Catechetical Lectures 11 part 1/12

Catechetical Lecture 11. To the Candidates for Illumination. Delivered extempore at Jerusalem, on the words:

And a reading from the Epistle to the Hebrews:

God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, and so forth.

That we hope in Jesus Christ has been sufficiently said to you according to our ability, through what was delivered to you yesterday.

But we must not believe in Christ Jesus merely in a simple way, nor receive Him as one of the many who are improperly called christs.

For those were typical christs;

He did not ascend to the priesthood from among men by advancement, but always possessed the dignity of priesthood from the Father.

And for this reason the Faith, guarding us beforehand, lest we should suspect Him to be one of the mere christs, adds to the profession of the Faith that we believe IN ONE LORD JESUS CHRIST, THE ONLY-BEGOTTEN SON OF GOD.

But when you hear of a Son, do not think Him adopted, but a natural Son, an Only-begotten Son, having no other brother.

For this reason He is called Only-begotten, because in the dignity of the Godhead and in the generation from the Father He has no brother.

And we call Him Son of God not of ourselves, but because the Father Himself named Christ as His Son.

And a true name is that which is conferred by fathers upon their children.

Our Lord Jesus Christ, yet by the many He was unknown.

Wishing then to teach what was unknown, He gathered the disciples and asked:

Whom do men say that I, the Son of Man, am? not out of vainglory, but wishing to show them the truth;

lest, dwelling with God the Only-begotten of God, they should despise Him as some mere man.

And when they had said that some say Elijah, and others Jeremiah, He said to them:

those indeed who did not know are excusable;

but you, the apostles, who in my name cleanse lepers and cast out demons and raise the dead, ought not to be ignorant of Him, on whose account you do these wonders.

And when all kept silent (for the lesson was beyond man), Peter, the foremost of the apostles and chief herald of the Church, neither using cleverness of speech nor persuaded by human reasoning, but enlightened in his mind by the Father, says to Him:

not simply that, but, the Son of the living God.

And a blessing follows upon the word;

(for it was truly beyond man,) and a seal upon what was spoken, that it was the Father who revealed it.

Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood did not reveal it to you, but my Father who is in heaven.

He therefore who acknowledges our Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God shares in this blessedness;

but he who denies the Son of God is wretched and miserable.

And again, when you hear of a Son, do not hear it merely in an improper sense;

but a Son truly, a natural Son, without beginning;

not having risen from servitude to the advancement of adoption, but a Son ever-begotten by an unsearchable and incomprehensible generation.

And likewise when you hear Him called Firstborn, do not suppose it to be after the manner of men.

For firstborn among men have also other brothers;

Israel is my firstborn son.

But, like Reuben, Israel was a firstborn that had fallen away.

For he went up upon his father's bed;

but Israel, casting the Son of the Father out of the vineyard, crucified Him.

And to others also the Scripture says:

You are sons of the Lord your God.

I said, You are gods, and all of you sons of the Most High.

Those, by God's saying it, received the adoption which they did not have;

but this One, not being something else, was begotten as something else;

rather, He was begotten Son of the Father from the beginning, being above all beginning and ages, a Son in all things like to Him who begot Him;

eternal from the eternal Father, begotten as life from life, and light from light, and truth from truth, and wisdom from the wise, and king from king, and God from God, and power from power.

If therefore you hear the Gospel saying:

The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham;

for He is the son of David at the consummation of the ages;

but the Son of God before all ages, without beginning.

The one He took on, which He did not have;

the other, which He has, He has eternally, being begotten of the Father.

one according to David in the flesh, and one according to God the Father, divinely.

But what is according to David is subject to time and is handled and traced in genealogy;

but what is according to the Godhead is subject neither to time nor to place, nor is it traced in genealogy;

for who shall declare His generation? God is Spirit.

Being Spirit, He begot spiritually, as incorporeal, an unsearchable and incomprehensible generation.

The Son Himself says concerning the Father:

The Lord said to me, You are my Son, this day have I begotten You.

But this 'today' is not recent, but eternal;

this 'today' is timeless, before all the ages.

From the womb, before the morning star, I have begotten You.

Believe therefore IN JESUS CHRIST THE SON of the living GOD;

and the ONLY-BEGOTTEN Son, according to the Gospel which says:

For God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.

He who believes in the Son is not judged, but has passed from death into life.

But he who is disobedient to the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides upon him;

he did not believe in the only-begotten Son of God.

Concerning whom John, bearing witness, said:

And we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only-begotten from the Father;

full of grace and truth.

Before whom the demons, trembling, said:

Ah, what have we to do with You, Jesus, Son of the living God?

He is therefore the Son of God by nature and not by adoption, begotten of the Father.

And he who loves the Begetter loves also Him who is begotten of Him;

but he who rejects the begotten sends up the insult to the Begetter.

But when you hear of God begetting, do not sink down to bodies, nor conceive of a corruptible generation, lest you become impious.

God is Spirit, the generation is spiritual;

for bodies beget bodies, and there must be the intervention of time for bodies that are begotten.

But of the generation of the Son from the Father there is no time as mediator.

And here that which is begotten is begotten imperfect, but the Son of God was begotten perfect.

For what He now is, that also He is from the beginning, begotten without beginning.

We are begotten, passing from childish ignorance to reason;

your generation, O man, is imperfect, for the acquisition is by advancement.

But there do not so suppose, nor charge the Begetter with weakness.

For if He begot imperfect, and that which is perfect was acquired in time, you charge the Begetter with weakness;

if indeed what He granted later in time, according to you, the Begetter did not grant from the beginning.

Do not therefore suppose the generation to be human;

nor as Abraham begot Isaac.

For Abraham begot Isaac, yet did not beget what he willed, but what another granted.

But when God the Father begets, there is neither ignorance nor deliberation in between.

For to say that He was ignorant of what was begotten is the greatest impiety.

And to say that, having deliberated in time, He later became Father, is of the same impiety.

For God was not first without a child and afterward in time became Father;

but He ever has the Son, having begotten Him not as men beget men, but as He alone knows, who begot Him before all the ages, TRUE GOD.

For the Father, being true God, begot the Son like Himself, true God;

not as teachers beget disciples, not as Paul says to some:

For in Christ Jesus through the Gospel I have begotten you.

For here he who is not a son by nature became a son through discipleship;

but there is a natural Son, a true Son.

Not as you, the candidates for illumination, now become sons of God.

For you also become sons, but by adoption according to grace, as it is written:

But as many as received Him, to them He gave authority to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name;

who were begotten not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

And we indeed are begotten of water and of the Spirit;

but not thus was Christ begotten of the Father.

For at the time of the baptism, calling out and saying, This is my Son;

He did not say, This has now become my Son;

but, This IS my Son;

in order to show that even before the working of the baptism He was the Son.

The Father begot the Son, not as among men the mind begets a word.

For the mind in us is subsistent, but the word, when spoken and diffused into the air, perishes.

But we know Christ to have been begotten as a Word, not a word merely uttered, but a Word subsistent, living, not spoken by lips and diffused, but begotten of the Father eternally and ineffably, and in a hypostasis.

For in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, seated at the right hand, the Word conceiving the will of the Father and creating all things at His nod.

The Word who came down and went up;

for the uttered word, when spoken, neither comes down nor goes up.

The things which I have seen with my Father, these I speak.

The Word having authority and reigning over all;

for the Father has delivered all things to the Son.

He begot Him therefore, not as any of men might conceive, the Father, but as He alone knows.

For we do not profess to tell how He begot Him, but rather that He did not beget as men.

And not we alone are ignorant of the generation of the Son from the Father, but every created nature also.

Relate it, O earth, if it can tell you;

and if you examine all things that are upon the earth, it will not be able to tell.

For the earth cannot tell the substance of its own potter and fashioner.

And not only does earth not know, but neither does the sun.

For on the fourth day the sun was created, not knowing the things that were in the three days before it.

And he who does not know the things of the three days before him will not be able to declare its very Maker.

Heaven will not recount this;

for by the nod of the Father, through Christ, even heaven was made firm like smoke.

Neither will the heavens of heavens recount it, nor will the waters above the heavens recount this.

Why then are you despondent, O man, at being ignorant of what even the heavens are ignorant of? And not only do the heavens not know the generation, but every angelic nature also.

For if anyone (were it possible) having ascended to the first heaven, and having observed the condition of the angels there, should approach and ask how God begot His own Son, they would say perhaps, We have above us greater and higher ones; ask them.

Ascend to the second heaven and the third;

reach, if you can, to thrones and dominions, principalities and powers;

and even if one should reach to those—which is impossible—they too will decline the explanation, for neither do they know.

And I have always marveled at the meddlesomeness of the audacious, who through a supposed piety fall into impiety.

For being ignorant of thrones and dominions, the works of Christ, and principalities and powers, they undertake to pry into the Maker Himself.

Tell me first, O most audacious one, how a throne differs from a dominion, and then busy yourself with the things concerning Christ.

Tell me, what is a principality, what is a power, what is a might, what is an angel;

and then pry into the Maker;

for all things were made through Him.

But you do not wish to ask thrones or dominions, or you are not able.

What else is there that knows the depths of God, except only the Holy Spirit, who spoke the divine Scriptures? But not even the Holy Spirit Itself spoke in the Scriptures concerning the generation of the Son from the Father.

Why then do you pry into things which not even the Holy Spirit wrote in the Scriptures? You who do not know the things that are written, pry into the things unwritten? Many are the questions in the divine Scriptures;

we do not grasp what is written; why do we pry into what is not written? It is sufficient for us to know that God begot one only Son.

Do not be ashamed to confess your ignorance, since you are ignorant together with the angels.

He who begot alone knows Him who was begotten, and He who was begotten of Him knows Him who begot.

He who begot knows what He begot;

and the Scriptures also bear witness that He who was begotten is God;

For who among men knows the things of a man, except the spirit of the man which is in him? So also the things of God none knows, except the Spirit of God. For as the Father has life in Himself, so also to the Son He has given to have life in Himself.

And, that all may honor the Son, even as they honor the Father.

And, as the Father raises to life whom He wills, so also the Son raises to life whom He wills.

Neither was He who begot diminished in anything, nor is anything lacking to Him who was begotten;

(I know I have often said these things, but they are often said for the sake of your safety:) neither does He who begot have a father, nor does He who was begotten have a brother.

Neither was He who begot changed into a son, nor did He who was begotten become a father.

Of one only Father, one Only-begotten Son.

Neither two unbegotten, nor two only-begotten;

but there is one unbegotten Father, (for He is unbegotten who has no father);

and there is one Son, eternally begotten of the Father;

not begotten in time, but begotten before the ages;

not increased by advancement, but begotten as that which He is now.

For the true God does not beget false, as has been said, nor did He beget after deliberating;

but He begot eternally, and far

more swiftly than our words or thoughts, He begot.

For we, speaking in time, expend time;

but in the case of the divine power, the generation is timeless.

And as has often been said, He did not bring the Son into being from non-existence into existence, nor did He bring the non-existent into adoption;

but the Father, being eternal, begot eternally and ineffably one only Son, having no brother.

but the head of the Son is the Father; one is the source.

For the Father begot the Son, TRUE GOD, called Emmanuel;

and Emmanuel is interpreted, God with us.

And do you wish to know that He who was begotten of the Father and afterward became man is God? Hear the prophet saying:

This is our God; no other shall be reckoned with Him.

He found out every way of knowledge, and gave it to Jacob His servant, and to Israel His beloved.

After this He appeared upon the earth, and dwelt among men.

Do you see God, after the lawgiving of Moses, having become man? Receive also a second testimony of Christ's Godhead, the one just now read.

Your throne, O God, is unto the age of the age.

For lest, on account of His incarnate presence which took place here, He should be thought afterward to have come to an advancement of Godhead, He says clearly:

Therefore God, your God, has anointed You with the oil of gladness above Your fellows.

Do you see Christ, who is God, anointed by God the Father? Do you wish to receive also a third testimony of Christ's Godhead? Hear Isaiah saying:

Egypt has labored, and the merchandise of the Ethiopians.

And in You they shall pray, for in You is God, and there is no God besides You.

For You are God, and we did not know it, the God of Israel, the Savior.

Do you see God the Son, having in Himself God the Father?

all but saying the same thing which He spoke in the Gospels:

The Father is in me, and I in the Father.

He did not say, I am the Father;

but, The Father is in me, and I in the Father.

but, I and the Father are one;

so that we may neither estrange them, nor work a confusion of Son-Fatherhood.

One, because of the dignity according to the Godhead;

since God begot God.

One, because of the dignity according to the kingdom;

for the Father does not reign over some, and the Son over others, like Absalom rising up against his father;

but over those whom the Father reigns, over these also the Son reigns.

One, because there is no discord or division;

for the wills of the Father are not different, and those of the Son different.

One, because there are not some creations of Christ, and others of the Father;

for one is the creation of all things, the Father having made them through the Son;

for He spoke, and they came into being;

He commanded, and they were created, says the psalmist.

For he who speaks, speaks to one who hears;

and he who commands, commands one who is present with him.

True God therefore is the Son, having in Himself the Father, not having been changed into the Father;

for it was not the Father who became man, but the Son;

for let the truth be spoken freely.

It was not the Father who suffered for us, but the Father sent Him who suffered for us.

Neither let us say, There was a time when the Son was not;

nor let us accept Son-Fatherhood;

but let us walk by the royal road, neither turning aside to the left nor to the right.

Neither, supposing it to be honoring the Son, let us proclaim Him Father;

nor, supposing it to be honoring the Father, let us suspect the Son to be one of the creatures.

But let one Father be worshiped through one Son, and let not the worship be divided.

Let one Son be proclaimed, who before the ages sits at the right hand of the Father;

having received this sitting together not in time after the Passion by advancement, but possessing it eternally.

He who has seen the Son has seen the Father.

For the Son is in all things like to Him who begot Him.

Begotten as life from life, and light from light, power from power, God from God, and the characters of the Godhead are unchangeable in the Son;

and he who is deemed worthy to see the Godhead of the Son comes to the enjoyment of Him who begot Him.

The word is not mine, but the only-begotten Son's.

Have I been so long a time with you, and you have not known me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father.

more briefly, let us neither separate, nor work a confusion.

And never call the Son alien to the Father;

nor accept those who say that the Father is at one time father, at another time son;

for these things are alien and impious, and not the teachings of the Church.

But the Father, having begotten the Son, remained Father and was not altered.

He begot Wisdom, yet did not Himself become unwise;

and having begotten Power, He was not weakened.

Having begotten God, He was not Himself deprived of the Godhead;

and neither did He Himself lose anything by being diminished or altered;

nor does the begotten One lack anything.

Perfect is He who begot, perfect is the One begotten;

God is He who begot, and God also is the One begotten;

God of all things, yet inscribing the Father as His own God.

For He is not ashamed to say:

“I ascend to My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God.”

But lest you should think that He is the Father of the Son and of created things in the same way, He drew a distinction in what follows.

For He did not say, “I ascend to our Father,” lest there should arise a fellowship of the things made with the Only-begotten;

but He said, “My Father and your Father.”

He is your Father in one sense—by adoption;

“to My God and your God.”

He is My God in one sense, as of a genuine and Only-begotten Son;

and your God in another sense, as of creatures.

The Son of God, therefore, is true God, begotten before all the ages in a manner beyond all telling.

For I often say the same thing to you, that it may be imprinted on your mind.

And that God has a Son, this believe;

but as to the manner, do not pry curiously;

do not exalt yourself, lest you fall.

Consider only those things which have been commanded you.

Tell me first who it is that begot, and then learn what He begot.

But if you cannot comprehend the nature of Him who begot, do not curiously inquire into the manner of Him who was begotten.

It is enough for your piety to know, as we have said, that God has but one Son, one naturally begotten;

who did not begin to exist when He was born in Bethlehem, but BEFORE ALL THE AGES.

For hear Micah the prophet saying:

“And you, Bethlehem, house of Ephrathah, are by no means least to be among the thousands of Judah;

for out of you shall come forth for Me One to be ruler, who shall shepherd My people Israel.

And His goings forth are from the beginning, from the days of eternity.”

Do not therefore attend merely to Him who now comes from Bethlehem;

but worship Him who was eternally begotten of the Father.

Do not accept a temporal beginning of the Son from anyone who asserts it, but know the Father as the timeless beginning.

For the beginning of the Son is timeless, incomprehensible, without beginning—even the Father.

The Father is the fountain of the river of righteousness, the Only-begotten, having begotten Him as He alone knows.

And do you wish to know that our Lord Jesus Christ is an eternal King? Hear again Him saying:

“Abraham your father rejoiced that he might see My day;”

then, when the Jews received this harshly, He spoke to them something yet harder for them to bear:

“Before Abraham was, I AM.”

And again He says to the Father:

“And now glorify Me, O Father, with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.”

For He has plainly said that before the world came into being, I had the glory which was with You.

And again, saying that “You loved Me before the foundation of the world,”

He plainly declares that I have eternally the glory which is with You.

For whether thrones or dominions, whether principalities or powers—

all things were made through Him, and nothing of the things begotten is exempt from His authority.

Let every heresy be silenced that brings in various makers and world-creators;

let the tongue be silenced that blasphemes Christ the Son of God.

Let them be silenced who say that the sun is the Christ;

for He is the Maker of the sun, not the visible sun itself.

Let them be silenced who say that the world is the work of angels, wishing to filch away the dignity of the Only-begotten.

For whether things visible or things invisible, whether thrones, or

dominions, or whatever is named, all things were made through Christ.

He reigns over the things made by Himself;

not having seized an alien captivity, but reigning over His own creatures, as the evangelist John has said:

“All things were made through Him, and apart from Him not even one thing was made.”

All things were made through Him, the Father working through the Son.

And I wish indeed to give some illustration of what is being said, but I know it is weak;

for what among visible things will be an exact illustration of the divine and invisible power? But nevertheless let it be told, as a weak thing by weak persons to the weak.

For just as some king who has a king as his son, wishing to build a city, might entrust to his son, who reigns with him, the building of the city;

and the son, taking the pattern, brings to completion what was designed;

so, the Father having willed to make all things, at the Father's nod the Son created all things;

so that the nod might preserve to the Father the authoritative power, and the Son in turn might have authority over His own creatures;

and neither should the Father be alienated from the lordship over His own creatures, nor should the Son reign over things created by another, but over those made by Himself.

For it was not angels, as has been said, that created the world;

but the Only-begotten Son, begotten before all the ages, as has been said;

through whom all things were made, nothing being exempt from the making done by Him.

And let these things for now be said by us by the grace of Christ.

And running back to the profession of the Faith, let us bring our discourse to a close for the present.

Christ made all things, whether you speak of angels or archangels, whether of dominions or thrones.

Not that the Father was too weak for the personal making of His creatures, but that He willed the Son to reign over the things made by Himself, He Himself supplying to Him the design of the things to be fashioned.

For honoring His own Father, the Only-begotten says:

“The Son can do nothing of Himself, unless He sees the Father doing something;

for whatever things He does, these the Son also does likewise.”

“My Father works until now;”

there being no contrariety in those who work.

“For all that is Mine is Yours;

and what is Yours is Mine,” the Lord says in the Gospels.

And this it is possible to recognize plainly from both the Old and the New Testament.

“Let Us make man according to Our image and according to Our likeness”—assuredly because He was conversing with someone present.

But still more plainly the psalmist has said:

“He Himself spoke, and they came into being;

He Himself commanded, and they were created;”

the Father, as it were, commanding and speaking, and the Son creating all things at the Father's nod.

And this Job said mystically:

“Who alone stretched out the heaven, and walks as on a pavement upon the sea;”

showing to those who understand that He who walked upon the sea by His coming was the same who before this was the Maker of the heavens.

And again the Lord says:

“Or did you take clay of the earth and fashion a living creature, [and set it as a thing speaking upon the earth]?” Then next:

“Are the gates of death opened to you in fear? [And did the gatekeepers of Hades cower when they saw you?]”—showing that He who descended into Hades out of love for mankind was the same who from the beginning fashioned man out of clay.

Christ, therefore, the Only-begotten Son of God, is also the Maker of the world.

“For He was in the world, and the world was made through Him;

and He came to His own,” as the Gospel teaches us.

And not only of things visible, but also of things not visible, is Christ the Maker, at the Father's nod.

“For in Him were created all things,” according to the Apostle, “the things in the heavens and the things upon the earth, the visible and the invisible;

whether thrones or dominions, whether principalities or powers;

all things were created through Him and unto Him, and He is before all things, and all things consist in Him.”

Even if you speak of the ages themselves, of these also is Jesus the Christ the Maker, at the Father's nod.

“For in these last days He has spoken to us in the Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the ages;”

“to whom be glory, honor, might, [together with

the Father and the Holy Spirit,] now and ever, and unto the ages of the ages.”

Catechetical Lecture Twelve, to those being enlightened, delivered extempore at Jerusalem, on Him who was made flesh and became man;

with a reading from Isaiah:

“And the Lord spoke further to Ahaz, saying:

Behold, the virgin shall conceive in her womb and shall bear a son, and they shall call His name Emmanuel;”

Foster-children of purity and disciples of chastity, let us with pure lips sing praise to God born of a virgin.

We who are accounted worthy to partake of the flesh of the spiritual Lamb, let us partake of the head together with the feet, the head being understood as the Godhead, and the feet being taken as the manhood.

We who are hearers of the holy Gospels, let us be persuaded by John the Theologian.

For he who said, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,” added, saying, “And the Word became flesh.”

For it is neither holy to worship a mere man, nor pious to call Him God only, apart from the manhood.

For if Christ is God, as indeed He is, but did not take upon Him the manhood, we are strangers to salvation.

Let Him then be worshiped as God, but believed to have also become man.

For neither is it profitable to speak of Him as man without the Godhead, nor is it saving not to confess the manhood together with the Godhead.

Let us confess the coming of the King and Physician.

For the King Jesus, being about to heal, girded Himself with the towel of manhood and healed that which was sick.

The perfect Teacher of infants became an infant among infants, that He might make the foolish wise.