15. For divine Scripture wishing us thus to understand the matter, has given such illustrations, as we have said above, from which we are able both to press the traitorous Jews, and to refute the allegation of Gentiles who maintain and think, on account of the Trinity, that we profess many gods®. For, as the illustration shews, we do not introduce three Origins or three Fathers, as the followers of Marcion and Manicheeus; since we have not suggested the image of three suns, but sun and radiance. And one is the light from the sun in the radiance; and so we know of but one origin; and the All-framing Word we profess to have no other manner of godhead, than that of the Only God, because He is born from Him. Rather then will the Ario-maniacs with reason incur the charge of polytheism or else of atheism7, because they idly talk of the Son as external and a creature, and again the Spirit as from nothing. For either they will say that the Word is not God; or saying that He is God®8, because it is so written, but not proper to the Father’s Essence, they will introduce many because of their difference of kind (unless forsooth they shall dare to say that by participation only, He, as all things else, is called God; though, if this be their sentiment, their irreligion is the same, since they consider the Word as one among all things). But let this never even come into our mind. For there is but one form9 of Godhead, which is also in the Word; and one God, the Father, existing by Himself according as He is above © Serap. i. 28 fin. Naz. Orat. 23, 8. Basil. Ho. 24 init. Nyssen. Ovat. Catech. 3. p. 481. E all, and appearing in the Son according as He pervades all things, and in the Spirit according as in Him He acts in all things through the Word'?. For thus we confess God to be one through the Triad, and we say that it is much more religious than the godhead of the heretics with its many kinds™, and many parts, to entertain a belief of the One Godhead in a Triad.
16. For if it be not so, but the Word is a creature and a work out of nothing, either He is not True God because He is Himself one of the creatures, or if they name Him God from regard for the Scriptures, they must of necessity say that there are two Gods’, one Creator, the other creature, and must serve two Lords, one Unoriginate, and the other originate and a creature; and must have two faiths, one in the True God, and the other in one who is made and fashioned by themselves and called God. And it follows of necessity in so great blindness, that, when they worship the Unoriginate, they renounce the originate, and when they come to the creature, they turn from the Creator. For they cannot see the One in the Other, because their natures and operations are foreign and distinct?. And with such sentiments, they will certainly be going on to more gods, for this will be the essay3 of those who revolt from the One God. Wherefore then, when the Arians have these speculations and views, do they not rank themselves with the Gentiles? for they too, as these, worship the creature rather than God the Creator of all4, and though they shrink from the Gentile name, in order to deceive the unskilful, yet they secretly hold a like sentiment with them. For their subtle saying which they are accustomed to urge, ‘We say not two Unoriginates5,’ they plainly say to deceive the simple; for in their very professing ‘We say not two Unoriginates,’ they imply two Gods, and these with different natures, one originate and one Unoriginate. And though the Greeks worship one Unoriginate and many originate, but these one Unoriginate and one originate, this is no differ- I Vid. p. 75, note 73; de Sy#. 27 (2), and 50, note 5. The Arians were in the dilemma of holding two gods or worshipping the creature, unless they denied to our Lord both divinity and worship. vid. de Decr. 6, note 5, Ov. i. 30,n. 1. But ‘every substance,’says S. Austin, ‘ which is not God, isa creature, and which is notacreature, is God.’ de Trin. i.6. Andso§, Cyril zz Joan, p. 52. vid. also Naz. Orat. 31, 6. Basil. contr. Eunom. ii. 31.
4 Vid. supr. li. 14, DN. 7. Petavius gives a large collection of passages, de Tvin. ii. 12. § 5. from the Fathers in proof of the worship of Our Lord evidencing His Godhead. On the Arians as idolaters vid. swf. Or. 1. 8, n. 8. also HA. Ag. 4, 13. and Adelph.
‘ DISCOURSE: LEE) ence from them; for the God whom they call originate is one out of many, and again the many gods of the Greeks have the same nature with this one, for both he and they are creatures. Unhappy are they, and the more for that their hurt is from thinking against Christ; for they have fallen from the truth, and are greater traitors than the Jews in denying the Christ, and they wallow® with the Gentiles, hateful? as they are to God, worshipping the creature and many deities. For there is One God, and not many, and One is His Word, and not many; for the Word is God, and He alone has the Form® of the Father. Being then such, the Saviour Himself troubled the Jews with these words, ‘The Father Himself which hath sent Me, hath borne witness of Me; ye have neither heard His voice at any time nor seen His Form; and ye have not His Word abiding in you; for whom He hath sent, Him ye believe not.’ Suitably has He joined the ‘ Word’ to the ‘ Form,’ to shew that the Word of God is Himself Image and Expression and Form of His Father; and that the Jews who did not receive Him who spoke to them, thereby did not receive the Word, which is the Form of God. This too it was that the Patriarch Jacob having seen, received a blessing from Him and the name of Israel instead of Jacob, as divine Scripture witnesses, saying, ‘And as he passed by the Form of God, the Sun rose upon him?’ And This it was who said, ‘ He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father,’ and, ‘T in the Father and the Father in Me,’ and, ‘J and the Father are one™;’ for thus God is One, and one the faith in the Father and Son; for, though the Word be God, the Lord our God is one Lord; for the Son is proper to 6 quo ease vid. Orat. i. 23. li. x init.; Decry. 9 fin.; Gent. 19, c. cf. 2 Pet. ii. 22. 7 Geoarvyets, infr. Letter 54. 1 fin.
8 clos: also in Gen. xxxii. 30. 31. Sept. [a substitute for Heb. ‘face.’] vid. Justin Tryfh. 126. and supr. de Syn. 56, n. 6. for the meaning of the word. It was just now used for ‘kind.’ Athan. says, de Syn. ubi supr. ‘there is but one form of Godhead;’ yet the word is used of the Son as synonymous with ‘image.’ Ir would seem as if there are a certain class of words, all expressive of the One Divine Substance, which admit of more appropriate application either ordinarily or under circumstances, to This or That Divine Person who is also that One Substance. Thus ‘ Being’ is more descriptive of the Father as the mnyq 0coqntos, and He is said to be ‘the Being of the Son;” yet the Son is really the One Supreme Being also. On the other hand the words poopy and eldos [on them see Lightfoot, P/ii7p. p. 128) are rather descriptive of the Divine Substance in the Person of the Son, and He is called ‘the form of the Father,’ yet there is but one Form and Face of Divinity, who is at once Each of Three Persons; while ‘ Spint’ is appropriated to the Third Person, though God is a Spirit. Thus again S. Hippolytus says é« [rod marpos] dvvajits Aoyos, yet shortly before, after mentioning the Two Persons, he adds, dvvamev de play, contr. Noet.7 andi. And thus the word ‘ Subsistence,’ tmooracus, which expresses the One Divine Substance, has been found more appropriate to express that Substance viewed personally. Other words may be used correlatively of either Father or Son; thus the Father is the Life of the Son, the Son the Life of the Father; or, again, the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father. Others in common, as ‘the!ather’s Godhead is the Son’s,’ 4 marpixy viov Gedrys, as indeed the word ovove. itself. Other words on the contrary express the Substance in Thig or That Persou only, as ‘ Word,’ ‘ Image,’ &c. 9 John v. 37. io Gen. xxxil. 31, LAX.
pd that One, and inseparable according to the propriety and peculiarity of His Essence.
17. The Arians, however, not even thus abashed, reply, ‘ Not as you say, but as we will;’ for, whereas you have overthrown our former expedients, we have invented a new one, and it is this:—So are the Son and the Father One, and so is the Father in the Son and the Son in the Father, as we too may become one in Him. For this is written in the Gospel according to John, and Christ desired it for us in these words, ‘ Holy Father, keep through Thine own Name, those whom Thou hast given Me, that they may be one, as We are?.’ And shortly after; ‘ Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on Me through their Word; that they all may be one, as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me. And the glory which Thou gavest Me I have given them, that they may be one, even as We are one; I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that Thou didst send Me3.’ Then, as having found an evasion, these men of craft4 add, ‘If, as we become one in the Father, so also He and the Father are one, and thus He too is in the Father, how pretend you from His saying, “T and the Father are One,” and “I in the Father and the Father in Me,” that He is proper and likes the Father’s Essence? for it follows either that we too are proper to the Father’s Essence, or He foreign to it, as we are foreign.’ Thus they idly babble; but in this their perverseness I see nothing but unreasoning audacity and recklessness from the devil °, since it is saying after his pattern, ‘We will ascend to heaven, we will be like the Most High.’ For what is given to man by -grace, this they would make equal to the Godhead of the Giver. ‘Thus hearing that men are called sons, they thought themselves equal to the True Son by nature such7. And now again hearing from the Saviour, ‘that they may be one as We are,’ they deceive themselves, and are arrogant enough to think that they may be such as the Son is in the Father and the Father in the Son; not considering the fall of their ‘father the devil9,’ which happened upon such an imagination.
18. If then, as we have many times said, the Word of God is the same with us, and nothing differs from us except in time, let Him be like us, and have the same place with the @ Father as we have; nor let Him be called Only-begotten, nor Only Word or Wisdom of the Father; but let the same name be of common application to all us who are like Him. For it is right, that they who have one nature, should have their name in common, though they differ from each other in point of time. For Adam was a man, and Paul a man, and he who is now born is a man, and time is not that which alters the nature of the race*. If then the Word also differs from us only in time, then we must be as He. But in truth neither we are Word or Wisdom, nor is He creature or work; else why are we all sprung from one, and He the Only Word? but though it be suitable in them thus to speak, in us at least it is unsuitable to entertain their blasphemies. And yet, needless? though it be to refine upon 3 these passages, considering their so clear and religious sense, and our own orthodox belief, yet that their irreligion may be shewn here also, come let us shortly, as we have received from the fathers, expose their heterodoxy from the passage. It is a custom‘ with divine Scripture to take the things of nature as images and illustrations for mankind; and this it does, that from these physical objects the moral impulses of man may be explained; and thus their conduct shewn to be either bad or righteous. For instance, in the case of the bad, as when it charges, ‘Be ye not like to horse and mule which have no understanding 5.’ Or as when it says, complaining of those who have become such, ‘Man, being in honour, hath no understanding, but is compared unto the beasts that perish.’ And again, ‘They were as wanton horses °.’ And the Saviour to expose Herod said, ‘Tell that fox7;’ but, on the other hand, charged His disciples, ‘ Behold I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves; be ye therefore wise as serpents and harmless as doves®.’ And He said this, not that we may become in nature beasts of burden, or become serpents and doves; for He hath not so made us Himself, and therefore nature does not allow of it; but that we might eschew the irrational motions of the one, and being aware of the wisdom of that other animal, might not be deceived by it, and might take on us the meekness of the dove. ig. Again, taking patterns for man from divine subjects, the Saviour says; ‘Be ye merciful, as your Father which is in heaven is merciful; and, ‘Be ye perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect®.’ And He said this 3 meprepyacecOau' vid. Or. ii. 34, n. 5. WO7AT We Bay Dera Orat. iv. 33 init. 5 Ps. xxxil. 9; xlix. 20. CM eravce too, not that we might become such as the Father; for to become as the Father, is 1mpossible for us creatures, who have been brought to be out of nothing; but as He charged us, ‘Be ye not like to horse,’ not lest we should become as draught animals, but that we should not imitate their want of reason, So, not that we might become as God, did He say, ‘Be ye merciful as your Father,’ but that looking at His beneficent acts, what we do well, we might do, not for men’s sake, but for His sake, so that from Him and not from men we may have the reward. For as, although there be one Son by nature, True and Onlybegotten, we too become sons, not as He in nature and truth, but according to the grace of Him that calleth, and though we are men from the earth, are yet called gods3, not as the True God or His Word, but as has pleased God who has given us that grace; so also, as God do we become merciful, not by being made equal to God, nor becoming in nature and truth benefactors (for it is not our gift to benefit but belongs to God), but in order that what has accrued to us from God Himself by grace, these things we may impart to others, without making distinctions, but largely towards all extending our kind service. For only in this way can we anyhow become imitators, and in no other, when we minister to others what comes from Him. And as we put a fair and nght+ sense upon these texts, such again is the sense of the lection in John. For he does not say, that, as the Son is in the Father, such we must become:—whence could it be? when He is God’s Word and Wisdom, and we were fashioned out of the earth, and He is by nature and essence Word and true God (for thus speaks John, ‘ We know that the Son of God is come, and He hath given us an understanding to know Him that is true, and we are in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ; this is the true God and eternal life 5), and we are made sons through Him by adoption and grace, as partaking of His Spirit (for ‘as many as received Him,’ he says, ‘ to them gave He power to become children of God, even to them that believe on His Name‘), and therefore also He is the Truth (saying, ‘Iam the Truth,’ and in His address to His Father, He said, ‘Sanctify them through Thy Truth, Thy Word is Truth7’); but we by imitation ® become virtuous 9 and sons:—therefore 8 xara pivnow. Clem. Alex. Pedag. i. 3. p. 102. ed. Pott. Naz. Z%. 102. p. 95. (Ed. Ben.) Leo in various places, sur. ii. 55, n. x. Iren. Her. v. 1. August. Servm. ror, 6. August. Tviz. iv. 17. also ix, 21. and Eusebius, cara rhv adtod piunow. Eccl. Theol. ll, 19, a. For inward grace as opposed to teaching, vid. sugr, 9 évdperor so mavdperos Clem. Rom. £p. i.
DISCOURSES! UH, not that we might become such as He, did He say ‘that they may be one as We are;’ but that as He, being the Word, is in His own Father, so that we too, taking an examplar and looking at Him, might become one. towards each other in concord and oneness of spirit, nor be at variance as the Corinthians, but mind the same thing, as those five thousand in the Acts *°, who were as one.
20. For it is as ‘sons,’ not as the Son; as ‘gods,’ not as He Himself; and not as the Father, but ‘ merciful as the Father.’ And, as has been said, by so becoming one, as the Father and the Son, we shall be such, not as?
the Father is by nature in the Son and the Son in the Father, but according to our own nature, and as it is possible for us thence to be moulded and to learn how we ought to be one, just as we learned also to be merciful. For like things are naturally one with like; thus all flesh is ranked together in kind?; but the Word is unlike us and like the Father. And therefore, while He is in nature and truth one with His own Father, we, as being of one kind with each other (for from one were all made, and one is the nature of all men), become one with each other in good disposition’, having as our copy the Son’s natural unity with the Father. For as He taught us meekness from Himself, saying, ‘ Learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart 3,’ not that we may become equal to Him, which is impossible, but that looking towards Him, we may remain meek continually, so also here, wishing that our good disposition towards each other should be true and firm and indissoluble, from Himself taking the pattern, He says, ‘that they may be one as We are,’ whose oneness is indivisible; that is, that they learning from us of that indivisible Nature, may preserve in like manner agreement one with another. And this imitation of natural conditions is especially safe for man, as has been said; for, since they remain and never change, whereas the conduct of men is very changeable, one may look to what is unchangeable by nature, and avoid what is bad and remodel himself on what is best.
21. And for this reason also the words, ‘that they may be one in Us,’ have a right sense. If, for instance, it were possible for us to become as the Son in the Father, the words ought to run, ‘that they may be one in Thee,’ as the Son is in the Father; but, as it is, He has not said this; but by saying ‘in Us’ He has pointed out the distance and difference; that He indeed is alone in the Father alone, as Only Word and Wisdom; but note 5; Ef. ad Mon. (x) init. Hipp. c. Noet. 7.
we in the Son, and through Him in the Father. And thus speaking, He meant this only, ‘ By Our unity may they also be so one with each other, as We are one in nature and truth; for otherwise they could not be one, except by learning unity in Us.’ And that ‘in Us’ has this signification, we may learn from Paul, who says, ‘These things I have in a figure transferred to myself and to Apollos, that ye may learn in us not to be puffed up above that is written?.? The words ‘in Us’ then, are not ‘in the Father,’ as the Son is in Him; but imply an example and image, instead of saying, ‘Let them learn of Us.’ For as Paul to the Corinthians, so is the oneness of the Son and the Father a pattern and lesson to all, by which they may learn, looking to that natural unity of the Father and the Son, how they themselves ought to be one in spirit towards each other. Or if it needs to account for the phrase otherwise, the words ‘in Us’ may mean the same as saying, that in the power of the Father and the Son they may be one, speaking the same things*; for without God this is impossible. And _ this mode of speech also we may find in the divine writings, as ‘In God will we do great acts;’ and ‘In God I shall leap over the wall3;’ and ‘In Thee will we tread down our enemies+,’ Therefore it is plain, that in the Name of Father and Son we shall be able, becoming one, to hold firm the bond of charity. For, dwelling still on the same thought, the Lord says, ‘And the glory which ‘Thou gavest Me, I have given to them, that they may be one as Weare one.’ Suitably has He here too said, not, ‘that they may be in Thee as I am,’ but ‘as We are;’ now he who says ‘as’5, signifies not identity, but an image and example of the matter in hand.
22. The Word then has the real and true identity of nature with the Father; but to us it is given to imitate it, as has been said; for He immediately adds, ‘I in them and Thou in Me; that they may be made perfect in one.’ Here at length the Lord asks something greater and more perfect for us; for it is plain that the Word has come to be in us®, for He has put on our body. ‘And Thou Father in Me;’ ‘for I am Thy Word, and since Thou art in Me, because I am Thy Word, and I in them because of the body, and because of Thee the salvation of men is perfected in Me, therefore I ask that they also may become one, according to the body that is in Me and according to its perfection; that they too may q riCoreivaOr 2 Vid. x Cor. i. 10. 3 Ps, Ix. 12; xviii. 29. 4 Ps. xliv. 5. Vid. Olear. de Styd. NV. T. p.4. (ed. 1702.) [Winer. xlvili. a.]
5 This remark which comes in abruptly is pursued presently, vid. § 23. 6 Cf. de Decry. 316 fin.
a a ee a a a become perfect, having oneness with It, and having become one in It; that, as if all were carried by Me, all may be one body and one spirit, and may grow up unto a perfect man 7.’ For we all, partaking of the Same, become one body, having the one Lord in ourselves. The passage then having this meaning, still more plainly is refuted the heterodoxy of Christ’s enemies. I repeat it; if He had said simply and absolutely® ‘that they may be one in Thee,’ or ‘that they and I may be one in Thee,’ God’s enemies had had some plea, though a shameless one; but in fact He has not spoken simply, but, ‘As Thou, Father, in Me, and I in Thee, that they may be all one.’ Moreover, using the word ‘as,’ He signifies those who become distantly as He is in the Father; distantly not in place but in nature; for in place nothing is far from God9, but in nature only all things are far from Him. And, as I said before, whoso uses the particle ‘as’ implies, not identity, nor equality, but a pattern of the matter in question, viewed in a certain respect 7° 23. Indeed we may learn also from the Saviour Himself, when He says, ‘ For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly, so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth*.’ For Jonah was not as the Saviour, nor did Jonah go down to hades; nor was the whale hades; nor did Jonah, when swallowed up, bring up those who had before been swallowed by the whale, but he alone came forth, when the whale was bidden. ‘Therefore there is: no identity nor equality signified in the term ‘as,’ but one thing and another; and it shews a certain kind? of parallel in the case of Jonah, on account of the three days. In like manner then we too, when the Lord says ‘as,’ neither become as the Son in the Father, nor as the Father is in the Son. For we become one as the Father and the Son in mind and agreement3 of spirit, and the Saviour will be as Jonah in the earth; but as the Saviour is not Jonah, nor, as he was swallowed up, so did the Saviour descend into hades, but it is but a parallel, in like manner, if we too become one, as the Son in the Father, we shall not be as 9 Vid. de Decr. 11, n. 5, which is explained by the present passage. When Ath. there says, ‘ without all in nature,’ he must mean as here, ‘far from all things in nature.’ S. Clement doc, czd. gives the same explanation, as there noticed, It is observable that the contr. Sab. Greg. 10 (which the Benedictines consider not Athan.’s) speaks as de Decr. supr. Eusebius says the same thing, de Incorfor. i. init. af. Sirm. Op. p. 68. vid. S. Ambros. Quomodo creatura in Deo esse potest, &c, de Fid. i. 106. and ro Vid. Glass. Phil. Sacr. iii. 5. can. 27. and Dettmars, de Theol. Orig. ap. Lumper. Ast. Paty. t. 10, p. 212. spr. ii, 55, n. 8. I Matt. xii. 40.
2 6uovoTyTa mos, and so at the end of 22. kara Te Oewpovmevor. | {A note, discussing certain views of Coplestone, Toplady, and | be | Proy. xxiii. 4, LAX.
Blanco White, is omitted here.] 3 ouppwyria, Io, n. 2 Vid. also | the Son, nor equal to Him; for He and we are but parallel. For on this account is the word ‘as’ applied to us; since things differing from others in nature, become as they, when viewed in a certain relations. Wherefore the Son Himself, simply and without any condition is in the Father; for this attribute He has by nature; but for us, to whom it is not natural, there is needed an image and example, that He may say of us, ‘As Thou in Me, and I in Thee.’ ‘ And when they shall be so perfected,’ He says, ‘then the world knows that Thou hast sent Me, for unless I had come and borne this their body, no one of them had been perfected, but one and all had remained corruptibleé. Work Thou then in them, O Father, and as Thou hast given to Me to bear this, grant to them Thy Spirit, that they too in It may become one, and may be perfected in Me. For their perfecting shews that Thy Word has sojourned among them; and the world seeing them perfect and full of God, will believe altogether that Thou hast sent Me, and I have sojourned here. For whence is this their perfecting, but that I, Thy Word, having borne their body, and become man, have perfected the work, which Thou gavest Me, O Father? And the work is perfected, because men, redeemed from sin, no longer remain dead; but being deified’, have in each other, by looking at Me, the bond of charity 9.’