On the Trinity 1-1 part 4/12

'I saw the Lord Sabaoth sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and the house was full of his glory.'

'And seraphim stood around him;'

'each one had six wings, and each one had six wings:'

'with two they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew.'

'And they cried one to another:'

'Holy, holy, holy, the Lord Sabaoth; heaven and all the earth are full of his glory.'

'You shall hear with hearing, and shall not understand; and seeing you shall see, and shall not perceive.'

'For the heart of this people has grown fat, and with their ears they have heard heavily, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and turn, and I should heal them.'

And among other things he adds:

'and I have seen with my eyes the King, the Lord Sabaoth.'

'And one of the seraphim was sent to me' — and so forth.

Now this Isaiah knows the Lord Sabaoth and King who appeared to him to be God the Father himself.

But Paul, in the book of the Acts of the Apostles, declared that he was in fact the Holy Spirit, speaking as follows:

'Well did the Holy Spirit speak through Isaiah the prophet to your fathers, saying:'

'Go to this people, and say to them:'

'You shall hear with hearing, and shall not understand,' and so on, as stated above.

But John, in the Gospel, determined that he is the Son of God.

Though Jesus had done so many signs, they could not believe, because Isaiah said:

'He has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, lest they should see with their eyes and understand with their heart, and turn, and I should heal them.'

Isaiah said these things when he saw his glory, that is, the glory of the Son of God.

So much, then, concerning these matters, in this manner.

But hear also other testimonies of the same force, when David, in the ninety-fourth Psalm, sang to the lyre in the person of God the Father, after this fashion:

'...your fathers, and they saw my works for forty years.'

'Therefore I was grieved with this generation, and said,'

'They did not know my ways;'

'they shall not enter into my rest.'

Paul, writing to the Hebrews, from this same psalm makes the following determination, attributing it to the Holy Spirit:

'As the Holy Spirit says,' he says:

'Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts, as in the rebellion, in the day of testing in the wilderness, where your fathers tested me and saw my works for forty years.'

And Stephen too, in the Acts of the Apostles, rebuking the Jews from this same scripture, said:

'You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did, so do you.'

Likewise, Moses says that the Lord led the Hebrews out of Egypt as their guide:

For he says, 'the Lord alone led them, and there was no foreign god with them.'

And, he says, 'you did not say, Where is the Lord who brought you up out of the land of Egypt, who guided you in the wilderness?' But Isaiah, for his part, says that it was the Holy Spirit who led them as their guide:

For he says, 'he led them through the deep, as a horse through the wilderness, and they did not stumble; and as cattle go down into the plain, the Spirit came down from the Lord and guided them.'

But Paul teaches that it was Christ who became their guide:

For he says, 'they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ.'

In harmony with this, Jude also writes in his catholic epistle:

'For the Lord Jesus, having once saved a people out of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe.'

Here, then, the contention of those who call the revered Son and the divine Spirit a creature is doubly overturned: both from the fact that concerning each hypostasis oracles have been uttered which signify the one infinite nature, and from the fact that it stands written nearby that 'there was no foreign god with them,' that is, no god of a different substance.

In the same manner Moses says:

'The Levites shall have no portion nor inheritance upon the earth;'

'for he who formed all things,' he says, 'is himself the inheritance of Jacob.'

'The Lord is the portion of my inheritance and of my cup.'

But Paul, writing to the Ephesians, declares that the Holy Spirit is that inheritance:

'in whom,' he says, 'having believed, we were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the pledge of our inheritance.'

Likewise Paul writes to the Corinthians:

'There are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit;'

'and there are varieties of ministries, and the same Lord;'

'and there are varieties of workings, but it is the same God who works all things in all.'

And to show the identity of the Godhead, he not only here mentions first the Spirit, then the Son, and thus finally the Father, but also, having just said that it is God who works all things, he adds shortly after:

'But all these things the one and the same Spirit works, dividing to each one individually as he wills,' clearly and expressly presenting him as God, of the same substance (homoousios) with the Father and the Son together, and at the same time as possessing his own free will.

One may also hear God the Father, as recorded in Isaiah, saying:

'And my glory I will not give to another,' while John says:

'that all may honor the Son, even as they honor the Father'—for he already knew clearly that this glory is not offered up to the Only-begotten and the Holy Spirit as though they were of a different substance (heteroousios).

Again, when Mark reports the words of Christ:

'For whoever is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him the Son of Man also will be ashamed, when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.'

Matthew, in setting forth this same passage, did not say:

'in the [glory] of the Father,' but 'in the [glory] of the Son,' writing thus:

'and all the holy angels with him,' when 'he shall sit on the throne of his glory.'

And in John too he says:

'Glorify me with the glory which I had with you before the world was.'

[Chapter] N. Concerning the fact that, on account of their consubstantiality and equal power, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit dwell in the faithful;

and against the objection of those who hold heterodox opinions.

We shall find, further, the consubstantiality of the Trinity, and how all things are, without exception, possible for it, if we perceive that it alone, being above what is immaterial and invisible, is able to be participated in according to essence, and to fill the temple which it created.

And to it belongs not only this reality, but the very term as well.

For upon that which can be participated in follows immutability, and upon this, in turn, follows uncreatedness, which is also without beginning.

But nothing created, so far as Scripture's usage goes, is able to be participated in by way of a sharing in essence, or to fill man substantially, but only by way of a good or an evil disposition.

For we say metaphorically that some are 'filled' with virtue and knowledge, and are able, as it were speculatively, to bring forth the fruits of virtue and knowledge, just as those who purely partake of the grace of the Holy Spirit.

It is therefore attested that both the Father and the Son and the Spirit dwell in us:

as when Paul, writing his second letter to the Corinthians, quotes from Jeremiah:

'For we are the temple of the living God, just as God said,'

'I will dwell in them, and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.'

'Do you not know that you are God's temple, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?' And:

'Do you not know that your bodies are a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God?' And to the Ephesians:

'that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.' And as when the Master says in John:

'the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not behold him nor knows him;'

'but you know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.'

'If anyone loves me, he will keep my word,'

'and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him.'

This will become even more evident to one who observes that, having so willed it, God the Word, who is capable of all things, both remained unchanged and was carried in the womb by the Virgin.

But they raise the objection once again, arguing:

It is written, they say, concerning Ananias:

'Why has Satan filled your heart?' and concerning Judas, that 'Satan entered into him.' To these it must be answered that Satan does not fill by being participated in, nor by mounting upon the soul as though riding it, but rather by deceiving, by working up a malicious and fickle disposition, and by making it, as it were, an occasion for his own wickedness, he fills the one who does not pay heed to [the word of Scripture]:

'Do not let your foot be moved, and he who keeps you will not slumber.'

in the very manner that he filled Elymas, his own son, by instigating him to a satanic deed.

For Paul says to him, who was foul in mind and deeds and full of devilish wickedness and who deceived the saints with sophistries, so that his father, the author of evil, seemed to dwell in him:

O you who are full of all deceit and all villainy, son of the devil,

And further, just as he also filled the false elders with a licentious purpose against the most honorable Susanna:

And the two elders came, full of lawless intent,

And so that we may not burden the ear with a great crowd of examples, we will pass over the many things we could say on this point and speak briefly: if their argument holds, then it is high time to cease thinking it a great thing that the divine tranquility dwells in the faithful, but rather to hold that this has its glory only in seeming to be so.

On the fact that the Trinity speaks in the faithful because of the invariable sameness of nature and essence

And the fact that the divine hypostases speak equally in the saints proclaims the invariable sameness of nature and authority.

For Zechariah—not the prophet, but the father of John—said that the Lord, the God of Israel, had spoken through the prophets,

and Paul likewise wrote to the Hebrews:

God, having spoken of old to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, has in these last days spoken to us in a Son,

And he wrote to the Corinthians concerning the Son:

since you seek proof of Christ speaking in me,

And the Savior teaches in Matthew:

for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking in you.

On the fact that, for this same reason—I mean the consubstantiality of the Trinity—it is written that we live to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit

This is also most clearly taught to be observed by the fact that it is written that we live to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit:

as when Paul discourses in his letter to the Romans:

you must consider yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Christ who died for them and was raised;

If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.

On the fact that, for this same reason, the law from above is written to belong to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit

For the same reason we have stated, the law from above is also written to belong to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as the sacred psalmist says in Psalm 36:

'the law of his God is in his heart'; and in Psalm 39:

'O God, I desired to do your will, and your law is within my inmost being.'

And as Paul writes to the Galatians:

'Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ;'

and to the Corinthians in his first letter:

'To those outside the law I became as one outside the law—not being without the law of God but under the law of Christ—that I might win those outside the law.'

for the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death.

And again, alluding to the New and the Old Covenant, he says:

but now we have been released from the law, having died to that in which we were held, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter;

for we know that the law is spiritual.

On the fact that, for the same reason of consubstantiality in the Trinity, we are called men of God, or Christians, or spiritual

Therefore, for this reason we are called either men of God, or Christians, or spiritual;

as those terms indicate, through which the widow of Zarephath said to Elijah the Tishbite:

'What have I to do with you, O man of God?' And again:

'Now I know that you are a holy man of God.'

and the Shunammite woman said to her own husband concerning the prophet Elisha:

'Behold now, a great man of God is coming to us often.'

and the royal histories say:

'And a man of God came out of Judah and prophesied against the altar in Bethel;'

and the sacred psalmist in the title of Psalm 89:

'A prayer of Moses, the man of God.'

and Paul, writing his second letter to Timothy:

'that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.'

'And it came about that for a whole year they met together with the church, and the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch.'

And Paul, discoursing to the Corinthians in his letter:

'Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be ignorant.'

'You know that when you were pagans, you were led astray to mute idols, however you happened to be led.'

'Therefore I make known to you that no one can say, "Jesus is Lord," except in the Holy Spirit;'

'But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he is not able to know them, because they are spiritually discerned.'

'But the spiritual man judges all things, yet he himself is judged by no one.'

'For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he should instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.'

'Brothers, even if someone is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual should restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, watching yourself, lest you too be tempted.'

'Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.'

On the fact that, for the same reason of the consubstantiality of the Trinity, Scripture says at one time that certain things belong to the Father, and at another time that the same things belong to the Son or to the Holy Spirit

Scripture, in showing forth one Godhead and Lordship, says at one time that certain things belong to the Father, and at another declares the same to belong to the Son or to the Holy Spirit;

as when the Savior says to the Jews in Matthew:

'Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's;'

and as when the celebrated Paul writes to the Philippians:

'for they all seek their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ;' and to the Galatians:

'And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires;' and to the Corinthians:

'For the love of Christ compels us, since we have concluded this:'

'and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who died for them and was raised.'

'But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him;'

Furthermore, the Church too—which is understood together with the glory offered up within her and the bloodless worship presented there—he, writing first to the Corinthians, declared to belong to God, thus:

'Give no offense to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God;' and again:

'We have no such custom, nor do the churches of God.'

But writing again to the Ephesians, he taught that she belongs to Christ, saying thus:

'that he might present the church to himself in splendor, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she might be holy and without blemish.'

For if this were not his view, let someone explain what the prophet Haggai means by saying that the glory of this latter house will be greater than that of the former — that is, the glory of the Church of Christ and the doxology within her, as compared with the synagogue of the Jews, in which God the Father alone was confessed as God and glorified.

Consistently, then, he also says that the gospel is now the gospel of God the Father, writing to the Romans:

Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God;

for I am not ashamed of the gospel;

for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

for in it the righteousness of God is revealed;

and the righteous shall live by faith.

And in the second letter to the Corinthians:

that I preached the gospel of God to you free of charge. But now he writes that this same gospel belongs to God the only-begotten, writing to the Corinthians, first, as follows:

but we did not use this right, but we endure all things, so that we might not put any hindrance in the way of the gospel of Christ;

and when I came to Troas for the gospel of Christ... And again:

glorifying God for the obedience of your confession to the gospel of Christ;

for God is my witness, whom I serve in the gospel of his Son,

But he also said that the sacred ministry is performed at one time to God the Father, and at another to God his only-begotten Son, writing to the Corinthians, first, as follows:

Let a man so regard us as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God;

moreover it is required of stewards that one be found faithful;

in everything commending ourselves as servants of God;

Are they servants of Christ? — I speak as a fool —

Who ever trusted in the Lord and was put to shame? Or who continued in his fear and was forsaken? Or who called upon him and was overlooked by him? For as even those outside say, 'whoever obeys the gods, him they greatly heed.'

Therefore, showing that nothing in himself is acquired or wrought by another, but that he brings forth all good things from his own store, he sets forth the one divine peace, of which there is no limit, concerning which Isaiah cried aloud:

O Lord our God, give us peace;

O Lord, besides you we know no other. — Inasmuch as this peace belongs to him too, on account of the community of nature and lordship, he gives it with authority as his own:

Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you.

Wherefore Paul too, not least, said that both uncreated hypostases bestow this God-given gift without distinction, writing thus somewhere to the Romans:

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

And this same thing he also gave us to understand thus, by the words:

All that the Father has is mine.

For these words are understood, not ignorantly, with reference to creation, but with reference to divine dignity — if one may speak of 'dignity' in the case of God.

For, he says, the Father is God,

for I am his only-begotten and true and beloved Son;

and I too am Lord of all, and heir, ruling over the inheritance of the living Father.

And I inherit what is his own, both as their maker and as a true son.

But I was appointed heir inasmuch as I became man.

The Father is Creator and King,

for I told you that there was a certain king who went to make a marriage feast for his son the king.

for it has been prophesied concerning me:

You are the same, and your years will not fail.

I am, so that even my partakers share in impassibility.

for there never was a time when the Father did not have his name, and the hypostatic radiance of his glory, and the express image of his hypostasis, and the image of his deity — namely, me.

Life and light and goodness and power and wisdom and truth, and whatever is worthy of God, the Father is;

and I am likewise, as you have already heard.

And indeed I too am Savior, causing the sun to rise on the righteous and on sinners, and not repaying evil for evil. The Father is loving toward mankind,

and I too am, since for your sake I emptied myself, taking the form of a servant, and I bore with you when you struck me, spat on me, mocked me, and crucified me.

He said, then, that all the Father's attributes belong to him, so that nothing more is granted to God the Father than this alone: that he is the Father of a Son who is co-eternal and co-subsistent with him. This is also confirmed by the following:

All that is mine is yours, and all that is yours is mine, and I have been glorified in them.

For if this was not said on account of the natural relation, and the Son has not been essentially glorified with all the Father's attributes, and if the kingship and dominion are not one, then — according to the heretical argument — are there things that fall not under the Father's authority, but under the authority of the Son alone?

If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing;

it is my Father who glorifies me,

When I, he says, speak concerning my own divine glory — that I and the Father are one — you do not believe;

but there is the Father who bears witness to me, that I am glorified according to nature, being his beloved and true Son, and your God and Master.

Father, glorify your Son, that your Son also may glorify you.

Here too, equal honor and glory are preserved for the divine hypostases.

For in whatever manner we may suppose the Father glorifies his Son, in that same manner he himself is glorified by him.

And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.

It is a terrifying thing to hear, that he who has had glory without beginning from his own Father — for that is what is meant by the words:

'the glory which I had before the world existed' — is not glorified by the heretics.

'When the Son comes in the glory of his Father' — instead of meaning:

he has the Father's glory, and in it he will come the second time.

But those whose glory is one do not have a divinity, kingship, and worship that are different and distinct from one another.

Wherefore he commands beforehand: 'Believe in God, and believe also in me.'

In my Father's house are many mansions.

For, he says, since the deity admits of no difference, you ought to have one knowledge of faith concerning the Trinity, so that you may thus dwell in those thrice-blessed courts, which are fitting and sufficient for all.

Providing, then, not only the words of a teacher but also those of God, he says:

Here too you observe his self-authority, in that he does not entreat as one addressing a superior, but grants permission as one possessing sovereign authority.

And Matthew, himself also contributing to the theological statements concerning the only-begotten Son, said:

No one knows the Father except the Son, nor does anyone fully know the Son except the Father.

How then do these men contend, as though they knew that the Father is incomparable, that his Son is unlike him, and that his essence is unbegottenness?

thereby leaving nothing exceptional to the knowledge shared between God the Father and the only-begotten God, nor considering that nothing of a different nature possesses knowledge equal to that of what is of a different essence? And Paul likewise writes to Timothy, in the first epistle:

I charge you before God who gives life to all things, and Christ Jesus who testified the good confession before Pontius Pilate, to keep this commandment without spot or blame until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which in his own time he will show — he who is blessed and the only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone possesses immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see, to whom be honor and eternal glory forever and ever.

For it has seemed right to the heretics to attribute to the Father alone the title:

'the only Potentate, and King of kings' — and so on.

But just as he spoke concerning both of the ever-memorable hypostases, saying:

'I charge you before God and Christ Jesus' — and so forth; thus concerning both of them together, as of one in godhead, he uttered his hymn of praise, and so on.

For he himself was not, like these men, ignorant of the saying:

'All things that the Father has are mine'; and the saying:

'that all may honor the Son even as they honor the Father'; and the saying:

'This is the true God and eternal life'; and:

'no other shall be reckoned beside him'; and:

'This is my beloved Son.'

But rather the passages set forth are directed still more toward the Son.

'that you keep this commandment until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which he will show in his own time, he who is the blessed and only Potentate' —

and it is clear that the Son will show forth his own appearing, when he comes a second time.

Observe, then, that he also assigns to him the primal glory.

'For his invisible things are clearly seen from the creation of the world, being understood through the things that are made — both his eternal power and divinity.'

And these words too, on account of the equal honor of Father and Son, do not incline toward classifying him among the things made.

For it is not the case that, because the Creator is understood to be begotten, his eternity and divinity go unrecognized — that is, the divinity that ever remains the same.

'Who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant.'

What inequality is found in this equality? For he did not seize it, it says — he did not obtain, as by usurpation, his being equal by nature to God the Father.

And indeed he who was emptied by no one else, but emptied himself, thereby showed himself to be at once sovereign master and eternal.

For if he came to be in the form of a servant, it is beyond dispute that, before this came to pass, he did not continue among the things made, but existed in the free, paternal nature.

Since it was not possible for him to be seen as he is, he condescended, without change and without illusion, even to the form of a servant.

And he cast off the burdens of the servant, and gave the beginning of a more radiant life:

and he who existed without beginning was made known.

As for the other things written to those same Philippians — that he already in some manner declares the Son to be preeminent and surpassing, together with his own Father, so far as concerns the unintelligent — this I have already said before, in chapter 7.

And nothing prevents us from establishing this also from the ancient Scripture:

for one must not treat theology carelessly.

God, then, says through Isaiah:

'My soul hates your new moons and sabbaths and your feasts.'

'You have become a burden to me' — literally, unto satiety;

'I will no longer forgive your sins':

'and even if you multiply your prayer, I will not listen to you:'

'for your hands are full of blood.'

'Wash yourselves, become clean, remove your sins from before your souls.'

You see, then, that his loving-kindness outruns his threat, since, even while not yet reconciled, he is far from bearing wrath for long — or rather, he does not know at all how to bear wrath.

And he hates their feasts, that is, their religious observance, as falling short of the most perfect knowledge of God:

and he commands them to be baptized, so as to receive the faith in accordance with the Lord's ordinance concerning baptism.

And Paul has assured us elsewhere too, crying out in so many words, that the Son has none greater than himself.

For when God said in Genesis to Abraham:

'Offer your son to me as a sacrifice' — and when he had done this readily, and was about to lay upon him a hand armed with a knife, an angel of the Lord called to him, saying:

'Abraham, do not lay your hand upon the lad, nor do him any harm at all.'

'For now I know that you fear God, and have not spared your beloved son for my sake.'

Then, when a ram was found for the sacrifice in place of Isaac, and the sacrifice was fulfilled by Abraham — in intention through the boy, but in the actual slaying through the ram — an angel of the Lord, it says, called to him a second time out of heaven, saying:

'By myself I have sworn, says the Lord, because you have done this thing and have not spared your beloved son for my sake:'

'Surely blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven and as the sand of the sea:'

'and in you all the nations shall be blessed, because you obeyed my voice.'

Now he was neither the Father nor indeed a ministering angel.

For a minister does not swear by himself, or bless, or say:

'You have not spared your beloved son for my sake':

nor does he dare to turn away the sacrifice being offered to God, nor again does he have authority to accept it.

But it was the only-begotten God, the Word, who sought the sacrifice, granting the only-begotten son back to Abraham, as Paul explains, writing thus to the Hebrews: