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The Trinity, therefore, is to be understood as one God in that benediction of the three young men, where it is said: 'Blessed art Thou upon the throne of Thy kingdom'; because just as the throne is one, so the kingdom of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit is one. Then what is added, 'Blessed art Thou in the firmament of heaven, and worthy of praise and glorious unto the ages' (Dan. III, 56), who does not see that it is spoken in praise of the Trinity? seeing that the very firmament of heaven is one work of the Trinity; 'for by the Word of the Lord the heavens were established, and all their power by the Spirit of His mouth' (Ps. XXXII, 6).
But in order that those three men might show that the Lord God of our fathers—not the Father alone, nor the Son alone, nor the Holy Spirit alone, but the holy Trinity together, one Lord God—is to be blessed, praised, and glorified by all His works, see whence they took the beginning of the divine works: for by saying, 'Bless the Lord, all ye works of the Lord' (Dan. III, 57), they had shown that whatsoever cannot be found among these works which are here comprehended is not to be reckoned among the works of the Lord. Then, absolutely all things that are the works of the Lord God are known to be invited by this opening to render the tribute of due benediction to God the Creator: 'Bless the Lord, ye heavens' (v. 59);
'Bless the Lord, ye angels' (v. 58); 'Bless the Lord, all ye waters that are above the heavens' (v. 60); 'Bless the Lord, all ye powers of the Lord' (v. 61); and the rest, whether the things that are in the heavens, or those that are on the earth, visible and invisible: yet in all these works of the Lord the Holy Spirit is not found; who, assuredly, if He ought to be counted among the divine works, then neither the angelic nature nor any other creature whatsoever ought to have been named before Him. What is it, then, that the Holy Spirit neither praises the Lord among all the things that were made by the Lord, nor blesses God among all His works?
Anforteprophetissubrepsitoblivio, utSpiritussanctinonmeminissent, cumadlaudandumDominumomniaquæaDominofactasunt, etadbenedicendumDominumomniaoperaDominiconvocassent ? sedhocquemquambeatusPetruscrederenonpermittit, dicens : Nonenimvoluntatehumanaallataeatunquamprophetia, sedSpiritutanctoactilocutisuntsanctihomine, Dei (IIPetr. I, 21). Alioquoquelocodeiisdemprophetishæcmemorat : Scrutante, inquibusvelqualetempussignificaretquiineiseratSpiritu. Chritti (IPetr. i, 11).
Or did forgetfulness perhaps steal upon the prophets, so that they made no mention of the Holy Spirit, when they had summoned all things made by the Lord to praise the Lord, and all the works of the Lord to bless the Lord? But blessed Peter does not permit anyone to believe this, saying: 'For prophecy came not at any time by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke, moved by the Holy Spirit' (II Pet. I, 21). In another place also he records these things concerning the same prophets: 'Searching what, or what manner of time, the Spirit of Christ that was in them did signify' (I Pet. I, 11).
Accordingly the Holy Spirit, by whom the holy men of God spoke as they were moved, if He knew Himself not to be Maker but a thing made, and if He recognized Himself to be not the operating God but a work of God, would without doubt have placed Himself first before all those things that were made and that are called the works of the Lord, so that from Himself—in whom the excellence of the divine work above the angels would have to be acknowledged—preeminent praise might be rendered to God the Operator. But this does not happen, because there is one God, Creator of all things, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit; who is therefore worthily praised by all the things He made, and is nonetheless blessed by all His works, because He Himself, the Lord God, is found to be the Creator and Operator of all things.
Therefore one benediction, one praise, one glorification is owed by all His works to the one God who is Trinity; because the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are found to be the sole God, Maker of all, not made, and the sole Creator, not created. FRAGMENT XXXV. The Father is not the author of the whole Trinity, but only of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. But who would not detest that ineptitude of your lie, by which you charge that I, in those false and deceitful acts, called God the Father the author of the whole Trinity? Which indeed is as far from the faith of the truth as it is contrary to holy religion.
For God the Father is not the author of the Trinity, but is the author of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, in that the Son is born of Him, and the Holy Spirit proceeds from Him. For whoever rightly understands the term 'author' will find it a name of relation, not of nature. For no one is said to be author to himself, but to another: whence he is truly called author, not in reference to himself, but to another. But no one can, by any relative name, be referred to his own person as to another's: for whatever is said of each with respect to his own person is in no way found to be said according to relation. We confess, therefore, that God the Father is the author, not of the whole Trinity, but of the Son and of the Holy Spirit:
from whom the only-begotten Son has the origin of His eternal nativity, and the Holy Spirit the origin of His eternal procession. But the natural unity intimates that the Son the Creator came into being from the Father the Creator by natural nativity, and that the Holy Spirit the Creator proceeds from the Father and the Son. FROM BOOK X, WHICH CONTAINS THE DEFENSE OF THE APOSTLES' CREED AGAINST THE ARIANS. FRAGMENT XXXVI. What the Creed is. For its lawful use there is needful the mind of one who believes rightly. That in it the Father is called both Almighty and Creator is to be understood of the whole Trinity. The Trinity is immortal and invisible in another manner than an angel or the soul of man.
All the articles of the Christian faith are set forth. The Creed (which in Greek speech is wont to be called both a compact and a collation) has been ordained by the apostles holily indeed, and rightly, and altogether wisely according to the rule of truth. For the Lord, who 'consummating and shortening the word made it upon the earth,' just as He consummated all the precepts of the Law in brevity (Rom. IX, 28), saying that upon those two precepts of the love of God and of neighbor hang the whole Law and the prophets (Matt. XXII, 40); just as He also perfected in the brevity of the prayer whatever pertained to the help of the present life and to the attainment of the life to come;
so also in the brevity of the Creed He willed that a perfect tenor of the holy faith should be ordained through His apostles, which would avail unto salvation for those who believe rightly. For the Creed is a certain true compact and true collation, in whose brevity consists the whole sum of the entire Christian belief. Yet herein the mind of the believer must be right, lest what he hears unto the effect of salvation he should will to twist back for himself unto the punishment of death. For 'the law is good, if a man use it lawfully' (I Tim. I, 8).
Wherefore it has seemed to you in vain, through ill understanding, to wish to twist back the correctness of the Creed to your own sense, and thence to prescribe against the holy catholic faith, because in the Creed not all things are said of the Son that are said of the Father: whereas indeed the fullness of divinity ought for that reason to have been commended in the origin as much as was fitting, precisely because it ought not to be otherwise recognized in the offspring. For when anyone says that he believes 'in God the Father Almighty,' by this very thing which he says 'in God the Father,' just as he shows in Him the truth of natural divinity, so he shows the truth of natural fatherhood also, and from this the truth even of natural generation.
For God the Father is not naturally God and yet not naturally Father, since assuredly both divine fatherhood and paternal divinity are natural in Him. That divine generation therefore has in itself the whole of whatever the eternal substance of God the Father has in itself. Accordingly it sufficed that of the Father alone should be said whatever was to be equally understood in the Son. For the Father begot the Son as almighty, even as the Father Himself is almighty; He begot Him Creator of all things, as He Himself is Creator of all; King of the ages, as He Himself is King of the ages; immortal and invisible, as He Himself is immortal and invisible.
All things, therefore, which are given to God the Father in the Creed are, by that one name of the Son, naturally attributed to the Son also. For the Father is Creator of all things, but 'all things were made by the Word, and without Him was nothing made' (John I, 3); and: 'In Him were all things created in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible: whether Thrones, or Dominations, or Principalities, or Powers; all things were created by Him and in Him, and He is before all, and all things consist in Him' (Col. I, 16, 17). And so there is one God the Father, from whom are all things, and we in Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by Him (I Cor. VIII, 6).
The Father is King of the ages, but the Son also is found to be no less King, to whom the Prophet says: 'Thy kingdom is a kingdom of all ages' (Ps. CXLIV, 13). But immortal and invisible together is the Trinity itself, which is the one, true, and good God: not indeed immortal and invisible in the same way as the human soul or an angel is. For God is said to be invisible above all in this, that He is not seen save through grace. For no created spirit sees the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit by its own faculty, if God Himself does not grant this. It is necessary, moreover, that God the Trinity be seen not by the body but by the spirit, if He bestows this by the gift of His goodness:
otherwise how will it be true that 'the holy angels always behold the face of the Father,' and: 'Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God' (Matt. V, 8)? An angel, therefore, and a rational soul, since they are spirits created by God, cannot be seen with bodily eyes; but the Trinity, which is God the Creator of all and truly invisible, without doubt, if grace be not granted by Him, is not seen even by the eye of the heart. For God is the true light which 'enlightens every man coming into this world' (John I, 9): freely, therefore, by enlightening He confers cleansing, that He may grant the faculty of seeing. Moreover, God is not called immortal in the same way as either a soul or an angel is found to be:
for even in an angel, although there is no natural extinction, yet a natural mutation can be found: but that nature admits a certain death from mutability, which admits qualification. But we call God good without quality, for whom to be God is not one thing and to be good another: whence, when we say goodness, we show His very divinity; and when we say divinity, we without doubt demonstrate goodness. Our God, therefore, is truly acknowledged to be immortal in this, that He is not naturally changed: which no creature could or can have by nature, although a certain creature is known to have received this by grace. For everything that God made draws its origin from nothing:
whence it is consequently acknowledged to have begun to be from a certain beginning, and before it began to be, not to have been. Whence everything whose nature is not one with God the Father has this, that of itself it lies subject to mutability; but incommutability it obtains by the gift of that nature in which natural incommutability is found. But the nature of the Trinity alone is that which cannot naturally be changed, because its nature did not begin to be: whereas in every substance which is not of one and the same nature with God the Father, just as its origin is known to be drawn from nothing, so natural mutability is found. This mutability the divine nature of the Trinity alone does not have, which did not begin to be, and which made all the things it made out of nothing:
and which therefore willed itself alone to be believed in, because it alone so suffices for the renewal of human nature as it alone suffices for itself, by its natural power and goodness, unto the creation of all things. Into that nature of the holy Trinity, therefore, we justly and salutarily believe—which we acknowledge as almighty, and Creatrix of all things, and King, and singularly possessing the kingdom of all ages, and invisible by nature to bodies and to spirits, yet visible to righteous spirits by free grace, immortal also by the eternity of natural incommutability.
Wherefore, since all these things were commemorated in the Father, in whom the divine nature was principally to be commended, it suffices that His only Son our Lord Jesus Christ be next named, seeing that in the very name of the only Son the full natural communion of the Father and the Son is found signified. But of another omnipotence, dominion, immortality, and invisibility would Jesus Christ worthily be believed, if He were not called the only Son of God the Father: and He is called 'only' because He alone is the true Son: and He alone is the true Son, because of the nature of the Father He alone is born.
The truth of His nativity, therefore, demonstrates in the Son the natural fullness from the Father, in whom, by natural generation, the fullness of the paternal nature remains. But it was fitting to our faith and salvation to confess the mystery not only of creation, but also of redemption. For in all the things that were said above of the Father, His majesty by which He made us was proclaimed, but the goodness by which He redeemed was not shown: and since this was bestowed on us, it was fitting that, the sole name of the Son sufficing for the demonstration of the divine majesty by which we were created, there should next follow 'the word of the cross, which is indeed foolishness to those who perish, but to those who are saved it is the power of God' (I Cor. I, 18).
By this it seemed the more difficult to believe. For it was indeed not difficult to believe that the Son is of one nature with the Father, and that from this He possesses, as begotten in natural unity with His begetter, all the things that have been mentioned: and on this account, for the utter destruction of the wisdom of the world—because 'Christ crucified is indeed a stumbling-block to the Jews, and to the Gentiles foolishness, but to those very ones who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God' (I Cor. I, 23)—for this reason it had to be more earnestly and thoroughly inculcated that the true God, the proper and only-begotten Son of God the Father Almighty, immortal, and invisible, was also born of the Holy Spirit from the Virgin Mary, which is nothing else than of the grace of God and from a virginal womb.
And what is more wonderful and more wholesome than to know that God the only-begotten, born of the nature of the Father without beginning, and naturally coeternal with God the Father, did what He did not for His own advantage but for the sake of our salvation; and was made wonderfully and mercifully, that He might redeem what He created? But because the same proper and only Son of God the Father took upon Himself at once our nature and our penalty—He who so showed in Himself the truth of the human soul and of the flesh, that He took upon Himself the truth of sorrow and of death; whence He says: 'My soul is sorrowful even unto death' (Matt. XXVI, 38)—therefore in the Creed we say that the same only Son of God, whom we confess to have been born of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, was also crucified and buried:
so that in Him may be acknowledged at once the truth of both natures: whom, as the majesty of the eternal divinity shows to be true God, so the humility of the divine kindness teaches to be true man. For that God who is of the Father the Creator of all things was made of the Virgin the Mediator of God and men. But He would not be the Mediator, if He did not have in Himself alone the truth of the paternal and maternal substance. For just as we are reconciled in Him through the death of His Son—because that Mediator had in Himself true flesh, according to which He might undergo true death—so in Him He conferred on us the benefit of true reconciliation, in whom there is to Him one natural divinity with the Father.
For Christ, who is the Truth, just as He is true man of the nature of His Mother, so is He also true God of the substance of the Father: in whom there is no diversity of the divine nature with the Father, just as there is no natural diversity of the soul and the flesh with the Virgin. Accordingly, because He accepted death by the truth of the flesh, which He absorbed by the truth of the divinity, therefore we confess that, having been buried, He rose again on the third day. For the divine kindness wrought this for the confirmation of our hope, that in the very thing in which the punishment of our death was being overcome, in that same thing the example of our resurrection might shine forth: and because 'Christ rising from the dead now dies no more, and death shall no longer have dominion over Him' (Rom. VI, 9);
just as the true flesh of Christ shall never die, so let us believe that our bodies also, by the eternity of the resurrection, shall live without end. Then, moreover, we confess that Christ ascended into heaven, and thence will come to judge the living and the dead: for 'the Father judges no man, but has given all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son as they honor the Father' (John V, 22). Accordingly one honor is to be rendered to the Father and to the Son, because the Father, who judges no man but has given all judgment to the Son, has demonstrated that His own and the Son's judgment is one: which He gave to the Son for this reason, that all may honor the Son as they honor the Father. Indeed, for the removal of any difference of honor, the unity of judicial power has been shown:
namely, that to the Son, to whom we know all judgment has been given by the Father, we may render honor equal together with the Father; nor may we separate the homage of honor where we do not see judgment separated. And when the confession of the true divinity and true humanity of the only Son of God has been completed, we confess that we believe in the Holy Spirit, who is the one Spirit of the Father and of the Son, proceeding from the Father and the Son, naturally (or: faithfully) remaining in the Father and the Son: having the origin of His divinity from the Father and the Son, having naturally with the Father and the Son the truth of one deity.
But concerning the Holy Spirit, what more could or ought to be proclaimed unto the perfection of the divine majesty, than that, when the Son of God is said to have been born of the Holy Spirit from the Virgin Mary, the Spirit Himself is found to be the maker of that holy body? In what, then, can He worthily be called less than the Father or the Son, who is, according to the flesh, the almighty creator of the very only Son of God? This is the Trinity, one God, whose mystery is contained in the holy Creed, on account of which holy baptism is given in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
But the remission of sins, the resurrection of the flesh, and life eternal, are for this reason added in the Creed after the commemoration of the holy Trinity, so that the profit of that confession may be shown by the appending of this reward. For to this end is the faith of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit useful—that is, of the one eternal, true, and good God—namely, that we may receive the remission of sins, and, rising in this flesh in which we now live, may live blessedly forever. This is that piety 'which is profitable unto all things, having the promise of the present life and of that which is to come' (I Tim. IV, 8); of the present indeed as good, and of the future as eternal and blessed.
And the holy Church is subjoined, that it may be acknowledged to be the house of God the Founder, the eternal city of the Redeemer: without whose fellowship and unity the remission of sins is not acquired, and through the resurrection of the flesh one comes not to the joys of eternal life, but to the punishments of eternal death. Accordingly the holy Creed profits him who believes the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit to be naturally one God: for he himself has received the remission of sins, and through the resurrection of this flesh in which he now lives well, he will without doubt possess life eternal; but we do not believe in the remission of sins, in the resurrection of the flesh, and in life eternal in the same way as we believe in the Holy Spirit.
For, the distinction between the Giver and the gift being preserved, we believe in the Father and in the Son and in the Holy Spirit; but the remission of sins, the resurrection of the flesh, and life eternal we believe and hope are to be given to us by the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. For our very Savior evidently showed in whom we are to believe, saying to His disciples: 'Go, teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit' (Matt. XXVIII, 19). But in the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the property of the persons was to be intimated, lest in the Trinity, God, in whom one nature is most healthfully believed, one person should also be most perniciously believed.
But I marvel that you confess that of God nothing else could be born except God, and yet do not consider that in the very nature and name of God are contained all those things which have been said of God the Father. For if of God nothing else could be born except God, then assuredly of the almighty God nothing else could be born except an almighty God; of God the Creator of all, nothing could be born except a God the Creator of all; of God the King of the ages, nothing else could be born except a King of the ages; of the immortal God, nothing else could be born except an immortal God; of the invisible God, nothing could be born except an invisible God.
Since therefore of God was born God, of the Father the Son, of the Almighty an almighty one, of the Creator of all the Creator of all, of the King of the ages a King of the ages, of the immortal an immortal one, of the invisible an invisible one—what remains but that the Son be believed in all things equal to the Father? FRAGMENT XXXVII. The Father is truly Lord, and Christ is truly God, and the whole Trinity is truly Lord God. How we are baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and yet are saved in the name of Christ alone. Whether baptism is good in the name of Jesus Christ. For neither does the tenor of the Creed attribute deity to the Father alone, but in God the Father it shows the natural origin of the Son and of the Holy Spirit:
in whom, assuredly, the true divinity had to be demonstrated by the name of omnipotence, because He would not be God if He were not almighty; the true generation also had to be demonstrated by the name of fatherhood, that the common nature of the Father and the Son might be truly signified. And because it belongs naturally to God to be Lord of all things; in that the tenor of the Creed called Christ Lord, it truly intimated Him also to be God. For it is proper and natural to the true God to be nothing else than Lord; and to the true Lord, to be nothing else than God. Hence it is that the blessed apostle Paul also thus says: 'Yet to us there is one God the Father, from whom are all things, and we in Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by Him' (I Cor. VIII, 6).
So that just as he did not take from God the Father the rights of true dominion, so neither should the Lord Son be acknowledged to be withdrawing the unity of deity. For it is permitted to us to confess one God and one Lord. For there is one dominion of the one divinity, and one divinity of the one dominion, and thus, besides the one Lord there is not another Lord, just as besides the one God there is not another God. The one dominion, therefore, of the one God is recognized in His one divinity; and the one divinity of the one Lord is naturally found in His one dominion. Besides the one God the Father there is not another God, and besides the one Lord Jesus Christ there is not another Lord.
But neither is God the Father one God without God the Son, nor is the Lord Christ one Lord without the Lord the Father. For God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ are naturally one Lord God: having naturally the fullness of deity in the fullness of dominion, and having the fullness of dominion in the fullness of deity. Hence it is that blessed David says: 'Who is God besides the Lord? or who is God besides our God?' (Ps. XVII, 32). The tenor of the Creed, therefore, shows in the Father and the Son the unity of deity and of dominion, when it intimated to those who believe rightly both that the Father, whom it called God, is nothing else than Lord, and that Christ, whom it called Lord, is nothing else than God.
For of the one God the Father was born the one God Jesus Christ, who could be born nothing else than God: who nevertheless would not naturally be one Lord, if He had not been born of the Lord. And so God the Father, who begot the Lord, is known as true Lord; and Christ the Lord, begotten of God, is known as true God; and the Holy Spirit, the one and the same Spirit of the Father and the Son, because He is of one nature with the Father and the Son, is true Lord God. For to Him there is naturally, with the Lord God the Father and the Lord God the Son, both the deity of true dominion and the dominion of true deity.
Hence it is that every catholic Christian, when he is asked whether God the Father is Lord, and whether the Lord Jesus Christ is God, without doubt confesses both; and yet he is found to be a truthful preacher not of two gods, nor of two lords, but of one Lord God. For what remains for the man who is not permitted to preach two gods or two lords, except that, when questioned, he should fearlessly confess God the Father and the Lord Christ to be one Lord? And surely he answers no otherwise concerning the Holy Spirit, since He is one Lord God together with the Father and the Son, who is the one Spirit of the Father and of the Son.
And whoever denies or doubts this to be true, must of necessity either say that God the Father alone is to be worshipped, or profess himself a worshipper of both Creator and creature. But the Christian faith proclaims the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit to be one Lord God for this reason: because it is not lawful to believe in two or three lords or gods, nor is it permitted to anyone to worship the creature together with the Creator, nor can the Christian faith stand without the worship of the Son or of the Holy Spirit. There is therefore one God, and one Lord of all things, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. For 'God' is not the name of the Father alone, but is one name common by nature to the Trinity. Therefore our Saviour commanded His disciples, saying: