Dialogues on the Holy Trinity 1 part 18/23

For, by declaring the rational creation to be better than sin and the deviation into wickedness, it transforms it, through sanctification, into the image of the Creator

'You shall be holy, because I am holy.' {A.} You have spoken most rightly

For we ourselves too were created according to the image and likeness of God

And that which produces in us this divine likeness would surely, in every respect, be sanctification, that is, participation in the Son through the Spirit

And so, when man's nature slipped into deviation and the beauty of the image was defaced, we have been made new again unto that which was from the beginning, being reconstituted through the Spirit into the image of the Creator — clearly, that is, of the Son, through whom all things come from the Father

And so the most wise Paul says, 'My little children, for whom I am again in labor until Christ be formed in you.' And indeed, that the form of this 'formation' spoken of here is impressed upon our souls through the Holy Spirit, he himself will show by crying out, 'But we all, with unveiled face beholding the glory of the Lord as in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord who is the Spirit;'

'and the Lord is the Spirit.' {B.} You have spoken excellently

{A.} Sanctification, then, is given to creation and to things made;

for it does not possess it of its own accord, and it is indeed also removable, so that things which had grown rich in it might of their own choosing fall into deviation

And we ourselves too are bound by the causes of transgression

If, then, one were to suppose that sanctification is likewise given to the Son himself, would he not altogether and in every way be asserting that the Son too is capable of undergoing deviation? For that which is capable of suffering could indeed suffer, even if it be not yet said to have suffered

{A.} What then, my friend? Will not every argument persuade us to say that what is spoken of as having been sanctified could never at any time be called holy in itself? For I think one is called to sanctification precisely because one is not yet that which one becomes at the moment one is also sanctified

{A.} And that which is not yet reverend and holy is not immune to sins, but is rather already afflicted with the inclination toward wickedness — if indeed sanctification is the rejection and putting away of wickedness and sin

{A.} If, then, they should choose to think and say that the Son was sanctified together with the creatures, it would not be hard to find the time at which his nature was still weak, and not yet beyond the possibility of erring;

of God and the Father? And how is he also the radiance and the imprint of his hypostasis? For the imprint did not come into being in time, but this he was by nature even in the beginning

Then how was that which is the unblemished and most pure beauty of the Father, the very imprint of the essence himself, not holy? Or would not the argument, by an inescapable necessity, henceforth compel us, even unwillingly, to the point of having to say that not even the Father himself was ever holy? {B.} Indeed so

For it will altogether follow that images must be seen to bear the same form as those things of which they are images

{A.} What then, my friend? Does not the Son say that he himself is the truth, and has he not been named the true light in the divine Scriptures? {B.} Indeed so

For how could that which is by no means holy in its own nature, but at some point came to be so, still be the true light? {B.} Certainly not

{A.} And he who is placed beyond even the possibility of erring, of falsifying anything at all in any respect whatsoever;

'For he committed no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth,' as it is written;

why did he not, without any shame for himself, rather simply say that he had been sanctified by the Father and add nothing further to this, instead of boldly presuming so far as to reach such magnificence and excess of language as to say, without reservation:

'For their sake I sanctify myself'? {B.} How then might one perceive the truth of this? {A.} If one should reason wisely that, being holy by nature as God, he was sanctified together with us insofar as he is man, himself anointing with his own Spirit the temple that belonged to him

{B.} How then is the Father said to sanctify him? {A.} Because all things come from the Father, through the Son, in the Spirit

That the Son, who is Son by nature and in truth, both sanctifies and is sanctified when he became man, has been brought to us by the word of Paul:

'For both he who sanctifies, it says, and those who are sanctified are all of one;'

For this reason he is not ashamed to call them brothers, saying, 'I will proclaim your name to my brothers.' For he himself sanctifies, being holy by nature as God;

yet he is sanctified together with us according to his humanity, when he came under our likeness; and it is precisely on account of this—I mean his having been sanctified—that, although he exercises authority over all things as God, he is not ashamed to call us brothers.

{B.} But yes, they say, he would not be lying when he says he was sanctified by the Father, even apart from the dispensation on our behalf.

For although he appeared as man in the last times of the age, yet even before this he was of the same kind as those called into being, and a brother of created things, inasmuch as he too, according to their claim, is not by nature unoriginate, but was made by the Father.

He therefore speaks the truth, both in calling us brothers and in saying that he was sanctified together with us.

{A.} But O you who are ready to go to every extreme, even beyond reason and fitting judgment, where indeed this reckless and senseless argument of yours will now end up, I cannot even conceive.

For as to the fact that the Son is not a creature, we ought not to attend to your divinations, but rather to the sacred and divine initiators of the mysteries, to whom Christ himself gave command, saying:

'Go and make disciples of all nations.' John, then, told us plainly concerning the Son:

'And we know that the Son of God has come, and has given us understanding, that we may know him who is true;'

'and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ.'

'This is the true God and eternal life.' But the true God is not of the same kind as created things.

Since then, according to what seems to them most ill-conceived, the Word came into a participation of sanctification—although he is truly God, even if he be considered in himself and apart from flesh—let them come forward and demonstrate, by whatever arguments they please, that for us too the true God has sanctification as something imported from without;

or is it not true to say that, if being sanctified is something given in the Son, who is by nature and truly God, then nothing, I think, hinders one from foolishly suspecting that even the Father, from whom he is, was likewise sanctified, even though he is believed to be true God? {B.} We are in danger of that.

...so that their unholy audacity may be exposed and overthrown, I would by no means hesitate to say also something that verges on absurdity:

For would it not be fitting that the ability to sanctify belongs solely and exclusively to him who is truly God by nature, just as, of course, does the calling of things that exist out of non-being into being? {B.} It does belong to him alone.

{A.} Therefore, if the Son, being numbered among created things according to their ugly and most abominable doctrine, accomplishes the properties peculiar and exclusive to the Godhead by nature, and makes them the glory of his own nature,

then, it seems, the properties of the substance that transcends all things have been brought down to the level of creation; and it would not, I think, be implausible to venture boldly to say that we ourselves too are able to sanctify, after the likeness of the Son.

{B.} How do you mean this? {A.} For if he, being himself a creature, makes his own the advantages of a substance so far removed and exalted above him, what hinders us also from being able to fulfill what belongs to him, since we too are near, and by no means far removed from kinship with him—if indeed there is, precisely on account of this very fact of having come into being, some kinship and relation of every created thing to another created thing? {B.} The argument on this point does not seem implausible to us.

{A.} It would also, in another way, be both impious and ignorant to believe that he was sanctified.

{B.} In what way? {A.} Is not that which is sanctified, sanctified by something superior to and better than its own nature? For they would surely not say it is sanctified by something inferior, I suppose, if indeed being sanctified raises one up to something belonging to benefit.

{A.} Therefore, if it is true, as they claim, that the Son was sanctified through the Spirit, he was surely anointed by something altogether better than himself, and possessing a nature other than his own.

For nothing among existing things could partake of itself; rather, one thing is participated in by another, according at least to the manner of its being.

{A.} Then how is it that the Son dwells in us through the Spirit? And how will that which is by nature better bring about in us, through itself, a participation in what is inferior? And if we are made partakers of the divine nature by receiving the Spirit, how is the Son second to the Spirit? Or how is the Spirit better than he, rather than being, as it truly is, his own and from him, possessing his whole energy and effecting participation in him? And indeed the Son himself said:

'I will not leave you orphans; I am coming to you.' And since he has ascended to the Father after his rising again from the dead, he is in us through the Spirit.

For his Spirit is his own, and not something brought in from outside, just as, of course, the human element is proper to man.

But since he made his own that which is immeasurably distant from his divine and most transcendent substance—I mean the flesh—it is then, precisely then, that he is said to have been sanctified, the term 'sanctified' passing over wisely and most fittingly to what pertains to his humanity;

yet the fulfillment of being sanctified, that is to say, the operation of it, he attributed—speaking in the person of the Father—to the nature of the Godhead, for to it alone does the act of sanctifying properly belong.

For indeed, to bring forward lengthy counter-arguments against you, when you speak rightly, would be superfluous, or rather, far from wise.

But, they say, if the ability to sanctify is seen to belong and to be fitting solely to him who is truly God by nature, and the Son has been shown to be the agent of this, there is nothing to prevent us from openly confessing that he too is God by nature;

and if we should grant this, and if God who is God by nature lacks none of the good things, then for what reason has the one you call the Son and God shown his own nature to be deficient in glory, kingship, and lordship? For somewhere he said to the Father in heaven:

'Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son, that your Son also may glorify you;'

'as you have given him authority over all flesh, that to all whom you have given him he should give eternal life.'

'And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.'

'I have glorified you on the earth;'

'I have finished the work which you gave me to do;'

'and now, Father, glorify me together with yourself, with the glory which I had with you before the world was.'

'I have manifested your name to the men whom you gave me out of the world.'

'Now they have known that all things whatsoever you have given me are from you; for the words which you gave me I have given to them, and they received them, and knew truly that I came forth from you, and they believed that you sent me.' And Luke also said, in his composition of the Acts, in the person of Peter:

'Let all the house of Israel therefore know assuredly, that God has made him both Lord and Christ.' Do you understand, then, that everywhere the Father gives glory and lordship, and the Son receives them, and indeed most gladly? But if they should dare to assail us with such words as these, adding, perhaps, still others, what escape and turning away from this evil could there be for those who have chosen to think in the best way? {A.} 'Let the gentle man be a fighter'—so a sacred and divine saying has whispered to us.

For it is God who works in us, both putting the word into our tongues, and directing the mind of the pious toward what is unadulterated;

and that which persuades them to creep out of the straight path and to be carried off somewhere toward what is unseemly and perverted is this:

{B.} What do you mean by that? {A.} This, I think: having dismissed as contributing nothing to profit the knowledge of the seasons appropriate to each of the things done, they make their scrutiny of the sayings unconsidered.

For if the Word did not become flesh, if he did not tabernacle among us, then let the observance of the seasons henceforth be dismissed as stale, and, precision in these matters being set aside, let every statement be applied indifferently against the Only-begotten;

then let it be said that the radiance of the Father, he through whom all things came into being, the Word co-enthroned with the One who begot him and co-eternal, the intangible and invisible one, suffered in his own nature both the blows upon his back, and the piercing of the nails into his hands and feet, and the wound in his side, and, the crowning point of these evils, I mean death itself.

{B.} But surely they will say that all these things happened with regard to his humanity;

for he suffered inasmuch as he is man.

{A.} But then, my friend, do we not say that this suffering happened to the Son to his shame and dishonor? {B.} Yes.

For Paul writes that 'he endured the cross, despising the shame.' And he himself also says somewhere through the voice of Isaiah:

{A.} The shame, then, that was in those things, and the unseemliness that came from the disgrace, has been effaced by what came afterward, and the Son has been glorified through the resurrection, although before it he did not refuse the most dishonorable and inglorious death, on account of his voluntary self-emptying.

{B.} But the Son is said to have received this glory from the Father.

{A.} Rightly said, my friend; for I will agree.

Since he appeared as man, although he is the wisdom and power of the Father, having through himself abolished death and filled his own body with life from himself, he attributed the deed to what was, as it were, the very fountain of his own person.

For the ability to give life, and to render the flesh taken from the earth superior to corruption—even where this is understood with reference to Christ himself, insofar as he is called flesh—would befit no other of the things that exist and have been brought into being, but the nature of the Godhead alone.

But that the Son became the agent of the resurrection of his own temple, even though this is said to have been granted to him by the Father, anyone might easily perceive, since Paul says of the Father:

'him who raised him from the dead and gave him glory'; while, on the other hand, to the Jews, the Son himself said:

'Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.' For he died in the rank of man, according to the flesh, although he is by nature life itself, as God.

But again he rose to life, exercising unspeakable power and ineffable operations, although he was, at least, I say, according to his humanity, like us.

Man, who does not have as a fruit of his own nature the ability to perform things befitting God, nevertheless somehow receives this by the union and the ineffable concurrence that must be understood as existing between the Word and the human nature.

For he is known as the Father of the God who is able to do all things, although this God has appeared in flesh and, with an earthly body, dwells among the people of the world.

'I have glorified you on the earth;'

'I have finished the work which you gave me to do.' 'For you were eager, O Father,' he says, 'that the brazen and formidable power of death be brought to nothing;'

'but to accomplish this and to prevail in fulfilling it belonged not to blood and flesh, but to your divine, life-giving, and immovable nature; and since I sprang from that nature, I have brought about what seemed good, having been weakened in nothing because of my humanity with regard to the things pertaining to equal working, but, although I am in flesh and blood, I am nonetheless believed, by virtue of having sprung from your substance, to possess a strength that shares equally in yours.'

But that he seeks to be deemed worthy of an honor and glory not unfamiliar to him, nor one that had not long ago belonged to him, would surely be clear.

For he said, 'And now, Father, glorify me with the glory which I had with you before the world was.' For he who is Lord of glory always and from the beginning, having in the meantime been without glory through his condescension to human affairs, returns to the glory that exists in him from above and by nature, granting, together with having suffered it, the words fitting to his self-emptying, to the dispensation accomplished with the flesh.

It is therefore necessary, more than anything else, to know the seasons in which the things pertaining to the flesh and to a lack of glory were still useful, and the seasons prior to his sojourn among us from above, in which, being Lord of glory, he is found not to have received glory but to possess it as his own, as God.

{B.} How then does he receive some of those from the world from the Father, concerning whom he also says to him:

'those whom you gave me out of the world; they were yours, and you gave them to me'? {A.} Well then, I will say something again, being forced back, by the absurdity of these notions, to our starting point.

It seems, then, that it is said in vain that the only-begotten Son, who is in the form and equality of the Father, emptied himself, even though he became like us.

For if he has an adopted right to rule, and receives from the Father some whom he is seen not to have had before, then something has, in all likelihood, been newly introduced in the case of the Son, and he is adorned with the glories that come from it, and grace, as it were, leads him as a stranger into something better and more excellent than he was before.

Then where, pray, will our argument about his self-abasement go, or where might one still perceive him as emptied, if indeed he is found to have grown rich by acquiring something that had not before belonged to him at all, gaining as a kind of wage and recompense for his incarnation the authority over certain people? {B.} So it stands.

{A.} And it is likely that the wise John too would be speaking falsely if he were to say concerning him:

'He came unto his own, and his own received him not.' For how could that which was given only with difficulty, and at the last times, and by another, be properly his own? And yet countless and utterly innumerable ages have elapsed during which the Son was co-eternal with God the Father.

But if, because he became man, he receives those who are from the world, and is seen to have taken on this novelty of scepter, then I would say at once, fearing nothing, that the incarnation was a better state for God the Word than that which was 'in the beginning,' even though he is understood to possess in abundance equality with the Father.

For, as you see, it raises him up to something more excellent and incomparably better in glory.

The Son, therefore, accomplished the economy in the flesh for his own benefit, and bestowed the manner of his incarnation as a favor to his own glories.

How then is he still said to have become man for our sake, or how did he become a ransom for the life of all, if by the death of his own flesh he purchased for himself a glory so unaccustomed and not formerly attainable? {B.} You have spoken excellently, but our argument leaps up toward something rash and discordant.

{A.} Let then this so bitter and malicious thing be cast away by them also, when it comes to words—

namely, they have resolved to attach the sayings [of Scripture] to the periods proper to them, and to stir up and confound everything, above and below.

And yet how is it not better to understand that all things belonged properly to the Word, and that the nature of things brought into being was subjected to the glory of him who called them? But since the race upon earth had slipped away from right reasoning, the Word, having appeared in the flesh for our sake, was not received by some; yet he placed under his yoke those who, little by little, had already been persuaded and had come to believe, and he receives those who are willing to learn better things.

'For to him every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.' All things, then, belong properly to the Word, inasmuch as he has appeared from God and rules over all things together with the Father.

For he is so named in the divine Scriptures.

And indeed the disciple of the Savior, this James, [said]:

'Brothers,' he says, 'hold not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ of glory with respect of persons.' {B.} Then what is the glory of the Son compared with that of the Father? {A.} Neither greater, my friend, nor lesser, but the same—

rather, just as he is the wisdom and power of the Father, so too would he be his glory, having shone forth ineffably from the substance of the one who begot him, and signifying through himself the nature from which he sprang, just as a ray of the sun and a radiance of light, peering out from the substance of that which sent it forth, is very well understood to be, in the end, that very thing from which it is, by reason of its exact likeness and identical quality.

{B.} Could you then say, from the sacred Scriptures, what confirmation there might be for such things? {A.} Indeed, but little labor will be spent, if I gather for you the sayings of the saints.

For Paul, writing to the Ephesians, [says]:

'But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.' For by looking to Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who is the glory of him who is by nature and truly Lord—I mean the Father—we are reformed toward him through sanctification in the Spirit.

Peter, again, though distinguished among the disciples, addressed those who came from circumcision to justification in Christ through faith, saying: 'As all things have been granted to us by his divine power for life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and virtue.' If then the Son is the proper glory of the Father, through whom also we have been called to the knowledge of him, who would dare to say that being what he is was given to and imported into the glory of the Father? For who is it that adorns the glory of the Father with a glory other than his own? Or do you not consider it equally absurd that others too should be so bold as to come forward and say that the wisdom of the Father has been made wise by someone, and that the power that is by nature in him—that is, the Son—has gained its strength as profit from another, and possesses a boast that is foreign to it? (the text here is corrupt: 'wise indeed, for you are not...') — would those who lead us astray in the opposite direction toward every kind of perversity carry us off by enchanting us with such words as these? If then what has been said suffices for a clear demonstration that the Son is the proper glory of the Father, it would be well, and I shall be silent—

and God, as though speaking in the person of those justified by faith:

'But I shall behold your face in righteousness; I shall be satisfied when your glory appears to me.' For who else could be the face and image of the Father, and the exact imprint of his substance, than the Word who has appeared from him, through whom also he is made known to those on earth, as he flashes forth upon all things in his own glory? And indeed he once spoke to the all-wise Moses:

'But as I live, and Living is my name, the glory of the Lord shall fill all the earth.' For all things have indeed been filled with Christ, and he has appeared to us in him.

'He who has seen me has seen the Father.' {B.} It follows, then, if the Son is truly the proper glory of God the Father, that he must by nature be Lord of all, and King in no other way than the Father himself is.

Then why, indeed, did he again say through the voice of the Psalmist:

'But I have been established king by him'? And the wise disciple has clearly testified to us that he was made Lord and Christ by the Father.

O my friend, would you tell me most readily, without hesitation, whatever I might choose to ask you? {B.} Of course. {A.} That which is called to lordship, and brought into it in an unaccustomed manner—should it not properly be understood that it was at some time not Lord? For nothing, being already what it is, could again move toward that very thing as though toward something other than itself.

{A.} At what time, then, do they say the Son was brought back to lordship, being still, before this transition into it, deprived of the honor and glory belonging to lordship? For this we are compelled to say, even against our will.

{B.} What if they should say that it was even before the incarnation? {A.} I know they will say so, easily going beyond what is fitting—

but the argument of truth will oppose them.

For we say that it was to him who became flesh and dwelt among us that this imported dominion came about, and that he is thought to have received kingship and lordship.

For the divinely-inspired disciple says that it is not the Word who appeared from him, without qualification, whom God the Father made Lord and Christ, but Jesus who was crucified.

That the Son was Lord before his concurrence with the flesh and his conjunction according to union, we shall discern without labor, bearing in mind, along with the other points, this one.

{B.} What do you mean? {A.} Is it not said that it was when he became man that he came to be in the form of a servant? {B.} Yes, that is what I say.

{A.} It is necessary, then, to understand that before his concurrence with the flesh, the Word who appeared from God was not in the form of a servant, but in natural lordship and in his own exaltations; and since he did not wish to remain fixed in these, out of his love for us, he came to be called a servant, so that, just as he willingly took on what was contrary to his nature for our sake, so we too might be eager, for his sake, for what is above our nature.

For he descended to self-emptying, not granting to the emptying the power to overcome his innate and unfeigned glory, but so that that which is in a lower and lesser state—that is, we ourselves—might be able, through him, to leap up on high.

For indeed the worse will never overpower the superior; rather, that which is incomparably inferior will follow the one that prevails and excels.

It is, then, altogether ignorant to suppose that he must have been overpowered by things pertaining to us, so as to remain below with us for our sake—

but it is wise and true to think and to say that what is lowly rises up to his divine and ineffable beauty, overcome by his supreme glory.

For in the same way that it happened to him to suffer death according to the flesh, on account of the flesh that was held fast by death, yet, being life by nature, he restored it to its proper state, suffering nothing himself in his own nature, but rather shaking off the dominion of death—so too we say that it came about for him, by way of economy, to suffer servitude.

But since he is by nature God and Lord, that which grieves gives way, and the disgrace arising from servitude, overcome by the abundance of glory, is blotted out.

Therefore, if he had remained among the dead—according to the flesh, I mean—he would also remain among servants.

But, being life indeed, having granted to death, by way of economy, merely to seem to conquer, he will clearly be opened up also to the other state, that is, to what is manifest in natural lordship, having granted to the economy in the flesh to prevail for a brief time, only with respect to the manner of servitude.

For this reason, being equal in glory and enthroned together with the Father as Son with Father and God with God, he seems, so to speak, to be raised up even to the beginning of a glory so resplendent and supramundane, God the Father saying to him:

'Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.' For whatever the divine and ineffable nature, subduing it within itself and lulling it into submission, shall lay low, this is altogether brought under the feet of our Savior—not because he has acted in a human manner, nor because, having become flesh, he is for that reason able to prevail over those who have disobeyed, but because, having raised up the lowliness of humanity to the dignity of the highest and supreme nature, and having established himself upon the thrones of the Godhead, the only-begotten Word of God, even with the flesh, will rule over all things, not apart from the Father.

For whatever is done by the Father, this is altogether also the operation of the Son—

and whatever is said to be accomplished through the Son, this is altogether also the achievement of the Father.

For all things are equally through both, the Father working, and having, through the Son and with him in the Spirit, the operation and will for whatever is done.

For you instruct us wisely, walking a straight and blameless path—

and you would please me no less than before, by setting forth more clearly the lordship of the Son.

{A.} If then someone should choose to inquire further and come forward saying:

'Tell us, my good sir, what exactly you say the lordship of the Father to be'—

what would you declare? {B.} I would say that it is to rule over all things, to be glorified by all, and that all things are his, both those in the heavens and those on earth.