Dialogues on the Holy Trinity 1 part 9/23

B. How then could one suppose that he lives because of the Father, if he himself also is life according to nature? A. And yet this is precisely a proof of his noble birth from God the Father, and an exact indication of his identity of nature with him.

B. ...is this indeed so? A. Because for one whose own nature is bereft of immortality and life, but who gains the matter as something adopted from another, it would, I think, be fitting and quite correct to say:

'The Father has given me life.' But for one who knows that he has come forth as life from life, and has immortality as the fruit of his substance, it is fitting in a manner worthy of God to say:

'I live because of the Father.' For consider: if a man's offspring, having come forth rational from his own rational father, should say, 'I am rational because of my father,' or again, in another way, if the heat that goes forth outward from fire, uttering a voice, should say:

'I have a hot touch because of the fire from which I came forth'—would they not seem, to anyone possessed of sense, to have received the property proper to their own natures as belonging to themselves rather than to have obtained it as something brought in from outside, and to have taken the reputation of being such as a matter of gifts bestowed? B. So it seems.

A. Therefore the Son lives because of the Father,

for he has come forth as life from the life of the Father, being true God, just as, of course, is the one who begot him.

And I will take as an ally for my own words the most wise John as well, who has written thus concerning him:

'And we know that the Son of God has come, and has given us a good understanding, that we may know the true God, and we are in the true one, Jesus Christ, his Son.'

'This is the true God and eternal life.' Could anything, then, become clearer to you than this, or indeed more forceful for refutations, against thinking that the Son is otherwise disposed than the Father is by nature? B. Nothing, I think, since the voice of the Theologian raises up an invincible testimony against those who oppose it.

Yet if the Son is called true God, they immediately mock and say that he is not truly and really God, but that the name has been granted to him according to the will of the Father.

'For,' they say, 'the divinely inspired Paul said somewhere that God highly exalted him and granted him the name that is above every name.' A. That the name above every name has been granted to him, I too, be assured, would say.

For to seem to contradict foolishly the sayings of the theologians I should regard as by no means the mark of a sound mind, but rather a feeble undertaking of reasoning already gone somewhat astray and out of its senses.

Indeed, I am astonished at the cleverness of our opponents in deception, who take no pains at all to consider the ground of its being 'granted,' but hunt for words in this fashion, and eagerly and hastily seize upon everything that might appear contrary to the honor and glory of the Son, so as to reckon nothing as the better sense—even though the God-inspired Scripture defines for us the occasion of this 'bestowal' as none other than that time when: 'The Only-Begotten, existing in the form of God and the Father, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God,' as it is written, 'but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men; and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even death on a cross.'

'For then indeed God also highly exalted him, and granted him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.' B. What then is the meaning of this? A. It would be a plain and level path for those who wish to think rightly, leading up to the truth.

Understand, then, my good friend, that his receiving, as it were, in the rank of grace, the name that is above every name, is nothing but the emptying spoken of, and the economic humbling of the Word toward us.

But if this 'receiving' is found within the measures of the emptying, then the things before the emptying are seen thereafter to stand altogether outside the need of receiving, because of possessing by nature what he was—that is, being in the form of God the Father.

And if he humbled himself, having come from some exalted and preeminent state down to the lesser, he will surely then return, being exalted, to that which he was—not leaping up into a glory and honor foreign to him, but into that which was his own from the beginning.

Otherwise, following what corresponds by a reasonable account, one would be forced to try to understand the mystery of the economy in the flesh in reverse, and to have the matter turned round into its complete opposite.

For if this 'receiving' is not an emptying for the Son, but rather it has come about for him, once emptied, as an acquisition of things that in no way naturally belonged to him, then, more truly, the time before the emptying would be the emptying, while the time in which he is—I know not how—said to have been emptied would be one of preeminence and glory, since he would then be acquiring things beyond his nature and beyond the measure inherent in him, and leaping unexpectedly to things incomparably higher than what he was before.

It is settled, then, that—rightly, as it also seems to you—one should think that the name above every name was given to the Son at the time when, having put on the form that is ours, as one of us, he was enrolled as a son of God, adopted along with us and for our sake, he who is the true and legitimate Son, so that we too, through him, might grasp at a glory beyond our nature, becoming sons, and might be shown to be partakers of his divine nature.

Or do you not think that our argument on this point goes straight toward what is fitting? B. Indeed it does.

A. Yet, having thoroughly resolved to think better than their ill counsel, we shall keep the glory of the Only-Begotten unharmed, and we shall cast down reasonings and every high thing that exalts itself, as it is written, and shall take every thought captive to his obedience. But if we shall not endure to do this, and instead concede that their calumnies must prevail, we shall then expel the Only-Begotten from truly being God, and shall thereby confess that we possess nothing more than they do.

B. Would you explain how, or will you hesitate to say?

A. Indeed, I will speak readily, for in these matters I would hesitate not at all.

Is it not true to say that, if the name above every name has been granted to him, and his being called God is thus in some way a given thing, it could, so far as it is possible, slip away from him? For what is given is not utterly fixed and secure.

And the Father himself would also come into danger, so far as reasoning goes, of falling into things that are not lawful to say.

For he will be lesser than the Son, and the one who, according to them, is inferior will surpass the nature of the one who begot him—or rather, the one who bears the glory of deity as a counterfeit stamp, and who has scarcely gloried in spurious dignities, if he is truly God only in the bare fact of being so called.

B. What terrible absurdities this argument brings before us!

For sometimes the false supposition, wrongly held, drives one away from the eager pursuit of what inclines toward the truth.

If, then, as they suppose, the Son has been hired for wages, and has received from God the Father the name above every name as a kind of recompense for the emptying, then he would reasonably be thought to have been deprived of this very thing before the times of the emptying, seeing that he is observed to have become enriched, at the time corresponding to the emptying itself, with this adopted and easily lost grace.

Then, how was he in the form and equality of God the Father, not yet having undergone the voluntary emptying, and not yet having deigned to take the form and measure befitting a servant? For 'he did not consider it robbery to be equal with God,' even though it was possible for him to possess this.

If then we say that even before the times of the emptying the Son was in the form and equality of the Father, but that, having been emptied, he has been more highly honored, and has gone up into a measure of glory exceeding what he had, then he would perhaps even have surpassed the Father himself.

A. Yet true nonetheless, so far as the argument goes.

And if the Son has indeed gained some advantage in receiving the name above every name, he would then surely have risen up higher, so far as concerns himself, and would have gained the advantage over the nature of God the Father.

For this is what our keen argument has just now shown us.

But to think this way is madness—

for the things of God are to be judged with care, and refer us to the highest conclusion:

—namely, that God the Father will already, in a way, appear better than himself, and a giver of things better than those in which he himself exists.

B. In what way? A. Because the Son, who was in the form and equality with him even before the times of the emptying, and who was in no way lacking in the glory that belonged to him, he set up on high and exalted, by giving him the name above every name.

Are not these things, then, mere rubbish, a savagery of blasphemies, and an absurdity of reasonings, reeking of the utmost ignorance of all? B. Indeed they are.

A. And in another way too, one might, I think, make a most just refutation of their absurdity, having considered also this:

If the Son knows that he possesses merely the bare name of deity, and does not have the reality as a fruit of nature, what is it that persuades him to cry out openly:

'I am the truth'? For that which is spurious is not true, and that which, by external and adopted adornments, appears not to be what it is by nature, indeed forces its way in and dares to intrude into the glory of truth, but it does not in reality hold that glory, and it is exposed as unlovely by the tests that come from reasoning.

And why did he, if not God by nature, not think it necessary to number himself among those who are gods by adoption, but instead, releasing himself from the multitude of the saints, withdrew, as it were, to a place of his own, accessible to none of the others, saying:

'If he called them gods to whom the word of God came, and the Scripture cannot be broken, do you say of him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, "You blaspheme," because I said:'

'I am the Son of God'? For if, he says, those men have been called gods, having taken up residence within themselves the word of God and received it into their souls, how could he not be God, he on whose account those men are gods? For 'the Word was God,' according to the word of John.

And the word 'was' does not attach to him a newer glory, but one older than all time.

for the 'was' is always somehow superior to time.

A. The divinely-inspired Paul knows the Son not as adorned with spurious dignities, but rather as being God by nature, binding him with an essential and natural union to the Father and God.

B. In what way? A. For he writes thus:

'For even if there are so-called gods many and lords many, both in heaven and on earth, yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things.' If then he had known that it was fitting for him to be numbered among the gods by grace, why did he not, letting him be reckoned indiscriminately among the others, show us that the Father alone is God and Lord, while assigning to each, as it were, its own separate portion — the name of Godhead to the Father, and judging that the name of Lordship ought to be allotted to the Son? But, I think, it would be understood as wise and necessary neither to pry loose the glory of being able to rule and have lordship over all things from true and natural Godhead, nor indeed for the nature of Godhead to love to fly off outside of true Lordship.

Rather, each of the two would belong to both together, even though it might seem, as it were, divided into separate portions.

A clear proof of one nature is that each is, as it were, perfectly crowned with whatever natural properties the other has, and that what is attested in both, in every respect equal by nature and by an identity beyond reproach, will admit nothing at all foreign in any respect whatsoever.

B. How could it be otherwise? A. If someone asked you whether you would attribute to the Son an essential and natural sonship, or rather one existing merely in the will of the Father, just as indeed one might grant also in our own case, what would you yourself say, O Hermias? B. I for my part would say an essential one, though I would seem to those on the opposing side to be by no means speaking truly.

They would add that we have been knocked out of our wits and have been turned aside from the reasoning that looks straight ahead.

They have come to such a measure of thinking as to suppose that the Son must be adopted and ranked together with the others — even though, blushing at their own inventions, and as it were bewitching the truth which has been grieved, they fashion around him a distinguished glory untrodden by the others, and they themselves, on their own authority, devise for themselves as much renown as they might wish to allot at their own discretion.

But I would most gladly ask them by what manner they say that the adoption conceived in both cases has actually come to pass.

For we have indeed been called to be sons, but as to how, it is not we who will say it; rather Paul, writing, will instruct us in the mystery:

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

'Abba, Father.' Therefore, since the Son has ineffably taken up dwelling within us through his own Spirit, we say that we ourselves have been called into spiritual sonship.

Will you not say that this has come to pass in this way? B. Indeed, quite so.

For I shall also recall the most wise John crying out to us concerning the Son:

'But as many as received him, to them he gave power to become children of God.' A. Consider, then, my friend, to what conclusion our argument concerning the Only-begotten will come, if he is to be ranked in the same manner together with those called into sonship.

For that which is made could be in the rank of a son in no other way than through the Son, in the Spirit.

And Paul will bear witness, saying:

'Because you are sons, God sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying:'

'Abba, Father.' In what, then, will he himself also come to be a son? For they would not, I think, say that it is in himself and through himself, even though, according to them, he is numbered among those who are sons by adoption, if indeed, according to them, he has departed from being so by nature and truly.

B. But if they should say that while we receive the Son to dwell in us, he himself has the Father dwelling in him, what would you have to say to this? A. I would say that if they, on their own authority, define for us how the divine nature stands, and pronounce laws concerning it according to what seems fit to them without examination, then quite short indeed — or rather, reasonably, no account at all — should be given to those who have once come to this point, since they belch forth the things from their own heart, but speak nothing at all of the things from the mouth of the Lord.

But if they think it necessary to walk through the path of pure knowledge of God, let them seal what they have resolved to hold by the words that come from divine Scripture.

For the Son said to Philip:

'Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me?' A. Does the Father, then, having come to be in him, sanctify the Son? B. They will surely say so, no doubt.

A. Is the Father holy by nature and possessing sanctification from himself, and able to sanctify those in whom he might happen to come to be, or has he rather acquired this treasure from another? B. Clearly, he himself is holy by nature.

A. Then, O noble sirs, so ready to accept absolutely anything, however most discordant — the Son has been deprived of natural holiness, and, as far as it concerns his own nature, he has received by lot a nature not free from the capacity for sin, that is, not entirely exempt from it.

If, then, they would grant that this nature derives some benefit from having been sanctified by the Father, and from thus obtaining the establishment and glory over which it has been admired by us — yet if nothing at all of 'having been sanctified' is added to the Son, it would be, I think, a rash thing to say any longer that God and the Father has come to lodge and dwell in him.

But surely he himself is in the Father, and the Father is in him.

And what, then, might be the manner of this, or how the matter stands, we might best examine in the following way.

For the Son, according to what perhaps seems, most impiously, only to them, receives the Father to dwell in him because he stood in need of sanctification —

having chosen to maintain and think that the one who begot him comes to dwell in the Son? Besides, I think it will also be necessary to say this:

Is it not by the unity with the Son, effected through the Spirit in those who choose it, that we are conformed to sonship, the Son remolding us, as it were, unto his own glory, and impressing upon us the characteristic marks of his own form, and, in a manner, inscribing them, as it were, upon the souls of those who receive them? B. Quite so indeed.

A. Will it not, then, be attributed to the Son as a natural energy, the power to make sons — and, as I think, this belongs to him rightly and blamelessly for no other reason than because he is Son? B. Let it be so.

What then follows from this? A. That, according to reasonable and precise reckoning, we shall grant that the indwelling of the Father is not a work of a different kind, but is accomplished in such a way as would also be understood in the case of the Son — namely, that which is fulfilled through him.

For surely the Father would show that the one in whom he chooses to dwell, and whom he forms into his own image, is a father — and not a son.

B. Tell me, then, shall we grant that the divine image formed in us — which human nature is said to have obtained as a rich possession, for it has been made according to the image and likeness of God — pertains only to a resemblance to the Son, or shall we, in this matter too, include the Father together with the Son, and say that we have been formed unto the whole divine nature, even though we are called sons and reckoned among children? A. Well then, my friend, do you not think it necessary to understand that our whole reasoning of faith, in this very matter, looks to one nature of Godhead, existing in three individual hypostases, which, being of the same form and identical in kind with one another, converge into one supreme beauty — unto which we too have been formed, according to the Scriptures, and unto which we have been sealed for sonship through the Son in the Spirit? For sonship would be the image of the Son, and fatherhood the image of the Father —

— therefore we are sons because of the Son, yet we are the image and likeness of God, having thus in the beginning been fashioned unto the whole nature — clearly, that is, the supreme nature.

A. It is idle babbling, therefore, having absolutely nothing that results in profit, this love of overreaching into inquiry beyond what is fitting.

But I think it a wise thing to examine and hold to those matters which, in every way and altogether, are followed by what is profitable.

A. Their words, then, are mere trifling nonsense, and let them be flung far away, having arrived at the very last extreme of evils.

May we never at all suppose that the Son is a spurious and newly-appeared God, and that he is sanctified — that is, called into sonship by God — and receives the adopted glory together with us, but rather that he possesses by the law of nature what he is.

Nor indeed would he be made a son through his own Spirit.

For that the Spirit is the Son's own, just as indeed also the Father's, one may learn — and quite without labor — from his own words, saying:

'If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him?' And again:

'For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking in you.' And thus also Paul, writing to those who believe:

'But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you.'

'But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, this one is not his.'

'But if Christ is in you, the body indeed is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.' Therefore, that which gilds us who are on the earth with the glory of sonship — I mean the Spirit — since it belongs to the Son, will indeed work adoption in others, but will be wholly inactive concerning him whose own it is, not having been introduced into him as something admitted from outside, nor indeed having come into him from without, but existing in him essentially, and being poured forth through him upon those worthy to receive it, by the good pleasure of the Father.

Or do I not seem to you to have spoken and understood these things rightly? B. Quite so indeed, absolutely.

A. But John, the minister of the divine mysteries for us, when he comes forward crying out concerning God and concerning us:

'...his Spirit dwelling in us.' And I say further to this: if the Spirit of God the Father, in whom he gives life to and sanctifies the nature of those things brought into existence, belongs also to the Son as his own, who could ever sink to such crudeness of reasoning as to think or say that it has departed from consubstantiality with the Father and God, and has come to belong among created things — and that it will not carry outside the bounds of that nature, and bestow upon creation as a favor, the properties and distinguishing marks proper to the divine nature, so that no difference at all would any longer be seen, but creation and the nature in which dominion over all resides would be equally resplendent? B. That is a perilous notion.

How could it not be? A. Therefore, since one may very clearly discern the Only-begotten, in the sacred Scriptures, resplendent with the very properties of the Father, come now, come, let us gather together yet other reflections in addition to what has been said, and let us storm the feeble and paralyzed argument of our opponents, and let us set forth in the open the evidence by which he would appear to be both equal in work and equal in power to God the Father, and indeed also God — not numbered among those who have been brought to this status by grace, nor adorned with glories from outside, but rather true God, and one who altogether avoids falling short in any respect whatsoever of the surpassing excellence of him who begot him, an excellence which he would be understood to hold over every created thing.

B. I myself, my good friend, would say that this is worth a great deal — or rather, worth everything.

A. Do you think, then, my companion, that it belongs to any of those things called into existence to be able to work and easily bring to completion those things which the nature that rules over all could accomplish alone by itself? B. To none.

The most holy Paul, then, attaches to God the Father, as something supernatural and extraordinary, surpassing the bounds of everything, I think, that has been made, the power to give life to the dead.

'But where there is no law, neither is there transgression.'

For you will see again that he is by no means crowned with lesser things than those in which the Father is, but rather with energies of equal measure.

For the same Paul said to us:

'For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.' For he is life, being no different in what belongs to himself than the Father himself is.

'For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whomever he wills.' Therefore, by this action befitting God, he made a clear manifestation of his own nature and glory, saying:

'If I do not do the works of my Father, do not believe me;'

'but if I do them, though you do not believe me, believe the works.' Was he not, indeed, by these things, seeking to be known as God by nature? So that if to anyone it should appear that the power to work equally with God belongs to him, he would surely be, in every way, of equal glory, and nothing other than God.

For, I think, the argument leads us to this conclusion.

For he would not have thought it right to boast unwaveringly of achievements equal to the Father's, unless he were laying claim to equal glory.

A. And since the sacred Scripture proclaims to us:

'Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation, nor shadow of turning' — from whom, then, would you yourself suppose the distribution of the divine gifts to us to be effected? B. Clearly, from God the Father.

A. And yet Christ gave to the holy apostles, with authority, strength against unclean spirits, so that they might cast them out and heal every disease and every sickness among the people.

And, what surpasses even these things, he commanded that they be able to overcome death itself, speaking in a manner most befitting God:

A. Observe, then, my friend, through these things as well, that the Son puts forth from his own fullness his own Holy Spirit, inherent in him inseparably, through whom every good gift is given.

For when he who destroyed corruption and bade farewell to the bonds of death ascended, restoring us to holiness and to the ancient beauty of our nature, and implanting this, as it were, in the apostles as the firstfruits of the race, he breathed upon their face, saying:

'Receive the Holy Spirit.' But if every perfect gift is from above and from the Father, and yet the Son effects the distribution of these gifts, not in a ministerial capacity, but rather with an authority befitting God, then in what way, henceforth, could he possibly fall short of being by nature that very thing which he who begot him is — namely, truly God — and not one merely tinted, as it were on a painted tablet, with certain spurious honors? B. In no way at all, as I think.

A: "Would not the doctrine of faith, then, suffice for the most perfect demonstration that the Son is God by nature?" B: "How do you mean?" A: "Because in believing in Christ we thereby approach God who is by nature and true, and have been freed from the error of polytheism, having escaped worshiping the creature, and rendering our worship free from the charge that attaches to that."

"But at that time, not knowing God, you were enslaved to those who by nature are not gods; but now that you have come to know God, or rather have been known by God, how do you turn back again to the weak and beggarly elements, to which you want to be enslaved once more? And if indeed those apart from Christ were godless, then they have henceforth come to know God, by embracing the faith and assenting to the Son who says:"

"He who believes in the Son is not judged, because he has believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God" — how would he not be understood to be God, honored not with feigned and outward praises by us and by the holy angels, but believed essentially to be what he is, namely truly God, and God by nature from God? For tell me, what would you grant that Paul had in mind when he wrote of him and said:

"That God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and having entrusted to us the word of reconciliation."

"We are therefore ambassadors on behalf of Christ;"

"as though God were entreating through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ:"

"'Be reconciled to God.' Since, then, if anyone comes to Christ for reconciliation he is reconciled to God, and it is in Christ that the world has its covenant with God,"

A: "Would it not, then, quite rightly be laughed at, to suppose that the Word who was begotten of the Father and is in him should have slipped away from the Father's substance?" B: "Entirely so."

A: "And to which of all beings would you most rightly attribute the necessity of ruling over all things, and the excellence that surpasses everything made and called into being, without erring from due reasoning?" B: "To God, evidently."

"For all things are your servants." And indeed also that:

"But we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand." A: "Well said, my friend;"

"for in these very words the one who is praised is expressly God, in our regard."

"None, then, of the things that have been made has a share in being among created things as in its own possessions — that is, in calling the things that exist its own, and daring to bring them under its own scepters."

A: "Or if one not crowned with the glory of kingship should choose to do this, shall we not say he would be liable to accusation and indictment?" B: "So it is."

...those who have believed? For 'my sheep,' he says, '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.' And indeed our theologian John says that he came to his own, calling his own both mankind upon the earth and, I think, everything that has been made.

And he works in us the working of the Father without any diminishment, and he is seen to possess the glory of lordship not as something foreign, but rather makes it his own, and deems it fitting to hold it as such.

"The harvest," he said, "is plentiful, but the laborers are few."

And the wise John also affirmed that the threshing floor is his, saying: