Exposition of the Faith 1 part 2/15

For begetting is the bringing forth, from the essence of the begetter, of that which is begotten, like in essence; whereas creation and making is the coming into being, from without and not from the essence of the one who creates and makes, of that which is created and made, wholly unlike.

In the case of God alone, then—the only One impassible and immutable and unchangeable and ever in the same state—both begetting and creating are impassible;

for being by nature impassible and without flux, as simple and uncompounded, He is not such as to undergo passion or flux either in begetting or in creating, nor does He need any cooperation; rather, the begetting is without beginning and eternal, being a work of nature and proceeding from His essence, so that the Begetter may not undergo change, and so that there may not be a first God and a later God, and that He may receive no addition.

But creation, being a work of God's will, is not coeternal with God, since that which is brought from nonbeing into being is not of such a nature as to be coeternal with the One who is without beginning and ever-existent.

Just as, then, man and God do not make in the same way—for man brings nothing from nonbeing into being, but whatever he makes he makes from preexisting matter, not merely by willing but also by previously planning it, and by forming in his mind that which is to come to be, then also working with his hands and undergoing toil and labor, and often failing when the work does not turn out as he wills—

but God, merely by willing, brought all things from nonbeing into being—so neither do God and man beget in the same way.

For God, being timeless and without beginning and impassible and without flux and incorporeal and alone and without end, begets timelessly and without beginning and impassibly and without flux and apart from intercourse, and His incomprehensible begetting has neither beginning nor end.

And without beginning, because of His immutability; without flux, because of His impassibility

and incorporeality; and apart from intercourse, again because of His incorporeality and because He is one only God needing no other; and without end and unceasingly, because He is without beginning and timeless and without end and ever in the same state;

for that which is without beginning is without end, but that which is endless by grace is not necessarily without beginning, as the angels.

The ever-existent God, then, begets His own Word, which is perfect, without beginning and without end, lest God—who has His nature and existence above time—should beget in time.

But man, clearly, begets in the opposite way, being subject to generation and corruption and flux and increase, clothed in a body and possessing in his nature both male and female;

for the male is in need of the help of the female.

But may He be gracious, who is beyond all things and surpasses all thought and comprehension.

The holy catholic and apostolic Church, then, teaches that the Father is at once, and at once His only-begotten Son begotten of Him, timelessly and without flux and impassibly and incomprehensibly, as only the God of all knows.

Just as fire and the light from it exist together—and not first the fire and afterwards the light, but together—and just as the light, ever begotten of the fire, is ever in it, in no way separated from it, so too the Son is begotten of the Father, in no way separated from Him, but ever in Him.

But the light begotten of the fire inseparably, and ever abiding in it, has no hypostasis of its own apart from the fire, for it is a natural quality of the fire; whereas the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father inseparably and without distance and ever abiding in Him, has His own hypostasis apart from that of the Father.

He is called 'Word' and 'brightness' because He is begotten of the Father apart from intercourse and impassibly and timelessly and without flux and inseparably; and 'Son' and 'impress of the Father's hypostasis' because He is perfect and enhypostatic and in all respects like the Father except in being unbegotten; and 'only-begotten' because He alone was begotten alone of the Father alone in a unique way.

For no other begetting is like the begetting of the Son of God, since there is no other son of God;

for even though the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father, yet not by way of begetting but by way of procession.

This is another mode of existence, incomprehensible and unknowable, just as is the begetting of the Son.

Wherefore also all that the Father has belongs to Him (the Son), except being unbegotten, which signifies no difference of essence nor of dignity, but the mode of existence—just as Adam, who is unbegotten (for he is a creature of God), and Seth, who is begotten (for he is a son of Adam), and Eve, who proceeded from Adam's side (for she was not begotten), do not differ from one another in nature (for they are men), but in the mode of existence.

For one must know that 'agenēton' written with a single nu signifies the uncreated, that is, that which has not come to be; whereas 'agennēton' written with two nu's denotes that which has not been begotten.

According to the first signification, then, essence differs from essence;

for the uncreated, that is, ungenerated essence (with a single nu) is one, and the generated, that is, created essence is another.

But according to the second signification, essence does not differ from essence;

for the first hypostasis of every species of living beings is unbegotten, but not uncreated;

for they were created by the Creator, brought into being by His Word, yet they were not begotten, since there was no other of the same species preexisting from which they might be begotten.

According to the first signification, then, the three supra-divine hypostases of the holy Godhead have in common (that they are uncreated)—for they are of one essence and uncreated—but according to the second signification, by no means; for the Father alone is unbegotten

(for His being is not from another hypostasis); and the Son alone is begotten (for from the essence of the Father He was begotten without beginning and timelessly); and the Holy Spirit alone is processive, proceeding from the essence of the Father, not begotten but proceeding.

Thus does the divine Scripture teach, while the mode of the begetting and of the procession remains incomprehensible.

And this also must be known: that the name of fatherhood and sonship and procession was not transferred from us to the blessed Godhead; on the contrary,

it has been imparted to us from there, as the divine apostle says:

'For this reason I bow my knees to the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named.'

And if we say that the Father is the principle of the Son and greater than He, we do not imply that He precedes the Son in time or in nature—for through Him He made the ages—nor in any other respect except in respect of causation; that is, that the Son was begotten of the Father and not the Father of the Son, and that the Father is by nature the cause of the Son, just as we say that the fire does not come from the light but rather the light from the fire.

When, therefore, we hear that the Father is the principle of and greater than the Son, let us understand it in respect of causation.

And just as we do not say that the fire is of one essence and the light of another, so it is not possible to say that the Father is of one essence and the Son of another, but of one and the same.

And just as we say that the fire shines through the light that proceeds from it, and do not regard the light from it as a ministering instrument of the fire, but rather as a natural power, so we say that the Father does all that He does through His only-begotten Son—not as through a ministering instrument, but as through a natural and enhypostatic power.

And just as we say that the fire illuminates, and again say that the light of the fire illuminates, so all that the Father does, the Son likewise does.

But the light possesses no hypostasis of its own apart from the fire, whereas the Son is a perfect hypostasis, inseparable from the Father's hypostasis, as we set forth above.

For it is impossible to find in creation an image setting forth in itself, without variation, the mode of the Holy Trinity.

For how shall that which is created and composite and fluid and mutable and circumscribed and having shape and corruptible clearly show forth the superessential divine essence that is free from all these things? And it is clear that all creation is held by most of these, and all of it by its own nature is subject to corruption.

We likewise believe in one Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and rests in the Son; who together with the Father and the Son is worshipped and glorified as being of one essence and coeternal; the Spirit of God, upright, sovereign, the fountain of life and of sanctification; being God and addressed as God together with the Father and the Son; uncreated, full, creative, all-ruling, all-working, almighty, of infinite power, ruling over all creation and not ruled, filling and not filled, partaken of and not partaking, sanctifying and not sanctified; the Paraclete (Comforter) as receiving the supplications of all; in all respects like the Father and the Son; proceeding from the Father and imparted through the Son and partaken of by all creation; through Himself creating and giving being to all things and sanctifying and holding them together; enhypostatic, that is, existing in His own hypostasis, inseparable and not departing from the Father and the Son, and having all that the Father and the Son have, except being unbegotten and being begotten.

For the Father is uncaused and unbegotten (for He is not from anything;

His being is not from Himself, nor any of the things He has), but He Himself is rather the principle and cause of being and of the mode of being, by nature, to all things.

But the Son is from the Father by way of begetting;

and the Holy Spirit is also from the Father, yet not by way of begetting but by way of procession.

And that there is a difference between begetting and procession, we have learned;

but what the mode of the difference is, by no means.

And the begetting of the Son from the Father and the procession of the Holy Spirit are simultaneous.

All that the Son has, then, the Spirit too has from the Father, even its very being.

And if the Father is not, neither is the Son, nor the Spirit.

And if the Father has not something, neither does the Son have it, nor the Spirit.

And because of the Father—that is, because the Father is—the Son is and the Spirit is.

And because of the Father, the Son and the Spirit have all that they have—that is, because the Father has them—except being unbegotten, being begotten, and proceeding;

for in these alone, the personal (hypostatic) properties, do the three holy hypostases differ from one another—not in essence, but in the distinctive character of each one's own

hypostasis, being divided indivisibly.

And we say that each of the three has a perfect hypostasis, lest we conceive one composite perfect nature out of three imperfect ones, but rather one simple essence in three perfect hypostases, transcendently perfect and perfect before all;

for everything compounded of imperfect things is altogether composite, but from perfect hypostases it is impossible for composition to come about.

Wherefore neither do we say that the species (form) is from hypostases, but in hypostases.

And by 'imperfect' we meant those things which do not preserve the species of the thing produced from them.

For stone and wood and iron—each by itself is perfect according to its own nature, but in relation to the house produced from them, each of them is imperfect;

for none of them by itself is a house.

We say, then, that the hypostases are perfect, lest we conceive composition in the divine nature;

for composition is the beginning of division.

And again, we say that the three hypostases are in one another, lest we introduce a multitude and crowd of gods.

Through the three hypostases we recognize the absence of composition and confusion; while through the consubstantiality and the hypostases being in one another, and through the identity of will and activity and power and authority and movement, so to speak, we recognize the indivisibility and the fact that there is one God.

For truly one God is God and His Word and His Spirit.

One must know that it is one thing to be contemplated in actuality (in fact) and another in reason and conception.

In the case of all creatures, then, the division of the hypostases is contemplated in actuality;

for Peter is contemplated as actually separated from Paul.

But the commonness and conjunction and the oneness are contemplated in reason and conception.

For we understand by the mind that Peter and Paul are of the same nature and have one common nature;

for each of them is a rational mortal animal, and each is flesh animated by a rational and intellectual soul.

This common nature, then, is contemplated by reason.

For the hypostases are not in one another;

but each is separately and apart, that is, by itself, having many things that divide it from the other;

for indeed they are distant in place and differ in time and are divided in judgment and in strength and in form (or shape) and in disposition and in temperament and in dignity and in pursuit and in all the distinctive properties—but more than all, by not being in one another but being separate.

Hence men are spoken of as two and three and many.

And this may be seen also in the whole of creation.

But in the case of the holy and superessential and beyond-all and incomprehensible Trinity, it is the reverse.

For there the common and the one is contemplated in actuality, on account of the coeternity and the identity of essence and activity and will, and on account of the concord of judgment and the identity of authority and power and goodness—I did not say similarity, but identity—and the one leap of motion;

for there is one essence, one goodness, one power, one will, one activity, one authority—one and the same, not three similar to one another, but one and the same motion of the three hypostases.

For each one of them has unity with the other no less than with itself; that is, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are one in all things except in being unbegotten, being begotten, and proceeding;

for we know one God, but we conceive the difference only in the properties of fatherhood and sonship and procession, in respect of cause and effect and the perfection of the hypostasis—that is, the mode of existence.

For we cannot speak of local distance in the case of the uncircumscribed Godhead, as we can with ourselves—for the hypostases are in one another, not so as to be confused, but so as to be held together, according to the word of the Lord, who said:

'I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me'—nor of difference of will or judgment or activity or power or anything else, which in us produce actual and complete division.

Wherefore we do not call the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit three gods, but rather one God, the holy Trinity, the Son and the Spirit being referred to one cause,

not compounded nor commingled according to the contraction of Sabellius—for they are united, as we have said, not so as to be confused, but so as to be held by one another;

and they have mutual indwelling (perichoresis) in one another without any commingling or mixture—nor being set apart or divided in essence according to the division of Arius.

For the Godhead is undivided in the divided, if one must speak briefly, and is like three suns held together with one another and without any interval, in which there is one blending and conjunction of light.

When, then, we look to the Godhead and the first cause and the monarchy and the one and same, so to speak, movement and will of the Godhead, and the identity of essence and power and activity and lordship, then one is what is presented to our imagination.

But when we look to those in whom the Godhead is, or, to speak more precisely, those which the Godhead is—and which are from the first cause timelessly and with equal glory and without interval, that is, the hypostases—then there are three that are worshipped.

One is the Father, the Father, and without beginning, that is, uncaused;

One is the Son, the Son, and not without beginning, that is, not uncaused;

but if you take the beginning to be from time, then He is also without beginning;

for He is the maker of times and not under time.

One is the Holy Spirit, the Spirit, proceeding from the Father, yet not in the manner of a son but by way of procession; the Father neither departing from His unbegottenness because He has begotten, nor the Son from His begottenness because He is from the unbegotten (for how could it be?), nor the Spirit changing either into Father or into Son, because it has proceeded and because it is God;

or how would a property remain, if it were moved and changed? For if the Father is a Son, He is not properly a Father;

and if the Son is a Father, He is not properly a Son;

for there is one Son properly so called, and one Holy Spirit.

One must know that we do not say that the Father is from anything;

but we do say that He is the Father of the Son.

And we do not say that the Son is cause or Father;

but we do say that He is both from the Father and Son of the Father.

And the Holy Spirit we say is from the Father, and we name it Spirit of the Father; but we do not say that the Spirit is from the Son, though we name it Spirit of the Son (for if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, says the divine apostle, he is none of His), and we confess that it has been manifested and imparted to us through the Son (for He breathed on His disciples and said:

'Receive the Holy Spirit')—just as from the sun come both the ray and the radiance (for the sun itself is the fount of both the ray and the radiance), but it is through the ray that the radiance is imparted to us, and this is what enlightens us and is partaken of by us.

But the Son we say is neither of the Spirit nor from the Spirit.

On the things said concerning God. The Divine is simple and uncompounded.

But that which is composed of many and different things is composite.

If, then, we should say that the uncreated and without-beginning and incorporeal and immortal and eternal and good and creative and the like are essential differences in God, He would, being composed of so many, be not simple but composite—which is the height of impiety.

We must therefore hold that each of the things said concerning God signifies not what He is in essence, but either declares what He is not, or expresses some relation to something set over against it, or something that follows upon the nature, or an activity.

It seems, then, that of all the names said concerning God the most proper is 'He who is' (the Existent), as He Himself, declaring it to Moses on the mountain, says:

for He holds all being gathered together in Himself, like a certain boundless and limitless sea of essence.

Second is the name 'God' (Theos), which is said to be derived either from 'theein,' that is, to run and to encompass all things, or from 'aithein,' which is to burn (for God is a fire consuming all wickedness), or from 'theasthai,' to behold all things;

for nothing escapes Him, and He is the beholder of all.

For He beheld all things before their generation, having conceived them timelessly; and each thing, according to His timeless will-conception—which is a predetermination and image and pattern—comes to be at the predetermined time.

The first name, then, is indicative of His very being, and not of what He is; but the second is indicative of activity;

while 'without beginning' and 'incorruptible' and 'ungenerated,' that is, 'uncreated,' and 'incorporeal' and 'invisible' and the like declare what He is not—that is, that He did not begin to be, nor is corrupted, nor was created, nor is a body, nor is seen.

But 'good' and 'just' and 'holy' and the like follow upon the nature, but do not declare the essence itself.

And 'Lord' and 'King' and the like declare a relation to the things set over against them;

for of those ruled He is called Lord, and of those reigned over, King, of those created, Creator, and of those shepherded, Shepherd.

On divine union and distinction. All these things, then, must be taken in common of the whole Godhead, identically and simply and undividedly and unitedly; but distinctly, the terms 'Father' and 'Son' and 'Spirit,' and 'uncaused' and 'caused' and 'unbegotten' and 'begotten' and 'processive,' which are indicative not of essence, but of the mutual relation and the mode of existence.

Knowing these things, then, and being led by them to the divine essence, we do not comprehend the essence itself but the things about the essence—just as, even if we know that the soul is incorporeal and without quantity and without shape, we have not thereby comprehended its essence; nor that of the body, even if we know that it is white or black, but only the things about the essence.

But true reason teaches that the Divine is simple and has one simple activity, good, working all things in all, after the manner of the sun's ray, which warms all things and works in each according to its natural fitness and receptive power, having received such activity from God the Creator.

But there is also a distinction in all that pertains to the divine and man-loving incarnation of God the Word;

for in these neither the Father nor the Spirit shared in any way, except by good pleasure and by that ineffable working of miracles which God the Word, having become man like us, wrought as an unchangeable God and Son of God.

On the things said of God in a bodily manner. But since we find very many things in the divine Scripture said symbolically of God in a more bodily manner, we must know that it is impossible for us, being men and clothed with this gross flesh, to understand or to speak of the divine and lofty and immaterial activities of the Godhead, except we make use of images and types and symbols suited to our condition.

All things, therefore, said of God in a more bodily manner are spoken symbolically, but they have a higher meaning;

for the Divine is simple and without shape.

By the eyes of God, then, and eyelids and sight, let us understand His power that surveys all things and the inescapability of His knowledge, drawn from the fact that with us, through this sense, fuller knowledge and assurance come about.

By ears and hearing, His being propitiated and receptive of our petition;

for we too become gracious to those who make supplication, through this sense, inclining our ear to them more sincerely.

By mouth and speech, that which makes known His will, drawn from the fact that with us the thoughts of the heart are signified through mouth and speech.

By food and drink, our concurrence with His will;

for we too, through the sense of taste, satisfy the necessary appetite of nature.

By smell, His acceptance of our thought and goodwill toward Him, drawn from the fact that with us, through this sense, the reception of fragrance comes about.

By face, the demonstration and manifestation of Himself through His works, drawn from the fact that our own manifestation comes about through the face.

By hands, the effectiveness of His activity;

for we too accomplish what is needful, and especially what is more honorable, by our own hands.

(By the right hand,) His help in prosperous matters, drawn from the fact that we too, in the more seemly and honorable matters requiring the greatest strength, make use of the right hand.

By touch, His more exact discernment and apprehension and exaction of even the very subtle and hidden things, drawn from the fact that with us those who are touched cannot hide anything in themselves.

By feet and walking, His coming and presence, whether for the aid of the needy or the punishment of enemies or some other action, drawn from the fact that with us, arrival is accomplished through the use of the feet.

By an oath, the unchangeableness of His counsel, drawn from the fact that with us agreements with one another are confirmed by an oath.

By anger and wrath, His hatred of and aversion to wickedness;

for we too, hating things contrary to our judgment, become angry.

By forgetfulness and sleep and slumber, the deferral of His punishment against enemies and the postponement of His accustomed help toward His own.

And, to put it simply, all the things said of God in a bodily manner have some hidden meaning, teaching the things above us from the things pertaining to us, except for whatever is said concerning the bodily sojourn of God the Word;

for He took upon Himself the whole man for our salvation—an intellectual soul and a body and the properties of human nature, the natural and blameless passions.

Still concerning the same. These things, then, we have been instructed from the sacred oracles, as the divine Dionysius the Areopagite said: that God is the cause and principle of all, the essence of those that are, the life of the living, the reason of those that are rational, the mind of those that are intellectual; the recall and resurrection of those that fall away from Him, the renewal and reformation of those that corrupt what is according to nature, the sacred stability of those that are shaken by some unholy disturbance, the security of those that stand firm, and the way and uplifting guidance of those that are led up to Him.

And I will add that He is also the Father of the things made by Him (for more properly is our God a Father, who brought us from nonbeing into being, than are those who beget, who themselves received from Him both being and the power to beget); the Shepherd of those that follow and are shepherded by Him; the illumination of those that are enlightened; the source of consecration of those that are consecrated; the source of deification of those that are deified; the peace of those at variance; the simplicity of those that are made simple; the unity of those that are unified; the superessential and pre-original principle of every principle; and the good imparting of the hidden, that is, of the knowledge of Himself, according to what is fitting and attainable for each.

Still on the divine names more precisely. The Divine, being incomprehensible, will certainly also be unnameable.

Being ignorant, then, of His essence, let us not seek a name for His essence;

for names are declaratory of things.

But God, being good, and having brought us from nonbeing into being by participation in His goodness, and having made us capable of knowing—just as He did not impart to us of His essence, so neither did He impart the knowledge of His essence;

for it is impossible for a nature to know perfectly the nature that is above it.

And if knowledge is of things that exist, how shall the superessential be known? Therefore, out of His ineffable goodness, He was pleased to be named from things suited to us, that we might not be utterly without share in the knowledge of Him, but might have at least a dim conception of Him.

Inasmuch, then, as He is incomprehensible, He is also unnameable;

but inasmuch as He is the cause of all and holds beforehand in Himself the principles and causes of all that exists, He is named from all that exists, even from opposites, such as light and darkness, water and fire, that we might know that He is not these in essence;

But He is beyond being, and therefore unnameable; yet as the cause of all things that exist, He is named from all His effects.

Therefore, of the divine names some are spoken by way of negation, signifying that He transcends being—such as without being, timeless, without beginning, invisible—not because He is inferior to anything or deprived of anything (for all things are His, and from Him and through Him they came to be, and in Him they hold together), but because He is

in a transcendent way set apart from all existing things (for He is none of the things that exist, but is above all).

But the things affirmed of Him are predicated of Him as the cause of all things;

for as cause of all being and of all that exists, He is called both He who is and being; and as cause of all reason and wisdom, of the rational and the wise, He is called reason and rational, wisdom and wise; and likewise mind and intellectual, life and living, power and powerful, and in like manner with all the rest. Rather, He will be named more fittingly from the more honourable things that are nearer to Him.

More honourable are immaterial things than material, pure things than impure, holy things than profane; and these are nearer to Him, since they partake of Him more fully.