On the Trinity 2-1 part 3/9

so that, however it may be, we might worthily comprehend both his nature from God the Father, incomparable in relation to the Father, and his perfect and unitary incarnation and ensoulment from the Virgin and according to her;

with all these declarations laid before us, what does it mean that all things hold together through him and unto him, and are reconciled and are made peace, if not that through his unchangeable and sinless becoming man for us and on our behalf we are turned back to the knowledge of his uncreated divinity? He is therefore called Only-begotten, inasmuch as, with regard to that eternal, unflowing generation above, he has no brother like himself by nature;

and firstborn of all creation, not because he was created before it — for then he would have been called first-created — but because, by foreknowledge, as was mentioned in the chapter before this one, having been born of the Holy Virgin before every created thing, he is himself both firstborn and only-begotten of all creation, ineffably, according to the divine writing;

just as he is also called firstborn from the dead, not because he died before them, but because, having been raised from the dead, he was first to provide us, universally, with the assurance of the resurrection — to us who by his grace and gift have been deemed worthy both of sonship to God the Father and of brotherhood with him.

'For I,' he said, 'am the life and the resurrection.' And Paul too pointed to the very time at which, out of his own goodness, the Savior — purposing to change our former ill fortune and to deem us worthy to enjoy forever a share in that untroubled light above — became firstborn of all creation, through the words he spoke:

'The old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.' And other sayings of his likewise repel this heretical notion, which sophistically maligns both Paul, as though he wrote such things thoughtlessly, and him who made and possesses all things, as though such utterances had been made concerning him — a thing hard both to invent and to hear;

but it plainly establishes that 'firstborn of all creation' was said in place of 'firstborn of all mankind.'

For Paul calls mankind 'creation,' as is stated in the very chapter before us, in these words:

'Submit yourselves to every human institution for the Lord's sake, whether to the king as supreme, or to governors as sent through him.' It also helps us with regard to the terms 'Firstborn' and 'Only-begotten' that the Evangelist relates that she remained a virgin until she bore her firstborn Son. For Mary, more honored than all and most glorious, was never given in marriage to anyone, nor did she ever become the mother of another;

and even after bearing him in the womb, she remained forever and altogether an unblemished virgin, and yet he who formed both her and all things was not unreasonably called her firstborn.

And as for 'firstborn from the dead,' the same Paul taught the Corinthians through the writing of his first letter to them:

'Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep;'

'for since through man came death, through man also came the resurrection of the dead.'

'As in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive, but each in his own order:'

'Christ the firstfruits, then those who belong to Christ at his coming, then the end.' One might also rightly make use of this text:

For with regard to sayings so lofty, one must not look to only one meaning, nor to the lesser, but to the better;

for in matters concerning God, truth lies in the better [interpretations].

He was named firstborn of all creation on account of those who, in divine baptism, through the adoption of the Holy Spirit, are begotten of God, and because everything that we are and possess we have received from him, just as the same [Paul], teaching again, says:

'And what do you have that you did not receive? But if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you had not received it?' — just as the children of the Greeks too, setting aside their other disagreements, have proclaimed:

'All things indeed are the most exalted gifts of the immortal God, but preeminent among mortal men is the great boon of truth' —

[having made] it by the word of his power, according to the psalmist who sings:

'You have made all things in wisdom'; and according to the Proverb of Solomon which says:

'God by wisdom founded the earth, and by understanding established the heavens.' And this very point is also settled by the passage of the Epistle now before us, which reads:

'Firstborn of all creation, for in him all things were created,' and 'All things were created through him and unto him;'

'and he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.' And for this very reason alone he says, 'Firstborn of all creation, because in him all things were created' — the word 'because' being rightly understood in the sense of 'for the reason that' or 'since';

for it would not have existed, nor remained unharmed, unless it had as its basis and foundation the creative Word, the Son of God, and were supported upon him;

therefore he did not say 'first-created,' but 'firstborn,' nor 'He came to be before all things,' but 'He is before all things' — that is, without beginning.

For with respect to that ineffable nature, all time is present and abides in the 'now,' and nothing in it has passed away, nor is anything yet to be, but it continues everlastingly, as it were, in a single time — as Plato says in the Timaeus:

'Hence indeed we do not rightly speak in naming things concerning that ineffable nature.

For we say indeed that it was, is, and will be;

but according to the true account, only 'is' properly belongs to it;

whereas 'was' and 'will be' are fitting to be said with regard to time within the realm of becoming;

but that which is ever immovably the same has no need to become older or younger through time, nor to have come into being now, nor to be about to be hereafter.' And that, as we have said, all things exist in God and have come forth from him, the Greeks too, bearing witness, wrote these things:

'The immortal God himself leads himself;'

'and from him are all things, and in the mind of the great God they were made manifest.'

It is not altogether the case that the firstborn is not only-begotten; rather, there are times when both apply together;

and indeed the only-begotten is also found to be altogether firstborn as well, having no second-born or third-born, since he was begotten alone and acquired his name from the very fact itself.

Indeed, in Jeremiah too, [Scripture], from the all-holy Spirit, says:

'And Ephraim is my firstborn.' Yet Ephraim was not even firstborn to his own [earthly] father.

Since, then, he himself is the truth, and the creative and self-taught wisdom, it is fitting that the things written concerning him possess, according to an understanding befitting God, the quality of being free from falsehood.

Let him, then, be both only-begotten and firstborn;

but the term 'firstborn' is more fitting for him with respect to the [saving] economy.

For were it not for his ineffable love for mankind — by which the Holy Spirit regenerated us, and God the Father received us as sons, and he of whom our discourse speaks, the only-begotten God, unchangeably and without flux became, as he alone knows, for the salvation of mankind, a son of man —

he himself would not have been called 'Firstborn among many brethren,' nor would we, the sons of men, have been called gods and sons of God;

for by nature no one is brother to an only-begotten son;

but the Maker and Steward of all things, and he alone who is compassionate, is reckoned both our brother and our firstborn.

For he, having emptied himself from infinite height for the sake of his own servants, and having renewed all things, and having provided, by his own sojourn among us, the beginning of a better life, and for this reason having been called 'firstborn,' in no way whatsoever suffered any harm to his divine glory;

For it does not permit the force of words to be diminished in any way, or to be brought down to the standard of something inferior, even amid the misapplication of terms employed on account of the ineffable dispensation.

But we have been led up from much lowliness and darkness into boundless glory and light, having received faith in him.

For each thing, beyond what it is by nature, can neither leap up and be exalted by the grandeur of a word, nor as it were come down from itself and sink by its lowliness.

And no small confirmation is given to what we have set forth — indeed this alone suffices to lend it support — by the fact that in Psalm 88 the incomprehensible God has deigned to say:

'I have found David my servant;'

'with my holy oil I have anointed him;'

'for my hand shall help him, and my arm shall strengthen him;'

'...against him, and the son of lawlessness shall not continue to do him harm;'

'And I will cut down his enemies before his face, and I will put to flight those who hate him.'

'And my truth and my mercy shall be with him, and in my name shall his horn be exalted.'

'And I will set his hand upon the sea, and his right hand upon the rivers.'

'And he shall call upon me:'

'You are my Father, my God, and the helper of my salvation.'

'And I will make him the firstborn, exalted above the kings of the earth.' For whether we should grant that this is said concerning the effulgence that coexists with the Father's glory and that in the last days blossomed forth from the root of Jesse, or concerning David himself, the term 'firstborn' could not be understood according to the sense of ordinary usage.

For how could he make firstborn either a man who already exists — for it says, 'I have found David my servant' — or one who has brothers older than himself? But that it is at times the custom of Scripture to declare that those who already exist in being somehow become what they were not, Paul, full of Christ and filled with the Holy Spirit, states somewhere as follows:

'You are no longer a slave, but a son.' For the word 'no longer' signifies, for those who already exist, a subsequent change into some other state.

'Whom he foreknew he also foreordained to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be firstborn among many brothers' — that is to say, God, who foreknew his descendants, and who sees all things past and future as though subsisting and present (for with him all the ages are but a single measure, and nothing is divided, as was said a little before), foresaw and openly promised that human beings would be conformed to him who exists eternally in the form of his Only-begotten Son; whence this Only-begotten, having lowered himself for our sake into the form of a slave, will say by his own peculiar gift:

'No longer do I call you slaves, but friends and brothers,' as it is written.

For just as we, being created beings, were called sons of God by grace and not by nature,

so likewise the Only-begotten of God, when he mingled earthly things with heavenly, and a new salvation was at last accomplished for us, was called our brother and firstborn — not according to his nature from the Father, but according to his incarnation from the Virgin and through the Virgin.

It would therefore be timely to say to the heretics what has been well said by those outside [the Church]:

'Hate falsehoods, that truth may become habitual to you.'

Their third proposition is the prophecy spoken in the person of the Lord who gave subsistence to all things, saying:

'I am the beginning and the end.' From this they refashion, by disobedient interpretations, his timeless and inconceivable existence into something temporal, and they force their own wickedness to be reckoned as virtue.

But as many as do not, unlike these men, fail to recognize this Only-begotten as the God abounding in speech, are not without a share in the theology of this golden utterance.

For 'the beginning' indicates that he is the cause, as one without beginning, just as God the Father is [the cause] of the constitution of all things; for he who is the beginning has no one existing before him, just as the last has no one after the last.

For 'beginning,' as Aristotle says in the fifth book of the Metaphysics, is said in many ways.

For it is said, on the one hand, in the sense of rule, such as kingship or generalship;

and it is said also spatially, as the starting-post is the beginning of a race;

and it is said also temporally, as this day is the beginning of the year;

and it is said also naturally, as the seed is the beginning of the infant;

and it is said also with respect to cause, as the sculptor is the beginning of the statue.

In this way, then, we call him 'beginning,' as cause and Creator;

and, on the other hand, 'the end' points to him, in that, being uncircumscribed and alone possessing immortality, the boundaries of all things converge in him, and that, after the completion of this universe, he abides forever and without limit.

Therefore the boundless one cannot have a coming-into-being;

and being unable to have such, he himself is without coming-into-being, although he is begotten naturally from the hypostasis of God the Father;

whereas the things that have come into being have come into being from him in a creative manner.

By this one might also understand what Paul declared to the Colossians in this manner:

'And he is before all things' — not as having been made (God forbid!), but as begotten.

For if he had not, without beginning, been truly and consubstantially begotten before all things, we would not have come into being, according to his image, consubstantial with the one who begot us;

and if the Maker and Provider had not pre-existed without having been made, the things that are made and provided for would not exist through his creative activity.

Fourth, with an unrestrained tongue they put forward what is said by Peter in the Acts:

'Let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.' But this is not written concerning the divine and incomprehensible essence of the Word of God who was in the beginning and was with God, and who did not consider being equal with God a thing to be seized, but concerning the one from Mary who was conformed to our lowliness.

For the mention of the cross, and the fact that 'you crucified' is joined to 'made,' has made clear who is meant — the one whom Scripture mentions in many places.

And as when the same Peter says in the Acts:

'The God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his servant Jesus, whom you delivered up and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he had decided to release him;'

'but you denied the Holy and Righteous One,'

'and asked that a murderer be granted to you, but you killed the Author of life.' And Zechariah says:

'I will pour out upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem a Spirit of grace and compassion;'

'and they will look upon me, whom they have pierced, and they will mourn for him with mourning as for a beloved son, and grieve for him as for a firstborn.' Recalling this prophecy after the saving cross, John said:

'They shall look on him whom they pierced.' Concerning this one, the angel too, rejoicing together with mankind, said:

'Today a Savior has been born to us, who is Christ the Lord.' But the one born today could never be understood as the one who exists before all ages.

One must also attend to this marvel of the [sacred] Writing, that angels and men were celebrating together the feast of one fresh knowledge of God, agreeing in voice and in mind with equal disposition.

But we speak in this way, signifying by a certain manner of conception his ineffable dispensation, and avoiding the blasphemy that would extend to his divinity — not believing that the Son from the Father is one, and another is he who became flesh and was crucified;

since the divinity is never by nature capable of being separated from itself, nor of being changed.

For the Apostle would not have had two [subjects] in mind, when he said:

'Since Christ therefore suffered for us in the flesh.' And indeed the sacred Psalmist, both in a way concealing and yet openly revealing this unspeakable mystery of the dispensation — concealing it rather than being ignorant of it, and being ignorant of it rather than concealing it — prophesies in Psalm 108, in a manner similar to the aforementioned saying of Peter:

'And let them know that this is your hand;'

'and you, Lord, have made it' — calling God the Word 'the hand of the Father,' on the one hand because he coexists consubstantially with the Father, and all things have come to be through him;

and on the other hand, because he unchangeably became flesh, as he knew and willed, saying that it was made by him whose hand it is.

But the word 'made' is not always understood in the sense of 'created,' but sometimes also according to relation;

as when one who is already a teacher by his very substance is only then 'made' the teacher of his own children, when that teacher begins to teach the children;

and as one 'makes' a child a soldier, or an orator, when the child takes up soldiery or the practice of oratory.

For it was with this sense in mind that he spoke concerning the Father and God:

'He became for me a helper and protector unto salvation;' and Isaiah:

'You became a helper to every lowly city.' And the sacred Psalmist, in Psalm 29:

'The Lord became my helper;' and in Psalm 30:

'...to save me;' and Abraham said to Sarah his own wife:

'She became also my wife;' and Paul:

'Let God be true, but every man a liar.' In accordance with this is also to be understood, 'But I have been established as king by him on Zion, his holy mountain.' For to say of someone, by such-and-such a word, that he 'became' this or that, does not thereby indicate his essence.

Wherefore he did not simply say, 'I have been established,' but said, 'upon the mountain of Zion.'

For being king of all from infinity and unto infinity — for it says:

'The Lord is king forever, and beyond, and yet still'; and, 'Your kingdom is the kingdom of all ages' — it seemed in some way that he did not yet reign over those who did not know him, but that he came to be king over them also at the incarnation, for the sake of which David himself made this very request in Psalm 9:

'Appoint, O Lord, a lawgiver over them;'

'let the nations know that they are men.' And Micah prophesied:

'And the Lord shall reign from now and forever.' Now those outside [the faith] have also made plain such things concerning this:

'For "king" is the name of the immortal God, who never ceases, never perishes, nor ever rests.'

Of a similar kind is also the saying: 'Receive the high priest of your confession, who was faithful to him who appointed him.' For again it speaks of him who became of the same form as us, and exhorts us to receive him — true God and true Son of God, existing without beginning, but who then, for our sake, was made a high priest, since he was in the world, and the world came to be through him, and the world did not know him, having fled from his uncreated Godhead.

Consistent with this is also seen the word of Paul to the Corinthians:

'But of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for you wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption;'

'so that, as it is written, "Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord."'

For according to God, they say, men are both good and wise; and the opposite of these also holds:

'For bodies excessive and unprofitable fall by grievous misfortunes sent from God.'

For just as, having been appointed to be a light of the nations, he did not then come into being as light in essence [only at that moment], but rather became that by which those who come to know him are illumined — for, it says, 'He was the true light, which enlightens every man coming into the world' —

so also he was established as king, and became Lord, being Lord by nature and without beginning, when the disciples, as it is written, became his servants:

when the Apostle wrote in his epistle:

'Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ' — when also all of us, having come to know his lordship and his christhood, were called Christians, as servants who partake of the Master's name:

'But to those who serve me shall be called a new name, which shall be blessed upon the earth.' And, more particularly in my view, this prophesies of the race of us the orthodox, concerning whom he himself said:

'These are the seed blessed by God'; and, 'Everlasting joy shall be upon their head.' Of a similar kind also is what is found in the Song of Songs:

'Chosen out from myriads' — that is, selected, not as being merely one among many sons, but because David — or rather, the Theotokos, from whom Christ according to the flesh descended — was chosen, out of all, for the dispensation:

and fittingly he was also well pleased in him, and says:

'Who among the sons of God shall be likened to the Lord?' — or, he is also chosen out from all, as the Only-begotten, sinless in the incarnation.

Going from blasphemy to blasphemy, they immediately put forward, right after the aforesaid, that which was said by Paul in a theological sense:

'Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God'; interpreting it syllogistically according to what seems good to them:

that such a statement indicates that he was created by the power and wisdom of God.

But both the phrase and the sense point to his incarnation. For, it says, in it he was named 'Christ,' according to the likeness of those called 'christs' [anointed ones] before him.

It signifies his consubstantiality, and shows that the entire paternal power and wisdom is inherent in him, as the creative Word, and as his true Son.

This too has become a certain heretical affliction, namely to say:

If Scripture likened Christ to a vine, and men to the branches, and the Father to the vinedresser, and the vine is of the same nature as the branches, and not as the vinedresser:

then it appears, they say, that the Son is of the same nature as us, and not as God the Father.

But we, in answer to their argument, say that according to his divinity, he himself is the fruit of the vinedresser's hypostasis;

but according to the flesh, we are his branches;

paying attention not least also to Paul, who asserts dogmatically:

'For we are the body of Christ, and members individually'; and again:

'Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ?' For indeed, by such an apostolic saying, both these heretics are refuted, and also those who judge the flesh of the Master to be from heaven, and not to be human.

And they have also strayed from the truth regarding other divine sayings, and they still continue to differ from it:

for example, regarding the prophecy of Isaiah, where the Father said:

'It is a great thing for you to be called my servant;' and regarding what was written by Paul:

'Who was declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness.' For these things too they cast upon his divinity — things which were said concerning the servant-form taken from Mary, concerning which the angel said to her:

'The Holy Spirit shall come upon you, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow you;'

'therefore also the one being born shall be called holy, the Son of God.'

Still further, they also err with regard to the text: 'The God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory,' attributing the whole statement to his divinity.

But here he speaks of 'Father' with reference to him who is not seen —

concerning whom the same angel, a little before this, appears at the fitting time, and, bringing good tidings with the newly-mentioned names, spoke thus:

'You shall bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.'

'He will be great, and will be called Son of the Most High.' Moreover, they also err — for their thoughts and their words are a corruption — even with regard to this saying of the Master, which reads:

'Go to my brothers, and say to them:'

'I ascend to my Father and your Father, my God and your God.' For here too he calls him Father — his own by nature, ours by grace;

and God — his own on account of his recently assumed form, but ours in truth;

so that both the ancient and the recent might be signified. For the Master, having condescended in every way to the level of his servants, made his own Father to be also ours, and made him who is our God to be also his own —

he made him also our Father out of goodness, though we are not sons by nature; and he called him also his own God on account of his incarnation, which he had more clearly foretold, saying:

'From my mother's womb, you are my God.' For how could it be possible for his only-begotten Son, the true and great God, to have a God? Just as, then, he is our God in truth, and not our Father by nature;

so he is truly, according to essence, the Father of him alone, and not his God, with respect to the generation from above;

having become partakers of Christ, we are deemed worthy to call upon the heavenly God:

'Our Father, who art in the heavens.' Thus also the beloved Son, having partaken — according to Paul writing to the Hebrews — likewise of blood and flesh as the children, calls the Father 'God.'

In addition to this, the fact that he did not say, mixing the terms together, 'our Father and our God,' but separately, 'my Father and your Father, my God and your God,' shows the aforementioned distinction between himself and us.

For he is not found to have spoken in common of himself and of men:

But also in the Gospel according to John, concerning those who with boldness and freedom of speech confess him before men to be God and the only-begotten Son of God, that is, consubstantial, he promises:

'of my Father;' not, 'of our Father.'

Than which what could be greater, among good things, than for us to be confessed by him?

And among shameful things, what could be worse than for those who, instead of the truth, have chosen falsehood, to be denied the knowledge that comes from God? And as for the saying, 'I ascend to the Father,' he said this on account of the dispensation, bringing good news to the disciples, whom in his love he called brothers — namely, that whenever the firstfruits from among us should be raised up, he who eternally exists ascends to his truly-existing Father.

'No one has ascended into heaven, except he who descended from heaven, he who is in heaven;' through such words signifying, both mystically and plainly at once, that he belongs to the Godhead.

And Paul, writing to the Philippians concerning the incomparable and dispensational self-emptying of the Word of God for our sake:

'Let this be reckoned among you, which was also in Christ Jesus:'

'who, existing in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God;'

'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 the death of the cross.'

'Therefore 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 those in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth;'

'and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.' These men, on the one hand, argue that, since he existed in the form of God and was equal to God, he emptied himself in taking the form of a servant and becoming in the humiliation of men, and in stripping off the rulers and the authorities — not by the necessity of another, but voluntarily;

To the text, 'Wherefore also God highly exalted him, and granted him the name that is above every name,' they attach an inflexible sense, although the word 'wherefore' signifies that it was because he had, like the children, shared alike in flesh and blood, that then—and at no other time—the servant-befitting measure was exalted, and there was granted to him the name above every name, the most excellent of all.

It is not, however, that the Only-begotten—concerning whom he who is called the son of thunder speaks—was made true God and true Son of God only at that time;

and Paul too testifies that, before the self-emptying, he already existed in the form and equality of God the Father—not that he acquired these as things given to him afterward.

For indeed, very absurd consequences are introduced by this view:

one, that if the Son is distinguished as God by a bare name alone, he will surpass creation either by a little, or not at all;

second, that the gift could, so far as this admits, and so far as reasoning can reach, slip away from him;

since what is given is not fixed and abiding altogether, but in some sense easily lost;

third, that if he is understood to have received the divine name, with respect to his divinity, at that time when he appeared in the world, he will be found not to have had, before this, what he later received, but to have carried it off as though it were some gift or reward for his coming to us.

But he himself, from an infinite height, emptied himself for our sake into the things pertaining to us;

and because he is by nature Son, the Word, and in the form

of God, and equal to God, and being God in the beginning with God, having the incomparable name neither as something imported from outside and spurious, nor as one honored with it only afterward, he returned again to that surpassing height which he ever was and possessed from the beginning, and to the innate honor and glory, and to his own session at the right hand of his own Father.

But how did God both highly exalt him and grant him the name above every name? I will say: even while he bore about him the form of a servant, he said, 'This is my beloved Son,' and willed that he be called God even then, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, as has been said before.

For before the Son's appearing in the world, only the heavenly beings bent the knee to him and glorified him, knowing the equally divine glory of the Holy Trinity;