On the Trinity, Book 12

At last, with the Holy Spirit speeding us on our way, we are approaching the safe, calm harbor of a firm faith. We are like men long tossed about by sea and wind, who very often find that while great heaped-up waves hold them back for a time along the coasts near the ports, in the end that very surge of the vast and dreadful billows drives them on into a dependable, familiar anchorage. And this, I hope, will happen to us as we struggle in this twelfth book against the storm of heresy, so that while we risk our dependable ship on the wave of this terrible impiety, this very wave may carry us to the haven of rest we long for. For while everyone is driven about by the uncertain wind of doctrine, there is panic here and danger there, and then again there is often even shipwreck, because they maintain on prophetic authority that God Only-begotten is a creature — so that what belongs to Him is not birth but creation, because it was said in the person of Wisdom, The Lord created Me as the beginning of His ways. This is the greatest billow in the storm they raise, the great wave of the whirling tempest; yet once we have faced it, and it has broken without damage to our ship, it will speed us forward all the way to the perfectly safe harbor of the shore we long for.

Yet we do not rest, as sailors do, on uncertain or idle hopes; they set their course by what they wish and not by sure knowledge, and at times the shifting, fickle winds desert them or drive them off course. But we have at our side the unfailing Spirit of faith, Who remains with us by the gift of the Only-begotten God and leads us to smooth waters on an unwavering course. For we do not recognize the Lord Christ as a creature, for indeed He is no such thing; nor as something that has been made, since He Himself is the Lord of all things that are made; but we know Him to be God, God the true offspring of God the Father. All of us, indeed, as His goodness has seen fit, have been named and adopted as sons of God; but He is the one true Son of God the Father, the true and perfect birth, which is known only to the Father and the Son. But this, and this alone, is our religion: to confess Him as the Son not adopted but born, not chosen but begotten. For we do not speak of Him either as made or as not born, since we neither compare the Creator to His creatures nor falsely speak of birth without begetting. He Who exists through birth does not exist of Himself; nor is He Who is the Son not born; nor can He Who is the Son come to exist in any way other than by being born, because He is the Son.

Moreover, no one doubts that the assertions of impiety always contradict and resist the assertions of religious faith, and that what has already been condemned as an impious idea cannot now be held piously; for instance, the discrepancy and disagreement that these new correctors of the apostolic faith maintain between the Spirit of the Evangelists and the Spirit of the Prophets, or their assertion that the Prophets prophesied one thing and the Evangelists preached another, since Solomon calls on us to worship a creature, while Paul convicts those who serve a creature. And certainly, according to their blasphemous theory, these two texts do not seem to agree; by that theory the Apostle, who was trained in the law, set apart by divine appointment, and spoke through Christ speaking in him, either did not know the prophecy, or knew it and contradicted it; and so he did not know Christ to be a creature when he called Him the Creator, and he forbade the worship of a creature, warning us that the Creator alone is to be served, and saying, Who exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and served the creature, passing by the Creator Who is blessed forever and ever

Does Christ, Who is God, speaking in Paul, fail to refute this impious falsehood? Does He fail to condemn this lying perversion of the truth? For all things were created through the Lord Christ; and therefore Creator is His proper name. Do not both the reality and the title of creative power belong to Him? Melchisedec is our witness, declaring God to be Creator of heaven and earth in these words: Blessed be Abraham by God most high, Who created heaven and earth. The prophet Hosea is also a witness, saying, I am the Lord your God, Who establishes the heavens and creates the earth, Whose hands have created all the host of heaven. Peter too is a witness, writing, Entrusting your souls as to a faithful Creator. Why do we apply the name of the work to the Maker of that work? Why do we give the same name to God and to our fellow men? He is our Creator, He is the Creator of all the heavenly host.

Since, by the faith of the Apostles and Evangelists, these statements are understood to refer to the Son, through Whom all things were made, how can He be made equal to the very works of His hands and placed in the same category of nature as everything else? In the first place, our human intelligence rejects this claim that the Creator is a creature, since creation comes into existence by means of the Creator. But if He is a creature, He is subject to corruption, exposed to the suspense of waiting, and subjected to bondage. For the same blessed Apostle Paul says: For the long expectation of the creature waits for the revelation of the sons of God. For the creature was subjected to futility, not of its own will, but because of Him Who subjected it in hope. Because the creature itself will also be set free from the slavery of corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. If, therefore, Christ is a creature, He must be in uncertainty, always hoping with a wearisome expectation; it must be His long expectation, rather than ours, that is waiting; and while He waits He must be subjected to futility, and subjected by a subjection imposed by necessity, not of His own will. But since He is subjected not of His own will, He must also be a slave; and since He is a slave, He must also be dwelling in a corruptible nature. For the Apostle teaches that all these things belong to the creature, and that when it is freed from them after a long expectation, it will shine with a glory proper to man. But what a thoughtless and impious thing to say about God: to imagine Him exposed, through the insults the creature bears, to such mockeries as hoping and serving, being under compulsion and receiving recognition, and being freed hereafter into a condition that is ours, not His; when in reality it is by His gift that we make our little progress.

But our impiety, through the license of this forbidden language, quickly grows into still deeper faithlessness, asserting that since the Son is a creature, it is forced to maintain that the Father too does not differ from a creature. For Christ, remaining in the form of God, took the form of a servant; and if He Who is in the form of God is a creature, God can never be separate from the creature, because there is a creature in the form of God. But to be in the form of God can only be understood to mean remaining in the nature of God; and so God too is a creature, because there is a creature with His nature. But He Who was in the form of God did not grasp at being equal with God, because from equality with God, that is, from the form of God, He descended into the form of a servant. But He could not descend from God into man except by emptying Himself, as God, of the form of God. But when He emptied Himself, He was not blotted out so as to cease to exist, since then He would have become something different in kind from what He had been. For He Who emptied Himself within Himself did not cease to be Himself, since the power of His might remains even in the power to empty Himself; and passing into the form of a servant does not mean losing the nature of God, since to have put off the form of God is nothing less than a mighty act of divine power.

But to be in the form of God in this way is nothing other than to be equal with God, so that equal honor is owed to the Lord Jesus Christ, Who is in the form of God, as He Himself says, That all men may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father Who sent Him. No difference between things ever exists without also implying a different degree of honor. The same objects deserve the same reverence; otherwise the highest honor will be undeservedly given to inferior things, or, to the insult of the superior, the inferior will be made equal to them in honor. But if the Son, regarded as a creation rather than a birth, is treated with reverence equal to that paid to the Father, then we grant no special measure of honor to the Father, since we commit ourselves to only such reverence toward Him as is shown to a creature. But since He is equal to God the Father, because He is born as God from Him, He is also equal to Him in honor, for He is a Son and not a creature.

Here again is a notable saying of the Father about Him: From the womb, before the morning star, I begot You. Here, as we have often said already, nothing that detracts from God is implied by this concession to our weak understanding, as though, because He said that He begot Him from the womb, He were therefore composed of inner and outer parts that unite to form His members, and owed His being to the same causes within time to which earthly bodies owe theirs; when in fact He Whose existence depends on no natural necessity, free and perfect, the eternal Lord of all nature, points to the power of His own unchangeable nature to explain the true character of the birth of His Only-begotten. For though Spirit is born of Spirit (in keeping, let it be remembered, with the true character of Spirit, through which it too is Spirit), still its only cause of being born lies within those perfect and unchangeable causes. And though it is born from a perfect and unchangeable cause, it must be born from that cause in accordance with that cause's true character. Now the necessary process of human birth is governed by the causes that operate in the womb. But since God is not made up of parts but is unchangeable, being Spirit, for God is Spirit, He is subject to no natural necessity working within Him. But since He was telling us of the birth of Spirit from Spirit, He instructed our understanding with an example drawn from causes that work among us: not to give an example of the manner of birth, but to declare the fact of generation; not so that the example might prove Him subject to necessity, but so that it might enlighten our minds. If, then, God Only-begotten is a created being, what meaning does a revelation have that uses the common facts of human birth to indicate that He was divinely generated?

For God often uses these members of our bodies to illustrate for us the way He Himself works, enlightening our intelligence with commonly understood terms: as when He says, Whose hands created all the host of heaven; or again, The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous; or again, I have found David, the son of Jesse, a man after My own heart. Now the heart denotes desire, and David pleased it through the uprightness of his character; the term 'eyes' expresses knowledge of the whole universe, by which nothing is beyond God's knowledge; and the name 'hands' means His creative activity, by which nothing exists that is not from God. Therefore, since God wills and foresees and does everything, and even when terms for bodily action are used must be understood to need no help from a body, surely in the statement that He begot from the womb the idea put forward is not a human origin produced by a bodily act, but a birth that must be understood as spiritual, since in the other cases where members are mentioned, this is done to represent to us other active powers in God.

Therefore, since heart stands for desire, eyes for sight, and hands for work done — and yet God, without being made up of parts in any way, desires and foresees and acts, these same operations being expressed by the words heart, eyes, and hand — is the phrase that He begot from the womb not an assertion of the reality of the birth? This does not mean that He begot the Son from His womb, just as He does not act by means of a hand, see by means of eyes, or desire by means of a heart. But just as the use of these terms makes it clear that He really acts and sees and wills everything, so the word 'womb' makes it clear that He really begot from Himself the One He begot; not that He used a womb, but that He intended to express reality. In just the same way, He does not will or see or act through bodily faculties, but uses the names of these members so that through the services performed by bodily forces we may understand the power of forces that are not bodily.

Now the order of human society does not allow, nor indeed do the words of our Lord's teaching permit, the disciple to be above his master or the slave to rule over his lord; because in these contrasting positions, submission to knowledge is the fitting state of ignorance, and unconditional obedience the appointed lot of slavery. And since everyone agrees that this is so, whose rashness will now lead us to say or think that God is a creature, or that the Son has been made? For nowhere do we find that our Master and Lord spoke of Himself this way to His servants and disciples, or that He taught that His birth was a creation or a making. Moreover, the Father never bore witness to Him as anything but a Son, nor did the Son profess God to be anything other than His own true Father, plainly affirming that He was born, not made or created, as He says, Everyone who loves the Father also loves the Son Who is born of Him.

On the other hand, His works in creation are acts of making, not a birth through generation. For the heaven is not a son, nor is the earth a son, nor is the world a birth; for of these it is said, All things were made through Him; and by the prophet, The heavens are the works of Your hands; and by the same prophet, Do not neglect the works of Your hands. Is the picture a son of the painter, or the sword a son of the smith, or the house a son of the architect? These are the works of their making; but He alone Who is born of the Father is the Son of the Father.

And we are indeed sons of God, but sons because the Son has made us so. For we were once sons of anger, but have been made sons of God through the Spirit of adoption, and have earned that title by favor, not by right of birth. And since everything that is made did not exist before it was made, so we, although we were not sons, have been made what we are. For formerly we were not sons; but since we have earned the name, we are sons. Moreover, we have not been born but made; not begotten but purchased. For God purchased a people for Himself, and by this act begot them. But we never learn that God begot sons in the strict sense of the term. For He does not say, I have begotten and brought up My sons, but only, I have begotten and brought up sons.

Yet perhaps, since He says, My firstborn Son Israel, someone will interpret His words My firstborn so as to deprive the Son of the distinctive property of birth; as though, because God also applied the epithet Mine to Israel, the adoption of those who have been made sons had been falsely presented as an actual birth, and therefore the phrase used of Him, This is My beloved Son, does not apply solely to the birth of God, since the epithet My is (so it is claimed) shared with those who clearly were not born sons. But that they were not really born, although they are said to have been born, is shown even by the passage that says, A people that will be born, whom the Lord has made.

Therefore the people of Israel is born in such a way that it is made; nor do we take the assertion that it is born as contradicting the fact that it is made. For it is a son by adoption, not by generation; this is not its true character but its title. For although the words My firstborn are written of it, there is still a great and wide difference between My beloved Son and My firstborn son. For where there is birth, there we find, My beloved Son; but where there is a choice from among the nations, and adoption through an act of will, there we find, My firstborn son. Here the people belongs to God in regard to its character as firstborn; in the former case, the fact that He belongs to God relates to His character as a Son. Again, in a case of birth the father's ownership comes first and then his love; in a case of adoption the primary fact is that the son is made a firstborn, and then comes the ownership. Thus the character of a firstborn properly belonged to Israel, adopted as a son out of all the peoples of the earth; but the character of a Son properly belongs to Him alone Who is born God. Accordingly, there is no true and complete birth where sonship is attributed rather than real, since there is no doubt that the people which is born into sonship is also made. But since it would not have been what it has now become, and since its birth is only a name for its being made, it has no true birth, because it was something else before it was born. And for this reason it did not exist before it was born, that is, before it was made, because what is a son taken from among the nations was a nation before it was a son; and accordingly it is not truly a son, because it was not always a son. But God Only-begotten was never at any time not a Son, nor was He anything before He was a Son, nor is He Himself anything but a Son. And so He Who is always a Son has made it impossible for us to think of Him that there was a time when He was not.

For human births indeed involve a previous non-existence, because, first, all are born from those who all formerly did not exist. For although everyone who is born has his origin from one who already existed, nevertheless that very parent from whom he is born did not exist before he himself was born. Again, second, he who is born is born after not existing, for time existed before he was born. For if he is born today, he did not exist in the time that was yesterday; he has come from a state of not being into a state of being; and our reason compels the conclusion that what is born today did not exist yesterday. And so it follows that his birth, by virtue of which he exists, took place after a state of non-existence; since today necessarily implies the previous existence of yesterday, so that it is true of it that there was a time when it was not. And these facts hold true of the origin of everything human: all receive a beginning before which they did not exist; first, as we have explained, in respect of time, and then in respect of cause. And in respect of time there is indeed no doubt that things which now begin to be formerly did not exist; and this is also true in respect of cause, since it is certain that their existence does not come from a cause within themselves. For think over all the causes of beginnings and turn your understanding to what came before them: you will find that nothing began by causing itself, since nothing is born by the free act of the parent, but all things are created what they are through the power of God. Hence it is also a natural property of each class of things, by virtue of actual heredity, that it once was not and then began to be, beginning after time began and existing within time. And while all existing things originate later than time, their causes too were in their turn once nonexistent, being born from things that once were not. Even Adam, the first parent of the human race, was formed from the earth, which was made out of nothing, and after time, that is, after the heaven and earth, and the day and the sun, moon and stars; and he had no first beginning in being born, and began to be when he once had not been.

But for God Only-begotten, Who is preceded by no earlier time, the possibility that at some time He was not is excluded, since that point in time would then be prior to Him; and again, the assertion that He was not involves the notion of time, so that time will not begin to be after Him, but He Himself will begin to be after time, and, since He was not before He was born, the very period when He was not will take precedence over Him. Further, He Who is born from Him Who really is cannot be understood to have been born from what was not, since He Who really is is the cause of His existence, and His birth cannot have its origin in what is not. And therefore, since in His case it is not true either in regard to time that He ever was not, or in regard to the Father, that is, the Author of His being, that He came into existence out of nothing, He has left no possibility, as regards Himself, either of His having been born out of nothing or of His not having existed before He was born.

Now I am well aware that most of those whose minds, dulled by impiety, do not accept the mystery of God, or who, through the strong influence of a hostile spirit, are ready to display under the cover of reverence a mad passion for disparaging God, usually make strange assertions in the ears of simple-minded men. They assert that since we say that the Son has always been, and that He has never been anything He has not always been, we are therefore declaring that He is without birth, since He has always been; for according to the workings of human reason, what has always existed cannot possibly have been born, since (so they urge) the reason a thing is born is that something which was not may come into existence, while the coming into existence of something which was not means nothing other, by the judgment of common sense, than its being born. They may add those arguments, subtle enough and pleasant to hear —If He was born, He began to be; at the time when He began to be, He was not; and when He was not, it cannot be that He was. Let them maintain by such proofs that it is the language of reasonable piety to say, He was not before He was born; because in order that He might come to be, One Who was not, not One Who was, was born. Nor did He Who was need a birth, although He Who was not was born so that He might come to be.

Now, first of all, men who profess a devout knowledge of divine things, in matters where the truth preached by Evangelists and Apostles showed the way, should have set aside the intricate questions of a crafty philosophy and followed instead the faith that rests in God; because the sophistry of a syllogistic question easily strips a weak understanding of the protection of its faith, since a treacherous assertion lures on the guileless defender, who tries to support his case by inquiring into facts, until at last it uses his own inquiry to rob him of his certainty, so that the one answering no longer holds in his mind a truth he has surrendered by his own admission. For what answer suits the questioner's purpose so well as our admitting, when we are asked, Does anything exist before it is born? that what is born did not previously exist? For it is contrary both to nature and to necessary reason for a thing that already exists to be born, since a thing must be born in order to come into being, and not because it already existed. But when we have made this concession, because it is rightly made, we lose the certainty of our faith, and, ensnared, we fall in with their impious and unchristian designs.

But the blessed Apostle Paul, guarding against this, as we have often shown, warned us to be on our guard, saying: Take care that no one robs you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the elements of the world, and not according to Christ, in Whom all the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily. Therefore we must be on our guard against philosophy, and we must not so much avoid as refute methods that rest on human traditions. Any concession we make must imply not that we are out-argued but that we are confused, for it is right that we who declare Christ to be the power of God and the wisdom of God should not flee from the doctrines of men but rather overthrow them; and we must restrain and instruct the simple-minded so that they are not plundered by these teachers. For since God can do all things, and in His wisdom can do all things wisely, for His purpose is never without power, nor His power without the guidance of purpose, it is fitting for those who proclaim Christ to the world to confront the irreverent and faulty doctrines of the world with the knowledge imparted by that wise Omnipotence, according to the saying of the blessed Apostle: For our weapons are not of the flesh but powerful for God, for tearing down strongholds, tearing down reasonings and every high thing that is exalted against the knowledge of God. The Apostle did not leave us a faith that was bare and devoid of reason; for although a bare faith may be most powerful for salvation, still, unless it is trained by teaching, it will indeed have a secure retreat to withdraw to in the midst of enemies, but it will be unable to hold a safe and strong position for resistance. Its position will be like the one a camp affords a weak force after a flight, not like the undaunted courage of men who have a camp to hold. Therefore we must beat down the insolent arguments raised against God, destroy the strongholds of fallacious reasoning, and crush the cunning intellects that lift themselves up to impiety, with weapons not of the flesh but spiritual, not with earthly learning but with heavenly wisdom; so that, in proportion as divine things differ from human, the philosophy of heaven may surpass the rivalry of earth.

So let false belief give up its efforts; it should not think, because it does not understand, that we deny a truth which, in fact, we alone rightly understand and believe. For while we say in so many words that He was born, we still do not assert that He was ever not born. For to be not born and to be born are not the same thing: the second term expresses an origin derived from another, the first an origin derived from none. And it is one thing to exist always, as the Eternal, without any source of being, and another to be co-eternal with a Father, having Him as the Source of being. For where a father is the source of being, there is also birth; and further, where the Source of being is eternal, the birth is also eternal: since birth comes from the source of being, a birth that comes from an eternal Source of being must be eternal. Now everything that always exists is also eternal. But even so, not everything that is eternal is also not born; for what is born from eternity eternally has the character of having been born, but what is not born is unbegotten as well as eternal. But if what has been born from the Eternal is not born eternal, it follows that the Father is not an eternal Source of being either. So if any measure of eternity is lacking to Him Who has been born of the eternal Father, clearly the very same measure is lacking to the Author of His being; for what belongs in an infinite degree to Him Who begets also belongs in an infinite degree to Him Who is born. For neither reason nor intelligence allows any interval between the birth of God the Son and the generation by God the Father, since the generation consists in the birth, and the birth in the generation. So each of these events coincides exactly with the other; neither took place unless both took place. Therefore what owes its existence to both these events cannot be eternal unless both of them are eternal; for neither of the two correlatives has any reality apart from the other, since one cannot exist without the other.

But someone who cannot receive this divine mystery will say, Everything that has been born once did not exist, since it was born in order to come into existence.

But does anyone doubt that all human beings who have been born at one time did not exist? It is, however, one thing to be born of someone who once did not exist, and another to be born of One Who always is. For every infancy began at some point in time, since before that it had no existence. And this infancy, growing into childhood, later still urges youth on to fatherhood. Yet the man was not always a father, for he advanced to youth through boyhood, and to boyhood through his first infancy. So he who was not always a father also did not always beget; but where the Father is eternal, the Son is also eternal. And so if you hold, whether by argument or by instinct, that God, one of Whose properties in the mystery of our knowledge of Him is that He is Father, was not always the Father of the begotten Son, you also hold, as a matter of understanding and of knowledge, that the Son Who was begotten did not always exist. But if the property of fatherhood is co-eternal with the Father, then the property of sonship must necessarily be co-eternal with the Son. And how can it fit our language or our understanding to maintain that He did not exist before He was born, when it is His property always to have been what He has been born?

And so God Only-begotten, containing in Himself the form and image of the invisible God, is equal to God the Father in all the things that are His properties, by virtue of the fullness of true Godhead in Himself. For, as we have shown in the earlier books, in power and in veneration He is as mighty and as worthy of honor as the Father; so also, just as the Father is always Father, He too, as the Son, has the like property of always being the Son. For from the words spoken to Moses, He Who is has sent Me to you, we gain the unambiguous conception that absolute being belongs to God, since what is cannot be thought of or spoken of as not being. For being and not being are contraries, and these mutually exclusive descriptions cannot be true of one and the same object at the same time: while the one is present, the other must be absent. So where anything is, neither thought nor language will allow that it is not. When our thoughts turn backward and are carried continually further and further back to understand the nature of Him Who is, this one fact about Him, that He is, always remains prior to our thoughts; for that quality, which is infinitely present in God, always withdraws from the backward gaze of our thoughts, though they reach back to an infinite distance. The result is that our thoughts, straining backward, can never grasp anything prior to God's property of absolute existence; for even if we go on searching for all eternity, nothing presents itself to help us understand the nature of God except, always, the fact that God always is. So the very thing that Moses declared about God, the thing of which our human intelligence can give no further explanation, is the quality that the Gospels testify to be a property of God Only-begotten; for in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and He was the true Light, and God Only-begotten is in the bosom of the Father, and Jesus Christ is God over all.

So He was, and He is, since He is from Him Who always is what He is. But to be from Him, that is, to be from the Father, is birth. Moreover, to be always from Him Who always is, is eternity; but this eternity comes not from Himself but from the Eternal. And nothing can spring from the Eternal except what is eternal: for if the Offspring is not eternal, then neither is the Father, Who is the source of generation, eternal. Now since it is the special characteristic of His being that His Father always exists and that He is always His Son, and since eternity is expressed in the name He Who is, then because He possesses absolute being, He also possesses eternal being. Moreover, no one doubts that generation implies birth, and that birth points to one who exists from that time on, not to one who does not continue. Furthermore, there can be no doubt that no one who already existed could be born. For no cause of birth can arise for Him Who of Himself continues eternal. But God Only-begotten, Who is the Wisdom of God, and the Power and the Word of God, bears witness, because He was born, to the Father as the source of His being. Since He was born of One Who eternally exists, He was not born of nothing. Since He was born before times eternal, His birth must necessarily be prior to all thought. There is no room for the verbal quibble, He was not, before He was born. For if He falls within the range of our thought in the sense that He was not before He was born, then both our thought and time are prior to His birth; for everything that once was not falls within the compass of thought and time, by the very meaning of the claim that it once was not, which marks off, within time, a period when it did not exist. But He is from the Eternal, and yet has always been; He is not unbegotten, yet He never was nonexistent; for to have always been transcends time, and to have been born is birth.

And so we confess that God Only-begotten was born, but born before times eternal: for we must make our confession within the limits that the explicit preaching of the Apostles and Prophets assigns to us, even though human thought cannot grasp any intelligible idea of a birth outside time, since it is inconsistent with the nature of earthly beings that any of them should be born before all times. But when we make this assertion, how can we reconcile with it, as part of the same doctrine, the contradictory statement that He did not exist before His birth, when according to the Apostle He is God Only-begotten before times eternal? If, then, the belief that He was born before times eternal is not only the reasonable conclusion of human intelligence but the confession of thoughtful faith, then, since birth implies some author of being, and what surpasses all time is eternal, and whatever is born before times eternal transcends earthly perception, we are certainly exalting a notion of human reason out of impious self-will if we maintain in a carnal sense that He did not exist before He was born, since He is born eternal, beyond human perception or carnal intelligence. And again, whatever transcends time is eternal.

For we can take in all time by imagination or knowledge, since we know that what exists today did not exist yesterday, because what was yesterday is not now; and on the other hand what is now exists only now and did not also exist yesterday. And by imagination we can span the past so fully that we have no doubt that before some city was founded, there was a time when that city had not been founded. Since, then, all time falls within the sphere of knowledge or imagination, we judge it by the perceptions of human reason; so we are considered to have spoken reasonably when we say of anything, It was not, before it was born, since earlier time comes before the origin of every single thing. But on the other hand, since in the things of God, that is, in the birth of God, there is nothing that is not before time eternal, it is illogical to use the phrase before He was born about Him, or to suppose that He Who possesses the eternal promise before times eternal is merely (in the language of the blessed Apostle ) in hope of eternal life, which God, Who cannot lie, promised before times eternal, or to say that He once did not exist. For reason rejects the notion that He Who, as we must confess, existed before times eternal began to exist after anything.

We may grant that for anything to be born before times eternal is not the way of human nature, nor something we can understand; and yet in this we believe what God declares about Himself. How then can the unbelief of our own day assert, on the basis of the conceptions of human intelligence, that something had no existence before it was born, when the Apostolic faith tells us that it was always born, in some way beyond human understanding, or in other words that it existed before times eternal? For what is born before time is always born, since what exists before time eternal always exists. But what has always been born cannot at any time have had no existence, since nonexistence at a given time directly contradicts eternity of existence. Moreover, existing always rules out the idea of not having existed always. And since the postulate that He has always been born rules out the idea of His not having existed always, we cannot conceive the supposition that He did not exist before He was born. For it is obvious that He Who was born before times eternal has always been born, although we can form no positive conception of anything having been born before all time. For if we must confess (as we clearly must) that He has been born before every creature, whether invisible or bodily, and before all ages and times eternal, and before all perception, and that He always exists by the very fact that He has been born in this way, then by no kind of thought can we conceive that He did not exist before He was born; for He Who has been born before times eternal is prior to all thought, and we can never think that He once did not exist, when we have to confess that He always exists.

But our opponent slyly anticipates us with this fault-finding objection. If, he argues, it is inconceivable that He did not exist before He was born, it must be conceivable that One Who already existed was born.

In reply I will ask this objector whether he remembers my calling Him anything other than born, and whether I did not say that, in the case of Him Who was, existence before times eternal and birth mean the same thing. For the birth of One Who already exists is not really birth but a self-effected change through birth; and the eternal existence of One Who is born means that in His birth He is prior to any conception of time, and that the mind has no room to suppose that He was ever unborn. And so an eternal birth before times eternal is not the same as existing before being born. But to have been born always before times eternal rules out the possibility of having had no existence before birth.

Again, this same fact rules out saying that He existed before He was born; for He Who transcends perception transcends it in every respect. For if the notion of being born while always existing transcends thought, it is equally impossible for the notion that He did not exist before He was born to be a subject of thought. And so, since we must confess that to have been always born means for us nothing beyond the fact of birth, the question whether He did or did not exist before He was born cannot be settled under the conditions of our thought; for this one fact, that He was born before times eternal, always escapes the grasp of our thought. So He was born and yet has always existed; He does not allow anything else to be understood or said about Him than that He was born. For since He is prior to time itself, within which thought exists (since time eternal comes before thought), He bars thought from deciding about Him whether He was or was not before He was born; for existence before birth is incompatible with the idea of birth, and earlier nonexistence involves the idea of time. So while the infinity of times eternal is fatal to any explanation involving the idea of time — that is, to the notion that He did not exist — His birth equally forbids any explanation inconsistent with it — that is, the notion that He existed before He was born. For if the question of His existence or His nonexistence can be settled under the conditions of our thought, then the birth itself must come after time; for He Who does not always exist must necessarily have begun to be after some given point in time.

So the conclusion reached by faith and argument and thought is that the Lord Jesus both was born and always existed: for if the mind surveys the past in search of knowledge about the Son, this one fact and nothing else will be constantly present to the inquirer's perception, that He was born and always existed. So just as it is a property of God the Father to exist without birth, it must also belong to the Son to exist always through birth. But birth can declare nothing except that there is a Father, and the title Father nothing except that there is a birth. For neither these names nor the nature of the case allows any middle position. For either He was not always a Father, if there was not always also a Son; or if He was always a Father, there was always also a Son; for whatever period of time is denied to the Son, to make His sonship non-eternal, the Father lacks just that much of having always been a Father: so that although He was always God, He still cannot also have been a Father for the same infinity during which He is God.

Now the claims of impiety even go so far as to ascribe not only birth in time to the Son but also generation in time to the Father, because the process of generation and the birth take place within one period.

But, heretic, do you consider it pious and devout to confess that God always existed, yet was not always Father? For if it is pious for you to think so, you must then condemn Paul for impiety when he says that the Son existed before times eternal: you must also accuse Wisdom itself when it testifies about itself that it was founded before the ages, for it was present with the Father when He was preparing the heaven. But if you want to assign to God a beginning of His being a Father, first determine the starting point at which the times must have begun. For if they had a beginning, the Apostle is a liar for declaring them eternal. For all of you usually count the times from the creation of the sun and the moon, since it is written about them, And let them be for signs and for times and for years. But He Who is before the heaven, which in your view is even before time, is also before the ages. And He is not merely before the ages, but also before the generations of generations that precede the ages. Why do you limit things divine and infinite by what is perishable and earthly and narrow? With regard to Christ, Paul knows of nothing but an eternity of times. Wisdom does not say that it is after anything, but before everything. In your judgment the times were established by the sun and the moon; but David shows that Christ remains before the sun, saying, His name is before the sun. And so that you would not think that the things of God began with the formation of this universe, he says again, And for generations of generations before the moon. These great men, counted worthy of prophetic inspiration, look down on time: every opening by which human perception might penetrate behind the birth that transcends times eternal is barred. Yet let the faith of a devout imagination accept this as the limit of its speculations, remembering that the Lord Jesus Christ, God Only-begotten, is born in a way that must be acknowledged as a perfect birth, and, in the reverence it pays to His divinity, not forgetting that He is eternal.

But we are accused of lying, and the doctrine preached by the Apostle is attacked along with us, because while it confesses the birth, it asserts the eternity of that birth; the result is that, while the birth bears witness to an Author of being, the assertion of eternity in the mystery of the divine birth goes beyond the limits of human thought. For the declaration of Wisdom about itself is brought forward against us, where it taught that it was created, in these words: The Lord created Me for the beginning of His ways.

And you, wretched heretic! You turn the weapons the Church was given against the Synagogue on belief in the Church's own preaching, and twist the sure meaning of a saving doctrine against the common salvation of all. For by these words you maintain that Christ is a creature, instead of using these words of the living Wisdom to silence the Jew, who denies that Christ was God before eternal ages, and that His power is active in all the working and teaching of God! For in this passage Wisdom asserted that it had been created for the beginning of the ways of God and for His works from the start of the ages, so that no one might suppose that it did not exist before Mary; yet it did not use this word 'created' to signify that its birth was a creation, since it was created for the beginning of God's ways and for His works. No, rather, so that no one would suppose that this beginning of the ways, which is indeed the starting point for human knowledge of divine things, was meant to subject an infinite birth to the conditions of time, Wisdom declared itself established before the ages. For since it is one thing to be created for the beginning of the ways and for the works of God, and another to be established before the ages, the establishing was meant to be understood as prior to the creation; and the very fact that it was established for God's works before the ages was meant to point to the mystery of the creation; for the establishing is before the ages, but the creation for the beginning of the ways and for the works of God comes after the start of the ages.

But now, so that the terms 'creation' and 'establishing' would not stand in the way of belief in the divine birth, these words follow: Before He made the earth, before He made the mountains firm, before all the hills He begot Me.⁠a So He Who is established before the ages is begotten before the earth; and not only before the earth, but also before the mountains and hills. And indeed in these expressions, since Wisdom is speaking of itself, more is meant than is said. For all the objects used to convey the idea of infinity must be such that they come after no single thing and no class of things in time. But things existing in time cannot possibly serve to indicate eternity; for, because they come after other things, they cannot suggest the thought of infinity as a beginning, since they themselves have their own beginning in time. For what wonder is it that God should have begotten the Lord Christ before the earth, when the origin of the angels is found to be prior to the creation of the earth? Or why should He Who was said to be begotten before the earth also be declared born before the mountains, and not only before the mountains but also before the hills, when the hills are mentioned as an afterthought after the mountains, and reason requires that there be a world before mountains could exist? For these reasons it cannot be supposed that these words were used merely so that He might be understood to exist prior to hills and mountains and earth, when by the eternity of His own infinity He surpasses things that are themselves prior to earth and mountains and hills.

But this divine discourse has not left our understanding in the dark, since it explains the reason for the phrase in what follows: God made the regions, both the uninhabitable parts and the heights that are inhabited under the heaven. When He was preparing the heaven, I was with Him; and when He was setting apart His own seat. When He made the clouds huge in the upper air above the winds, and when He placed the springs securely under the heaven, and when He made the foundations of the earth firm, I was beside Him, joining all things together. What period in time is here? Or how far may the conceptions of human intelligence reach beyond the infinite birth of God Only-begotten? Through things whose creation our minds can conceive, it is not possible to understand the generation of Him Who is prior to all these things; and so we cannot maintain that He came first in time, yet was not infinite, on the grounds that the only privilege given to Him was a birth prior to temporal things. For in that case, since these things are by their constitution subject to the conditions of time, He, though prior to them all, would be just as subject to the conditions of time, because their creation within time would define the time of His birth, namely that He was born before then; for what comes before temporal things stands in the same relation to time as they do.

But the voice of God, our instruction in true wisdom, speaks what is perfect and expresses the absolute truth when it teaches that it is itself prior not merely to things of time, but even to things infinite. For when the heaven was being prepared, it was present with God. Is the preparation of the heaven an act of God within time, as if an impulse of thought suddenly surprised His mind, as though it had previously been dull and inert, and He looked for materials and tools to fashion the heaven the way men do? No, the prophet's conception of the working of God is far different, when He says, By the word of the Lord the heavens were established, and all their power by the breath of His mouth. Yet the heavens needed the command of God in order to be established; for the order and excellence they display in this firm, unshaken constitution did not arise from the blending and mixing of some kind of matter, but from the breath of the mouth of God. What then does it mean that Wisdom, begotten of God, was present with Him when He was preparing the heaven? For the creation of heaven does not consist in a preparation of material, nor is it consistent with the nature of God to linger over preliminary thoughts about His work. For everything that exists in created things was always with God: for although these things have a beginning with respect to their creation, they have no beginning with respect to the knowledge and power of God. And here the prophet is our witness, saying, O God, You Who have made all the things that are to be. For although future things, insofar as they are to be created, are still to be made, yet to God, with Whom there is nothing new or sudden in creation, they have already been made; for there is an ordered plan of times for their creation, and in the foreknowing working of the divine power they have already been made. Here, then, Wisdom, in teaching that it was born before the ages, teaches that it is not merely prior to things that have been created, but is even co-eternal with what is eternal, namely, with the preparation of the heaven and the setting apart of the dwelling of God. For this dwelling was not set apart at the time when it was actually made, since setting apart a dwelling and fashioning it are different things. Nor again was the heaven formed at the time when it was (ideally) prepared, for Wisdom was with God both when He prepared and when He set apart the heaven. And afterward it was fashioning the heaven beside God Who formed it: it proves its eternity by its presence with Him as He prepares; it reveals its functions when it fashions beside God Who forms. So in the passage before us it said that it was begotten even before the earth and mountains and hills, because it meant to teach that it was present at the preparation of the heaven, in order to show that even when the heaven was being prepared, this work was already finished in the counsel of God, for to Him nothing is new.

For the preparation for creation is perpetual and eternal: the frame of this universe was not actually made by isolated acts of thought, in the sense that first the heaven was thought of, and afterward a thought and plan about the earth came into God's mind; that He thought of each part separately, so that first the earth was spread out as a plain, and then, through better counsels, was made to rise up into mountains, and yet again was varied with hills, and in the fourth place was made habitable even in the heights; that in this way the heaven was prepared and the dwelling of God set apart, and huge clouds in the upper air held the vapors caught up by the winds; then afterward sure springs began to run under the heaven, and last of all the earth was made firm with strong foundations. For Wisdom declares that it is prior to all these things. But since all things under the heaven were made through God, and Christ was present at the fashioning of the heaven, and preceded even the eternity of the heaven that was prepared, this fact does not allow us to think of God as having disconnected thoughts about details, since the whole preparation of these things is co-eternal with God. For although, as Moses teaches, each act of creation had its proper order — making the firmament solid, laying bare the dry land, gathering the sea together, ordering the stars, and the generation by the waters and the earth when they brought forth living creatures from themselves — yet the creation of the heaven and earth and the other elements is not separated by the slightest interval in God's working, since their preparation had been completed in the same infinity of eternity in the counsel of God.

So, although Christ was present in God with these infinite and eternal decrees, He has granted us nothing more than knowledge of the fact of His birth, so that, just as grasping the birth is the means that leads to faith in God, knowing the eternity of His birth might also serve to sustain piety; for neither reason nor experience allows us to speak of any Son proceeding from an eternal Father except an eternal one.

But perhaps the word 'creation,' and its being applied to Him, troubles us. Certainly the word 'creation' would trouble us if both birth before the ages and creation for the beginning of the ways of God and for His works were not affirmed of Him. For birth cannot be understood to mean creation, since the birth comes before causation, while the creation takes place through causation. For He Who was created for the beginning of the ways of God and for His works was established before the heaven was prepared and before the ages began. Can being created for the beginning of the ways of God and for His works mean the same as being born before all things? No: one of these ideas has to do with time spent in action, while the other carries a sense that has no relation to time.

Or perhaps you want the statement that He was created for the works to be understood to mean that He was created because of the works; in other words, that Christ was created in order to perform the works. In that case He exists as a servant and a builder of the universe, and was not born the Lord of Glory; He was created to serve in forming the ages, and was not always the beloved Son and the King of the ages. But the general understanding of Christians contradicts this impious thought of yours, recognizing that being created for the beginning of the ways of God and for His works is one thing, and being born before the ages is another. Even so, this very passage thwarts your aim of falsely claiming that the Lord Christ was created because of the formation of the universe, since it shows that God the Father is the Maker and Former of the universe, and shows it convincingly, since Christ Himself was present, fashioning alongside Him Who was forming all things. But while all Scripture was designed to speak of the Lord Jesus Christ as the Creator of the universe, Wisdom, to remove every occasion for impiety, has declared here that although God the Father was the Builder of the universe, Wisdom itself was not absent from Him while He built it, since it was present with Him even when He was preparing it beforehand; and that when the Father formed the universe, Wisdom was also fashioning it alongside Him Who formed it, and was present with Him even when He prepared it. So Wisdom would have us understand that it was not created because of God's works, by the very fact that it had been present at the eternal preparation of works still to come; and it shows that Scripture is not false by the fact that it fashioned the universe alongside God when He formed it.

Learn at last, heretic, from the revelation of Catholic teaching, what the saying that Christ was created for the beginning of the ways of God and for His works means; and let the words of Wisdom itself teach you the folly of your impious dullness. For this is how it begins: If I declare to you the things that are done every day, I will remember to recount the things that are from of old. For Wisdom had said earlier, I appeal to you men, and I raise my voice to the sons of men. You simple ones, understand subtlety; and you who are unlearned, apply your heart; and again, Through Me kings reign, and mighty men decree justice. Through Me princes are made great, and through Me despots possess the earth; and again, I walk in the ways of equity, and move in the midst of the paths of justice, so that I may distribute substance to those who love Me, and fill their treasures with good things. Wisdom does not keep silent about its daily work. And first, appealing to everyone, it advises the simple to understand subtlety and the unlearned to apply their heart, so that a zealous and diligent reader may ponder the different and distinct meanings of the words. And so it teaches that all success, every attainment of knowledge or fame or wealth, is achieved by its methods and ordinances: it shows that the reigns of kings and the prudence of the mighty, the famous works of princes and the justice of despots who possess the earth, are all contained within it; that it does not mix with wicked deeds and has no part in acts of injustice; and that Wisdom does all this so that, by taking part in every work of equity and justice, it may supply those who love it with a wealth of eternal goods and incorruptible treasures. So Wisdom, after declaring that it will relate the things that are done every day, promises that it will also take care to recount the things that are from of old. And what blindness it is, then, to think that things which are expressly said to date only from the beginning of the ages were performed before the beginning of the ages! For every work that dates from the beginning of the ages itself comes after that beginning; but things that are before the beginning of the ages, on the contrary, precede the ordering of the ages, which come later than they do. And so Wisdom, after declaring that it takes care to speak of the things that date from the beginning of the ages, says, The Lord created Me for the beginning of His ways for His works, meaning by these words things performed from the beginning of the ages onward. So Wisdom's teaching concerns not a generation said to precede the ages, but a dispensation that began with the ages themselves.

We must also ask what is meant by the saying that God, born before the ages, was created again for the beginning of the ways of God and for His works. Surely this is said because where there is a birth before the beginning of the ages, there is the eternity of an endless generation; but where the same birth is presented as a creation from the beginning of the ages, for the ways of God and for His works, it is applied to the works and the ways as their creative cause. And first, since Christ is Wisdom, we must see whether He Himself is the beginning of the way of the works of God. There is no doubt of this, I think; for He says, I am the way, and, No one comes to the Father except through Me. A way is the guide of those who travel, the course marked out for those who hurry, the safeguard of those who do not know, a teacher, so to speak, of things unknown and longed for. So He is created for the beginning of the ways, for the works of God, because He is the Way and leads people to the Father. But we must look for the purpose of this creation, which is from the beginning of the ages. For it is also the mystery of the final dispensation, in which Christ was again created in bodily form and declared that He was the way of the works of God. Again, He was created for the ways of God from the beginning of the ages when, submitting Himself to the visible form of a creature, He took the form of a created being.

And so let us see for what ways of God and for what works of God Wisdom was created from the beginning of the ages, though born of God before all ages. Adam heard the voice of One walking in Paradise. Do you think His approach could have been heard if He had not taken on the appearance of a created being? Does not the fact that He was heard as He walked prove that He was present in a created form? I do not ask in what appearance He spoke to Cain and Abel and Noah, or in what appearance He was also near Enoch, blessing him. An Angel speaks to Hagar, and He is certainly also God. Does He have the same form when He appears as an Angel as He has in the nature by virtue of which He is God? Certainly the form of an Angel is revealed where the nature of God is mentioned afterward. But why should I speak of an Angel? He comes to Abraham as a man. Under the appearance of a man, in the shape of that created being, is Christ not present in the nature He possesses as being also God? A man speaks, and is present in the body, and is nourished by food; and yet God is worshiped. Surely He Who was an Angel is now also a man, to keep us from assuming that any of these different aspects of one state, the state of the creature, is His natural form as God. Again, He comes to Jacob in human shape and even grips him to wrestle; and He takes hold with His hands, and struggles with His limbs, and bends His flanks, and takes on every movement and gesture of ours. But again He is revealed, this time to Moses, and as a fire, so that you might learn to believe that this created nature was to give Him an outward appearance, not to embody the reality of His nature. At that moment He possessed the power of burning, but He did not take on the destructive property inherent in the nature of fire, for the fire clearly burned and yet the bush was not harmed.

Look over the whole course of time, and see in what form He showed Himself to Joshua the son of Nun, a prophet who bore His name, or to Isaiah, who relates that he saw Him, as the Gospel also testifies, or to Ezekiel, who was given even knowledge of the Resurrection, or to Daniel, who confesses the Son of Man in the eternal kingdom of the ages, or to all the others to whom He presented Himself in the form of various created beings, for the ways of God and for the works of God, that is, to teach us to know God and to benefit our eternal state. Why does this method, expressly designed for human salvation, now give rise to such an impious attack on His eternal birth? The creation you speak of dates from the beginning of the ages; but His birth is without end, and before the ages. By all means claim that we are doing violence to words, if a Prophet, or the Lord, or an Apostle, or any oracle at all has called the birth of His eternal divinity a creation. In all these manifestations God, Who is a consuming fire, is present as created in such a way that He could lay aside the created form by the same power by which He took it on, since He was able to destroy again what had come into existence only so that it might be seen.

But the Apostle has called that blessed and true birth of the flesh conceived within the Virgin both a creating and a making, for then both the nature and the form of our created being were born. And without doubt he holds that this name belongs to Christ's true birth as a man, since he says, But when the fullness of time came, God sent His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem those who are under the law, so that we might receive the adoption of sons. And so He is God's own Son, Who is made in human form and of human origin; and He is not only made but also created, as it is said: Even as the truth is in Jesus, that you put away the old man that belonged to your former way of life, which grows corrupt according to the lusts of deceit. But be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new man, which is created according to God. So we are to put on the new man Who has been created according to God. For He Who was the Son of God was also born the Son of Man. This was not the birth of the divinity but the creating of the flesh; the new Man took the title of the race, and was created according to God, Who was born before the ages. And he explains in what follows how the new man was created according to God, adding, in righteousness, and in holiness, and in truth. For there was no deceit in Him; and He has been made righteousness and sanctification for us, and is Himself the Truth. This, then, is the Christ, created a new man according to God, Whom we put on.

If, then, Wisdom, in saying that it was mindful of the things performed since the beginning of the ages, said that it was created for the works of God and for the ways of God; and yet, while saying that it was created, taught that it was established before the ages, so that we would not suppose that the mystery of that created form, assumed so variously and so often, involved some change in its nature; for although the firmness with which it was established would not allow any disturbance that could overthrow it, still, so that the establishment might not seem to mean something less than birth, Wisdom declared itself begotten before all things: if this is so, why is the term 'creation' now applied to the birth of what was both begotten before all things and established before the ages? Because what was established before the ages was created anew from the beginning of the ages for the beginning of the ways of God and for His works. This is the sense in which we must understand the difference between creation from the beginning of the ages and the birth that precedes the ages and all things. Impiety at least does not have the excuse of pleading error as the cause of its profanity.

For although weakness of understanding might hinder the perceptions of a devout man, so that even after this explanation he might fail to grasp the meaning of creation, still even the letter of the Apostle's saying, when he applies the term making to a true birth, should have been enough for a sincere, if not an intelligent, belief that the term creation was meant to lead to belief in generation. For when the Apostle intended to assert the birth of One from one Parent, that is, the birth of the Lord from a virgin without a conception arising from human passions, he clearly had a definite purpose in calling Him made of a woman, though he knew Him to have been born and had often asserted it. He wanted 'birth' to point to the reality of the generation, and 'making' to testify to the birth of One from one Parent; for the term 'making' excludes the idea of a conception through human intercourse, since it is expressly stated that He was made of a virgin, though it is equally certain that He was born and not made. But see how impious you are, heretic. No sentence of a prophet, an evangelist, or an apostle has said that Jesus Christ was created from God rather than born from Him; yet you deny the birth and assert the creation, though not in the Apostle's meaning when he said that He was made, so that there would be no doubt that He was born as One from one Parent. You make your assertion in a most impious sense, implying that God did not derive His being by a birth that conveys nature, even though a creature would rather have come into being out of nothing. This is the primary infection in your unhappy mind: not that you call birth a creating, but that you fit your faith to the idea of creation instead of birth. And yet, while it would show a poor intellect, it would still not show a man wholly lacking devotion, if you had called Christ created so that people might recognize His impassible birth from God as the birth of One from One.

But a firm apostolic faith permits none of these phrases. For it knows in what dispensation of time Christ was created, and in what eternity of times He was born. Moreover, He was born God from God, and the divinity of His true birth and perfect generation is not in doubt. For with regard to God we acknowledge only two modes of being, birth and eternity: and birth not after anything, but before all things, so that birth only bears witness to a Source of being and does not imply any incongruity between the offspring and the Source of being. Still, as all admit, this birth, because it is from God, implies a secondary position in relation to the Source of being, and yet it cannot be separated from that Source, since any attempt of thought to go beyond accepting the fact of the birth must also necessarily penetrate the mystery of the generation. And so this is the only pious language to use about God: to know Him as Father, and with Him to know also Him Who is the Son born of Him. And certainly we are taught nothing about God except that He is the Father of God the Only-begotten and the Creator. So let human weakness not overreach itself; let it make only this confession, in which alone its salvation lies— that, before the mystery of the Incarnation, it is always certain of this one fact about the Lord Jesus Christ, that He had been born.

For my part, as long as I have the power through this Spirit Whom You have granted me, Holy Father, Almighty God, I will confess You to be not only eternally God but also eternally Father. Nor will I ever break out into such folly and impiety as to make myself the judge of Your omnipotence and Your mysteries, nor shall this weak understanding arrogantly seek more than the devout belief in Your infinity and the faith in Your eternity that I have been taught. I will not claim that You were ever without Your Wisdom, and Your Power, and Your Word, without God Only-begotten, my Lord Jesus Christ. The weak and imperfect language our nature is limited to does not rule my thoughts about You, so that my poverty of speech should choke faith into silence. For although we have a word and wisdom and power of our own, the product of our free inner activity, Yours is the absolute generation of perfect God, Who is Your Word and Wisdom and Power; so that He Who is shown by these names of Your eternal properties to be born of You can never be separated from You. Yet His birth is shown only so far as to make clear that You are the Source of His being, but enough to confirm our belief in His infinity, since it is related that He was born before times eternal.

For in human affairs You have set before us many things of such a kind that, though we do not know their cause, the effect is not unknown; and reverence instills faith where ignorance is part of our nature. So when I raised these feeble eyes of mine to Your heaven, my certainty about it was limited to the fact that it is Yours. For seeing in it these orbits in which the stars are fixed, and their yearly revolutions, and the Pleiades and the Great Bear and the Morning Star, each with its own duties in the service appointed to it, I recognize Your presence, God, in these things of which I cannot gain any clear understanding. And when I see the marvelous swells of Your sea, I know that I have failed to understand not only the origin of the waters but even the movements of this changeable expanse; yet I grasp at faith in some reasonable cause, though it is one I cannot see, and I do not fail to recognize You in these things too, which I do not know. Furthermore, when I turn my thoughts to the earth, which by the power of hidden forces makes all the seeds it receives decay, gives them life once decayed, multiplies them once given life, and makes them strong once multiplied, I find nothing in all these changes that my mind can understand; yet my ignorance helps me recognize You, for though I know nothing of the nature that serves me, I recognize You by actual experience of the benefits I enjoy. Moreover, though I do not know myself, I perceive enough to marvel at You all the more because I do not know myself. For without understanding it, I perceive a certain motion or order or life in my mind when it exercises its powers; and I owe this very perception to You, for though You deny me the power to understand my natural first beginning, You give me the power to perceive nature with its charms. And since I recognize You in what concerns myself, ignorant as I am, so, recognizing You, I will not hold a feebler faith in Your omnipotence in what concerns You because I do not understand. My thoughts shall not try to grasp and master the origin of Your Only-begotten Son, nor shall my faculties strain to reach beyond the truth that He is my Creator and my God.

His birth is before times eternal. If anything exists that precedes eternity, it will be something that still eludes comprehension when eternity is comprehended. And this something is Yours, and is Your Only-begotten: no portion, no extension, no empty name devised to suit some theory of how You act. He is the Son, a Son born of You, God the Father, Himself true God, begotten by You in the unity of Your nature, rightly acknowledged after You and yet with You, since You are the eternal Author of His eternal origin. For since He is from You, He is second to You; yet since He is Yours, You are not to be separated from Him. For we must never claim that You once existed without Your Son, so that we do not reproach You either with imperfection, as being unable to generate then, or with superfluity after the generation. And so for us the exact meaning of the eternal generation is that we know You to be the eternal Father of Your Only-begotten Son, Who was born of You before times eternal.

But for my part, it is not enough for me to deny, in the service of my faith and voice, that my Lord and my God, Your Only-begotten, Jesus Christ, is a creature; I must also deny that this name of 'creature' belongs to Your Holy Spirit, since He proceeds from You and is sent through Him, so great is my reverence for everything that is Yours. Nor, because I know that You alone are unborn and that the Only-begotten is born of You, will I refuse to say that the Holy Spirit was begotten, or claim that He was ever created. I fear the blasphemies that would be insinuated against You by such use of this title 'creature,' which I share with the other beings You brought into existence. Your Holy Spirit, as the Apostle says, searches and knows Your deep things, and as my Intercessor speaks to You words I could not utter; and shall I express, or rather dishonor, by the title 'creature,' the power of His nature, which subsists eternally, derived from You through Your Only-begotten? Nothing except what belongs to You penetrates into You; nor can the agency of a power foreign and strange to You measure the depth of Your boundless majesty. Whatever enters into You belongs to You; nor is anything that dwells in You through its searching power strange to You.

But I cannot describe Him Whose pleas for me I cannot describe. Just as in the revelation that Your Only-begotten was born of You before times eternal, the one certainty of His birth remains when we stop struggling with ambiguities of language and difficulties of thought, so I hold fast in my consciousness the truth that Your Holy Spirit is from You and through Him, though I cannot comprehend it with my intellect. For in Your spiritual things I am dull, as Your Only-begotten says, Do not marvel that I said to you, you must be born anew. The Spirit breathes where it wills, and you hear its voice, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of water and of the Holy Spirit. Though I believe in my regeneration, I believe it in ignorance; I possess the reality, though I do not comprehend it. For my own consciousness had no part in causing this new birth, which is evident in its effects. Moreover, the Spirit has no limits; He speaks when He wills, and what He wills, and where He wills. Since, then, the cause of His coming and going is unknown, though the observer is aware of the fact, shall I count the nature of the Spirit among created things, and limit Him by fixing the time of His origin? Your servant John does say that all things were made through the Son, Who as God the Word was with You, God, in the beginning. Again, Paul lists all things as created in Him, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible. And while he declared that everything was created in Christ and through Christ, he thought it a sufficient description of the Holy Spirit to call Him Your Spirit. With these men, especially Your chosen ones, I will think in these matters; just as, following their example, I will say nothing beyond my comprehension about Your Only-begotten but simply declare that He was born, so also, following their example, I will not go beyond what human intellect can know about Your Holy Spirit but simply declare that He is Your Spirit. May my lot be no useless strife over words, but the unwavering confession of an unhesitating faith!

Keep this pious faith of mine undefiled, I ask You, and even until my spirit departs, grant that this may be the expression of my convictions, so that I may always hold fast what I professed in the creed of my regeneration, when I was baptized in the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. In short, let me worship You our Father, and Your Son together with You; let me win the favor of Your Holy Spirit, Who is from You, through Your Only-begotten. For I have a convincing Witness to my faith, Who says, Father, all that is Mine is Yours, and all that is Yours is Mine; that is, my Lord Jesus Christ, dwelling in You, and from You, and with You, God forever: Who is blessed forever and ever. Amen.