Dialogues on the Holy Trinity 1 part 16/23

'He who descended is himself also he who ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.' Is not, then, to fill all things, to pervade everything, and to be in all things, something beyond the measure of a creature? {B.} How could it not be? {A.} And when every saint, having relinquished the worldly and fleshly life, and having dedicated his own soul to God, as it were, and resolved to make his boast in none other than him, Paul again writes:

'For through the law I died to the law, that I might live to God' — clearly meaning to the Son, and through him to the Father.

And this too would be clear to you and beyond dispute, if you were to hear what he adds:

'For one died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who died for them and was raised.' And furthermore, in addition to this:

'But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of Christ.' And yet every saint says:

'I will rejoice in God my Savior; the Lord my God is my strength.' {B.} Indeed, my noble friend, we have had enough of such considerations for now.

For the Son has been shown to us, through countless words, to be by no means falsely named God, but rather truly so.

Therefore, setting this matter aside, tell me the following — how one ought to receive and rightly understand it:

'I am ascending to my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God.' Now on what basis does he call his own Father 'God'? Do not doubt at all — surely they will say this too.

{A.} The knowledge of what is sought is altogether without toil, and not difficult to attain, for anyone whose mind is wise and sound.

For it is written: 'All things are plain to those who understand, and right to those who find knowledge.' But if anyone should choose, abandoning the straight course, to run most foolishly on a crooked path, and, exchanging the well-trodden way of contemplation, turn aside to another, he will fall into thorns and pits and the stumbling-blocks that lie in between.

Wherefore, I think, the Law also somewhere hints at this in a riddling manner, indicating:

...not assigning what belongs to the lowliness of humanity to the nature that is above all, as though it properly grew upon it, but having resolved to make in every case a clear and finely-wrought distinction.

For thus, and not otherwise, would you be able to attain the most unerring contemplation.

{B.} What exactly do you mean? {A.} The blessed Paul said concerning the Only-Begotten that he is both the radiance of the glory and the exact representation of the hypostasis of God the Father.

Rest, then, on this point, and let your mind range beyond everything that is made; and let it contemplate the divine beauty itself, and consider his ineffable generation, and, beholding as in a mirror the manner of his existence, let it applaud with hymns of praise.

But if he should write concerning him:

'Who, in the days of his flesh, having offered up prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to him who was able to save him from death, and having been heard because of his reverence, though he was a Son, learned obedience through the things he suffered' — descend a little, and take into account the measure of his humanity.

For the exact representation of the Father would not have died.

But since the supplication took place in the days of the flesh, the fear would belong to the flesh, and the dread of death specifically to his humanity.

Therefore, even if it is said that he received the name that is above every name, do not banish the Son from the bounds of the Godhead, insofar as he is the Word and has appeared from God the Father.

For he was by nature and truly God even before the times of his self-emptying.

Will you not say this? {B.} Certainly.

{A.} But since he appeared as a man, having lowered himself into self-emptying and into the form of a servant, he became one with us and under God — not having bartered away what he was, yet not having dishonored the measure of humanity.

For being rich as God, he became poor together with us.

Therefore he was reckoned both under the law, and indeed among slaves and among the lawless, and he underwent death itself according to the flesh.

But it was necessary that he who is by nature and truly God, and who possesses inalienable glory in this regard, should not linger in the measures of self-emptying, but should return, together with the form he had assumed, to the honor that is from above, from the beginning, and properly inherent in him.

He hears, then, as a man, although he is God by nature and Son:

'I have begotten you today'; and 'Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.' For since he became man altogether and lowered himself into self-emptying, he thus also came to be under God:

most necessarily and most fittingly he is conformed to the measures of the self-emptying, and he has, together with us, styled as God the one who is by nature and truly his own Father, and our God.

For the Son lodges and has dwelt in us through his own Spirit, in whom and through whom we cry out:

'Abba, Father.' And that the Spirit is in us as an exact sign and, as it were, a seal of our adoption as sons unto God, through whom we have been conformed to the Son, Paul will make clear by writing:

'And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying,'

'Abba, Father.' {B.} You speak well.

{A.} I think, then, that those on the opposing side will grow weary still in their resistance, and will cast aside as already odious their opposition to the words of truth.

But if they should not do this, but should instead stand firm and still say that the Father truly is the God of the Son — the economy not being taken into account according to which he said that his Father was his God:

How is it not necessary to say that we would in no way accept them as lawgivers and definers of whatever they wish to think or say, but that it would be more fitting for us to attribute the truth to the words of the Savior? He said, then:

'For I am going,' He says, 'to my Father and your Father.' Now the name 'Son' signifies being begotten from the Father according to substance.

There are, then, a great many who are sons according to nature — nay, rather, too many to number;

and let us pass over the full extent of the blasphemy, if all are sons by nature, then by this token gods as well.

But I think, at all events, that they will at once say this: that the name of sonship is bestowed upon us as a strange gift of God's gentleness;

(for being earth-born by nature, we have not been begotten of God, at least not according to the true manner of begetting), but it is something introduced to us from outside and admitted, that we should call God Father.

Then what, we too would say to them — O you who readily dare everything — why do you not direct yourselves by the same reasoning toward what is right and blameless, and are you not ashamed at length, talking such nonsense? For how is it not better to consider wisely that, since He is by nature from God, that is, from the substance of the Father, it is unbecoming for Him to be numbered together with creatures, but it would be far more fitting for Him to be God? And since He has appeared as man, surely His being under God — He who is from the Father — would altogether be something adopted and brought in from outside, along with the flesh and the measures of humanity. {B.} But if, he says, there is no difference at all in the Son, and He is God in the very way that the Father too would be conceived, then surely you will say He is equal, and in no respect whatsoever inferior.

'My Father is greater than I'? {A.} For tell me, when God is compared to God, if in both cases the term is understood by nature and truly, what difference could one see, or what could intervene to make them differ? Since we have affirmed the Son to be, as it were, an exact impress of the Father, carved to the utmost and beyond all description into natural likeness, how, according to them, if He is truly inferior and is not perfectly in the things in which the Father is, could He signify in Himself the One who, according to them, is better and set above? For surely that which falls short of the one who is perfect could not in every way be an unfalsified image and likeness;

but neither would God ever leap beyond God, that is, neither would the one ever be conceived as inferior to the other with respect to being God, since not even man differs from man with respect to being what they are.

For in strength, and prudence, and boasts of virtue, and indeed also in the quantity and stature of body, in ugliness and comeliness, and difference of color, one might sometimes be said to differ from another;

but if someone should choose to inquire clearly what the definition of substance might be for Peter and for Paul, he will find it equal in both and the same in every respect whatsoever; and whoever should discern any 'lesser' or 'greater' therein would, I think, be doing so idly and not from a sound mind.

Since, then, they say the Father is greater, let them themselves demonstrate what exactly it is that surpasses in Him, and in what respect this 'greater' has entered in!

{B.} Has the Son, then, missed the truth in saying:

'That the Father is greater than I'? {A.} And how could He lie in saying:

'I am the truth'? But let us pass over for now how the Savior's saying ought fittingly to be understood.

But tell me what I ask: is the one nature of the Godhead, the artificer of all things and creator of the universe, known by us? For 'the Lord our God is one Lord' — or is the Law not true? {B.} It is true.

{A.} And the Godhead, being simple and of one form, is believed and known in the Holy Trinity, that is, I say, in the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Do you then say and have to teach anything else besides this? {B.} Not in any way at all.

{A.} Therefore, having brought together each of the things named into one and the same nature, and binding them into identity together, along with their existing each in its own subsistence, we shall worship one God and serve one God of the universe,

not smearing on a mere shadow and believing that they have thus been fully honored with bare names —

whereas, as to its truly and by nature being God, they will freely dismiss it altogether.

Then who, among those who wish to think rightly, is so sluggish and slack as not to raise the loudest possible outcry against those who have so judged, and, smiling at their measureless trifling, to say:

'If the Son is not God by nature, but according to you the name has been adopted for Him, on what grounds have you learned to compare Him with God the Father and to weigh which of the two is inferior or superior — even though every wise and necessary line of reasoning, I think, assigns comparisons to one another, and persuades that it is more fitting for such comparisons to be made between things of like nature toward things of like nature, and among things that appear the same in substance, that is, in no way at all driven off into being otherwise? For a rational being is both angel and man;'

'yet there is a certain difference between the two, and they do not altogether share a common course with one another.'

'Therefore, whenever the question of the glory and pre-eminence of angels is examined, angel must be compared with angel.'

'And if someone should do the same in our case, Paul might well surpass a certain someone, and Peter again another of those like himself.'

'But God, who is over all and above all, is a thing beyond all comparison, and surpassing all incomparably; and since He is indeed highest of all and ascends to a summit untrodden and inaccessible to created things, what could there be that is near and close to Him, that has come so close as to dare to rival Him, and be doubted any longer as to whether it be not inferior? Does it not seem to you to incur ridicule, and to have slipped from a good mind, and indeed to have been driven from a right understanding, if any of those numbered among created things should dare to say:'

'The God and Father of all is greater than I'? Tell me, to which of existing beings would you yourself apply so bold and most perilous a saying? To angels, then, and archangels, or rather to Powers, Thrones, and Dominions? For how, or from where, would the thing made contend with its own maker? Most ignorantly, then, do those who suppose that the Son is not truly God, but rather has been brought into existence as something created, set Him — a being wholly and in every way distinct by nature — over against the Father, and weigh whether He be equal or inferior in comparison with Him.

Yet nevertheless they say that the Son is indeed God, but the Father is greater.

{A.} Then where might we discern the 'greater' in the Father, and indeed the 'lesser' in the Son, if we mirror as far as possible the nature of God, whatever it may be? Will they not say that the Divine is something incorporeal and intangible, without quantity and without increase, older than all time, ever-existing and ever the same, complete in itself and from itself? {B.} I think so.

{A.} In what way, then, could God stand above and surpass God? Is it not necessary that whatever is found in any respect at all deficient should have fallen short of the definition of Godhead, if it has not attained to the summit of the goods of Godhead, and is caught having fallen into want of that which is perfect? {B.} It is necessary.

{A.} For they would not, I think, say that the 'greater' in the Father consists in measurable quantity;

for the incorporeal is beyond quantity;

nor again would they say that the Son is later in origin than the One who begot Him.

For since the Father has always been Father, and since alteration and change do not summon the ever-existing and unchanging God into anything other than this, that which is from Him surely was co-unoriginate and co-eternal with Him, and accompanied the existence of the One who begot Him.

{B.} 'The Son,' he says, 'is lesser, not in bodily quantity;'

for how could He be? But rather in that He is not in the things in which the Father is.

{A.} Come then, let us carefully distinguish the prerogatives of the Godhead, and let us take pains to see whether these belong fittingly to the Father alone, and not at all in the same way to the Son, just as, surely, they belong to the Father Himself.

But answer me this, which I ask before the others:

For if the Father excels and surpasses the Son in nature, will it not surely follow for such a superior one that he must have the advantage not in one respect only, but in every single thing that is proper to Godhead? {B.} Quite so.

But that which is truly inferior and lesser — how could it leap beyond its own nature, and arrive beyond its own measures, and contend for the advantages of the one who is so far superior? {B.} You speak well.

{A.} How then does the Son, presenting in Himself what is, as it were, an exact impress and image of the substance of God the Father, and bringing forward His own nature very fully for the manifestation of the One who begot Him, say: 'He who has seen me has seen the Father'?

'I and the Father are one'? If then He is not in the things in which the Father is, on what grounds does He portray Him in His own nature, and say that what falls short of and is inferior to the perfect is one with the perfect? {B.} It could not be so, at least as it seems to me.

{A.} Well then — for I shall now turn, as far as I am able, to considering whatever things adorn for us the divine and most exalted nature — come, let us examine whether the beauty of Godhead resides more fully in the Father, or, as it must, is resplendent to a lesser degree in the Son. {B.} You seem to me to have examined this most excellently.

{A.} The inspired Psalmist, then, subjects to the scepters of Godhead, and binds under the yoke of servitude, all that belongs among created things, doing this most piously and most rightly.

For he said somewhere to the Maker of the universe:

'In the beginning, O Lord, You founded the earth, and the heavens are the works of Your hands.'

'They will perish, but You remain; and they will all grow old like a garment, and like a mantle You will fold them up, and they will be changed; but You are the same, and Your years will not fail' — for all things are Your servants. And indeed he also commands the heavens of heavens to honor Him with doxologies, and the sun and moon, the stars and light, and the water that is above the heavens.

And to men he says:

'Bless the Lord, all you His angels, His ministers who do His will.'

'Bless the Lord, all His works.' Do you understand, then, how, confining all things under the yoke of servitude, he names those upon the earth the sheep of His hand, while he presents the angels as singers and ministers? {B.} I understand.

{A.} Observe, then, the Son calling the sheep the very own possession of the hand of God the Father, while also placing upon us the yoke of servitude:

'My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me;'

'and I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch them out of my hand.'

'My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of my Father's hand.'

'I and the Father are one.' We, then, are called sheep of God the Father, and no less have we been called, and are, sheep of the Son as well.

And indeed, that angels also minister to Him, you might easily learn this too from the sacred Scriptures.

For the wise Matthew said that, when the tempting Satan had already fled and departed into nothing, from Christ who had fasted, 'Behold, angels came and ministered to Him.' And indeed the Seraphim stand round about His exceedingly exalted and sublime throne, glorifying Him and calling Him holy, and also 'Lord of hosts,' and declaring that heaven and earth are full of His glory.

{A.} And what, then, does the 'hand' of the Father signify to us? Is it the all-working energy, or rather strength? For discourse concerning God is always somehow better than bodily imagination.

{B.} It might reasonably be applied to both, as I think;

{A.} You speak well. But that which is believed to be inferior and, as it were, in a state of diminution compared to that in which the superior resides — how could it still be seen and said to be equal in working and equal in power? And how could it possess equal glory with the Father, and that most exact likeness perfected into union with Him? For He says, 'I and the Father are one,' even though He has testified concerning Him that He has attained the highest summit;

'For my Father,' He said, 'is greater than all.' {B.} It could not be so, far from it;

for if He were inferior in any respect whatsoever, all that is His would be diminished together with Him.

{A.} Therefore He would in no way, in no respect, be found inferior when set alongside the prerogatives of the Father.

And He who had not obtained equality would not, I think, have said to Him, and this with boldness: 'All that is mine is yours, and yours is mine.' Come now, if you agree, let us assign to the Father the necessity of being superior, and let us say that the Son is deficient.

Then what skillful device will appear to us that would apply all the Father's attributes to the Son, and in turn all the Son's to the Father, when surely one of the things said to belong to the Father would be understood to be 'being superior' and 'surpassing'? Then how will this be proper to the Son as well, seeing that he has obtained the lesser lot? And if the 'lesser' is proper to the Son, how could it also belong to the Father, who has obtained the being superior? I am at a loss, but you might show us how.

{A.} Let, then, the argument proceed with the current, and let it go along the path set before it;

and I will ask something necessary as well.

Does it not lie in the authority of the Father alone to free us from offenses, and to wipe away our sin, so hard to wash away? {B.} Indeed I say so.

{A.} And how is it not exceedingly perilous to dare to press this claim, and, though the Son fittingly performs the very same works, to say recklessly that He is inferior to that in which the Father is? For He Himself too forgives the sins of whomever He wishes.

Exhorting us, then, to embrace forgetfulness of wrongs, and teaching that we must cling to it, [Christ says]: 'For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.' And having attributed to the Father the ability to remit, by his own authority, the sins of whomever he might choose, he himself pledges to himself the accomplishment of this very thing, saying:

'But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins' (then, he says, he says to the paralytic):

'Rise, take up your bed, and go to your house.' How, then, could that which is equal in authority and identical in operation become inferior, and still be ranked in a secondary place?" B: "It could not be so.

A: "And the divine Paul, chiming in with us, would also bear witness to the precision of what has been said:

'Who shall bring a charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies;'

'who is he that condemns?' And transferring this great work to the Son, and assigning to him the ability to justify those who have believed, he writes again thus:

But it is not, according to the true and unadulterated account, that God and the Father justifies us in one part, and the Son again in another part and separately;

but whatever justification would be conceived as coming from the Father, this is surely altogether also that of the Son;

and whatever [justification] the Son should grant, this must be reckoned as belonging to the Father as well.

For just as all things obtained their entrance into being through the Son by allotment, and he through whom the things called into existence were brought forth to being has no other, additional creator, so also it is through him that the things which had slipped away from their original good order are saved, and again receive a continuance unto well-being, each thing returning precisely to the beauty proper to its own nature.

Israel, being stubborn and hard to lead,

'As an eagle protects its nest, spreading out its wings, he received them and took them up upon his back.' And the Son himself affirms strongly that he indeed performed this very thing, saying:

'Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those sent to her, how often I wished to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing! Behold, your house is left to you desolate.' And we shall not, by doing something utterly senseless, thrust the Father aside as inactive, nor shall we say that it is best that the glory for this belongs to the Son alone.

But because that which is in every way equally balanced between the two, and identical in essence, and indeed the fact that the Divine is uniform in kind and simple, has permitted us to understand that the Father and God is active through the Son, all suspicion of him being conceived as in a subordinate, ministerial position has been banished as far as possible, doing no injury at all to the manner of equality and glory belonging to the Word who has appeared from God the Father.

For the Father acts by employing the Son as his own power, a power that is living and not other than himself, inasmuch as he is God from God and in God by nature, even though each of the two is understood as having, at least, a distinct existence proper to himself.

A: "But that in nature, and authority, and in operation befitting God, in every respect whatsoever we shall in no way find the Son to be inferior to however the Father also may be conceived, you would, I think, easily learn also from the following:

'Turn to me, and you shall be saved, you who are from the ends of the earth.'

'I am God, and there is no other.'

'By myself I swear: surely righteousness shall go forth from my mouth; my words shall not be turned back.' Now this splendid boast of the Father — namely, being able both to call and to save those from the ends of the earth, and to speak righteousness, and to possess a word so strong and better than being turned back — tell me, would you attribute this to anyone else besides him?" B: "I would not.

For the things that are peculiarly his own, and his alone, would be fitting to God alone.

A: "But if the nature of the Son too is adorned with equal boasts, and possesses a glory sharing an equal portion, would inferiority then still be fitting for him, my good friend, in any respect at all?" B: "By no means.

A: "You shall learn, then, of him crying out openly:

'Take my yoke upon you.' Is not this the same as 'I am God, and there is no other'? For all things have been yoked beneath the divine yoke, and weighed down by the measures of servitude.

But concerning his own words, he speaks somewhat as follows:

'Truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one iota or one stroke shall pass from the law until all things come to pass.'

'Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.' Do you understand, then, how the words spoken through the Son do not admit of suffering reversal, just as, of course, neither do those of the Father?" B: "I understand.

A: "And in addition to these things I shall say that the ability to exercise providence over existing things, such that nothing at all is released from beneath his own hand, would be seen to belong, not to anyone else, but alone — and very reasonably so — to the God who rules over all things.

Or do I not seem to you to state and consider these things excellently?" B: "Excellently indeed.

A: "We shall find, then, that both the Father and the Son exercise providence over all things in a manner belonging equally to their kind.

B: "How do you mean?" A: "For concerning God the Father, the Son himself said:

'Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground without your Father who is in heaven.' And he himself too would be seen to bestow such far-reaching care, extending to all things, even to the most trifling of existing things, of which there is little account.

For when, having left the borders of Judea, he journeyed to the land of the Gergesenes, he drove the evil demons away from men; and they, yielding to the divine commands, did what was ordered by necessity, yet they sought permission over the swine.

Then he who has all things under his feet willingly releases them and bids them go;

they drown the herds all together in a mass.

Was it, then, tell me, to such utterly abominable and unclean spirits that he granted this favor, and did Christ allow those who will nothing good to accomplish what seemed good to them? And yet it is altogether implausible for us to think anything of the sort;

but it was necessary that the Son too, no less than the Father, should have providence over existing things attached to him, and he demonstrated this very thing to us through most effective deeds, so that the beauty of equality in every single respect might shine forth, bright and unadulterated, in both.

B: "And how could this be?" he says;

where, then, would equality between the two be seen, when the Son is subjected and set beneath, concerning whom the divinely inspired Paul says:

'And when all things are subjected to him — evidently with the exception of him who subjected all things to him — then the Son himself also will be subjected to him who subjected all things to him, that God may be all in all.'" A: "Then what will they say to this — I mean, the Son's having been subjected to the Father — or how would they thereby expel from equality with him the one begotten from him according to nature? But wherever the question of nature is being carefully examined by us at all, why is this matter of subjection so foolishly smuggled in, since it is not inscribed among the accounts pertaining to essence?" B: "Because, they say, from the fact of being subjected the quality of the essence is very well discerned.

A: "And yet, my friend, you would learn — and very effortlessly — that the argument on this point is both unsound and full of ignorance.

For the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets, according to what is written; and the sons of a certain man, let us say, are subject to their own begetter — just as, of course, I might say that Isaac was subject to Abraham, and again in turn the one born from him was subject to him.

But neither did the subjection that occurred between the spirits of the prophets toward one another render their nature dissimilar to one another, nor indeed did it render blessed Isaac of a different nature and alien stock, seeing that, being overcome by reverence toward his father, he was subject to him and offered obedience as a fitting gift of sonship to the one who begot him.

If, then, the matter of subjection, in whomsoever it occurs, in every way and altogether makes them be seen as of a different essence, and removes them from the laws of nature, let this be firmly established, let it also hold in the case of the Son, and let the argument be true.