather will it be believed that the Word of
God cannot be destroyed. And if the sanguinary cruelty of men cannot do
more against men than only to slay the body, how much more certainly it
will not have power against Christ beyond in the same way slaying the body!
So that, while from these considerations it is gathered that nothing but
the human nature in Christ was put to death, it appears that the Word in
Him was not drawn down into mortality. For if Abraham, and Isaac, and
Jacob, who, it is admitted, were only men, are manifested to be alive--for
all they,(2) says He, "live unto God;" and death in them does not destroy
the soul, although it dissolves the bodies themselves: for it could
exercise its power on the bodies, it did not avail to exercise it on the
souls: for the one in them was mortal, and therefore died; the other in
them was immortal, and therefore is understood not to have been
extinguished: for which reason they are affirmed and said to live unto
God,--much rather death in Christ could have power against the material of
His body alone, while against the divinity of the Word it could not bring
itself to bear. For the power of death is broken when the authority of
immortality intervenes.
CHAP. XXVI.(3) ARGUMENT.--MOREOVER, AGAINST THE SABELLIANS HE PROVES THAT
THE FATHER IS ONE, THE SON ANOTHER.
But from this occasion of Christ being proved from the sacred authority
of the divine writings not man only, but God also, other heretics, breaking
forth, contrive to impair the religious position in Christ; by this very
fact wishing to show that Christ is God the Father, in that He is asserted
to be not man only, but also is declared to be God. For thus say they, If
it is asserted that God is one, and Christ is God, then say they, If the
Father and Christ be one God, Christ will be called the Father. Wherein
they are proved to be in error, not knowing Christ, but following the sound
of a name; for they are not willing that He should be the second person
after the Father, but the Father Himself. And since these things are easily
answered, few words shall be said. For who does not acknowledge that the
person of the Son is second after the Father, when he reads that it was
said by the Father, consequently to the Son, "Let us make man in our image
and our likeness;"(4) and that after this it was related, "And God made
man, in the image of God made He him?" Or when he holds in his hands: "The
Lord rained upon Sodom and Gomorrha fire and brimstone from the Lord from
heaven?"(5) Or when he reads (as having been said) to Christ: "Thou art my
Son, this day have I begotten Thee. Ask of me, and I will give Thee the
heathens for Thine inheritance, and the ends of the earth for Thy
possession?"[1] Or when also that beloved writer says: The Lord said unto
my Lord, Sit Thou on my right hand, until I shall make Thine enemies the
stool of Thy feet?"[2] Or when, unfolding the prophecies of Isaiah, he
finds it written thus: "Thus saith the Lord to Christ my Lord?"[3] Or when
he reads: "I came not down from heaven to do mine own will, but the will of
Him that sent me?"[4] Or when he finds it written: "Because He who sent me
is greater than I?"[5] Or when he considers the passage: "I go to my
Father, and your Father; to my God, and your God?"[6] Or when he finds it
placed side by side with others: "Moreover, in your law it is written that
the witness of two is true. I bear witness of myself, and the Father who
sent me beareth witness of me?"[7] Or when the voice from heaven is: "I
have both glorified Him, and I will glorify Him again?"[8] Or when by Peter
it is answered and said: Thou art the Son of the living God?"[9] Or when by
the Lord Himself the sacrament of this revelation is approved, and He says:
"Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood hath not revealed
this to thee, but my Father which is in heaven?[10] Or when by Christ
Himself it is expressed: "Father, glorify me with that glory with which I
was with Thee before the world was made?[11]Or when it was said by the
same: "Father, I knew that Thou hearest me always; but on account of those
who stand around I said it, that they may believe that Thou hast sent
me?"[12] Or when the definition of the rule is established by Christ
Himself, and it is said: "And this is life eternal, that they should know
Thee, the only and true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent. I have
glorified Thee upon the earth, I have finished the work which Thou gavest
me?"[13] Or when, moreover, by the same it is asserted and said: "All
things are delivered to me by my Father?"[14] Or when the session at the
right hand of the Father is proved both by apostles and prophets? And I
should have enough to do were I to endeavour to gather together all the
passages[15] whatever on this side; since the divine Scripture, not so much
of the Old as also of the New Testament, everywhere shows Him to be born of
the Father, by whom all things were made, and without whom nothing was
made, who always has obeyed and obeys the Father; that He always has power
over all things, but as delivered, as granted, as by the Father Himself
permitted to Him. And what can be so evident proof that this is not the
Father, but the Son; as that He is set forth as being obedient to God the
Father, unless, if He be believed to be the Father, Christ may be said to
be subjected to another God the Father?
CHAP. XXVII.[16] ARGUMENT.--HE SKILFULLY REPLIES TO A PASSAGE WHICH THE
HERETICS EMPLOYED IN DEFENCE OF THEIR OWN OPINION.
But since they frequently urge upon us the passage where it is said, "I
and the Father are one,"[17] in this also we shall overcome them with equal
facility. For if, as the heretics think, Christ were the Father, He ought
to have said, "I and the Father are one."[18] But when He says I, and
afterwards introduces the Father by saying, "I and the Father," He severs
and distinguishes the peculiarity of His, that is, the Son's person, from
the paternal authority, not only in respect of the sound of the name, but
moreover in respect of the order of the distribution of power, since He
might have said, "I the Father," if He had had it in mind that He Himself
was the Father. And since He said "one" thing, let the heretics understand
that He did not say "one "person. For one placed in the neuter, intimates
the social concord, not the personal unity. He is said to be one neuter,
not one masculine, because the expression is not referred to the number,
but it is declared with reference to the association of another. Finally,
He adds, and says, "We are," not "I am," so as to show, by the fact of His
saying" I and the Father are," that they are two persons. Moreover, that He
says one,[19] has reference to the agreement, and to the identity of
judgment, and to the loving association itself, as reasonably the Father
and Son are one in agreement, in love, and in affection; and because He is
of the Father, whatsoever He is, He is the Son; the distinction however
remaining, that He is not the Father who is the Son, because He is not the
Son who is the Father. For He would not have added "We are," if He had had
it in mind that He, the only and sole Father, had become the Son. In fine,
the Apostle Paul also apprehended this agreement of unity, with the
distinction of persons notwithstanding: for in writing to the Corinthians
he said, "I have planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase.
Therefore neither is he that planteth anything, nor he that watereth, but
God who gives the increase. Now he that planteth and he that watereth are
one."[1] And who does not perceive that Apollos is one person and Paul
another, and that. Apollos and Paul are not one and the same person?
Moreover, also, the offices mentioned of each one of them are different;
for one is he who plants, and another he who waters. The Apostle Paul,
however, put forward these two not as being one person, but as being" one;"
so that although Apollos indeed is one, and Paul another, so far as
respects the distinction of persons, yet as far as respects their agreement
both are "one." For when two persons have one judgment, one truth, one
faith, one and the same religion, one fear of God also, they are one even
although they are two persons: they are the same, in that they have the
same mind. Since those whom the consideration of person divides from one
another, these same again are brought together as one by the consideration
of religion. And although they are not actually the self-same people, yet
in feeling the same, they are the same; and although they are two, are
still one, as having an association in faith, even although they bear
diversity in persons. Besides, when at these words of the Lord the Jewish
ignorance had been aroused, so that hastily they ran to take up stones, and
said, "For a good work we stone thee not, but for blasphemy; and because
thou, being a man, makest thyself God,"[2] the Lord established the
distinction, in giving them the principle on which He had either said that
He was God, or wished it to be understood, and says, "Say ye of Him, whom
the Father sanctified, and sent into this world, Thou blasphemest; because
I said, I am. the Son of God?"[3] Even here also He said that He had the
Father. He is therefore the Son, not the Father: for He would have
confessed that He was the Father had He considered Himself to be the
Father; and He declares that He was sanctified by His Father. In receiving,
then, sanctification from the Father, He is inferior to the Father. Now,
consequently, He who is inferior to the Father, is not the Father, but the
Son; for had He been the Father, He would have given, and not received,
sanctification. Now, however, by declaring that He has received
sanctification from the Father, by the very fact of proving Himself to be
less than the Father, by receiving from Him sanctification, He has shown
that He is the Son, and not the Father. Besides, He says that He is sent:
so that by that obedience wherewith the Lord Christ came, being sent, He
might be proved to be not the Father, but the Son, who assuredly would have
sent had He been the Father; but being sent, He was not the Father, lest
the Father should be proved, in being sent, to be subjected to another God.
And still after this He added what might dissolve all ambiguity, and quench
all the controversy of error: for He says, in the last portion of His
discourse, "Ye say, Thou blasphemest, because I said I am the Son of God."
Therefore if He plainly testifies that He is the Son of God, and not the
Father, it is an instance of great temerity and excessive madness to stir
up a controversy of divinity and religion, contrary to the testimony of the
Lord Christ Himself, and to say that Christ Jesus is the Father, when it is
observed that He has proved Himself to be, not the Father, but the Son.
CHAP. XXVIII. ARGUMENT.--HE PROVES ALSO THAT THE WORDS SPOKEN TO PHILIP
MAKE NOTHING FOR THE SABELLIANS.
Hereto also I will add that view wherein the heretic, while he rejoices
as if at the loss of some power of seeing special truth and light,
acknowledges the total blindness of his error. For again and again, and
frequently, he objects that it was said, "Have I been so long time with
you, and do ye not know me, Philip? He who hath seen me, hath seen the
Father also."[4] But let him learn what he does not understand. Philip is
reproved, and rightly, and deservedly indeed, because he has said, "Lord,
show us the Father, and it sufficeth us."[5] For when had he either heard
from Christ, or learnt that Christ was the Father? although, on the other
hand, he had frequently heard, and had often learned, rather that He was
the Son, not that He was the Father. For what the Lord said, "If ye have
known me, ye have known my Father also: and henceforth ye have known Him,
and have seen Him,"[6] He said not as wishing to be understood Himself to
be the Father, but implying that he who thoroughly, and fully, and with all
faith and all religiousness, drew near to the Son of God, by all means
shall attain, through the Son Himself, in whom he thus believes, to the
Father, and shall see Him. "For no one," says He, "can come to the Father,
but by me."[7] And therefore he shall not only come to God the Father, and
shall know the Father Himself; but, moreover, he ought thus to hold, and so
to presume in mind and heart, that he has henceforth not only known, but
seen the Father. For often the divine Scripture announces things that are
not yet done as being done, because thus they shall be; and things which by
all means have to happen, it does not predict as if they were future, but
narrates as if they were done. And thus, although Christ had not been born
as yet in the times of Isaiah the prophet, he said, "For unto us a child is
born;"[1] and although Mary had not yet been approached, he said, "' And I
approached unto the prophetess; and she conceived, and bare a son."[2] And
when Christ had not yet made known the mind of the Father, it is said, "And
His name shall be called the Angel of Great Counsel."[3] And when He had
not yet suffered, he declared, "He is as a sheep led to the slaughter."[4]
And although the cross had never yet existed, He said, "All day long have I
stretched out my hands to an unbelieving people."[5] And although not yet
had He been scornfully given to drink, the Scripture says, "In my thirst
they gave me vinegar to drink."[6] And although He had not yet been
stripped, He said, "Upon my vesture they did cast lots, and they numbered
my bones: they pierced my hands and my feet."[7] For the divine Scripture,
foreseeing, speaks of things which it knows shall be as being already done,
and speaks of things as perfected which it regards as future, but which
shall come to pass without any doubt. And thus the Lord in the present
passage said, "Henceforth ye have known and have seen Him." Now He said
that the Father should be seen by whomsoever had followed the Son, not as
if the Son Himself should be the Father seen, but that whosoever was
willing to follow Him, and be His disciple, should obtain the reward of
being able to see the Father. For He also is the image of God the Father;
so that it is added, moreover, to these things, that "as the Father
worketh, so also the Son worketh."[8] And the Son is an imitator[9] of all
the Father's works, so that every one may regard it just as if he saw the
Father, when he sees Him who always imitates the invisible Father in all
His works. But if Christ is the Father Himself, in what manner does He
immediately add, and say, "Whosoever believeth in me, the works that I do
he shall do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go to
my Father?[10] And He further subjoins, "If ye love me, keep my
commandments; and I will ask the Father, and He will give you another
Comforter."[11] After which also He adds this: "If any one loveth me, he
shall keep my word: and my Father will love him; and we will come unto him,
and will make our abode with him."[12] Moreover, also, He added this too:
"But the Advocate, that Holy Spirit whom the Father will send, He will
teach you, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said
unto you."[13] He utters, further, that passage when He shows Himself to be
the Son, and reasonably subjoins, and says, "If ye loved me, ye would
rejoice because I go unto the Father: for the Father is greater than
I."[14] But what shall we say when He also continues in these words: "I am
the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that
beareth not fruit He taketh away; and every branch that beareth fruit He
purgeth, that it may bring forth more fruit?"[15] Still He persists, and
adds: "As the Father hath loved me, so also have I loved you: remain in my
love. If ye have kept my commandments, ye shall remain in my love; even as
I have kept the Father's commandments, and remain in His love."[16]
Further, He says in addition: "But I have called you friends; for all
things which I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you."[17]
Moreover, He adds to all this: "But all these things will they do unto you
for my name's sake, because they know not Him that sent me."[18] These
things then, after the former, evidently attesting Him to be not the Father
but the Son, the Lord would never have added, if He had had it in mind,
either that He was the Father, or wished Himself to be understood as the
Father, except that He might declare this, that every man ought henceforth
to consider, in seeing the image of God the Father through the Son, that it
was as if he saw the Father; since every one believing on the Son may be
exercised in the contemplation of the likeness, so that, being accustomed
to seeing the divinity in likeness, he may go forward, and grow even to the
perfect contemplation of God the Father Almighty. And since he who has
imbibed this truth into his mind and soul, and has believed of all things
that thus it shall be, he shall even now see, as it were, in some measure
the Father whom he will see hereafter; and he may so regard it, as if he
actually held, what he knows for certain that he shall one day hold. But if
Christ Himself had been the Father, why did He promise as future, a reward
which He had already granted and given? For that He says, "Blessed are they
of a pure heart, for they shall see God,"[1] it is understood to promise
the contemplation and vision of the Father; therefore He had not given
this; for why should He promise if He had already given? For He had given
if He was the Father: for He was seen, and He was touched But since, when
Christ Himself is seen and touched, He still promises, and says that he who
is of a pure heart shall see God, He proves by this very saying that He who
was then present was not the Father, seeing that He was seen, and yet
promised that whoever should be of a pure heart should see the Father. It
was therefore not the Father, but the Son, who promised this, because He
who was the Son promised that which had yet to be seen; and His promise
would have been superfluous unless He had been the Son. For why did He
promise to the pure in heart that they should see the Father, if already
they who were then present saw Christ as the Father? But because He was the
Son, not the Father, rightly also He was then seen as the Son, because He
was the image of God; and the Father, because He is invisible, is promised
and pointed out as to be seen by the pure in heart. Let it then be enough
to have suggested even these points against that heretic; a few words about
many things. For a field which is indeed both wide and expansive would be
laid open if we should desire to discuss that heretic more fully; seeing
that bereaved, in these two particulars, as it were of his eyes plucked
out, he is altogether overcome in the blindness of his doctrine.
CHAP. XXIX. ARGUMENT.--HE NEXT TEACHES US THAT THE AUTHORITY OF THE FAITH
ENJOINS, AFTER THE FATHER AND THE SON, To BELIEVE ALSO ON THE HOLY SPIRIT,
WHOSE OPERATIONS TIE ENUMERATES FROM SCRIPTURE.
Moreover, the order of reason, and the authority of the faith in the
disposition of the words and in the Scriptures of the Lord, admonish us
after these things to believe also on the Holy Spirit, once promised to the
Church, and in the appointed occasions of times given. For He was promised
by Joel the prophet, but given by Christ. "In the last days," says the
prophet, "I will pour out of my Spirit upon my servants and my
handmaids."[2] And the Lord said, "Receive ye the Holy Ghost: whose sins ye
remit, they shall be remitted; and whose ye retain, they shall be
retained."[3] But this Holy Spirit the Lord Christ calls at one time "the
Paraclete," at another pronounces to be the "Spirit of truth."[4] And He is
not new in the Gospel, nor yet even newly given; for it was He Himself who
accused the people in the prophets, and in the apostles gave them the
appeal to the Gentiles. For the former deserved to be accused, because they
had contemned the law; and they of the Gentiles who believe deserve to be
aided by the defence of the Spirit, because they earnestly desire to attain
to the Gospel law. Assuredly in the Spirit there are different kinds of
offices, because in the times there is a different order of occasions; and
yet, on this account, He who discharges these offices is not different, nor
is He another in so acting, but He is one and the same, distributing His
offices according to the times, and the occasions and impulses of things.
Moreover, the Apostle Paul says, "Having the same Spirit; as it is written,
I believed, and therefore have I spoken; we also believe, and therefore
speak."[5] He is therefore one and the same Spirit who was in the prophets
and apostles, except that in the former He was occasional, in the latter
always. But in the former not as being always in them, in the latter as
abiding always in them; and in the former distributed with reserve, in the
latter all poured out; in the former given sparingly, in the latter
liberally bestowed; not yet manifested before the Lord's resurrection, but
conferred after the resurrection. For, said He, "I will pray the Father,
and He will give you another Advocate, that He may be with you for ever,
even the Spirit of truth."[6] And, "When He, the Advocate, shall come, whom
I shall send unto you from my Father, the Spirit of truth who proceedeth
from my Father."[7] And, "If I go not away, that Advocate shall not come to
you; but if I go away, I will send Him to you."[8] And, "When the Spirit of
truth shall come, He will direct you into all the truth."[9] And because
the Lord was about to depart to the heavens, He gave the Paraclete out of
necessity to the disciples; so as not to leave them in any degree
orphans,[10] which was little desirable, and forsake them without an
advocate and some kind of protector. For this is He who strengthened their
hearts and minds, who marked out the Gospel sacraments, who was in them the
enlightener of divine things; and they being strengthened, feared, for the
sake of the Lord's name, neither dungeons nor chains, nay, even trod under
foot the very powers of the world and its tortures, since they were
henceforth armed and strengthened by the same Spirit, having in themselves
the gifts which this same Spirit distributes, and appropriates to the
Church, the spouse of Christ, as her ornaments. This is He who places
prophets in the Church, instructs teachers, directs tongues, gives powers
and healings, does wonderful works, often discrimination of spirits,
affords powers of government, suggests counsels, and orders and arranges
whatever other gifts there are of charismata; and thus make the Lord's
Church everywhere, and in all, perfected and completed. This is He who,
after the manner of a dove, when our Lord was baptized, came and abode upon
Him, dwelling in Christ full and entire, and not maimed in any measure or
portion; but with His whole overflow copiously distributed and sent forth,
so that from Him others might receive some enjoyment of His graces: the
source of the entire Holy Spirit remaining in Christ, so that from Him
might be drawn streams of gifts and works, while the Holy Spirit dwelt
affluently in Christ. For truly Isaiah, prophesying this, said: "And the
Spirit of wisdom and understanding shall rest upon Him, the Spirit of
counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and piety; and the Spirit of the
fear of the Lord shall fill Him."[1] This self-same thing also he said in
the person of the Lord Himself, in another place,' "The Spirit of the Lord
is upon me; because He has anointed me, He has sent me to preach the Gospel
to the poor."[2] Similarly David: "Wherefore God, even Thy God, hath
anointed Thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows."[3] Of Him the
Apostle Paul says: "For he who hath not the Spirit of Christ is none of
His."[4] "And where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty."[5] He it
is who effects with water the second birth as a certain seed of divine
generation, and a consecration of a heavenly nativity, the pledge of a
promised inheritance, and as it were a kind of handwriting of eternal
salvation; who can make us God's temple, and fit us for His house; who
solicits the divine hearing for us with groanings that cannot be uttered;
filling the offices of advocacy, and manifesting the duties of our
defence,--an inhabitant given for our bodies and an effector of their
holiness. Who, working in us for eternity, can also produce our bodies at
the resurrection of immortality, accustoming them to be associated in
Himself with heavenly power, and to be allied with the divine eternity of
the Holy Spirit. For our bodies are both trained in Him and by Him to
advance to immortality, by learning to govern themselves with moderation
according to His decrees. For this is He who "desireth against the flesh,"
because "the flesh resisteth against the Spirit."[6] This is He who
restrains insatiable desires, controls immoderate lusts, quenches unlawful
fires, conquers reckless impulses, repels drunkenness, checks avarice,
drives away luxurious revellings, links love, binds together affections,
keeps down sects, orders the rule of truth, overcomes heretics, turns out
the wicked, guards the Gospel, Of this says the same apostle: "We have not
received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God."[7]
Concerning Him he exultingly says: "And I think also that I have the Spirit
of God."[8] Of Him he says: "The Spirit of the prophets is subject to the
prophets."[9] Of Him also he tells: "Now the Spirit speaketh plainly, that
in the last times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing
spirits, doctrines of demons, who speak lies in hypocrisy, having their
conscience cauterized."[10] Established in this Spirit, "none ever calleth
Jesus anathema;"[11] no one has ever denied Christ to be the Son of God, or
has rejected God the Creator; no one utters any words of his own contrary
to the Scriptures; no one ordains other and sacrilegious decrees; no one
draws up different laws.[12] Whosoever shall blaspheme against Him, "hath
not forgiveness, not only in this world, but also not in the world to
come."[13] This is He who in the apostles gives testimony to Christ; in the
martyrs shows forth the constant faithfulness of their religion; in virgins
restrains the admirable continency of their sealed chastity; in others,
guards the laws of the Lord's doctrine incorrupt and uncontaminated;
destroys heretics, corrects the perverse, condemns infidels, makes known
pretenders; moreover, rebukes the wicked, keeps the Church uncorrupt and
inviolate, in the sanctity of a perpetual virginity and truth.
CHAP. XXX. ARGUMENT.--IN FINE, NOTWITHSTANDING THE SAID HERETICS HAVE
GATHERED THE ORIGIN OF THEIR ERROR FROM CONSIDERATION OF WHAT IS
WRITTEN:[14] ALTHOUGH WE CALL CHRIST GOD, AND THE FATHER GOD, STILL
SCRIPTURE DOES NOT SET FORTH TWO GODS, ANY MORE THAN TWO LORDS OR TWO
TEACHERS.
And now, indeed, concerning the Father, and the Son, and the Holy
Spirit, let it be sufficient to have briefly said thus much, and to have
laid down these points concisely, without carrying them out in a lengthened
argument. For they could be presented more diffusely and continued in a
more expanded disputation, since the whole of the Old and New Testaments
might be adduced in testimony that thus the true faith stands. But because
heretics, ever struggling against the truth, are accustomed to prolong the
controversy of pure tradition and Catholic faith, being offended against
Christ; because He is, moreover, asserted to be God by the Scriptures also,
and this is believed to be so by us; we must rightly--that every heretical
calumny may be removed from our faith--contend, concerning the fact that
Christ is God also, in such a way as that it may not militate against the
truth of Scripture; nor yet against our faith, how there is declared to be
one God by the Scriptures, and how it is held and believed by us. For as
well they who say that Jesus Christ Himself is God the Father, as moreover
they who would have Him to be only man, have gathered thence[1] the sources
and reasons of their error and perversity; because when they perceived that
it was written[2] that "God is one," they thought that they could not
otherwise hold such an opinion than by supposing that it must be believed
either that Christ was man only, or really God the Father. And they were
accustomed in such a way to connect their sophistries as to endeavour to
justify their own error. And thus they who say that Jesus Christ is the
Father argue as follows:--If God is one, and Christ is God, Christ is the
Father, since God is one. If Christ be not the Father, because Christ is
God the Son, there appear to be two Gods introduced, contrary to the
Scriptures. And they who contend that Christ is man only, conclude on the
other hand thus:--If the Father is one, and the Son another, but the Father
is God and Christ is God, then there is not one God, but two Gods are at
once introduced, the Father and the Son; and if God is one, by consequence
Christ must be a man, so that rightly the Father may be one God. Thus
indeed the Lord is, as it were, crucified between two thieves,[3] even as
He was formerly placed; and thus from either side He receives the
sacrilegious reproaches of such heretics as these. But neither the Holy
Scriptures nor we suggest to them the reasons of their perdition and
blindness, if they either will not, or cannot, see what is evidently
written in the midst of the divine documents. For we both know, and read,
and believe, and maintain that God is one, who made the heaven as well as
the earth, since we neither know any other, nor shall we at any time know
such, seeing that there is none. "I," says He, "am God, and there is none
beside me, righteous and a Saviour."[4] And in another place: "I am the
first and the last, and beside me there is no God who is as I."[5] And,
"Who hath meted out heaven with a Span, and the earth with a handful? Who
has suspended the mountains in a balance, and the woods on scales? "[6] And
Hezekiah: "That all may know that Thou art God alone."[7] Moreover, the
Lord Himself: "Why askest thou me concerning that which is good? God alone
is good."[8] Moreover, the Apostle Paul says: "Who only hath immortality,
and dwelleth in the light that no man can approach unto, whom no man hath
seen, nor can see."[9] And in another place: "But a mediator is not a
mediator of one, but God is one."[10] But even as we hold, and read, and
believe this, thus we ought to pass over no portion of the heavenly
Scriptures, since indeed also we ought by no means to reject those marks of
Christ's divinity which are laid down in the Scriptures, that we may not,
by corrupting the authority of the Scriptures, be held to have corrupted
the integrity of our holy faith. And let us therefore believe this, since
it is most faithful that Jesus Christ the Son of God is our Lord and God;
because "in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God
was the Word. The same was in the beginning with God."[11] And, "The Word
was made flesh, and dwelt in us."[12] And, "My Lord and my God."[13] And,
"Whose are the fathers, and of whom according to the flesh Christ came, who
is over all, God blessed for evermore."[14] What, then, shall we say? Does
Scripture set before us two Gods? How, then, does it say that "God is one?"
Or is not Christ God also? How, then, is it said to Christ," My Lord and my
God?" Unless, therefore, we hold all this with fitting veneration and
lawful argument, we shall reasonably be thought to have furnished a scandal
to the heretics, not assuredly by the fault of the heavenly Scriptures,
which never deceive; but by the presumption of human error, whereby they
have chosen to be heretics. And in the first place, we must turn the attack
against them who undertake to make against us the charge of saying that
there are two Gods. It is written, and they cannot deny it, that "there is
one Lord."[15] What, then, do they think of Christ?--that He is Lord, or
that He is not Lord at all? But they do not doubt absolutely that He is
Lord; therefore, if their reasoning be true, here are already two Lords.
How, then, is it true according to the Scriptures, there is one Lord? And
Christ is called the "one Master."(1) Nevertheless we read that the Apostle
Paul also is a master.(2) Then, according to this, our Master is not one,
for from these things we conclude that there are two masters. How, then,
according to the Scriptures, is "one our Master, even Christ?" In the
Scriptures there is one "called good, even God;" but in the same Scriptures
Christ is also asserted to be good. There is not, then, if they rightly
conclude, one good, but even two good. How, then, according to the
scriptural faith, is there said to be only one good? But if they do not
think that it can by any means interfere with the truth that there is one
Lord, that Christ also is Lord, nor with the truth that one is our. Master,
that Paul also is our master, or with the truth that one is good, that
Christ also is called good; on the same reasoning, let them understand
that, from the fact that God is one, no obstruction arises to the truth
that Christ also is declared to be God.
CHAP. XXXI. ARGUMENT.--BUT THAT GOD, THE, SON OF GOD, BORN OF GOD THE
FATHER FROM EVERLASTING, WHO WAS ALWAYS IN THE FATHER, IS THE SECOND PERSON
TO THE FATHER, WHO DOES NOTHING WITHOUT HIS FATHER'S DECREE; AND THAT HE IS
LORD, AND THE ANGEL OF GOD'S GREAT COUNSEL, TO WHOM THE FATHER'S GODHEAD IS
GIVEN BY COMMUNITY OF SUBSTANCE.
Thus God the Father, the Founder and Creator of all things, who only
knows no beginning, invisible, infinite, immortal, eternal, is one God; to
whose greatness, or majesty, or power, I would not say nothing can be
preferred, but nothing can be compared; of whom, when He willed it, the
Son, the Word, was born, who is not received(3) in the sound of the
stricken air, or in the tone of voice forced from the lungs, but is
acknowledged in the substance of the power put forth by God, the mysteries
of whose sacred and divine nativity neither an apostle has learnt, nor
prophet has discovered, nor angel has known, nor creature has apprehended.
To the Son alone they are known, who has known the secrets of the Father.
He then, since He was begotten of the Father, is always in the Father. And
I thus say always, that I may show Him not to be unborn, but born. But He
who is before all time must be said to have been always in the Father; for
no time can be assigned to Him who is before all time. And He is always in
the Father, unless the Father be not always Father, only that the Father
also precedes Him,--in a certain sense,--since it is necessary--in some
degree--that He should be before He is Father. Because it is essential that
He who knows no beginning must go before Him who has a beginning;(4) even
as He is the less as knowing that He is in Him, having an origin because He
is born, and of like nature with the Father in some measure by His
nativity, although He has a beginning in that He is born, inasmuch as He is
born of that Fat, her who alone has no beginning. He, then, when the Father
willed it, proceeded from the Father, and He who was in the Father came
forth from the Father; and He who was in the Father because He was of the
Father, was subsequently with the Father, because He came forth from the
Father,--that is to say, that divine substance whose name is the Word,
whereby all things were made, and without whom nothing was made. For all
things are after Him, because they are by Him. And reasonably, He is before
all things, but after the Father, since all things were made by Him, and He
proceeded from Him of whose will all things were made. Assuredly God
proceeding from God, causing a person second to the Father as being the
Son, but not taking from the Father that characteristic that He is one God.
For if He had not been born--compared with Him who was unborn, an equality
being manifested in both--He would make two unborn beings, and thus would
make two Gods. If He had not been begotten--compared with Him who was not
begotten, and as being found equal--they not being begotten, would have
reasonably given two Gods, and thus Christ would have been the cause of two
Gods. Had He been formed without beginning as the Father, and He Himself
the beginning of all things as is the Father, this would have made two
beginnings, and consequently would have shown to us two Gods also. Or if He
also were not the Son, but the Father begetting from Himself another Son,
reasonably, as compared with the Father, and designated as great as He, He
would have caused two Fathers, and thus also He would have proved the
existence of two Gods. Had He been invisible, as compared with the
Invisible, and declared equal, He would have shown forth two Invisibles,
and thus also He would have proved them to be two Gods. If
incomprehensible,(5) if also whatever other attributes belong to the
Father, reasonably we say, He would have given rise to the allegation of
two Gods, as these people feign. But now, whatever He is, He is not of
Himself, because He is not unborn; but He is of the Father, because He is
begotten, whether as being the Word, whether as being the Power, or as
being the Wisdom, or as being the Light, or as being the Son; and whatever
of these He is, in that He is not from any other source, as we have already
said before, than from the Father, owing His origin to His Father, He could
not make a disagreement in the divinity by the number of two Gods, since He
gathered His beginning by being born of Him who is one God. In which kind,
being both as well only-begotten as first-begotten of Him who has no
beginning, He is the only one, of all things both Source and Head. And
therefore He declared that God is one, in that He proved Him to be from no
source nor beginning, but rather the beginning and source of all things.
Moreover, the Son does nothing of His own will, nor does anything of His
own determination; nor does He come from Himself, but obeys all His
Father's commands and precepts; so that, although birth proves Him to he a
Son, yet obedience even to death declares Him the minister of the will of
His Father, of whom He is. Thus making Himself obedient to His Father in
all things, although He also is God, yet He shows the one God the Father by
His obedience, from whom also He drew His beginning. And thus He could not
make two Gods, because He did not make two beginnings, seeing that from Him
who has no beginning He received the source of His nativity before all
time.(1) For since that is the beginning to other creatures which is
unborn,--which God the Father only is, being beyond a beginning of whom He
is who was born,--while He who is born of Him reasonably comes from Him who
has no beginning, proving that to be the beginning from which He Himself
is, even although He is God who is born, yet He shows Him to be one God
whom He who was born proved to be without a beginning. He therefore is God,
but begotten for this special result, that He should be God. He is also the
Lord, but born for this very purpose of the Father, that He might be Lord.
He is also an Angel, but He was destined of the Father as an Angel to
announce the Great Counsel of God. And His divinity is thus declared, that
it may not appear by any dissonance or inequality of divinity to have
caused two Gods. For all things being subjected to Him as the Son by the
Father, while He Himself, with those things which are subjected to Him, is
subjected to His Father, He is indeed proved to be Son of His Father; but
He is found to be both Lord and God of all else. Whence, while all things
put under Him are delivered to Him who is God, and all things are subjected
to Him, the Son refers all that He has received to the Father, remits again
to the Father the whole authority of His divinity. The true and eternal
Father is manifested as the one God, from whom alone this power of divinity
is sent forth, and also given and directed upon the Son, and is again
returned by the communion of substance to the Father. God indeed is shown
as the Son, to whom the divinity is beheld to be given and extended. And
still, nevertheless, the Father is proved to be one God; while by degrees
in reciprocal transfer that majesty and divinity are again returned and
reflected as sent by the Son Himself to the Father, who had given them; so
that reasonably God the Father is God of all, and the source also of His
Son Himself whom He begot as Lord. Moreover, the Son is God of all else,
because God the Father put before all Him whom He begot. Thus the Mediator
of God and men, Christ Jesus, having the power of every creature subjected
to Him by His own Father, inasmuch as He is God; with every creature
subdued to Him, found at one with His Father God, has, by abiding in that
condition that He moreover "was heard,"(2) briefly proved God His Father to
be one and only and true God.
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 5, 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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