It is acknowledged of all the other heresies that have departed from the truth that they have merely devised a madness, and their irreligion has long been notorious to everyone. For since their authors went out from us, it plainly follows, as the blessed John has written, that they never thought with us and do not think with us now. So, as the Savior says, since they do not gather with us, they scatter with the devil, and they watch for those who are asleep, so that by this second sowing of their own deadly poison they may have companions in death. But one heresy, the last, which has now arisen as the forerunner of Antichrist — the Arian, as it is called — seeing that other heresies, her elder sisters, have been openly condemned, craftily and cunningly pretends to dress herself in the language of Scripture, like her father the devil, and is forcing her way back into the Church's paradise, so that under the pretense of Christianity her smooth sophistry (for she has no reason) may deceive people into wrong thoughts about Christ. Indeed, she has already seduced some of the foolish, not only to corrupt their ears, but even to take and eat with Eve, until in the ignorance that follows they think bitter is sweet and admire this loathsome heresy. For this reason I have thought it necessary, at your request, to unpick 'the folds of its breastplate' and to show the foul smell of its folly. So while those who are far from it may continue to avoid it, those whom it has deceived may repent, and, opening the eyes of their hearts, may understand that darkness is not light, nor falsehood truth, nor Arianism good; indeed, that those who call these men Christians are in great and serious error, having neither studied Scripture nor understood Christianity at all and the faith it contains.
For what have they found in this heresy that resembles the religious Faith, that they idly talk as if its supporters said nothing evil? This is truly to call even Caiaphas a Christian, to count the traitor Judas still among the Apostles, to say that those who asked for Barabbas instead of the Savior did no evil, and to recommend Hymenæus and Alexander as right-minded men, as if the Apostle had slandered them. But no Christian can bear to hear this, nor can he consider the man who dared to say it sane in his understanding. For with them Arius stands in place of Christ, as Manichæus does with the Manichees; and in place of Moses and the other saints they have discovered one Sotades, a man whom even the Gentiles laugh at, and the daughter of Herodias. For Arius imitated the dissolute and effeminate tone of the one, writing Thaliæ on his model; and he rivaled the other in her dance, reeling and frolicking in his blasphemies against the Savior, until the victims of his heresy lose their wits and become foolish, change the Name of the Lord of glory into the likeness of the 'image of corruptible man,' and come to be called Arians instead of Christians, bearing this badge of their irreligion. Let them not make excuses, nor throw their disgrace back on those who are not like them by naming Christians after their teachers, so that they themselves may appear to bear that Name in the same way. Nor let them make a joke of it when they feel ashamed of their disgraceful title; rather, if they are ashamed, let them hide their faces or shrink back from their own irreligion. For Christian people never at any time took their title from the Bishops among them, but from the Lord, on whom we rest our faith. So, though the blessed Apostles have become our teachers and have served the Savior's Gospel, we do not take our title from them; we are, and are named, Christians from Christ. But those who take the faith they profess from others have good reason to bear the name of those whose property they have become.
Yes, surely. While all of us are, and are called, Christians after Christ, Marcion launched a heresy long ago and was cast out; those who stayed with the one who expelled him remained Christians, but those who followed Marcion were no longer called Christians, but from then on Marcionites. In the same way Valentinus, Basilides, Manichæus, and Simon Magus have given their own names to their followers; some are addressed as Valentinians, or Basilidians, or Manichees, or Simonians; and others are called Cataphrygians from Phrygia, and Novatians from Novatus. So too Meletius, when he was expelled by Peter the Bishop and Martyr, called his party no longer Christians but Meletians; and so, when Alexander of blessed memory had cast out Arius, those who stayed with Alexander remained Christians, but those who went out with Arius left the Savior's Name to us who were with Alexander, and from then on they were called Arians. Look, then: after Alexander's death too, those who are in communion with his successor Athanasius, and those with whom that Athanasius is in communion, are examples of the same rule; none of them bears his name, nor is he named after them, but all alike, as usual, are called Christians. For though we have a succession of teachers and become their disciples, we both are, and are called, Christians all the same, because what they teach us is the things of Christ. But those who follow the heretics, though they have countless successors in their heresy, still bear the name of the one who devised it. So, though Arius is dead and many of his party have succeeded him, those who think as he did are called Arians, being known from Arius. And, as remarkable evidence of this, those Greeks who come into the Church even now, on giving up the superstition of idols, take the name not of their catechists but of the Savior, and begin to be called Christians instead of Greeks; while those of them who go off to the heretics, and all who change from the Church to this heresy, abandon Christ's name and from then on are called Arians, since they no longer hold Christ's faith but have inherited Arius's madness.
How, then, can they be Christians, who are Ario-maniacs instead of Christians? Or how are they of the Catholic Church, when they have shaken off the Apostolic faith and become authors of new evils? When, after abandoning the oracles of divine Scripture, they call Arius's Thaliæ a new wisdom? And rightly so, for they are announcing a new heresy. And so one may well wonder that, while many have written many treatises and abundant homilies on the Old Testament and the New, a Thalia is found in none of them; indeed, not even among the more respectable of the Gentiles, but only among those who sing such songs over their cups, amid cheers and jokes, when people are merry, so that the rest may laugh. Then this marvelous Arius, taking no serious model and ignorant even of what is respectable, while he stole freely from other heresies, wanted to be original in the ridiculous, with no rival but Sotades. For what suited him better, when he wanted to dance out against the Savior, than to cast his wretched words of irreligion into dissolute and loose meters? So that, as Wisdom says, 'a man is known from the utterance of his word,' so from those verses the writer's effeminate soul and corrupt thought might be seen. In truth, that crafty one did not escape detection; for all his twisting to and fro like the serpent, he only fell into the error of the Pharisees. They, in order to transgress the Law, pretended to be anxious about the words of the Law, and in order to deny the Lord who was expected and then present, they were hypocritical with God's name, and were convicted of blasphemy when they said, 'Why do You, being a man, make Yourself God,' and say, 'I and the Father are one?' So too this counterfeit and Sotadean Arius pretends to speak of God, bringing in the language of Scripture, but is recognized on every side as godless Arius, denying the Son and counting Him among the creatures.
Now the beginning of Arius's Thalia and flippancy, effeminate in tune and nature, runs like this: 'According to the faith of God's elect, God's prudent ones, holy children, rightly dividing, receiving God's Holy Spirit, I have learned this from those who share in wisdom, accomplished, taught by God, and wise in all things. In their footsteps I have walked, with the same opinions. I, the very famous, who have suffered much for God's glory; and, taught by God, I have gained wisdom and knowledge.' And the mockeries he utters in it, repulsive and utterly irreligious, are like these: 'God was not always a Father,' but 'once God was alone, and not yet a Father, but afterward He became a Father.' 'The Son did not always exist'; for, since all things were made out of nothing, and all existing creatures and works were made, so the Word of God Himself was 'made out of nothing,' and 'once He was not,' and 'He did not exist before His origination,' but He, like others, 'had a beginning of creation.' 'For God,' he says, 'was alone, and the Word did not yet exist, nor the Wisdom. Then, wishing to form us, He at that point made a certain one, and named Him Word and Wisdom and Son, so that He might form us through Him.' Accordingly, he says that there are two wisdoms: first, the attribute coexisting with God, and second, that the Son was originated in this wisdom and was only named Wisdom and Word as sharing in it. 'For Wisdom,' he says, 'by the will of the wise God, had its existence in Wisdom.' In the same way he says that there is another Word in God besides the Son, and that the Son, again, as sharing in it, is named Word and Son by grace. And this too is an idea particular to their heresy, as shown in other works of theirs: that there are many powers, one of which is God's own by nature and eternal; but that Christ, on the other hand, is not the true power of God, but, like others, one of the so-called powers, one of which, namely the locust and the caterpillar, is called in Scripture not merely the power but the 'great power.' The others are many and are like the Son, and David speaks of them in the Psalms when he says, 'The Lord of hosts' or 'powers.' And by nature, like all others, the Word Himself is changeable, and remains good by His own free will as long as He chooses; but when He wills, He can change as we can, being of a changeable nature. 'For therefore,' he says, 'foreknowing that He would be good, God bestowed on Him in advance this glory, which He afterward attained as man by virtue. So, because of His foreknown works, God brought it about that He, being such, should come to be.'
Moreover, he has dared to say that 'the Word is not true God'; 'though He is called God, He is not true God,' but 'by participation in grace He, like others, is God in name only.' And, just as all beings are foreign to God and different from Him in essence, so too 'the Word is alien and unlike in all things to the Father's essence and character,' but belongs to things originated and created, and is one of them. Then, as though he had inherited the devil's recklessness, he has stated in his Thalia that 'even to the Son the Father is invisible,' and 'the Word cannot perfectly and exactly either see or know His own Father'; but even what He knows and sees, He knows and sees 'in proportion to His own measure,' as we also know according to our own capacity. For the Son, he says, not only does not know the Father exactly, since He falls short in comprehension, but 'He does not even know His own essence'; and 'the essences of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are separate in nature, estranged, disconnected, alien, and without participation in each other'; and, in his own words, 'utterly unlike each other in essence and glory, to infinity.' So, as to 'likeness of glory and essence,' he says that the Word is entirely different from both the Father and the Holy Spirit. With such words the irreligious man has spoken, maintaining that the Son is distinct by Himself and in no respect shares in the Father. These are portions of Arius's fables as they occur in that joking composition.
Who is there who hears all this, indeed the tune of the Thalia, and does not hate, and rightly hate, this Arius joking about such matters as if on a stage? Who does not regard him, when he pretends to name God and speak of God, as the serpent advising the woman? Who, on reading what follows in his work, does not recognize in his irreligious doctrine the error into which the serpent afterward seduced the woman by his sophistries? Who is not overwhelmed at such blasphemies? 'The heaven,' as the Prophet says, 'was astonished, and the earth shuddered' at the transgression of the Law. But the sun, with greater horror, unable to bear the bodily insults that the common Lord of all willingly endured for us, turned away, and, drawing back his rays, made that day sunless. And shall not all humankind be struck speechless at Arius's blasphemies, stop their ears, and shut their eyes, so as not to hear them or see their author? Indeed, will not the Lord Himself have reason to denounce men so irreligious, and so ungrateful, in the words He has already spoken through the prophet Hosea: 'Woe to them, for they have fled from Me; destruction upon them, for they have transgressed against Me; though I have redeemed them, they have spoken lies against Me.' And soon after: 'They plot mischief against Me; they turn away to nothing.' For to turn away from the Word of God, who is, and to fashion for themselves one who is not, is to fall into what is nothing. This was why the Ecumenical Council, when Arius spoke this way, cast him out of the Church and anathematized him, unable to tolerate such irreligion. And ever since, Arius's error has been counted a heresy beyond the ordinary, known as Christ's enemy and the forerunner of Antichrist. Although so great a condemnation is in itself of special weight in making people flee from that irreligious heresy, as I said above, yet since certain people called Christians, either in ignorance or in pretense, think it, as I said then, little different from the Truth, and call its adherents Christians, let us go on to put some questions to them, as far as we are able, and so expose the unscrupulousness of the heresy. Perhaps, when caught in this way, they will be silenced and flee from it, as from the sight of a serpent.
If, then, in their opinion the use of certain phrases of divine Scripture turns the blasphemy of the Thalia into reverent language, they ought of course also to deny Christ with the present-day Jews when they see how they study the Law and the Prophets; perhaps they will also deny the Law and the Prophets, like the Manichees, because the latter read some portions of the Gospels. If such bewilderment and empty talk come from ignorance, Scripture will teach them that the devil, the author of heresies, because of the foul smell that clings to evil, borrows the language of Scripture as a cloak under which to sow the ground with his own poison too, and to seduce the simple. This is how he deceived Eve; this is how he framed earlier heresies; this is how he persuaded Arius at this time to make a show of speaking against those earlier ones, so that he might bring in his own unnoticed. And yet, after all, the crafty man did not escape. For by being irreligious toward the Word of God, he lost everything at once and revealed to everyone his ignorance of other heresies too; and having not a particle of truth in his belief, he merely pretends to it. For how can he speak the truth about the Father, when he denies the Son, who reveals the Father? Or how can he be orthodox about the Spirit, while he speaks profanely of the Word who supplies the Spirit? And who will trust him about the Resurrection, when he denies Christ, the firstborn from the dead for our sake? And how will he not go wrong about His incarnate presence, when he is simply ignorant of the Son's genuine and true generation from the Father? For in the same way the Jews of old, denying the Word and saying, 'We have no king but Cæsar,' were immediately stripped of all they had, and lost the light of the Lamp, the fragrance of the ointment, the knowledge of prophecy, and the Truth itself; so that now they understand nothing, but are walking as in darkness. For who ever yet heard such a doctrine? Or where, or from whom, did the supporters and hirelings of the heresy get it? Who explained it to them this way when they were at school? Who told them, 'Abandon the worship of creation, and then draw near and worship a creature and a work'? But if they themselves admit that they have heard it now for the first time, how can they deny that this heresy is foreign and not from our fathers? And what is not from our fathers, but has come to light in our day, how can it be anything but what the blessed Paul foretold: that 'in the latter times some will depart from the sound faith, paying attention to seducing spirits and doctrines of demons, in the hypocrisy of liars, seared in their own conscience, and turning from the truth'?
For look: we take divine Scripture, and from it speak freely of the religious Faith, and set it up as a light on its lampstand, saying: He is the true Son of the Father, natural and genuine, proper to His essence, Only-begotten Wisdom, and the true and only Word of God; not a creature or work, but an offspring proper to the Father's essence. Therefore He is true God, one in essence with the true Father; while other beings, to whom He said, 'I said, you are gods,' had this grace from the Father only by participation in the Word, through the Spirit. For He is the expression of the Father's Person, Light from Light, Power, and true Image of the Father's essence. For the Lord has also said this: 'Whoever has seen Me has seen the Father.' And He always was and is, and never was not. For since the Father is everlasting, His Word and His Wisdom must be everlasting. On the other hand, what do these people have to show us from the infamous Thalia? Or, first of all, let them read it themselves and imitate the writer's tone; at least the mockery they will meet from others may teach them how low they have fallen; and then let them go on to explain themselves. For what can they say from it, but that 'God was not always a Father, but became one afterward; the Son did not always exist, for He did not exist before His generation; He is not from the Father, but He, like others, has come into existence out of nothing; He is not proper to the Father's essence, for He is a creature and work'? And 'Christ is not true God, but He, like others, was made God by participation; the Son does not have exact knowledge of the Father, nor does the Word see the Father perfectly; and He neither exactly understands nor knows the Father. He is not the true and only Word of the Father, but is called Word and Wisdom in name only, and is called Son and Power by grace. He is not unchangeable, as the Father is, but changeable in nature, like the creatures, and He falls short of grasping the perfect knowledge of the Father.' What a wonderful heresy — not even plausible, but speculating against Him who is, that He may not be, and everywhere putting forward blasphemy in place of reverent language! Suppose someone, after looking into both sides, were asked which of the two he would follow in faith, or which of the two spoke fittingly of God — or rather let these supporters of irreligion say themselves what would be fitting to answer if someone were asked about God (for 'the Word was God'). For from this one question the whole case on both sides can be decided, what is fitting to say: He was, or He was not; always, or before His birth; eternal, or from this point and from that time; true, or by adoption, by participation, and in idea; to call Him one of the things originated, or to unite Him to the Father; to consider Him unlike the Father in essence, or like Him and proper to Him; a creature, or the one through whom the creatures came into being; that He is the Father's Word, or that there is another word besides Him, by which other He was originated, and by another wisdom; and that He is only named Wisdom and Word, and has come to share in this wisdom and is second to it?
Which of the two theologies presents our Lord Jesus Christ as God and Son of the Father: this one you have vomited out, or the one we have spoken and maintain from the Scriptures? If the Savior is not God, nor Word, nor Son, you may say what you like, and so may the Gentiles and the present-day Jews. But if He is the Word of the Father and true Son, God from God, and 'over all blessed forever,' is it not right to wipe out and blot out those other phrases and that Arian Thalia, as nothing but a pattern of evil, a storehouse of all irreligion, into which whoever falls 'does not know that giants perish with her, and reaches the depths of Hades'? They know this themselves, and in their craftiness they conceal it, not having the courage to speak out, but saying something else. For if they speak, condemnation will follow; and if they are suspected, proofs from Scripture will be thrown at them from every side. So, in their craftiness, as children of this world, after filling their so-called lamp from the wild olive, and fearing that it would soon be put out (for it is said, 'the light of the wicked shall be put out'), they hide it under the basket of their hypocrisy, make a different profession, and boast of the patronage of friends and the authority of Constantius, so that, between their hypocrisy and their professions, those who come to them may be kept from seeing how foul their heresy is. Is it not detestable even in this, that it does not dare to speak out, but is kept hidden by its own friends and nurtured as serpents are? For from what sources have they gathered these words? Or from whom have they received what they dare to say? They cannot name a single person who has supplied it. For who is there in all humankind, Greek or Barbarian, who dares to rank among creatures One whom he confesses all the while to be God, and says that He did not exist until He was made? Or who is there who refuses to believe the God in whom he has put his faith, when He says, 'This is My beloved Son,' on the pretext that He is not a Son but a creature? Rather, such madness would arouse universal indignation. Nor does Scripture give them any pretext; for it has often been shown, and it will be shown now, that their doctrine is foreign to the divine oracles. Therefore, since all that is left is to say that their mania came from the devil (for he alone sows such opinions), let us go on to resist him — for our real conflict is with him, and they are only his instruments — so that, with the Lord helping us and the enemy defeated by arguments as usual, they may be put to shame when they see the one who sowed this heresy in them left without resources, and may learn, though late, that being Arians, they are not Christians.
At his suggestion, then, you have maintained and you think that 'there was once when the Son was not'; this is the first cloak of your doctrinal views that has to be stripped off. Say, then, what was there once when the Son was not, you slanderous and irreligious men? If you say the Father, your blasphemy is only greater; for it is impious to say that He was 'once,' or to describe Him with the word 'once.' For He always is, and is now, and as the Son is, so is He; He Himself is He who is, and Father of the Son. But if you say that the Son was once when He Himself was not, the answer is foolish and meaningless. For how could He both be and not be? In this difficulty, you can only answer that there was a time when the Word was not; for your very adverb 'once' naturally means this. And your other phrase, 'The Son did not exist before His generation,' amounts to saying, 'There was once when He was not,' for both the one and the other mean that there is a time before the Word. Where, then, did you discover this? Why do you, like 'the nations, rage, and devise empty phrases against the Lord and against His Christ'? For no holy Scripture has used such language of the Savior, but rather 'always,' 'eternal,' and 'always coexisting with the Father.' For 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.' And in the Apocalypse he speaks this way: 'Who is and who was and who is to come.' Now who can rob 'who is' and 'who was' of eternity? To refute the Jews, Paul also wrote this in his Epistle to the Romans: 'From whom, according to the flesh, is Christ, who is over all, God blessed forever'; while, silencing the Greeks, he said, 'The invisible things of Him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood through the things that are made, even His eternal Power and Godhead'; and what the Power of God is, he himself teaches us elsewhere: 'Christ the Power of God and the Wisdom of God.' Surely in these words he does not mean the Father, as you often whisper to one another, claiming that the Father is 'His eternal power.' This is not so; for he does not say, 'God Himself is the power,' but 'His is the power.' It is very plain to everyone that 'His' is not 'He'; yet it is not something foreign but rather proper to Him. Study the context too, and 'turn to the Lord' — now 'the Lord is the Spirit' — and you will see that it is the Son who is meant.
For after mentioning the creation, he naturally speaks of the Maker's Power as seen in it; and that Power, I say, is the Word of God, through whom all things have been made. If indeed the creation is sufficient by itself alone, without the Son, to make God known, be careful not to fall into thinking that it has come into being without the Son. But if it has come into being through the Son, and 'in Him all things hold together,' it must follow that whoever contemplates the creation rightly is also contemplating the Word who made it, and through Him begins to grasp the Father. And if, as the Savior also says, 'No one knows the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son reveals Him,' and if, when Philip asked, 'Show us the Father,' He did not say, 'Look at the creation,' but, 'Whoever has seen Me has seen the Father,' then Paul has good reason — while accusing the Greeks of contemplating the harmony and order of creation without reflecting on the Word who made it and is within it (for the creatures bear witness to their own Maker), so as to grasp the true God through creation and abandon their worship of it — Paul has good reason, I say, to speak of 'His Eternal Power and Godhead,' meaning the Son by it. And where the sacred writers say, 'Who exists before the ages,' and 'Through whom He made the ages,' they proclaim just as clearly the eternal and everlasting being of the Son, even while they are speaking of God Himself. So, if Isaiah says, 'The Everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth'; and Susanna said, 'O Everlasting God'; and Baruch wrote, 'I will cry to the Everlasting in my days,' and shortly after, 'My hope is in the Everlasting, that He will save you, and joy has come to me from the Holy One'; still, since the Apostle, writing to the Hebrews, says, 'Who, being the radiance of His glory and the Expression of His Person'; and David too in the eighty-ninth Psalm, 'And let the brightness of the Lord be upon us,' and, 'In Your Light we shall see Light' — who has so little sense as to doubt the eternity of the Son? For when did anyone see light without the brightness of its radiance, that he may say of the Son, 'There was once when He was not,' or 'Before His generation He was not'? And the words addressed to the Son in the hundred and forty-fourth Psalm, 'Your kingdom is a kingdom of all ages,' forbid anyone to imagine any interval at all in which the Word did not exist. For if every interval in the ages is measured, and the Word is King and Maker of all the ages, then, since no interval at all exists before Him, it would be madness to say, 'There was once when the Everlasting was not,' and 'The Son is from nothing.' And since the Lord Himself says, 'I am the Truth,' not 'I became the Truth,' but always 'I am — I am the Shepherd — I am the Light,' and again, 'Do you not call Me Lord and Master? And you say well, for so I am' — who, hearing such language from God, the Wisdom and Word of the Father, speaking of Himself, will still hesitate about the truth, and not at once believe that the phrase 'I am' means that the Son is eternal and without beginning?
It is plain, then, from the above that the Scriptures declare the Son's eternity; it is equally plain from what follows that the Arian phrases 'He was not,' 'before,' and 'when' are used in the same Scriptures of creatures. Moses, for instance, in his account of the origin of our world, says, 'And every plant of the field, before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew; for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no man to till the ground.' And in Deuteronomy: 'When the Most High divided the nations.' And the Lord said in His own Person, 'If you loved Me, you would rejoice because I said, I am going to the Father, for My Father is greater than I. And now I have told you before it happens, so that when it has happened, you may believe.' And about the creation He says through Solomon, 'Before the earth existed, when there were no depths, I was brought forth; when there were no springs abounding with water. Before the mountains were settled, before the hills, I was brought forth.' And, 'Before Abraham was, I am.' And about Jeremiah He says, 'Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.' And David says in the Psalm, 'Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever the earth and the world were made, You are God from everlasting to everlasting.' And in Daniel: 'Susanna cried out with a loud voice and said, O everlasting God, who know the secrets, and know all things before they come to be.' So it appears that the phrases 'once was not,' 'before it came to be,' 'when,' and the like belong to originated things and creatures, which come out of nothing, but are foreign to the Word. But if such terms are used in Scripture of originated things, but 'always' of the Word, it follows, you enemies of God, that the Son did not come out of nothing, nor is He counted among originated things at all, but is the Father's eternal Image and Word, never having not existed, but always existing, as the eternal Radiance of a Light that is eternal. Why, then, imagine times before the Son? Or why blaspheme the Word as coming after times, when even the ages were made through Him? For how did time or age exist at all when the Word, as you say, had not yet appeared, 'through' whom 'all things have been made, and without' whom 'not one thing was made'? Or why, when you mean time, do you not plainly say, 'There was a time when the Word was not'? But while you leave out the word 'time' to deceive the simple, you do not conceal your own view at all, nor, even if you did, could you escape detection. For you still simply mean times when you say, 'There was when He was not,' and 'He did not exist before His generation.'
When these points have been proved in this way, their profanity goes further. 'If there was never a time when the Son was not,' they say, 'but He is eternal and coexists with the Father, you no longer call Him the Father's Son, but His brother.' Senseless and contentious men! For if we said only that He was eternally with the Father, and not that He was His Son, their pretended scruple would have some plausibility; but if, while we say that He is eternal, we also confess Him to be the Son from the Father, how can the one who is begotten be considered the brother of the one who begets? And if our faith is in Father and Son, what brotherhood is there between them? And how can the Word be called the brother of the one whose Word He is? This is not the objection of people who are truly ignorant, for they understand how the truth stands; it is a Jewish pretense, coming from those who, in Solomon's words, 'through desire separate themselves' from the truth. For the Father and the Son were not generated from some pre-existing origin, so that we might count Them brothers; the Father is the Origin of the Son and begot Him; and the Father is Father, and not born as the Son of anyone; and the Son is Son, and not brother. Further, if He is called the eternal offspring of the Father, He is rightly so called. For the essence of the Father was never imperfect, so that what is proper to it would be added afterward; nor has the Son been begotten as a man from a man, so as to come later than His Father's existence; He is God's offspring, and as the proper Son of God, who always is, He exists eternally. For while it is proper to human beings to beget in time, because of the imperfection of their nature, God's offspring is eternal, for His nature is always perfect. If, then, He is not a Son but a work made out of nothing, they need only prove it; and then they are free, as if imagining about a creature, to cry out, 'There was once when He was not'; for things that are originated did not exist and have come to be. But if He is Son, as the Father says and the Scriptures proclaim, and 'Son' is nothing other than what is generated from the Father, and what is generated from the Father is His Word, Wisdom, and Radiance, what is to be said, except that in maintaining 'Once the Son was not,' they rob God of His Word, like plunderers, and openly say of Him that He was once without His proper Word and Wisdom, that the Light was once without radiance, and the Fountain was once barren and dry? For though they pretend to be alarmed at the word 'time,' because of those who reproach them with it, and say that He was before times, still, since they assign certain intervals in which they imagine He was not, they are as irreligious as ever, since they equally suggest times and attribute to God an absence of Reason.
But if, on the other hand, while they acknowledge the name 'Son' with us out of unwillingness to be publicly and generally condemned, they deny that the Son is the proper offspring of the Father's essence, on the ground that this must imply parts and divisions, what is this but to deny that He is truly Son, and to call Him Son only in name? And is it not a grievous error to have material thoughts about what is immaterial, and, because of the weakness of their own nature, to deny what is natural and proper to the Father? It only remains for them to deny Him too, because they do not understand how God is and what the Father is, since, foolish men, they measure the Offspring of the Father by themselves. People in such a state of mind as to think that there cannot be a Son of God deserve our pity; but they must be questioned and exposed in the hope of bringing them to their senses. If, then, as you say, 'the Son is from nothing' and 'did not exist before His generation,' He must of course, like others, be called Son and God and Wisdom only by participation; for this is how all other creatures exist and are glorified by sanctification. You have to tell us, then, what He shares in. All other things share in the Spirit; but what, according to you, does He share in? The Spirit? No; rather, the Spirit Himself receives from the Son, as He Himself says; and it is not reasonable to say that the Son is sanctified by the Spirit. Therefore it is the Father that He shares in; for this is all that is left to say. But this which is shared in — what is it, or where does it come from? If it is something external provided by the Father, He will no longer share in the Father, but in what is external to Him; and He will no longer be even second after the Father, since He has this other before Him; nor can He be called Son of the Father, but of that by sharing in which He has been called Son and God. And if this is improper and irreligious, since the Father says, 'This is My Beloved Son,' and the Son says that God is His own Father, it follows that what is shared in is not external, but from the essence of the Father. And as to this again, if it is other than the essence of the Son, we will meet an equal absurdity, since in that case there would be something between this which is from the Father and the essence of the Son, whatever that may be.
Since such thoughts are evidently improper and untrue, we are driven to say that what is from the essence of the Father, and proper to Him, is entirely the Son; for it is all the same to say that God is wholly shared in and that He begets; and what does begetting mean but a Son? And so all things share in the Son Himself according to the grace of the Spirit that comes from Him; and this shows that the Son Himself shares in nothing, but that what is shared in from the Father is the Son. For by sharing in the Son Himself we are said to share in God; and this is what Peter said, 'that you may be partakers of a divine nature'; as the Apostle also says, 'Do you not know that you are a temple of God?' and, 'We are the temple of a living God.' And seeing the Son, we see the Father; for the thought and understanding of the Son is knowledge of the Father, because He is His proper offspring from His essence. And since none of us would ever call being shared in a passion or division of God's essence (for it has been shown and acknowledged that God is shared in, and to be shared in is the same as to beget), it follows that what is begotten is neither a passion nor a division of that blessed essence. So it is not unbelievable that God should have a Son, the Offspring of His own essence; nor do we imply passion or division of God's essence when we speak of 'Son' and 'Offspring'; rather, we believe in this way as acknowledging the genuine, true, and Only-begotten of God. If, then, as we have stated and are showing, the Offspring of the Father's essence is the Son, we cannot hesitate; rather, we must be certain that He is also the Wisdom and Word of the Father, in and through whom He creates and makes all things; and His Brightness too, in whom He enlightens all things and is revealed to whomever He wills; and His Expression and Image as well, in whom He is contemplated and known, which is why 'He and His Father are one,' and whoever looks on Him looks on the Father; and the Christ, in whom all things are redeemed and the new creation is made anew. And on the other hand, since the Son is such an Offspring, it is not fitting, but rather full of danger, to say that He is a work out of nothing, or that He did not exist before His generation. For whoever speaks this way of what is proper to the Father's essence already blasphemes the Father Himself, since he really thinks of Him what he falsely imagines of His offspring.
This by itself is a sufficient refutation of the Arian heresy; but its heterodoxy will also appear from the following. If God is Maker and Creator, and creates His works through the Son, and we cannot regard things that come to be except as being through the Word, is it not blasphemous, since God is Maker, to say that His Word who makes, and His Wisdom, once did not exist? It is the same as saying that God is not Maker, if He did not have His own proper creating Word, which is from Him, but that the means by which He makes comes to Him from outside, and is foreign to Him and unlike in essence. Next, let them tell us this — or rather learn from it how irreligious they are in saying, 'Once He was not,' and, 'He did not exist before His generation.' For if the Word is not with the Father from everlasting, the Triad is not everlasting; a Monad was first, and afterward by addition it became a Triad; and so, as time went on, it seems that what we know about God grew and took shape. And further, if the Son is not the proper offspring of the Father's essence, but has come to be from nothing, then the Triad is made up of nothing, and once there was not a Triad but a Monad; a Triad once deficient and then complete — deficient before the Son was originated, complete once He had come to be; and from then on a thing originated is counted with the Creator, and what once did not exist receives divine worship and glory with Him who always was. Indeed, what is more serious still, the Triad turns out to be unlike Itself, made up of strange and foreign natures and essences. And this, in other words, is saying that the Triad has an originated existence. What sort of religion, then, is this, which is not even like itself, but is in the process of being completed as time goes on, and is now not this way and then again this way? For it will probably receive some fresh addition, and so on without limit, since from the very start it was formed by additions. And so, no doubt, it may also decrease, for what is added plainly admits of being taken away.
But this is not so — perish the thought! The Triad is not originated; there is one eternal Godhead in a Triad, and there is one Glory of the Holy Triad. And you presume to divide it into different natures: though the Father is eternal, you say of the Word who is seated beside Him, 'Once He was not'; and though the Son is seated beside the Father, you think to place Him far from Him. The Triad is Creator and Maker, and you are not afraid to degrade It to things that are from nothing; you have no scruple about equating servile beings with the nobility of the Triad, and ranking the King, the Lord of Sabaoth, with subjects. Stop this confusion of things that cannot be joined, or rather of things that are not with Him who is. Such statements do not glorify and honor the Lord, but the reverse; for whoever dishonors the Son dishonors the Father too. For if the doctrine of God is now perfect in a Triad, and this is the true and only Religion, the good and the truth, it must always have been so, unless the good and the truth are something that came later and the doctrine of God is completed by additions. I say it must have been so eternally; but if not eternally, then it is not so at present either, but is at present as you suppose it was from the beginning — I mean, not a Triad now. But no Christian would tolerate such heretics; it belongs to Greeks to introduce an originated Triad and to put It on a level with originated things, for these do admit of deficiencies and additions. But the faith of Christians acknowledges the blessed Triad as unchangeable and perfect and always what It was, neither adding more to It nor attributing any loss to It (for both ideas are irreligious); and therefore it separates It from all generated things, guards the unity of the Godhead Itself as indivisible and worships it, avoids the Arian blasphemies, and confesses and acknowledges that the Son always was; for He is eternal, as the Father is, whose Eternal Word He is. Let us now return to this subject again.
If God is, and is called, the Fountain of wisdom and life — as He says through Jeremiah, 'They have forsaken Me, the Fountain of living waters'; and again, 'A glorious high throne from the beginning is the place of our sanctuary; O Lord, the Hope of Israel, all who forsake You shall be ashamed, and those who depart from Me shall be written in the earth, because they have forsaken the Lord, the Fountain of living waters'; and in the book of Baruch it is written, 'You have forsaken the Fountain of wisdom' — this implies that life and wisdom are not foreign to the Essence of the Fountain but are proper to It, and were never without existence, but always were. Now the Son is all this, who says, 'I am the Life,' and, 'I, Wisdom, dwell with prudence.' Is it not irreligious, then, to say, 'Once the Son was not'? For it is the same as saying, 'Once the Fountain was dry, without Life and Wisdom.' But then it would cease to be a fountain; for what does not beget from itself is not a fountain. What a load of absurdity! For God promises that those who do His will shall be like a fountain whose water does not fail, saying through Isaiah the prophet, 'And the Lord shall satisfy your soul in drought and make your bones fat; and you shall be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water whose waters do not fail.' And yet these men, though God is called and is a Fountain of wisdom, dare to insult Him as barren and empty of His own Wisdom. But their doctrine is false; the truth bears witness that God is the eternal Fountain of His own Wisdom; and if the Fountain is eternal, the Wisdom must also be eternal. For in It all things were made, as David says in the Psalm, 'In Wisdom You have made them all'; and Solomon says, 'The Lord by Wisdom has formed the earth; by understanding He has established the heavens.' And this Wisdom is the Word, and through Him, as John says, 'all things were made,' and 'without Him not one thing was made.' And this Word is Christ; for 'there is One God, the Father, from whom are all things, and we for Him; and One Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we through Him.' And if all things are through Him, He Himself is not to be counted with that 'all.' For whoever dares to call the one through whom things exist one of that 'all' will surely have similar speculations about God, from whom all things are. But if he shrinks from this as improper and excludes God from that 'all,' it is only consistent that he should also exclude from that 'all' the Only-Begotten Son, as being proper to the Father's essence. And if He is not one of the 'all,' it is sin to say of Him, 'He was not,' and 'He did not exist before His generation.' Such words may be used of the creatures; but as for the Son, He is such as the Father is, of whose essence He is the proper Offspring, Word, and Wisdom. For this is proper to the Son in relation to the Father, and this shows that the Father is proper to the Son, so that we may neither say that God was ever without His Word nor that the Son was non-existent. For why a Son, if not from Him? Or why Word and Wisdom, if not always proper to Him?
When, then, was God without what is proper to Him? Or how can anyone consider what is proper to be foreign and alien in essence? For other things, according to the nature of originated things, have no likeness in essence to their Maker; they are external to Him, made by the Word through His grace and will, and so they can cease to exist if it pleases the one who made them; for such is the nature of originated things. But as for what is proper to the Father's essence (for we have already found this to be the Son), what daring irreligion it is to say that 'This comes from nothing,' and that 'It did not exist before its generation,' but was added from outside and can at some time cease to exist again! Let anyone only dwell on this thought, and he will see how this heresy impairs the perfection and fullness of the Father's essence; and he will see its impropriety still more clearly if he considers that the Son is the Image and Radiance of the Father, His Expression, and Truth. For if, when Light exists, its Image, namely Radiance, exists with it; and if, when a Subsistence exists, its entire Expression exists; and if, when a Father exists, His Truth (namely the Son) exists; let them consider into what depths of irreligion they fall who make time the measure of the Image and Form of the Godhead. For if the Son did not exist before His generation, Truth was not always in God, which it would be sinful to say; for since the Father was, the Truth was always in Him, and the Truth is the Son, who says, 'I am the Truth.' And since the Subsistence existed, its Expression and Image of course existed at once; for God's Image is not drawn from outside, but God Himself has begotten it; and seeing Himself in it, He delights in it, as the Son Himself says, 'I was His delight.' When, then, did the Father not see Himself in His own Image? Or when did He not have delight, that anyone should dare to say, 'The Image is out of nothing,' and 'The Father had no delight before the Image was originated'? And how could the Maker and Creator see Himself in a created and originated essence? For such as the Father is, such must the Image be.
Let us go on, then, to consider the attributes of the Father, and we will come to know whether this Image is really His. The Father is eternal, immortal, powerful, light, King, Sovereign, God, Lord, Creator, and Maker. These attributes must be in the Image, if it is to be true that whoever 'has seen' the Son 'has seen the Father.' If the Son is not all this, but, as the Arians think, originated and not eternal, this is not a true Image of the Father — unless indeed they abandon shame and go on to say that the title of Image given to the Son is not a sign of a similar essence, but merely His name. But this, on the other hand, you enemies of Christ, is not an Image, nor is it an Expression. For what likeness does what is out of nothing have to Him who brought what was nothing into being? Or how can what is not be like Him who is, when it falls short of Him by once not existing and by having its place among originated things? However, since the Arians wanted Him to be like this, they devised arguments for themselves such as this: 'If the Son is the Father's offspring and Image, and is like the Father in all things, then it necessarily follows that, as He is begotten, so He begets, and He too becomes the father of a son. And again, the one begotten from Him begets in turn, and so on without limit; for this is what it means to make the Begotten like the one who begot Him.' Truly these enemies of God are authors of blasphemy! Rather than confess that the Son is the Father's Image, they form material and earthly ideas about the Father Himself, attributing to Him severings, outflowings, and inflowings. If, then, God is like a man, let Him also become a parent like a man, so that His Son would be the father of another, and so on in succession, one from another, until the series they imagine grows into a multitude of gods. But if God is not like a man, as He is not, we must not attribute to Him the attributes of man. For brutes and men, once a Creator has given them a beginning, are begotten in succession; and the son, having been begotten of a father who was himself a son, becomes in turn a father to a son, inheriting from his father that by which he himself has come to be. So in such cases there is not, strictly speaking, either father or son, nor do the father and the son keep their respective characters; for the son himself becomes a father, being son of his father but father of his son. But it is not so in the Godhead; for God is not like man. The Father is not from a father; therefore He does not beget one who will become a father. Nor is the Son from an outflowing of the Father, nor is He begotten from a father who was begotten; therefore neither is He begotten so as to beget. So it belongs to the Godhead alone that the Father is properly father and the Son properly son; and in Them, and in Them only, it holds that the Father is always Father and the Son always Son.
Therefore whoever asks why the Son is not to beget a son must ask why the Father did not have a father. But both suppositions are improper and full of impiety. For as the Father is always Father and could never become Son, so the Son is always Son and could never become Father. For it is rather in this that He is shown to be the Father's Expression and Image: remaining what He is and not changing, but receiving in this way from the Father to be one and the same. If, then, the Father changes, let the Image change; for this is how the Image and Radiance stands in relation to the one who begot It. But if the Father is unchangeable and continues to be what He is, the Image too necessarily continues to be what He is and will not change. Now He is Son from the Father; therefore He will not become anything other than what is proper to the Father's essence. So the foolish have devised this objection too in vain, wanting to separate the Image from the Father so that they might put the Son on a level with originated things. Ranking Him among these, according to the teaching of Eusebius, and counting Him the same as the things that come into being through Him, Arius and his associates revolted from the truth, and when they began this heresy they used to go about with dishonest phrases they had gathered together. Indeed, up to this time some of them, when they meet boys in the marketplace, question them, not from divine Scripture, but like this, as if bursting with 'the abundance of their heart': 'Did He who is make one who was not, from what was [not], or one who was? So did He make the Son when He was, or when He was not?' And again, 'Is the Unoriginate one or two?' and 'Does He have free will, and yet not change by His own choice, though He is of a changeable nature? For He is not like a stone, to stay unmoved by Himself.' Next they turn to foolish women and address them in turn in this womanish language: 'Did you have a son before giving birth? Now, just as you did not, so neither did the Son of God exist before His generation.' In such language these disgraceful men play and revel, likening God to men, pretending to be Christians, but changing God's glory 'into an image made like corruptible man.'
Words so senseless and dull deserved no answer at all; but so that their heresy may not appear to have any foundation, it may be right, though we go out of our way for it, to refute them even here, especially because of the foolish women who are so easily deceived by them. When they speak this way, they should have asked an architect whether he can build without materials; and if he cannot, whether it follows that God could not make the universe without materials. Or they should have asked everyone whether he can exist without place; and if he cannot, whether it follows that God is in a place — so that they might be put to shame even by their own audience. Or why is it that, on hearing that God has a Son, they deny Him by comparison with themselves, while if they hear that He creates and makes, they no longer raise their human objections? They ought to hold the same ideas about creation too, supplying God with materials and so denying that He is Creator, until they end up groveling with the Manichees. But if the bare idea of God goes beyond such thoughts, and on first hearing a person believes and knows that He exists, not as we do, and yet exists as God, and creates not as a man creates, but creates as God, then it is plain that He also begets not as people beget, but begets as God. For God does not take man as His pattern; rather we humans, because God is properly, and alone truly, Father of His Son, are also called fathers of our own children; for from Him 'every fatherhood in heaven and on earth is named.' And their positions, while unexamined, have an appearance of sense; but if anyone examines them by reason, they will be found to invite much ridicule and mockery.
For first of all, as to their first question, which is like this, how dull and vague it is! They do not explain whom they are asking about, so as to allow an answer, but they say in the abstract, 'He who is,' 'him who is not.' Who, then, 'is,' and what 'is not,' you Arians? Or who 'is,' and who 'is not'? What things are said 'to be,' and what 'not to be'? For He who is can make things that are not, and things that are, and things that were before. For instance, the carpenter, the goldsmith, and the potter each, according to his own craft, works on materials that already exist, making whatever vessels he pleases; and the God of all Himself, having taken the dust of the earth, which existed and had already been brought into being, forms man; yet that very earth, which once did not exist, He made at one time by His own Word. If, then, this is the meaning of their question, the creature plainly did not exist before its origination, and men, on the other hand, work existing material; and so their reasoning does not follow, since both 'what is' comes to be and 'what is not' comes to be, as these examples show. But if they are speaking about God and His Word, let them complete their question and then ask: Was the God 'who is' ever without Reason? And since He is Light, was He without rays? Or was He always Father of the Word? Or again, in this way: Has the Father 'who is' made the Word 'who is not,' or does He always have His Word with Him, as the proper offspring of His substance? This will show them that they are merely presuming and venturing on sophisms about God and the one who is from Him. Who indeed can bear to hear them say that God was ever without Reason? This is what they fall into a second time, though trying in vain to escape it and hide it with their sophisms. Indeed, one would rather not hear them arguing at all that God was not always Father but became one later (which their fantasy requires, that His Word once was not), considering the number of proofs already brought against them; while John says besides, 'The Word was,' and Paul again writes, 'Who, being the brightness of His glory,' and, 'Who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen.'
They would have done best to stay silent; but since they have not, all that is left is to meet their shameless question with a bold reply. Perhaps when they see the opposite absurdities that beset them, they will stop fighting against the truth. After many prayers, then, that God would be gracious to us, we might ask them in turn: Has God, who is, come to be in this way, when He was not? Or does He exist before His coming into being too? Since He is, did He make Himself, or is He from nothing, and, being nothing before, did He suddenly appear Himself? Such an inquiry is improper, both improper and very blasphemous, yet it is parallel with theirs; for the answer they give is full of irreligion. But if it is blasphemous and utterly irreligious to inquire about God this way, it will be blasphemous too to make similar inquiries about His Word. However, to expose so senseless and dull a question, it is necessary to answer this way: since God is, He was eternally; since, then, the Father always is, His Radiance always is, which is His Word. And again, God who is has from Himself His Word, who also is; and the Word has not been added when He did not exist before, nor was the Father once without Reason. For this assault on the Son turns the blasphemy back on the Father, as if He devised for Himself a Wisdom, Word, and Son from outside; for whichever of these titles you use, you mean the offspring from the Father, as has been said. So this objection of theirs does not hold, and naturally so; for in denying the Logos, they consequently ask questions that are illogical. So, just as if someone saw the sun and then asked about its radiance, saying, 'Did what is make what was, or what was not?' he would be considered not to reason sensibly but to be utterly bewildered, because he imagined that what is from the Light is external to it, and was raising questions about when, where, and whether it was made; in the same way, to speculate like this about the Son and the Father, and to inquire in this way, is far greater madness, for it means conceiving of the Word of the Father as external to Him, and idly calling the natural offspring a work, with the admission, 'He did not exist before His generation.' Indeed, let them take this answer to their question besides: The Father who was made the Son who was, for 'the Word became flesh'; and, while He was Son of God, He made Him Son of Man too at the completion of the ages — unless, of course, they claim with the Samosatene that He did not exist at all until He became man.
That is enough from us in answer to their first question. And now on your part, you Arians, remembering your own words, tell us: did He who was need one who was not for making the universe, or one who was? You said that He made His Son for Himself out of nothing, as an instrument with which to make the universe. Which, then, is superior: what needs, or what supplies the need? Or does each not supply the deficiency of the other? You rather prove the weakness of the Maker, if He did not have the power in Himself to make the universe, but provided Himself with an instrument from outside, as a carpenter or shipwright might, unable to make anything without an adze and a saw! Can anything be more irreligious? Yet why dwell on its wickedness, when enough has already been said to show that their doctrine is mere fantasy? Nor does their other very simple and foolish question, which they put to foolish women, need an answer, or none beyond the one already given: that it is not appropriate to measure divine generation by human nature. However, so that, as before, they may pass judgment on themselves, it is well to meet them on the same ground, like this. Plainly, if they ask parents about their son, let them consider where the child who is begotten comes from. For, granting that the parent did not have a son before begetting him, still, once he had him, he had him not as something external or foreign, but as from himself, proper to his essence and his exact image, so that the parent is seen in the son and the son is contemplated in the parent. If, then, they assume from human examples that generation implies time, why do they not infer from the same examples that it implies what is Natural and Proper, instead of drawing out of the earth, like serpents, only what turns to poison? Those who ask parents, 'Did you have a son before you begot him?' should add, 'And if you had a son, did you buy him from outside, like a house or some other possession?' And then they would be answered, 'He is not from outside, but from myself. For things that are from outside are possessions and pass from one person to another; but my son is from me, proper and similar to my essence, not having become mine from another, but begotten of me; so I too am wholly in him, while I remain what I am.' For so it is: though the parent is distinct in time, being a man who himself came to be in time, he too would have had his child always coexisting with him, except that his nature held him back and made it impossible. For Levi too was already in the loins of his great-grandfather before his own actual generation or that of his grandfather. So when a man reaches the age at which nature supplies the power, at once, with nature no longer holding him back, he becomes father of the son from himself.
Therefore, if on asking parents about children they get the answer that children who are by nature are not from outside but from their parents, let them confess likewise about the Word of God that He is simply from the Father. And if they make an issue of time, let them say what is to hold God back — for their irreligion must be proved on the very ground of their scoffing — let them tell us what there is to hold God back from always being Father of the Son; for that what is begotten must be from its father is undeniable. Moreover, they will pass judgment on themselves in attributing such things to God if, just as they questioned women about time, they ask the sun about its radiance and the fountain about what flows from it. They will find that these, though offspring, always exist with the things they come from. And if parents like these share nature and duration with their children, why, if they suppose God inferior to things that come to be, do they not openly state their own irreligion? But if they do not dare to say this openly, and the Son is confessed to be not from outside but a natural offspring from the Father, and if nothing holds God back (for He is not like man, but greater than the sun, or rather the God of the sun), it follows that the Word is from Him and always coexists with Him, the Word through whom the Father also caused all things that were not to come into being. That the Son, then, does not come from nothing but is eternal and from the Father is certain even from the nature of the case; and the heretics' question to parents exposes their perversity, for they concede the point about nature, and now have been put to shame on the point about time.
As we said above, so we repeat now: the divine generation must not be compared to human nature, nor the Son considered a part of God, nor the generation taken to imply any passion whatever. God is not like man; for men beget subject to passion, having a transient nature that has to wait for its seasons because of its weakness. But with God this cannot be; for He is not made of parts, but, being impassible and simple, He is Father of the Son impassibly and indivisibly. Divine Scripture again strongly attests and proves this. For the Word of God is His Son, and the Son is the Father's Word and Wisdom; and Word and Wisdom is neither a creature nor a part of the one whose Word He is, nor an offspring begotten through passion. So, combining the two titles, Scripture speaks of 'Son' in order to proclaim the natural and true offspring of His essence; and, on the other hand, so that no one may think of the Offspring in human terms, while indicating His essence it also calls Him Word, Wisdom, and Radiance, to teach us that the generation was impassible, eternal, and worthy of God. What passion, then, or what part of the Father is the Word, the Wisdom, and the Radiance? This much may be impressed even on these foolish men; for as they asked women about God's Son, so let them ask men about the word, and they will find that the word they utter is neither a passion of theirs nor a part of their mind. But if such is the word of human beings, who are subject to passion and made of parts, why do they speculate about passions and parts in the case of the immaterial and indivisible God, so that under the pretense of reverence they may deny the true and natural generation of the Son? Enough was said above to show that the offspring from God is not a passion; and now it has been shown in particular that the Word is not begotten through passion. The same may be said of Wisdom: God is not like man, and they must not think of Him in human terms here either. For while human beings are capable of wisdom, God shares in nothing, but is Himself the Father of His own Wisdom, and those who share in it are given the name of wise. And this Wisdom too is not a passion, nor a part, but an Offspring proper to the Father. Therefore He is always Father, and the character of Father is not added to God from outside, or He would seem changeable; for if it is good that He is Father, but He has not always been Father, then good has not always been in Him.
But look, they say: God was always a Maker, and the power of making is not added to Him from outside; does it follow, then, that because He is the Maker of all, His works too are eternal, and is it wicked to say of them too that they did not exist before their origination? These Arians are senseless; for what likeness is there between Son and work, that they should put a father's role on a par with a maker's? How is it that, with the difference between offspring and work that has been shown, they remain so ill-informed? Let it be repeated, then, that a work is external to the nature, but a son is the proper offspring of the essence. It follows that a work need not always have existed, for the workman makes it when he wishes; but an offspring is not subject to will, but is proper to the essence. And a man may be, and may be called, a Maker though the works do not yet exist; but he cannot be called father, nor can he be one, unless a son exists. And if they inquire curiously why God, though always having the power to make, does not always make (though this too is the presumption of madmen, for 'who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been His Counselor?' or how 'shall the thing formed say to' the potter, 'why did you make me like this?' — but so as not to leave even a weak argument unanswered), they must be told that although God always had the power to make, originated things did not have the power to be eternal. For they are out of nothing, and therefore did not exist before their origination; and how could things that did not exist before their origination coexist with the ever-existing God? So God, looking to what was good for them, made them all at the point when He saw that, once originated, they were able to endure. And just as, though He was able to send His own Word even from the beginning, in the time of Adam, or Noah, or Moses, He did not send Him until the completion of the ages (for He saw this to be good for the whole creation), so too He made originated things when He wished, and as was good for them. But the Son, not being a work but the Father's own offspring, always is; for since the Father always is, what is proper to His essence must always be; and this is His Word and His Wisdom. And that creatures should not be in existence does not disparage the Maker, for He has the power to make them when He wills; but for the offspring not to be always with the Father would disparage the perfection of His essence. So His works were made through His Word when He wished; but the Son is always the proper offspring of the Father's essence.
These considerations encourage the faithful and distress the heretics, who see their heresy overthrown by them. Moreover, their further question, 'whether the Unoriginate is one or two,' shows how false their views are, how treacherous and full of guile. They do not ask this for the Father's honor, but to dishonor the Word. So if anyone, not aware of their craftiness, answers, 'The Unoriginated is one,' they immediately spit out their own venom, saying, 'Therefore the Son is among originated things, and we were right to say, He did not exist before His generation.' So they create every kind of disturbance and confusion, provided they can only separate the Son from the Father and count the Maker of all among His works. Now first they may be convicted on this point: that while blaming the Nicene Bishops for using phrases not found in Scripture — phrases not harmful, but destructive of their irreligion — they themselves fell into the same fault, that is, using words not found in Scripture, and those insulting to the Lord, understanding 'neither what they say nor the things about which they make confident assertions.' For instance, let them ask the Greeks, who have been their teachers (for it is a word of their invention, not of Scripture), and when they have been taught its various meanings, they will find that they cannot even ask a proper question on the subject they have taken up. For they have led me to find out that 'unoriginate' means what has not yet come to be but can come to be, like wood that has not yet become a vessel but is capable of becoming one; and again, what neither has come to be nor ever can, like a four-sided triangle or an odd even number. For a triangle neither has become nor ever can become four-sided; nor has an even number ever become, nor can it ever become, odd. Moreover, 'unoriginate' means what exists but has not come into being from anyone, nor has a father at all. Further, Asterius, the unprincipled sophist, who is also the patron of this heresy, has added in his own treatise that what is not made but always exists is 'unoriginate.' So when they ask the question, they ought to add in what sense they take the word 'unoriginate,' and then those questioned would be able to give a relevant answer.
But if they are still content merely to ask, 'Is the Unoriginate one or two?' they must first be told, as ill-educated men, that in one sense many things are unoriginate and in another sense nothing is: many, which are capable of origination, and nothing, which is not capable of it, as has been said. But if they ask in the sense Asterius laid down, as if 'what is not a work but always was' were unoriginate, then they must be told again and again that in this sense the Son as well as the Father must be called unoriginate. For He is neither counted among originated things nor a work, but has always been with the Father, as has already been shown, despite their many shifts made for the sole purpose of speaking against the Lord: 'He is from nothing,' and 'He did not exist before His generation.' When, then, after failing at every turn, they resort to the other sense of the question, 'existing but not generated from anyone, nor having a father,' we will tell them that the unoriginate in this sense is only one, namely the Father; and they will gain nothing by their question. For to say that God is Unoriginate in this sense does not show that the Son is an originated thing, since it is evident from the proofs above that the Word is such as the one who begot Him. Therefore, if God is unoriginate, His Image is not originated but an Offspring, which is His Word and His Wisdom. For what likeness does the originated have to the unoriginate? (One must not grow tired of repeating this.) For if they insist that the one is like the other, so that whoever sees the one sees the other, they are likely to say that the Unoriginate is the image of creatures; and the end of this is a confusion of the whole subject, an equating of originated things with the Unoriginate, and a denial of the Unoriginate by measuring Him against the works — all to reduce the Son to their number.
However, I suppose even they will be unwilling to go to such lengths, if they follow Asterius the sophist. For he, earnest as he is in his advocacy of the Arian heresy, and maintaining that the Unoriginate is one, contradicts them by saying that the Wisdom of God is also unoriginate and without beginning. The following is a passage from his work: 'The Blessed Paul did not say that he preached Christ the power of God or the wisdom of God, but, without the article, God's power and God's wisdom, thus preaching that the proper power of God Himself, which is natural to Him and coexists with Him without origin, is something besides.' And again, soon after: 'However, His eternal power and wisdom, which truth argues to be without beginning and unoriginate, must surely be one.' For though, misunderstanding the Apostle's words, he thought there were two wisdoms, yet by still speaking of a wisdom coexisting with Him, he declares that the Unoriginate is not simply one, but that there is another Unoriginate with Him. For what coexists does not coexist with itself, but with another. If, then, they agree with Asterius, let them never again ask, 'Is the Unoriginate one or two?' or they will have to dispute the point with him; if, on the other hand, they differ even from him, let them not rely on his treatise, or, 'biting one another, they will be consumed by one another.' So much on the point of their ignorance; but who can say enough about their craftiness? Who would not rightly hate them while they are possessed by such madness? For when they were no longer allowed to say 'out of nothing' and 'He did not exist before His generation,' they hit on this word 'unoriginate,' so that by saying among the simple that the Son was 'originate,' they might imply the very same phrases, 'out of nothing' and 'He once was not'; for such phrases imply originated things and creatures.
If they have confidence in their own positions, they should stand by them and not change about in so many ways; but this they will not do, imagining that success is easy if they only shelter their heresy under cover of the word 'unoriginate.' Yet after all, this term is not used in contrast with the Son, protest as they may, but with originated things; and the same is true of the words 'Almighty' and 'Lord of the Powers.' For if we say that the Father has power and mastery over all things by the Word, and the Son rules the Father's kingdom and has power over all as His Word and as the Image of the Father, it is quite plain that here too the Son is not counted among that 'all,' nor is God called Almighty and Lord with reference to Him, but with reference to the things that come to be through the Son and over which He exercises power and mastery through the Word. And therefore the Unoriginate is so called not in contrast to the Son, but to the things that come to be through the Son. And rightly so: since God is not like originated things, but is their Creator and Maker through the Son. And as the word 'Unoriginate' is used in relation to originated things, so the word 'Father' points to the Son. And whoever names God Maker, Craftsman, and Unoriginate has in view and understands created and made things; and whoever calls God Father in doing so conceives of and contemplates the Son. And so one might wonder at the obstinacy that is added to their irreligion: though the term 'unoriginate' has the good sense just described and can be used reverently, they bring it out in their heresy to dishonor the Son, not having read that whoever honors the Son honors the Father, and whoever dishonors the Son dishonors the Father. If they had any concern at all for reverent speech and the honor due to the Father, it would have been more fitting for them — and this would have been better and higher — to acknowledge God and call Him Father than to give Him this name. For in calling God unoriginate they are, as I said before, naming Him from His works, as Maker only and Craftsman, supposing that in this way they may indicate that the Word is a work, as they please. But whoever calls God Father names Him from the Son, knowing well that if there is a Son, all originated things were necessarily created through that Son. And they, when they call Him Unoriginate, name Him only from His works and know the Son no more than the Greeks do; but whoever calls God Father names Him from the Word, and, knowing the Word, acknowledges Him to be the Maker of all and understands that all things have been made through Him.
Therefore it is more reverent and more accurate to indicate God from the Son and call Him Father than to name Him from His works only and call Him Unoriginate. For the latter title, as I have said, does nothing more than indicate all the works, individually and collectively, that have come to be by the will of God through the Word; but the title Father has its meaning and its reference only from the Son. And as much as the Word surpasses originated things, so much and more does calling God Father surpass calling Him Unoriginate. For the latter is unscriptural and suspect, because it has various senses, so that when someone is asked about it, his mind is carried off to many ideas; but the word Father is simple, scriptural, more accurate, and implies only the Son. And 'Unoriginate' is a word of the Greeks, who do not know the Son; but 'Father' has been acknowledged and granted by our Lord. For He, knowing whose Son He was, said, 'I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me'; and, 'Whoever has seen Me has seen the Father,' and 'I and the Father are One'; but He is nowhere found calling the Father Unoriginate. Moreover, when He teaches us to pray, He does not say, 'When you pray, say, O God Unoriginate,' but rather, 'When you pray, say, Our Father, who are in heaven.' And He willed that the Summary of our faith should point the same way, in commanding us to be baptized not into the name of Unoriginate and originate, nor into the name of Creator and creature, but into the Name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. For through such an initiation we too, counted among works, are made sons, and using the name of the Father, we acknowledge from that name the Word also in the Father Himself. Their argument about the term 'Unoriginate,' then, is empty, as has now been proved, and nothing more than a fantasy.
As to their question whether the Word is changeable, there is no need to examine it; it is enough simply to write down what they say, and so show its daring irreligion. How they trifle appears from the following questions: 'Does He have free will, or not? Is He good by choice according to free will, and can He change if He wishes, being of a changeable nature? Or, like wood or stone, does He not have the free choice to be moved and to incline this way and that?' It is only consistent with their heresy to speak and think this way; for once they have framed for themselves a God out of nothing and a created Son, of course they also adopt such terms as suit a creature. However, when in their controversies with Churchmen they hear from them of the real and only Word of the Father, and yet dare to speak of Him this way, does their doctrine not then become the most loathsome that can be found? Is it not enough to drive a man to distraction merely to hear it, even if he cannot reply, and to make him stop his ears in astonishment at the novelty of what he hears them say, which even to mention is blasphemy? For if the Word is changeable and changing, where will He stop, and what will be the end of His development? How could the changeable possibly be like the Unchangeable? How could someone who has seen the changeable be considered to have seen the Unchangeable? What state must He reach for us to be able to see the Father in Him? For it is plain that we will not see the Father in the Son at all times, because the Son is always changing and is of a changing nature. For the Father is unchangeable and unalterable, and is always in the same state and the same; but if, as they hold, the Son is changeable and not always the same, but of an ever-changing nature, how can such a one be the Father's Image, when He lacks the likeness of His unchangeableness? How can He really be in the Father, if His purpose is undetermined? Indeed, perhaps, being changeable and advancing daily, He is not yet perfect. But away with such madness of the Arians, and let the truth shine out and show that they are foolish. For must not He be perfect who is equal to God? And must not He be unchangeable who is one with the Father and His Son proper to His essence? And since the Father's essence is unchangeable, the proper Offspring from it must also be unchangeable. And if they slanderously attribute change to the Word, let them learn how much their own reasoning is in danger; for the tree is known by its fruit. For this is why whoever has seen the Son has seen the Father, and why knowledge of the Son is knowledge of the Father.
Therefore the Image of the unchangeable God must be unchangeable; for 'Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.' And David says of Him in the Psalm, 'You, Lord, in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of Your hands. They will perish, but You remain; and they will all grow old like a garment. And like clothing You will fold them up, and they will be changed; but You are the same, and Your years will not fail.' And the Lord Himself says of Himself through the Prophet, 'See now that I, even I, am He,' and 'I do not change.' It may indeed be said that what is meant here relates to the Father; yet it is fitting for the Son also to say this, especially because, when made man, He shows His own identity and unchangeableness to those who suppose that because of the flesh He has changed and become other than He was. The saints, or rather the Lord, are more trustworthy than the perversity of the irreligious. For Scripture, as in the passage of the Psalter quoted above, indicating under the name of heaven and earth that the nature of all originated and created things is changeable and alterable, yet excepting the Son from these, shows us by this that He is in no way an originated thing; indeed it teaches that He changes everything else and is not changed Himself, when it says, 'You are the same, and Your years will not fail.' And with reason; for originated things, being from nothing and not existing before their origination — because, in truth, they come to be after not being — have a nature that is changeable; but the Son, being from the Father and proper to His essence, is unchangeable and unalterable, as the Father Himself is. For it would be sinful to say that a changeable word and an alterable wisdom were begotten from that essence which is unchangeable. For how is He still the Word if He is changeable? Or can what changes be Wisdom? Unless perhaps they would have it like an accident in an essence, namely, that in some particular essence a certain grace and habit of virtue exists by accident, which is called Word and Son and Wisdom, and can be taken from it and added to it. For they have often expressed this view; but it is not the faith of Christians, since it does not declare that He is truly the Word and Son of God, or that the wisdom meant is true Wisdom. For how can what changes and alters, and has no stability in one and the same condition, be true? Yet the Lord says, 'I am the Truth.' If, then, the Lord Himself speaks this way about Himself and declares His unchangeableness, and the Saints have learned and bear witness to this, and indeed our notions of God acknowledge it as reverent, where did these men of irreligion get this novelty? They vomited it out of their heart as from a seat of corruption.
But since they cite the divine oracles and force a misinterpretation on them according to their own private sense, it becomes necessary to meet them just far enough to defend these passages, to show that they carry an orthodox sense, and that our opponents are in error. They say, then, that the Apostle writes, 'Therefore God also has highly exalted Him, and given Him a Name that is above every name, that at the Name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven and things on earth and things under the earth'; and David, 'Therefore God, even Your God, has anointed You with the oil of gladness above Your companions.' Then they press, as something clever: 'If He was exalted and received grace on a "therefore," and was anointed on a "therefore," He received a reward for His purpose; but having acted from purpose, He is altogether of a changeable nature.' This is what Eusebius and Arius have dared to say, and indeed to write; while their partisans do not shrink from discussing it in the middle of the marketplace, not seeing how mad an argument they are using. For if He received what He had as a reward for His purpose, and would not have had it unless He had needed it and had His work to show for it, then, having gained it by virtue and promotion, He would have reason to be called Son and God 'therefore,' without being truly Son. For what is from another by nature is a real offspring, as Isaac was to Abraham, Joseph to Jacob, and the radiance to the sun; but those called sons by virtue and grace have, in place of nature, only a grace acquired, and are something other than the gift itself, like the people who have received the Spirit by participation, of whom Scripture says, 'I begot and exalted children, and they rebelled against Me.' And of course, since they were not sons by nature, when they changed, the Spirit was taken away and they were disinherited; and again, on their repentance, the God who in this way gave them grace at the beginning will receive them, give them light, and call them sons again.
But if they say this of the Savior too, it follows that He is neither true God nor true Son, nor like the Father, nor in any way has God as Father of His being according to essence, but only of the mere grace given to Him, and as Creator of His being according to essence, like all others. And if He is such as they maintain, it will be further evident that He did not have the name 'Son' from the first, if indeed it was the prize for works done and for that very advance He made when He became man and took the form of the servant; but He had it only then, when, after becoming 'obedient to death,' He was, as the text says, 'highly exalted,' and received that 'Name' as a grace, 'that at the Name of Jesus every knee should bow.' What, then, was He before this, if it was then that He was exalted, then that He began to be worshiped, and then that He was called Son, when He became man? For He seems not to have promoted the flesh at all, but rather to have been promoted Himself through it, if, according to their perversity, He was exalted and called Son only when He became man. What, then, was He before this? The question must be pressed on them again, so that it may be understood where their irreligious doctrine leads. For if the Lord is God, Son, and Word, yet was not all these before He became man, then either He was something else besides these and afterward came to share in them because of His virtue, as we have said; or they must take the alternative (may it fall back on their own heads!) that He did not exist before that time, but is wholly man by nature and nothing more. But this is not the view of the Church, but of the Samosatene and of the present-day Jews. Why, then, if they think like Jews, are they not circumcised with them too, instead of pretending to Christianity while they are its enemies? For if He did not exist, or did exist but was promoted afterward, how were all things made through Him, or how did the Father delight in Him, if He were not perfect? And He, on the other hand, if He has only now been promoted, how did He rejoice before in the presence of the Father? And if He received His worship after dying, how is Abraham seen worshiping Him in the tent, and Moses in the bush? And how, as Daniel saw, were myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands serving Him? And if, as they say, He received His promotion now, how did the Son Himself speak of that glory of His before and above the world, when He said, 'Father, glorify Me with the glory that I had with You before the world existed'? If, as they say, He was exalted only then, how did He before that 'bow the heavens and come down,' and again, 'The Most High gave His thunder'? Therefore, if even before the world was made the Son had that glory, and was Lord of glory and the Most High, and came down from heaven, and is always to be worshiped, it follows that He was not promoted by His descent, but rather that He Himself promoted the things that needed promotion; and if He came down to bring about their promotion, then He did not receive the name of Son and God as a reward, but rather He Himself has made us sons of the Father, and made human beings divine by becoming man Himself.
Therefore He was not man who then became God; He was God who then became man, and that in order to make us divine. For if He was called Son and God only when He became man, while before He became man God called the ancient people sons and made Moses a god to Pharaoh (and Scripture says of many, 'God stands in the assembly of gods'), it is plain that He is called Son and God later than they were. How, then, are all things through Him, and He before all? Or how is He 'firstborn of all creation,' if He has others before Him who are called sons and gods? And how is it that those first partakers do not share in the Word? This opinion is not true; it is a contrivance of our present-day Judaizers. For in that case how can anyone at all know God as Father? For there could be no adoption apart from the real Son, who says, 'No one knows the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him.' And how can there be any making divine apart from the Word and before Him? Yet He says to their brothers the Jews, 'If He called them gods, to whom the Word of God came.' And if all who are called sons and gods, whether on earth or in heaven, were adopted and made divine through the Word, and the Son Himself is the Word, it is plain that they all exist through Him and that He Himself is before all; or rather, that He alone is truly Son, and He alone is true God from the true God, not receiving these prerogatives as a reward for His virtue, nor being someone else besides them, but being all these by nature and according to essence. For He is the Offspring of the Father's essence, so that no one can doubt that, like the unchangeable Father, the Word too is unchangeable.
Up to this point we have met their irrational notions with the true ideas implied in the word 'Son,' as the Lord Himself has given it to us. But it will be well next to cite the divine oracles, so that the unchangeableness of the Son and His unalterable nature, which is the Father's, as well as their perversity, may be proved still more fully. The Apostle, then, writing to the Philippians, says, 'Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not count equality with God a prize to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted Him and gave Him a Name that is above every name, that at the Name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven and things on earth and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.' Can anything be plainer and more explicit than this? He was not promoted from a lower state; rather, existing as God, He took the form of a servant, and in taking it He was not promoted but humbled Himself. Where, then, is there any reward for virtue here, or what advancement and promotion in humiliation? For if, being God, He became man, and, coming down from on high, He is still said to be exalted, where is He exalted, being God? This much is plain besides: since God is highest of all, His Word must necessarily be highest too. Where, then, could He who is in the Father and like the Father in all things be exalted higher? Therefore He is beyond the need of any addition, and is not such as the Arians think Him. For though the Word came down in order to be exalted, and so it is written, what need was there for Him to humble Himself, as if to seek what He already had? And what grace did He receive who is the Giver of grace? Or how did He receive that Name for worship, who is always worshiped by His Name? Indeed, even before He became man, the sacred writers call on Him: 'Save me, O God, for Your Name's sake'; and again, 'Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we will remember the Name of the Lord our God.' And while He was worshiped by the Patriarchs, it is written about the Angels, 'Let all the Angels of God worship Him.'
And if, as David says in the 71st Psalm, 'His Name remains before the sun, and before the moon, from one generation to another,' how did He receive what He always had, even before He received it now? Or how is He exalted, when He was the Most High before His exaltation? Or how did He receive the right to be worshiped, when He was always worshiped before He received it now? It is not a dark saying but a divine mystery. 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God'; but for our sake afterward 'the Word became flesh.' And the term in question, 'highly exalted,' does not mean that the essence of the Word was exalted, for He always was and is 'equal to God'; the exaltation belongs to the humanity. Accordingly, this is not said before the Word became flesh, so that it may be plain that 'humbled' and 'exalted' are said of His human nature; for where there is a lowly state, there can also be exaltation; and if 'humbled' is written because of His taking flesh, it is clear that 'highly exalted' is also said because of it. For human nature was in need of this, because of the lowly state of the flesh and of death. Since, then, the Word, being the Image of the Father and immortal, took the form of the servant, and as man underwent death in His flesh for us, so that in this way He might offer Himself for us through death to the Father, therefore also, as man, He is said to be highly exalted because of us and for us; so that, just as by His death we all died in Christ, so again in Christ Himself we might be highly exalted, being raised from the dead and ascending into heaven, 'where the forerunner Jesus has entered for us, not into the copies of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us.' But if Christ has now entered heaven itself for us, though He was even before and always Lord and Maker of the heavens, then that present exaltation is written for us. And just as He Himself, who sanctifies all, also says that He sanctifies Himself to the Father for our sake — not so that the Word may become holy, but so that He Himself may sanctify all of us in Himself — in the same way we must take the present phrase, 'He highly exalted Him,' not to mean that He Himself should be exalted, for He is the highest, but that He may become righteousness for us, and we may be exalted in Him, and that we may enter the gates of heaven, which He has also opened for us, the forerunners saying, 'Lift up your gates, you rulers, and be lifted up, you everlasting doors, and the King of Glory shall come in.' For here too the gates were not shut against Him, since He is Lord and Maker of all; this too is written because of us, to whom the door of paradise was shut. And therefore, in a human relation, because of the flesh He bore, it is said of Him, 'Lift up your gates,' and 'shall come in,' as if a man were entering; but in a divine relation, on the other hand, since 'the Word was God,' it is said of Him that He is the 'Lord' and the 'King of Glory.' The Spirit announced this exaltation of ours beforehand in the eighty-ninth Psalm, saying, 'And in Your righteousness they shall be exalted, for You are the glory of their strength.' And if the Son is Righteousness, then He is not exalted as if He Himself were in need; it is we who are exalted in that Righteousness, which is He.
So too the words 'gave Him' are not written because of the Word Himself; for even before He became man He was worshiped, as we have said, by the Angels and the whole creation, by virtue of being proper to the Father; this too is written of Him because of us and for us. For as Christ died and was exalted as man, so, as man, He is said to receive what He always had as God, so that even such a gift of grace might reach us. For the Word was not diminished by receiving a body, so as to seek to receive a grace; rather, He made divine what He put on, and more than that, He 'gave' it graciously to the human race. For just as He was always worshiped as the Word existing in the form of God, so, being what He always was, though He has become man and is called Jesus, He nonetheless has the whole creation under His feet, bending their knees to Him in this Name and confessing that the Word's becoming flesh and undergoing death in the flesh has not happened against the glory of His Godhead, but 'to the glory of God the Father.' For it is the Father's glory that man, made and then lost, should be found again; and, when dead, that he should be made alive and become God's temple. For while the powers in heaven, both Angels and Archangels, were always worshiping the Lord, as they now worship Him in the Name of Jesus, this is our grace and high exaltation: that even when He became man, the Son of God is worshiped, and the heavenly powers will not be astonished to see all of us, who are of one body with Him, brought into their realms. And this would not have happened unless He who existed in the form of God had taken on Himself a servant's form and humbled Himself, giving up His body to come to death.
Look, then: what people considered the foolishness of God because of the Cross has become the most honored of all things. For our resurrection is stored up in it; and no longer Israel alone, but from now on all the nations, as the Prophet foretold, leave their idols and acknowledge the true God, the Father of Christ. And the illusion of demons has come to nothing, and He alone who is truly God is worshiped in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ. For the fact that the Lord, even when He had come in a human body and was called Jesus, was worshiped and believed to be God's Son, and that the Father was known through Him, shows, as has been said, that it was not the Word, considered as the Word, who received this great grace, but we. For because of our relationship to His Body we too have become God's temple, and so are made God's sons, so that even in us the Lord is now worshiped, and onlookers report, as the Apostle says, that God is truly in them. As John also says in the Gospel, 'To all who received Him, He gave power to become children of God'; and in his Epistle he writes, 'By this we know that He abides in us, by His Spirit that He has given us.' And this too is evidence of His goodness toward us: while we were exalted because the Most High Lord is in us, and grace was given to Him on our account because the Lord who supplies the grace has become a man like us, He, the Savior, on the other hand, humbled Himself in taking 'our lowly body,' and took a servant's form, putting on the flesh that was enslaved to sin. And He has gained nothing from us for His own promotion, for the Word of God lacks nothing and is full; rather, we were promoted by Him, for He is the 'Light that enlightens everyone coming into the world.' And the Arians lay stress in vain on the conjunction 'therefore,' because Paul said, 'Therefore God has highly exalted Him.' For in saying this he did not imply any prize for virtue, nor promotion for progress, but the reason why the exaltation was given to us. And what is this but that He who existed in the form of God, the Son of a noble Father, humbled Himself and became a servant in our place and on our behalf? For if the Lord had not become man, we would not have been redeemed from sins, nor raised from the dead, but would have remained dead under the earth; we would not have been exalted into heaven, but would be lying in Hades. It is because of us, then, and on our behalf, that the words 'highly exalted' and 'given' are used.
This, then, I consider the meaning of this passage, and a very ecclesiastical meaning. However, there is another way one might comment on it, giving the same meaning in a parallel way: namely, that though it does not speak of the exaltation of the Word Himself as Word (for He is, as was just said, most high and like His Father), yet because of His becoming man it points to His resurrection from the dead. For after saying, 'He humbled Himself even to death,' he immediately added, 'Therefore He has highly exalted Him,' wishing to show that although He is said to have died as man, yet, being Life, He was exalted at the resurrection; for 'He who descended is the same one who also rose again.' He descended in the body, and He rose again because He was God Himself in the body. And this again is why, in this sense, he brought in the conjunction 'therefore': not as a reward for virtue or progress, but to indicate the reason why the resurrection took place, and why, while all other people from Adam down to this time have died and remained dead, He alone rose from the dead whole. The reason is the one He Himself has already taught us: that, being God, He has become man. For all other people, being merely born of Adam, died, and death reigned over them; but He, the Second Man, is from heaven, for 'the Word became flesh,' and this Man is said to be from heaven and heavenly because the Word came down from heaven; and therefore He was not held under death. For though He humbled Himself, giving up His own Body to come to death, since it was capable of death, yet He was highly exalted from the earth, because He was God's Son in a body. Accordingly, what is said here, 'Therefore God also has highly exalted Him,' corresponds to Peter's words in the Acts, 'whom God raised up, having loosed the bonds of death, because it was not possible for Him to be held by it.' For as Paul has written, 'Since, being in the form of God, He became man and humbled Himself to death, therefore God also has highly exalted Him,' so Peter also says, 'Since, being God, He became man, and signs and wonders proved Him to onlookers to be God, therefore it was not possible for Him to be held by death.' It was not possible for a man to succeed in this, for death belongs to man; and therefore the Word, being God, became flesh, so that, having been put to death in the flesh, He might give life to all by His own power.
But since He Himself is said to be 'exalted,' and God 'gave' to Him, and the heretics think this a defect or passion in the essence of the Word, it becomes necessary to explain how these words are used. He is said to be exalted from the lower parts of the earth because death too is attributed to Him. Both events are counted as His, since it was His Body, and no one else's, that was exalted from the dead and taken up into heaven. And again, since the Body is His and the Word is not external to it, it is natural that when the Body was exalted, He, as man, should be spoken of as exalted because of the body. If, then, He did not become man, let this not be said of Him; but if the Word became flesh, the resurrection and exaltation must necessarily be attributed to Him as to a man, so that the death attributed to Him may be a redemption of human sin and an abolition of death, and so that the resurrection and exaltation may remain secure for us for His sake. In both respects he has said of Him, 'God has highly exalted Him,' and 'God has given to Him,' so that in this he may further show that it is not the Father who has become flesh, but His Word, who has become man and receives from the Father in the manner of men, and is exalted by Him, as has been said. And it is plain, and no one would dispute it, that what the Father gives, He gives through the Son. And it is truly marvelous and overwhelming: the grace that the Son gives from the Father is the grace the Son Himself is said to receive; and the exaltation that the Son bestows from the Father is the exaltation with which the Son Himself is exalted. For He who is the Son of God became the Son of Man Himself; and, as Word, He gives from the Father, for all things the Father does and gives He does and supplies through Him; and as the Son of Man, He Himself is said to receive in the manner of men what proceeds from Him, because His Body is no one else's but His, and is a natural recipient of grace, as has been said. For He received it insofar as His human nature was exalted; and that exaltation was its being made divine. But such an exaltation the Word Himself always had, according to the Father's Godhead and perfection, which was His.
Such an explanation of the Apostle's words refutes the irreligious; and what the sacred poet says also carries the same orthodox meaning, which they misinterpret, but which in the Psalmist is plainly reverent. He says, then, 'Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; a scepter of righteousness is the scepter of Your Kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; therefore God, even Your God, has anointed You with the oil of gladness above Your companions.' Look, you Arians, and acknowledge the truth even from this. The Singer speaks of all of us as 'companions' or 'partakers' of the Lord; but if He were one of the things that come out of nothing and of originated things, He Himself would have been one of those who partake. But since he praised Him as the eternal God, saying, 'Your throne, O God, is forever and ever,' and has declared that all other things partake of Him, what conclusion must we draw, but that He is distinct from originated things, and that He alone is the Father's true Word, Radiance, and Wisdom, in which all originated things share, being sanctified by Him in the Spirit? And therefore He is 'anointed' here, not so that He may become God, for He was God even before; nor so that He may become King, for He had the Kingdom eternally, existing as God's Image, as the sacred Oracle shows; this is written on our behalf, as before. For the kings of Israel became kings when they were anointed, not being kings before, like David, Hezekiah, Josiah, and the rest; but the Savior, on the contrary, being God, always ruling in the Father's Kingdom, and being Himself the one who supplies the Holy Spirit, is nevertheless said here to be anointed, so that, being said as man to be anointed with the Spirit, He might provide for us human beings not only exaltation and resurrection, but the indwelling and close fellowship of the Spirit. And to indicate this, the Lord Himself has said with His own mouth in the Gospel according to John, 'I have sent them into the world, and for their sake I sanctify Myself, so that they may be sanctified in the truth.' In saying this He has shown that He is not the one sanctified but the Sanctifier; for He is not sanctified by another, but sanctifies Himself, so that we may be sanctified in the truth. He who sanctifies Himself is Lord of sanctification. How, then, does this take place? What does He mean but this? 'I, being the Father's Word, give to Myself, when I become man, the Spirit; and I sanctify Myself, having become man, in Him, so that from now on all may be sanctified in Me, who am Truth (for Your Word is Truth).'
If, then, He sanctifies Himself for our sake, and does this when He has become man, it is very plain that the Spirit's descent on Him at the Jordan was a descent on us, because He bore our body. And it did not take place to promote the Word, but again for our sanctification, so that we might share His anointing, and it might be said of us, 'Do you not know that you are God's Temple, and the Spirit of God dwells in you?' For when the Lord, as man, was washed in the Jordan, it was we who were washed in Him and by Him. And when He received the Spirit, it was we who were made recipients of It through Him. And for this reason, moreover, He was not anointed with oil like Aaron or David or the rest, but in another way, above all His companions, 'with the oil of gladness,' which He Himself explains to be the Spirit, saying through the Prophet, 'The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because the Lord has anointed Me'; as the Apostle has also said, 'how God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit.' When, then, were these things said of Him, except when He came in the flesh and was baptized in the Jordan, and the Spirit descended on Him? And indeed the Lord Himself said, 'The Spirit will take from what is Mine,' and 'I will send Him,' and to His disciples, 'Receive the Holy Spirit.' And yet He who, as the Word and Radiance of the Father, gives to others is now said to be sanctified, because He has now become man and the Body that is sanctified is His. From Him, then, we have begun to receive the anointing and the seal, as John says, 'And you have an anointing from the Holy One,' and the Apostle, 'And you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise.' Therefore these words are because of us and for us. What advance in promotion, then, and what reward for virtue or conduct in general is proved from this in our Lord's case? For if He was not God and then became God, if, not being King, He was promoted to the Kingdom, your reasoning would have had some faint plausibility. But if He is God and the throne of His kingdom is everlasting, in what way could God advance? Or what was lacking to Him who was sitting on His Father's throne? And if, as the Lord Himself has said, the Spirit is His, takes from what is His, and He sends It, it is not the Word, considered as the Word and Wisdom, who is anointed with the Spirit He Himself gives, but the flesh assumed by Him that is anointed in Him and by Him, so that the sanctification coming to the Lord as man may come to all people from Him. For the Spirit, He says, does not speak on Its own, but it is the Word who gives It to the worthy. For this is like the passage considered above: just as the Apostle has written, 'who, existing in the form of God, did not count equality with God a prize to be grasped, but emptied Himself and took a servant's form,' so David celebrates the Lord as the everlasting God and King, yet sent to us and assuming our mortal body. For this is his meaning in the Psalm, 'All Your garments are fragrant with myrrh, aloes, and cassia'; and it is represented by Nicodemus and by Mary's companions, when the one came bringing 'a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds in weight,' and the others 'the spices they had prepared' for the burial of the Lord's body.
What advancement, then, was it to the Immortal to have assumed the mortal? Or what promotion is it to the Everlasting to have put on the temporal? What reward can be great to the Everlasting God and King in the bosom of the Father? Do you not see that this too was done and written because of us and for us, so that the Lord, having become man, might make us, who are mortal and temporal, immortal, and bring us into the everlasting kingdom of heaven? Are you not ashamed to speak lies against the divine oracles? For when our Lord Jesus Christ had been among us, we indeed were promoted, as rescued from sin; but He is the same, and He did not change when He became man (to repeat what I have said), but, as it is written, 'The Word of God abides forever.' Surely, just as before His becoming man He, the Word, gave the Spirit to the saints as His own, so also when made man He sanctifies all by the Spirit and says to His Disciples, 'Receive the Holy Spirit.' And He gave It to Moses and the other seventy; and through Him David prayed to the Father, saying, 'Do not take Your Holy Spirit from me.' On the other hand, when made man, He said, 'I will send you the Paraclete, the Spirit of truth'; and He sent Him, He, the Word of God, as being faithful. Therefore 'Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever,' remaining unchangeable, and He both gives and receives at once: giving as God's Word, receiving as man. It is not the Word, then, viewed as the Word, who is promoted; for He had all things and has them always; it is human beings, who have in Him and through Him the beginning of receiving them. For when He is now said to be anointed in a human respect, it is we who are anointed in Him; just as, when He is baptized, it is we who are baptized in Him. But the Savior throws much light on all these things when He says to the Father, 'And the glory that You gave Me, I have given to them, so that they may be one, just as We are one.' It was because of us, then, that He asked for glory, and that the words 'took,' 'gave,' and 'highly exalted' occur, so that we might take, it might be given to us, and we might be exalted in Him; just as He also sanctifies Himself for us, so that we might be sanctified in Him.
But if they seize on the word 'therefore,' as connected with the passage in the Psalm, 'Therefore God, even Your God, has anointed You,' for their own purposes, let these novices in Scripture and masters of irreligion know that, as before, the word 'therefore' does not imply a reward for virtue or conduct in the Word, but the reason why He came down to us, and the reason for the Spirit's anointing that took place in Him for our sake. For He does not say, 'Therefore He anointed You so that You might be God or King or Son or Word'; for He was so before and is so forever, as has been shown. Rather, He says, 'Since You are God and King, therefore You were anointed, since no one but You could unite man to the Holy Spirit, You, the Image of the Father, after which we were made in the beginning; for even the Spirit is Yours.' For the nature of originated things could offer no guarantee for this, since Angels had transgressed and men had disobeyed. So there was need of God — and the Word is God — so that He Himself might set free those who had come under a curse. If, then, He were from nothing, He would not have been the Christ or Anointed, being one among others and sharing like the rest. But since He is God, as Son of God, and is everlasting King, and exists as Radiance and Expression of the Father, He is fittingly the expected Christ, whom the Father announces to humankind by revelation to His holy Prophets, so that, just as we have come to be through Him, so also all people might be redeemed from their sins in Him, and all things might be ruled by Him. And this is the reason for the anointing that took place in Him, and for the incarnate presence of the Word. The Psalmist, foreseeing this, celebrates first His Godhead and kingdom, which is the Father's, in these words: 'Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; a scepter of righteousness is the scepter of Your Kingdom'; then he announces His descent to us like this: 'Therefore God, even Your God, has anointed You with the oil of gladness above Your companions.'
What is there to wonder at, what is there to disbelieve, if the Lord who gives the Spirit is said here to be anointed with the Spirit Himself, at a time when, as necessity required, He did not refuse to call Himself inferior to the Spirit with respect to His humanity? For when the Jews said that He cast out demons by Beelzebub, He answered them, to expose their blasphemy, 'But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God.' Look: the Giver of the Spirit says here that He cast out demons by the Spirit; but this is not said except because of His flesh. For since human nature is not equal by itself to casting out demons, except by the power of the Spirit, therefore as man He said, 'But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God.' Of course He also indicated that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is greater than blasphemy against His humanity, when He said, 'Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven,' like those who said, 'Is this not the carpenter's son?' But those who blaspheme against the Holy Spirit and attribute the deeds of the Word to the devil will face inescapable punishment. This is what the Lord said to the Jews as man; but to the disciples, showing His Godhead and His majesty, and indicating that He was not inferior but equal to the Spirit, He gave the Spirit and said, 'Receive the Holy Spirit,' and 'I send Him,' and 'He will glorify Me,' and 'Whatever He hears, He will speak.' So, just as here the Lord Himself, the Giver of the Spirit, does not refuse to say as man that He casts out demons through the Spirit, in the same way He, the same Giver of the Spirit, did not refuse to say, 'The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me,' with respect to His having become flesh, as John has said; so that it might be shown in both these particulars that it is we who need the Spirit's grace for our sanctification, and we who are unable to cast out demons without the Spirit's power. Through whom, then, and from whom should the Spirit have been given, but through the Son, whose Spirit It also is? And when were we enabled to receive It, except when the Word became man? And just as the passage of the Apostle shows that we would not have been redeemed and highly exalted had not He who exists in the form of God taken a servant's form, so David also shows that we would not otherwise have shared in the Spirit and been sanctified, unless the Giver of the Spirit, the Word Himself, had spoken of Himself as anointed with the Spirit for us. And therefore we have received it securely, since He is said to be anointed in the flesh; for the flesh was first sanctified in Him, and He is said, as man, to have received for its sake, and so we have the grace of the Spirit that follows, receiving 'from His fullness.'
Nor do the words added in the Psalm, 'You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness,' show, as you suppose again, that the Nature of the Word is changeable; rather, by their very force they indicate His unchangeableness. For since the nature of originated things is changeable, and one part had transgressed and the other disobeyed, as has been said, and it is not certain how they will act — often the one who is good now later changes and becomes different, so that one who was righteous just now is soon found unrighteous — there was need here too of one who is unchangeable, so that people might have the immutability of the righteousness of the Word as an image and model for virtue. And this thought strongly commends itself to the right-minded. For since the first man, Adam, changed, and through sin death came into the world, it was fitting for the second Adam to be unchangeable, so that if the Serpent attacked again, even the Serpent's deceit might be foiled, and, the Lord being unchangeable and unalterable, the Serpent might become powerless in his attack against all. For just as, when Adam had transgressed, his sin reached all people, so, when the Lord had become man and had overthrown the Serpent, His great strength is to extend through all people, so that each of us may say, 'For we are not ignorant of his schemes.' There was good reason, then, for the Lord, who is always unchangeable in nature, loving righteousness and hating wickedness, to be anointed and sent Himself, so that He, being and remaining the same, by taking this changeable flesh, 'might condemn sin in it,' and might secure its freedom and its ability from now on 'to fulfill the righteousness of the law' in itself, so as to be able to say, 'But we are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in us.'
So here again, you Arians, you have made this guess in vain and cited the words of Scripture in vain; for God's Word is unchangeable and is always in one state, not as chance may have it, but as the Father is. For how is He like the Father unless He is like this? Or how is all that is the Father's also the Son's, if He does not have the Father's unchangeableness and unalterableness? He does not love the one and hate the other as one subject to laws and inclined to one side — or, if He chose the one out of fear of falling away, we would have to admit that He is changeable in other ways too — but, being God and the Father's Word, He is a just judge and lover of virtue, or rather its giver. Therefore, being just and holy by nature, He is said for this reason to love righteousness and hate wickedness; that is to say, He loves and chooses the virtuous, and rejects and hates the unrighteous. And divine Scripture says the same of the Father: 'The Righteous Lord loves righteousness; You hate all who do wickedness,' and 'The Lord loves the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob,' and 'Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated'; and in Isaiah the voice of God again says, 'I the Lord love righteousness, and hate robbery and wrongdoing.' Let them, then, explain those former words as they do these latter; for the former too are written of the Image of God. Otherwise, misinterpreting these as they do those, they will conclude that the Father too is changeable. But since even to hear others say this is not without danger, we do well to think that God is said to love righteousness and to hate robbery and wrongdoing, not as if He were inclined to one side and capable of the opposite, so as to choose the latter and not the former — for this belongs to originated things — but that, as a judge, He loves and welcomes the righteous and withdraws from the wicked. It follows, then, that we should think the same about the Image of God too: that He loves and hates in no other way than this. For the Image must have the same nature as Its Father, though the Arians in their blindness fail to see either that image or any other truth of the divine oracles. For, driven from the conceptions, or rather misconceptions, of their own hearts, they fall back on passages of divine Scripture, and here too, from lack of understanding, as usual, they do not see their meaning; but laying down their own irreligion as a kind of rule of interpretation, they twist the whole of the divine oracles to fit it. And so, at the mere mention of such doctrine, they deserve nothing but the reply, 'You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God'; and if they persist in it, they must be silenced with the words, 'Give to' man 'the things that are' man's, 'and to God the things that are' God's.
But it is written, they say, in the Proverbs, 'The Lord created me the beginning of His ways, for His Works'; and in the Epistle to the Hebrews the Apostle says, 'Having become so much better than the Angels, as He has inherited a more excellent Name than they.' And soon after: 'Therefore, holy brothers, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, Christ Jesus, who was faithful to Him who made Him.' And in the Acts: 'Therefore let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.' They brought these passages forward at every turn, mistaking their meaning, under the idea that they proved the Word of God to be a creature, a work, and one of the originated things; and so they deceive the thoughtless, making the language of Scripture their pretext, but sowing the poison of their own heresy on it in place of the true meaning. For had they known, they would not have been irreligious against 'the Lord of glory,' nor have twisted the good words of Scripture. If, then, openly adopting the way of Caiaphas from now on, they have decided to Judaize, and are ignorant of the text that God will truly dwell on the earth, let them not inquire into the Apostolic sayings, for this is not the way of the Jews. But if, mixing themselves up with the godless Manichees, they deny that 'the Word became flesh' and His Incarnate presence, then let them not bring forward the Proverbs, for this does not fit with the Manichees. But if, for the sake of advancement and the greedy gain that follows, and the desire for a good reputation, they do not dare to deny the text, 'The Word became flesh,' since that is what is written, then either let them interpret the words of Scripture rightly, of the Savior's embodied presence, or, if they deny their meaning, let them deny that the Lord became man at all. For it is improper to confess that 'the Word became flesh' and yet to be ashamed of what is written about Him, and to corrupt the meaning on that account.
For it is written, 'So much better than the Angels'; let us, then, examine this first. Now it is right and necessary, here as in all divine Scripture, to set out faithfully the time of which the Apostle wrote, the person, and the subject, so that the reader, missing any of these or any similar particular out of ignorance, may not be far from the true meaning. That inquiring eunuch understood this when he begged Philip, 'Please tell me, of whom does the Prophet say this? Of himself, or of someone else?' For he was afraid that by applying the passage to the wrong person he would stray from the right meaning. And the disciples, wishing to learn the time of what was foretold, begged the Lord, 'Tell us,' they said, 'when will these things be? And what is the sign of Your coming?' And again, hearing from the Savior about the events of the end, they wanted to learn its time, so that they might be kept from error themselves and be able to teach others; as, for instance, when they had learned, they corrected the Thessalonians, who were going wrong. When, then, a person understands these points properly, his understanding of the faith is right and healthy; but if he mistakes any such point, he immediately falls into heresy. So Hymenæus and Alexander and their associates mistook the time when they said that the resurrection had already happened; and the Galatians were behind the time in making much of circumcision now. And mistaking the person was the lot of the Jews, and still is: they think that 'Look, the Virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and they shall call His Name Emmanuel, which means, God with us' is said of one of themselves; and that 'The Lord your God will raise up a prophet for you' is spoken of one of the Prophets; and, as for the words 'He was led like a sheep to the slaughter,' instead of learning from Philip, they guess that they were spoken of Isaiah or some other of the earlier Prophets.
This is the state of mind in which Christ's enemies have fallen into their detestable heresy. For had they known the person, the subject, and the time of the Apostle's words, they would not have explained what belongs to His humanity as referring to Christ's divinity, nor in their folly have committed so great an act of irreligion. Now this will be readily seen if one properly explains the beginning of this passage. For the Apostle says, 'God, who in past times spoke to the fathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son'; then again shortly after he says, 'When He had made purification for our sins Himself, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become so much better than the Angels, as He has inherited a more excellent Name than they.' It appears, then, that the Apostle's words refer to that time when God spoke to us by His Son and when a purification of sins took place. Now when did He speak to us by His Son, and when did the purification of sins take place? And when did He become man? When, but after the Prophets, in the last days? Next, continuing his account of the dispensation that concerned us, and speaking of the last times, he is naturally led to observe that not even in earlier times was God silent with people, but spoke to them through the Prophets. And since the prophets served, and the Law was spoken through Angels, while the Son too came to earth, and that in order to serve, he had to add, 'having become so much better than the Angels,' wishing to show that as much as a son surpasses a servant, so much is the ministry of the Son better than the ministry of servants. Contrasting, then, the old ministry and the new, the Apostle speaks freely to the Jews, writing, 'having become so much better than the Angels.' This is why he uses no comparison anywhere, such as 'having become greater' or 'more honorable,' so that we would not think of Him and them as of one kind; 'better' is his word, to mark the difference of the Son's nature from originated things. And we have proof of this from divine Scripture: David, for instance, says in the Psalm, 'One day in Your courts is better than a thousand'; and Solomon cries out, 'Receive my instruction and not silver, and knowledge rather than choice gold. For wisdom is better than rubies, and all things that may be desired cannot compare with it.' Are wisdom and stones of the earth not different in essence and separate in nature? Are heavenly courts at all akin to earthly houses? Or is there any similarity between things eternal and spiritual and things temporal and mortal? And this is what Isaiah says: 'Thus says the Lord to the eunuchs who keep My sabbaths, choose the things that please Me, and hold fast to My Covenant: to them I will give in My house, and within My walls, a place and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that will not be cut off.' In the same way, there is nothing akin between the Son and the Angels; so the word 'better' is used not to compare but to contrast, because of the difference of His nature from theirs. And therefore the Apostle himself, when he explains the word 'better,' places its force in nothing less than the Son's superiority over originated things, calling the one Son and the others servants: the one, as a Son with the Father, sitting at the right hand; and the others, as servants, standing before Him, being sent, and carrying out their duties.
In speaking this way, you Arians, Scripture implies not that the Son is originated, but rather that He is other than originated things and proper to the Father, being in His bosom. Nor does even the word 'become,' which occurs here, show that the Son is originated, as you suppose. If indeed it were simply 'become' and nothing more, the Arians might have a case; but just as they are anticipated by the word 'Son' throughout the passage, showing that He is other than originated things, so again not even the word 'become' occurs on its own, but 'better' is immediately added. For the writer thought the expression did not matter, knowing that in the case of one who was admittedly a genuine Son, to say 'become' is the same as saying that He had been made, and is, 'better.' For it makes no difference if we speak of what is generated as 'become' or 'made'; but, on the contrary, originated things, being God's handiwork, cannot be called generated, except insofar as, after their making, they share in the generated Son, and are therefore said to have been generated too — not at all in their own nature, but because of their participation in the Son in the Spirit. And divine Scripture recognizes this again; for in the case of originated things it says, 'All things came to be through Him, and without Him nothing came to be,' and 'In wisdom You have made them all'; but in the case of sons who are generated, 'To Job there came to be seven sons and three daughters,' and 'Abraham was a hundred years old when there came to be to him Isaac his son'; and Moses said, 'If anyone has sons come to be.' Therefore, since the Son is other than originated things, alone the proper offspring of the Father's essence, this plea of the Arians about the word 'become' is worthless. If, moreover, baffled so far, they should still forcibly insist that the language is that of comparison, and that comparison consequently implies sameness of kind, so that the Son is of the nature of the Angels, they will first of all incur the disgrace of rivaling and repeating what Valentinus, Carpocrates, and those other heretics held, of whom the former said that the Angels were of one kind with Christ, and Carpocrates that Angels are the makers of the world. Perhaps it is under the instruction of these masters that they compare the Word of God with the Angels.
Surely amid such speculations they will be moved by the sacred poet, who says, 'Who among the gods shall be like the Lord?' and 'Among the gods there is none like You, O Lord.' However, they must be answered, in case they may benefit from it, that comparison admittedly belongs to things of one kind, not to things that differ. No one, for instance, would compare God with man, or again man with brutes, or wood with stone, because their natures are unlike; but God is beyond comparison, and man is compared with man, wood with wood, and stone with stone. Now in such cases we would not speak of 'better,' but of 'rather' and 'more'; so Joseph was handsomer than his brothers, and Rachel than Leah; star is not better than star, but more excellent in glory; but when things that differ in kind are brought together, 'better' is used to mark the difference, as has been said in the case of wisdom and jewels. If, then, the Apostle had said, 'by so much the Son takes precedence over the Angels,' or 'by so much greater,' you would have had a plea, as if the Son were compared with the Angels; but as it is, in saying that He is 'better,' and differs as far as a Son from servants, the Apostle shows that He is other than the Angels in nature. Moreover, by saying that it is He who 'laid the foundation of all things,' he shows that He is other than all originated things. But if He is other and different in essence from their nature, what comparison of His essence can there be with them, or what likeness to them? Yet even if they have any such thoughts, Paul will refute them, speaking to the very point: 'For to which of the Angels did He ever say, You are My Son; today I have begotten You? And of the Angels He says, Who makes His Angels spirits, and His ministers a flame of fire.'
Notice here that the word 'made' belongs to originated things, and he calls them things made; but to the Son he speaks not of making or of becoming, but of eternity, kingship, and the office of Maker, exclaiming, 'Your Throne, O God, is forever and ever,' and, 'You, Lord, in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the works of Your hands; they will perish, but You remain.' From these words even they, if they were only willing, might see that the Maker is other than the things made: the former God, the latter originated things, made out of nothing. For the saying 'They will perish' is said not as if creation were destined for destruction, but to express the nature of originated things by the end toward which they tend. For things that are capable of perishing, though by the grace of their Maker they do not perish, have still come out of nothing, and themselves bear witness that they once did not exist. And on this account, since their nature is such, it is said of the Son, 'You remain,' to show His eternity; for since He does not have the capacity to perish, as originated things do, but has eternal duration, it is foreign to Him to have it said, 'He did not exist before His generation,' but proper to Him to exist always and to endure together with the Father. And even if the Apostle had not written this way in his Epistle to the Hebrews, his other Epistles and the whole of Scripture would certainly forbid them to hold such notions about the Word. But since he has expressly written it here, and, as has been shown above, the Son is the Offspring of the Father's essence, and He is Maker and other things are made by Him, and He is the Radiance, Word, Image, and Wisdom of the Father, while originated things stand and serve in their place below the Triad, therefore the Son is different in kind and different in essence from originated things, and on the contrary is proper to the Father's essence and one in nature with it. And so the Son too does not say, 'My Father is better than I,' so that we would not think Him foreign to His Nature, but 'greater' — not indeed in size or in time, but because of His generation from the Father Himself; indeed, in saying 'greater,' He again shows that He is proper to His essence.
And the Apostle's own reason for saying 'so much better than the Angels' was not any wish, in the first place, to compare the essence of the Word with originated things (for He cannot be compared; rather, they cannot be measured against each other). Looking at the Word's coming in the flesh and the Dispensation He then carried out, he wished to show that He was not like those who had gone before Him; so that, as much as He surpassed in nature those whom He had sent ahead, by so much also the grace that came from Him and through Him was better than the ministry through Angels. For it is the role of servants to demand the fruits and nothing more; but of the Son and Master to forgive the debts and to transfer the vineyard. Certainly what the Apostle goes on to say shows the superiority of the Son over originated things: 'Therefore we must pay closer attention to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away from it. For if the word spoken through Angels proved firm, and every transgression and disobedience received a just penalty, how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation, which was first spoken by the Lord and was confirmed to us by those who heard Him?' But if the Son were among originated things, He would not have been better than they, nor would disobedience have brought increased punishment because of Him — just as in the Ministry of Angels the guilt of transgressors was not greater or less according to each Angel, but the Law was one, and its punishment of transgressors was one. But since the Word is not among originated things, but is Son of the Father, therefore, just as He Himself is better and His acts are better and surpassing, so also the punishment is worse. Let them consider, then, the grace that comes through the Son, and let them acknowledge the witness He gives even from His works: that He is other than originated things, and alone the true Son in the Father, and the Father in Him. And the Law was spoken through Angels and made no one perfect, needing the coming of the Word, as Paul has said; but that coming has perfected the work of the Father. And then, from Adam to Moses, death reigned; but the presence of the Word abolished death. And we are no longer all dying in Adam, but in Christ we are all coming back to life. And then the Law was proclaimed from Dan to Beersheba, and God was known only in Judæa; but now their voice has gone out to all the earth, and all the earth has been filled with the knowledge of God, the disciples have made disciples of all the nations, and what is written is now fulfilled: 'They shall all be taught by God.' And then what was revealed was only a type; but now the truth has been revealed. And again the Apostle himself describes this more clearly later, saying, 'By so much has Jesus become the guarantor of a better covenant'; and again, 'But now He has obtained a more excellent ministry, by as much as He is also the Mediator of a better covenant, which has been established on better promises.' And, 'For the Law made nothing perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope did.' And again he says, 'It was therefore necessary for the copies of the things in the heavens to be purified with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.' Both in the verse before us, then, and throughout, he attributes the word 'better' to the Lord, who is better than originated things and other than them. For the sacrifice through Him is better, the hope in Him is better, and so are the promises through Him — not merely as great things compared with small, but as differing from each other in nature, because the one who carries out this dispensation is 'better' than originated things.
Moreover, the words 'He has become guarantor' indicate the pledge He has provided on our behalf. For just as, being the 'Word,' He 'became flesh,' and we attribute 'became' to the flesh, since it is originated and created, so here too we take the expression 'He has become' in a second sense, namely, because He has become man. And let these contentious men know that they fail in this perverse purpose of theirs; let them know that Paul does not mean that His essence has come to be, since he knew that He is Son, Wisdom, Radiance, and Image of the Father; here too he applies the word 'become' to the ministry of that covenant in which death, which once ruled, is abolished. For here too the ministry through Him has become better, since 'what the Law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin He condemned sin in the flesh,' ridding it of the offense in which, being continually held captive, it could not receive the Divine mind. And having made the flesh capable of receiving the Word, He enabled us to walk no longer according to the flesh but according to the Spirit, and to say again and again, 'But we are not in the flesh but in the Spirit,' and, 'For the Son of God came into the world not to judge the world, but to redeem all people, and so that the world might be saved through Him.' Formerly the world, as guilty, was under judgment from the Law; but now the Word has taken the judgment on Himself, and, having suffered in the body for all, has given salvation to all. With this in view John exclaimed, 'The law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.' Grace is better than the Law, and truth than the shadow.
'Better,' then, as has been said, could not have been brought about by anyone other than the Son, who sits at the right hand of the Father. And what does this indicate but the Son's genuineness, and that the Godhead of the Father is the same as the Son's? For since the Son reigns in His Father's kingdom, is seated on the same throne as the Father, and is contemplated in the Father's Godhead, the Word is therefore God, and whoever sees the Son sees the Father; and so there is one God. So though He sits at the right hand, He does not place His Father on the left; rather, whatever is right and precious in the Father, the Son has too, and says, 'All things that the Father has are Mine.' And so the Son, though sitting at the right hand, also sees the Father at the right hand, though it is as having become man that He says, 'I saw the Lord always before My face, for He is at My right hand; therefore I shall not fall.' This shows, moreover, that the Son is in the Father and the Father in the Son; for since the Father is on the right, the Son is on the right; and while the Son sits at the right hand of the Father, the Father is in the Son. And the Angels indeed serve, ascending and descending; but of the Son he says, 'And let all the Angels of God worship Him.' And when Angels serve, they say, 'I am sent to you,' and, 'The Lord has commanded'; but the Son, though He says in human fashion, 'I am sent,' and comes to finish the work and to serve, nevertheless says, as Word and Image, 'I am in the Father, and the Father in Me,' and, 'Whoever has seen Me has seen the Father,' and, 'The Father who abides in Me does the works'; for what we see in that Image are the Father's works. What has already been said ought to put to shame those who are fighting against the very truth. However, if, because it is written 'having become better,' they refuse to understand 'become,' as used of the Son, as 'has been and is,' or again as referring to the better covenant having come to be, as we have said, but conclude from this expression that the Word is called originated, let them hear the same again in a short form, since they have forgotten what has been said.
If the Son is among the Angels, then let the word 'become' apply to Him as to them, and let Him not differ from them in nature at all; but either let them be sons with Him, or let Him be an Angel with them; let them all sit together at the right hand of the Father, or let the Son stand with them all as a ministering Spirit, sent out to serve as they are. But if, on the other hand, Paul distinguishes the Son from originated things, saying, 'To which of the Angels did He ever say, You are My Son?' and if the one makes heaven and earth while they are made by Him, and He sits with the Father while they stand by serving, who does not see that he has not used the word 'become' of the essence of the Word, but of the ministry that came through Him? For just as, being the 'Word,' He 'became flesh,' so, having become man, He became so much better in His ministry than the ministry that came through the Angels, as a Son surpasses servants and a Maker things made. Let them stop, therefore, taking the word 'become' of the substance of the Son, for He is not one of the originated things; and let them acknowledge that it refers to His ministry and the Dispensation that came about. But how He became better in His ministry, being better in nature than originated things, appears from what has been said before, which I consider sufficient in itself to put them to shame. But if they carry on the contest, it will be right to grapple with them in their rash daring and to set against them similar expressions used of the Father Himself. This may shame them into keeping their tongue from evil, or may teach them the depth of their folly. Now it is written, 'Become my strong rock and house of defense, to save me.' And again, 'The Lord became a defense for the oppressed,' and similar passages found in divine Scripture. If, then, they apply these passages to the Son, which is perhaps nearest to the truth, let them acknowledge that the sacred writers ask Him, as not being originated, to become to them 'a strong rock and house of defense'; and from now on let them understand 'become,' 'He made,' and 'He created' of His incarnate presence. For it was then that He became 'a strong rock and house of defense,' when He bore our sins in His own body on the tree and said, 'Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.'
But if they refer these passages to the Father, will they, since 'become' and 'He became' are written here too, go so far as to claim that God is originated? Yes, they will dare to, since they argue this way about His Word; for the course of their argument carries them on to guess the same things about the Father as they devise about His Word. But may such a notion never enter the thoughts of any of the faithful! For neither is the Son among originated things, nor do the words of Scripture in question, 'become' and 'He became,' indicate a beginning of being, but the help that was given to the needy. For God always is, one and the same; but human beings came to be later through the Word, when the Father Himself willed it; and God is invisible and inaccessible to originated things, and especially to people on earth. When, then, people call on Him in weakness, ask for help in persecution, or pray when they are wronged, the Invisible, being a lover of humankind, shines on them with His kindness, which He exercises through and in His proper Word. And immediately the divine manifestation is made to everyone according to his need: it becomes health to the weak, and to the persecuted a 'refuge' and 'house of defense'; and to the wronged He says, 'While you are speaking I will say, Here I am.' Whatever defense, then, comes to each through the Son, each says that God has become this to himself, since help comes from God Himself through the Word. Moreover, human usage recognizes this, and everyone will admit that it is fitting. Help often comes from one person to another: one has taken on hard work for the wronged, as Abraham did for Lot; another has opened his home to the persecuted, as Obadiah did to the sons of the prophets; another has entertained a stranger, as Lot did the Angels; and another has supplied the needy, as Job did those who begged from him. And then, if one or another of these people who were helped should say, 'So-and-so became a help to me,' and another, 'and a refuge to me,' and another, 'a provider,' in saying this they would not be speaking of the original coming-to-be or of the essence of their benefactors, but of the kindness that came to them from them. So too when the saints say of God, 'He became' and 'become,' they do not mean any original coming-to-be, for God is without beginning and unoriginate, but the salvation that comes to be for people from Him.
With this understood, the same holds for the Son: whatever is said, and however often, such as 'He became' and 'become,' should always have the same sense. So when we hear the words in question, 'having become better than the Angels' and 'He became,' we should not conceive of any original coming-to-be of the Word, nor in any way imagine from such terms that He is originated; we should understand Paul's words of His ministry and Dispensation when He became man. For when 'the Word became flesh and dwelt among us' and came to serve and to grant salvation to all, then He became salvation to us, became life, and became atonement; then His dispensation on our behalf became much better than the Angels, and He became the Way and became the Resurrection. And just as the words 'Become my strong rock' do not mean that the essence of God Himself came to be, but His loving-kindness, as has been said, so here too 'having become better than the Angels,' 'He became,' and 'by so much has Jesus become the guarantor of a better covenant' do not mean that the essence of the Word is originated (perish the thought!), but the kindness that came to be toward us through His becoming Man — ungrateful as the heretics are, and obstinate on behalf of their irreligion.
About this book
Discourse Against the Arians, Book 1
2 connections
Chapter 12 2 connections
No connections match.