He is not with Him in the giving of Baptism? But perhaps they will say, that in the Father's Name the Word is included? Wherefore then not the Spirit also? or is the Spirit external to the Father? and the Man indeed (if the Word is not Son) is named after the Father, but the Spirit after the Man? and then the Monad, instead of dilating into a Triad, dilates according to them into a Tetrad, Father, Word, Son, j}and Holy Ghost. Being brought to shame on | this ground, they have recourse to another, and | say that not the Man by Himself whom the Lord bore, but both together, the Word and the Man, are the Son; for both joined together are named Son, as they say. Which then is cause of which? and which has made which a Son? or, to speak more clearly, is the Word a Son because of the flesh? or is the flesh called Son because of the Word? or is neither the cause, but the concurrence of the two? If then the Word be a Son because of the flesh, of necessity the flesh is Son, and all those absurdities follow which have been already drawn from saying that the Man is Sen. But if the flesh is called Sen because of the Word, then even before the flesh the Werd certainly, being such, was Son. For how could a being make other sons, not being himself a son, especially when there was a father?? If then He makes sons fer Himself, then is He Himself Father; but if for the Father, then must He be Son, or rather that Son, by reason of Whom the rest are made sons.
22. For if, while He is not Son, we are sons, God is our Father and not His. How then does He appropriate the name instead, saying, ‘ My Father,’ and ‘I from the Father 3?’ for if He be common Father of all, He is not His Father only, nor did He alone come out from the Father. But he says, that He is sometimes called our Father also, because He has Himself become partaker in our flesh. For on this account the Word has become flesh, that, since the Word is Son, therefore, because of the Son dwelling in ust, He may be called our Father also; for ‘He sent forth,’ says Scripture, ‘the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Fathers.’ Therefore the Son in us, calling upon His own Father, causes Him to be named our Father also. Surely in whose hearts the Son is not, of them neither can God be called Father. But if because of the Word the Man is called Son, it follows necessarily, since the ancients® are called sons even before the Incarnation, that the Word is Son even before His sojourn among us; for ‘I begat sons,’ saith Scripture; and in the time of Noah, ‘When the sons of God saw,’ and in the Song, ‘Is not He thy Father??’ Therefore there was also that True Son, for whose sake they too were sons. But if, as they say again, neither of the two is Son, but it depends on the concurrence of the two, it follows that neither is Son; I say, neither the Word nor the Man, but some cause, on account of which they were united; and accordingly that cause which makes the Son will precede the uniting. Therefore in this way also the Son was before the flesh. When this then is urged, they will take refuge in another pretext, saying, neither that the Man is Son, nor both together, but that the Word was Word indeed simply in the beginning, but when He became Man, then He was named” Son; for before His appearing He was not Son but Word only; and as the ‘ Word became flesh,’ not being flesh before, so the Word became Son, not being Son before. Such are their idle words; but they admit of an obvious refutation.
23. For if simply, when made Man, He has become Son, the becoming Man is the cause. And if the Man is cause of His being Son, or both together, then the same absurdities result. Next, if He is first Word and then Sen, it will appear that He knew the Father afterwards, not before; for not as being Word does He know Him, but as Son. For ‘No one knoweth the Father but the Son.’ And this too will result, that He has come afterwards to be ‘in the bosom of the Father?,’ and afterwards He and the Father have become One; and afterwards is, ‘ He that hath seen Me, hath seen the Father.’ For all these things are said of the Son. Hence they will be forced to say, The Word was nothing but a name. For neither is it He who is in us with the Father, nor whoso has seen the Word, hath seen the Father, nor was the Father known to any one at all, for through the Son is the Father known (for so it is written, ‘And he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him’), and, the Word not being yet Son, not yet did any know the Father. How then was He seen by Moses, how by the fathers? for He says Himself in the Kingdoms, ‘Was I not plainly revealed to the house of thy father3?’ But if God was revealed, there must have been a Son to reveal, as He says Himself, ‘ And he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him.’ It is irreligious then and foolish to say that the Word is one and the Son another, and whence they gained such an idea it were well to ask them. They answer, Because no mention is made in the Old Testament of the Son, but of the Word; and for this reason they are positive in their opinion that the Son came later than the Word, because not in the Old, but in the New only, is He spoken of. This is what they irreligiously say; for first to separate between the Testaments, so that the one does not hold with the other, is the device of Manichees and Jews, the one of whom oppose the Old, and the other the New*. Next, on their shewing, if what is contained in the Old is of older date, and what in the New of later, and times depend upon the writing, it follows that ‘I and the Father are One,’ and ‘Only-begotten,’ and ‘He that hath seen Me hath seen the FatherS,’ are later, for these testimonies are adduced not from the Old but from the New.
24. But it is not so; for in truth much is said in the Old also about the Son, as in the second Psalm, ‘Thou art My Son, this day have I begotten Thee*;’ and in the ninth the title?, Unto the ‘end concerning the hidden things of the Son, a Psalm of David;’ and in the forty-fourth, ‘ Unto the end, concerning the things that shall be changed to the Sons of Korah for understanding, a song about the Well-beloved;’ and in Isaiah, ‘1 will sing to my Well-beloved a song of my Well-beloved touching my vineyard. My Wellbeloved hath a vineyard$;’ Who is this ‘ Wellbeloved’ but the Only-begotten Son? as also in the hundred and ninth, ‘From the womb I begat Thee before the morning star4,’ concerning which I shall speak afterwards; and in the Proverbs, ‘Before the hills He begat me;’ and in Daniel, ‘And the form of the Fourth is like the Son of Gods;’ and many others. If then from the Old be ancientness, ancient must be the Son, who is clearly described in the Old Testament in many places. ‘Yes,’ they say, ‘so it is, but it must be taken prophetically.’ Therefore also the Word must be said to be spoken of prophetically; for this is not to be taken one way, that another. For if ‘Thou art My Son’ refer to the future, so does ‘By the ‘Word of the Lord were the heavens established;’ for it is not said ‘were brought to be, nor ‘He made.’ But that ‘ established’ refers to the future, it states elsewhere: ‘The Lord reigned 5*,’ followed by ‘He so established the earth that it can never be moved.’ And if the words in the fortyfourth Psalm ‘for My Well-beloved’ refer to the future, so does what follows upon them, ‘My heart uttered a good Word.’ And if ‘From the womb’ relates to a man, therefore ACE. 53, Neg 4) dllengo5 Mle 5s 5 John x. 303 i. 183 xiv.. t Ps. ii. 7.: a Th. ix. title xlv. title,: Is. v. a 4 Ps. cx. 3, LXX. 5 Prov. viii. 25, LX X.; Dan. iii. 25, 5° Cf. Hag. in Ps. xcii.: also ‘From the heart.’ For if the womb is human, so is the heart corporeal. But if what is from the heart is eternal, then what is ‘From the womb’ is eternal. And if the ‘ Only-begotten ’ is ‘in the bosom,’ therefore the ‘ Wellbeloved’ is ‘in the bosom.’ For ‘Only-begotten’ and ‘Well-beloved’ are the same, as in the words ‘This is My Well-beloved Son®,’ For not as wishing to signify His love towards Him did He say ‘ Well-beloved,’ as if it might appear that He hated others, but He made plain thereby His being Only-begotten, that He might shew that He alone was from Him. And hence the Word, with a view of conveying to Abraham the idea of ‘ Only-begotten,’ says, ‘Offer thy son thy well-beloved7;’ but it is plain to any one that Isaac was the only son from Sara. The Word then is Son, not lately come to be, or named Son, but always Son. For if not Son, neither is He Word; and if not Word, neither is He Son. For that which is from the father is a son; and what is from the Father, but that Word that went forth from the heart, and was born from the womb? for the Father is not Word, nor the Word Father, but the one is Father, and the other Son; and one begets, and the other is begotten.
§25. Marcellian illustration from 1 Cor. xii. 4, refuted.
25. Arius then raves in saying that the Son is from nothing, and that once He was not, while Sabellius also raves in saying that the Father is Son, and again, the Son Father’, in subsistence? One, in name Two; and he3 raves also in using as an example the grace of the Spirit. For he says, ‘As there are “diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit,” so also the Father is the same 4, but is dilated into Son and Spirit.’ Now this is full of absurdity; for if as with the Spirit, so it is with God, the Father will be Word and Holy Spirit, to one becoming Father, to another Son, to another Spirit, accommodating himself to the need of each, and in name indeed Son and Spirit, but in reality Father only; having a beginning in that He becomes a Son, and then ceasing to be called Father, and made man in name, but in truth not even coming among us; and untrue in saying ‘I and the Father,’ but in reality being Himself the Father, and the other absurdities which result in the instance of Sabellius. And the name of the Son and the Spirit will necessarily cease, when the need has been supplied; and what happens will altogether be but make-belief, because it has been dis- 7 Gen. xxii. 2.
played, not in truth, but in name. And the Name of Son ceasing, as they hold, then the grace of Baptism will cease too; for it was given in the Sons. Nay, what will follow but the annihilation of the creation? for if the Word came forth that we might be created °, and when He was come forth, we were, it is plain that when He retires into the Father, as they say, we shall be no longer. For He will be as He was; so also we shall not be, as then we were not; for when He is no more gone forth, there will no more be a creation. This then is absurd.
§§ 26—36. That the Son is the Co-existing Word, argued from the New Testament. Texts from the Old Testament continued; especially Ps. cx. 3. Besides, the Word in Old Testament may be Sén in New, as Spirit in Old Testament is Paraclete in New. Objection from Acts x. 36; answered by parallels, such as I Cor.i. 5. Lev. ix. 7. &c. Necessity of the Word’s taking flesh, viz. to sanctify, yet without destroying, the flesh.
26. But that the Son has no beginning of being, but before He was made man was ever with the Father, John makes clear in his first Epistle, writing thus: ‘That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled of the Word of Life; and the Life was manifested, and we have seen it; and we bear witness and declare unto you that Eternal Life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us *.’ While he says here that ‘the Life,’ not ‘became,’ but ‘was with the Father,’ in the end of his Epistle he says the Son is the Life, writing, ‘And we are in Him that is True, even in His Son, Jesus Christ; this is the True God and Eternal Life.’ But if the Son is the Life, and the Life was with the Father, and if the Son was with the Father, and the same Evangelist says, ‘And the Word was with God3,’ the Son must be the Word, which is ever with the Father. And as the ‘Son’ is ‘ Word,’ so ‘God’ must be ‘the Father.’ Moreover, the Son, according to John, is not merely ‘God’ but ‘True God;’ for according to the same Evangelist, ‘And the Word was God;’ and the Son said, ‘I am the Life+.” Therefore the Son is the Word and Life which is with the Father. And again, what is said in the same John, ‘The Only-begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father 5,’ shews that the Son was ever. For whom John calls Son, Him David mentions in the Psalm as God’s Hand ®, saying, ‘Why stretchest Thou not forth Thy Right Hand out of Thy bosom 7?’ ‘Pherefore if the Hand is in the bosom, and the Son in the bosom, the Son will be the Hand, and the Hand will be the Son, through whom the Father made all things; for it is written, ‘Thy Hand made all these things,’ and ‘He led out His people with His Hand®;’ therefore through the Son. And if ‘this is the changing of the Right Hand of the Most Highest,’ and again, ‘ Unto the end, concerning the things that shall be changed, a song for My Well-beloved9;’ the Well-beloved then is the Hand that was changed; concerning whom the Divine Voice also says, ‘This is My Beloved Son.’ This ‘My Hand’ then is equivalent to ‘This My Son.’
27. But since there are ill-instructed men who, while resisting the doctrine of a Son, think little of the words, ‘From the womb before the morning star I begat Thee’;’ as if this referred to His relation to Mary, alleging that He was born of Mary ‘ before the morning star,’ for that to say ‘womb’ could not refer to His relation towards God, we must say a few words here. If then, because the ‘womb’ is human, therefore it is foreign to God, plainly ‘heart’ too has a human meaning?, for that which has heart has womb also. Since then both are human, we must deny both, or seek to explain both. Now as a word is from the heart, so is an offspring from the womb; and as when the heart of God is spoken of, we do not conceive of it as human, so if Scripture says ‘from the womb,’ we must not take it in a corporeal sense. For it is usual with divine Scripture to speak and signify in the way of man what is above man. Thus speaking of the creation it says, ‘Thy hands made me and fashioned me,’ and, ‘Thy hand made all these things, and, ‘He commanded and they were created3.’ Suitable then is its language about everything; attributing to the Son ‘ propriety’ and ‘ genuineness,’ and to the creation ‘the beginning of being.’ For the one God makes and creates; but Him He begets from Himself, Word or Wisdom. Now ‘womb’ and ‘heart’ plainly declare the proper and the genuine; for we too have this from the womb; but our works we make by the hand.
28. What means then, say they, ‘ Before the morning star?’ I would answer, that if ‘ Before the morning star’ shews that His birth from Mary was wonderful, many others besides have been born before the rising of the star. What then is said so wonderful in His instance, that He should record it as some choice prerogative 4, when it is common to many? Next, to 8 Vid. Is. Ixvi. 2; Deut. vii. 8. 9 Ps. Ixxvii. 10, LXX.; xlv. title. r Ib, cx. 3, LXX. 2§ 24. 3 Ps. cxix. 733 cexlviii. 5. 4 e£aipérov, ii. 19, n. 6.
treelyie?
beget differs from bringing forth; for begetting involves the primary foundation, but to bring forth is nothing else than the production of what exists. If then the term belongs to the body, let it be observed that He did not then receive a beginning of coming to be when he was evangelized to the shepherds by night, but when the Angel spoke to the Virgin. And that was not night, for this is not said; on the contrary, it was night when He issued from the womb. This difference Scripture makes, and says on the one hand that He was begotten before the morning star, and on the other speaks of His proceeding from the womb, as in the twentyfirst Psalm, ‘Thou art he that drew Me from the womb 5.’ Besides, He did not say, ‘before the rising of the morning star,’ but simply ‘ before the moming star.’ If then the phrase must be taken of the body, then either the body must be before Adam, for the stars were before Adam, or we have to investigate the sense of the letter. And this John enables us to do, who says in the Apocalypse, ‘I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end. Blessed are they who make broad their robes, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city. For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever maketh and loveth a lie. I Jesus have sent My Angel, to testify these things in the Churches. Iam the Root and the Offspring of David, the Bright and Morning Star. And the Spirit and the Bride say, Come; and let him that heareth say, Come; and let him that is athirst, Come; and whosoever will, let him take of the water of life If then ‘the Offspring of David’ be the ‘ Bright and Morning Star,’ it is plain that the flesh of the Saviour is called ‘ the Morning Star,’ which the Offspring from God preceded; so that the sense of the Psalm is this, ‘I have begotten Thee from Myself before Thy appearance in the flesh;’ for ‘before the Morning Star’ is equivalent to ‘ before the Incarnation of the Word.’
29. Thus in the Old also, statements are plainly made concerning the Son; at the same time it is superfluous to argue the point; for if what is not stated in the Old is of later date, let them who are thus disputatious, say where in the Old is mention made of the Spirit, the Paraclete? for of the Holy Spirit there is mention, but nowhere of the Paraclete. Is then the Holy Spirit one, and the Paraclete another, and the Paraclete the later, as not mentioned in the Old? but far be it to say that the Spirit is later, or to DISCOURSE “#1V; distinguish the Holy Ghost as one and the Paraclete as another; for the Spirit is one and the same, then and now hallowing and comforting those who are His recipients; as one and the same Word and Son led even then to adoption of sons those who were worthy‘. For sons under the Old were made such through no other than the Son. For unless even before Mary there were a Son who was of God, how is He before all, when they are sons before Him? and how also ‘ First-born,’ if He comes second after many? But neither is the Paraclete second, for He was before all, nor the Son later; for ‘in the beginning was the Word?.’ And as the Spirit and Paraclete are the same, so the Son and Word are the same; and as the Saviour says concerning the Spirit, ‘But the Paraclete which is the Moly Ghost, whom the Iather will send in My Name3,’ speaking of One and Same, and not distinguishing, so John describes similarly when he says, ‘ And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of one Only-begotten fromthe Father+.’ Forhere too he does not distinguish but witnesses the identity. And as the Paraclete is not one and the Holy Ghost another, but one and the same, so Word is not one, and Son another, but the Word is Only-Begotten; for He says not the glory of the flesh itself, but of the Word. He then who dares distinguish between Word and Son, let him distinguish between Spirit and Paraclete; but if the Spirit cannot be distinguished, so neither can the Word, being also Son and Wisdom and Power. Moreover, the word ‘ Well-beloved’ even the Greeks who are skilful in phrases know to be equivalent with ‘ Onlybegotten.’ For Homer speaks thus of ‘Telemachus, who was the only-begotten of Ulysses, in the second book of the Odyssey: O’er the wide earth, dear youth, why seek to run, An only child, a well-beloved 5 son?
He whom you mourn, divine Ulysses, fell Far from his country, where the strangers dwell. Therefore he who is the only son of his father is called well-beloved.
30. Some of the followers of the Samosatene, distinguishing the Word from the Son, pretend that the Son is Christ, and the Word another; and they ground this upon Peter’s words in the Acts, which he spoke well, but they explain badly® It is this: ‘The Word He sent to the children of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ; this is Lord of all.’ For they say that since the Word spoke through Christ, as in the instance of the Prophets, ‘ Thus saith the Lord,’ the prophet was one and the Lord another. But to this it is parallel to oppose the words in the first to the Corinthians, ‘waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall also confirm you unto the end unblameable in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ 8.’ For as one Christ does not confirm the day of another Christ, but He Himself confirms in His own day those who wait for Him, so the Father sent the Word made flesh, that being made man He might preach by means of Himself. And therefore he straightway adds, ‘This is Lord of all;’ but Lord of all is the Word.
31. ‘And Moses said unto Aaron, Go unto the altar and offer thy sin-offering, and thy burnt-offering, and make an atonement for thyself and for the people; and offer the offering of the people, and make an atonement for them, as the Lord commanded Moses*.’ See now here, though Moses be one, Moses himself speaks as if about another Moses, ‘as the Lord commanded Moses.’ In like manner then, if the blessed Peter speak of the Divine Word also, as sent to the children of Israel by Jesus Christ, it is not necessary to understand that the Word is one and Christ another, but that they were one and the same by reason of the uniting which took place in His divine and loving condescension and becoming man. And even if He be considered in two ways?, still it is without any division of the Word, as when the inspired John says, ‘And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us3.’ What then is said well and rightly 4 by the blessed Peter, the followers of the Samosatene, understanding badly and wrongly, stand not in the truth. For Christ is understood in both ways in Divine Scripture, as when it says Christ ‘God’s power and God’s wisdom 5.’ If then Peter says that the Word ‘was sent through Jesus Christ unto the children of Israel, let him be understood to mean, that the Word incarnate has appeared to the children of Israel, so that it may correspond to ‘ And the Word became flesh.’ But if they understand it otherwise, and, while confessing the Word to be divine, as He is, separate from Him the Man that He has taken, with which also we believe that He is made one, saying that He has been sent through Jesus Christ, they are, without knowing it, contradicting themselves. For those who in this place separate the divine Word from the divine Incarnation, have, it seems, a degraded notion of the doctrine of His having become flesh, and entertain Gentile thoughts, as they do, conceiving that the divine Incarnation is an alteration of the Word. But it is not so; perish the thought.
32. For in the same way that John here preaches that incomprehensible union. ‘the 2 Cf, iii. 29, init.
Lev. ix. 7. 3 Johni. 14.
mortal being swallowed up of life t,’ nay, of Him who is Very Life (as the Lord said to Martha, ‘I am the Life’), so when the blessed Peter says that through Jesus Christ the Word was sent, he implies the divine union also. For as when a man heard ‘ The Word became flesh,’ he would not think that the Word ceased to be, which is absurd, as has been said before, so also hearing of the Word which has been united to the flesh, let him understand the divine mystery one and simple. More clearly however and indisputably than all reasoning does what was said by the Archangel to the Bearer of God herself, shew the oneness of the Divine Word and Man. For he says, ‘ The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the Power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that Holy Thing which shall be born of thee, shall be called the Son of God 3.’
Irrationally then do the followers of the Samosatene separate the Word who is clearly declared to be made one with the Man from Mary. He is not therefore sent through that Man; but He rather in Him sent, saying, ‘Go ye, teach all nations 4,’ 5 33- And this is usual with Scripture 5, to express itself in inartificial and simple phrases. For so also in Numbers we shall find, Moses said to Raguel the Midianite, the father-in-law of Moses; for there was not one Moses who spoke, and another whose father-inlaw was Raguel, but Moses was one. And if in like manner the Word of God is called Wisdom and Power and Right-Hand and Arm and the like, and if in His leve to man He has become one with us, putting on our first-fruits and blended with it, therefore the other titles also have, as was natural, become the Word’s portions. For that John has said, that in the beginning was the Word, and He with God and Himself God, and all things through Him, and without Him nothing made, shews clearly that even man is the formation of God the Word. If then after taking him, when enfeebled§, into Himself, He renews him again through that sure renewal unto endless permanence, and therefore is made one with him in order to raise him to a diviner lot, how can we possibly say that the Word was sent through the Man who was from Mary, and reckon Him, the Lord of Apostles, with the other Apostles, I mean prophets, who were sent by Him? And how can Christ be called a mere man? on the contrary, being made one with the Word, He is with reason called Christ and Son of God, the prophet having long since loudly and clearly ascribed the Father’s subsistence to Him, aad said, ‘ And I will send My Son Christ 7,’ and in the Jordan, ‘This is My Well-beloved Son. For when He had fulfilled His promise, He shewed, as was suitable, that He was He whom He said He had sent.; 34. Let us then consider Christ in both ways, the divine Word made one in Mary with Him which is from Mary. For in her womb the Word fashioned for Himself His house, as at the beginning He formed Adam from the earth; or rather more divinely, concerning whom Solomon too says openly, knowing that the Word was also called Wisdom, ‘Wisdom builded herself an house?;’ which the Apostle interprets when he says, ‘Which house are we?,’ and elsewhere calls us a temple, as far as it is fitting to God to inhabit a temple, of which the image, made of stones, He by Solomon commanded the ancient people to build; whence, on the appearance of the Truth, the image ceased. For when the ruthless men wished to prove the image to be the truth, and to destroy that true habitation which we surely believe His union with us to be, He threatened them not; but knowing that their crime was against themselves, He says to them, ‘ Destroy this Temple, and in three days I will raise it up 3,’ He, our Saviour, surely shewing thereby that the things about which men busy themselves, carry their dissolution with them. For unless the Lord had built the house, and kept the city, in vain did the builders toil, and the keepers watch+. And so the works of the Jews are undone, for they were a shadow; but the Church is firmly established; it is ‘founded on the rock,’ and ‘the gates of hades shall not prevail against its.’ Theirs ® it was to say, ‘Why dost Thou, being a man, make Thyself God7?’ and their disciple is the Samosatene; whence to his followers with reason does he teach his heresy. But ‘we did not so learn Christ, if so be that we heard’ Him, and were taught from Him, ‘putting off the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts,’ and taking up ‘the new, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness 8,’ Let Christ then in both ways be religiously considered.