Anti-Arian Works 2 part 6/10

He is great, and has no end, exalted and immense—lest this vision of God upon earth and His conversation with men should be thought to have estranged the immense God from heaven, for this reason the Son Himself, that He might demonstrate the immensity of His divinity while placed upon earth, and might teach that He was present also to heaven, not according to the man which He had assumed while placed upon earth, but according to God, which He always was, said: No one has ascended into heaven, except He who descended from heaven, the Son of man who is in heaven (John 3:13);

not because the human substance of Christ was diffused everywhere, but because one and the same Son of God and Son of man—true God from the Father, as He is true man from man—although according to His true humanity He was then locally on earth, yet according to His divinity (which is in no way contained by place) filled wholly both heaven and earth. CHAPTER XVIII. From the words of the Apostle Christ is proved both immense and local. The bodily ascension of Christ. Christ dwells in us. God the Father dwells in us. The Holy Spirit dwells in us. This true humanity of Christ, which is local, and His true divinity, which is always immense, we see intimated to us also by the apostolic doctrine.

For that the body of Christ, true man, is locally contained, the Apostle Paul might show, when he says to the Thessalonians: How you turned to God from idols, to serve the living and true God, and to await His Son from the heavens, whom He raised from the dead, Jesus (1 Thess. 1:9-10): plainly showing that He is to come bodily from heaven, whom He knew to have been bodily raised from the dead. Therefore again he says: But our conversation is in the heavens, whence also we await the Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ, who will reform the body of our lowliness, made conformable to the body of His glory, according to the working whereby He is able even to subject all things to Himself (Phil. 3:20-21).

Meanwhile, since the opportunity of the passage is not to be passed over in silence, let attention be given to this place in which the Apostle says the Son can subject all things to Himself, lest the Father be thought to have subjected all things as to one incapable; he says also that He will reform the body of our lowliness, made conformable to the body of His glory. But if the body of Christ is true, it can surely be contained by place. This truth of the body of Christ, which is to come from heaven, John also confirms, saying: Behold, He comes with the clouds, and every eye shall see Him, and those who pierced Him (Rev. 1:7). In the book of the Acts of the Apostles, too, His bodily ascension is thus intimated:

And when He had said these things, while they beheld, He was lifted up, and a cloud received Him out of their sight. And while they were gazing up into heaven as He went, behold, two men stood beside them in white garments, who also said: Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing into heaven? This Jesus, whom you saw going into heaven, shall so come as you saw Him going into heaven (Acts 1:9 ff.). Since therefore the flesh of Christ is shown without doubt to be local, yet His divinity is known to be everywhere always, as Paul testifies, who says to the faithful: Do you seek a proof of Him who speaks in me, Christ? (2 Cor. 13:3). But how could He speak in him, if He was not in him?

Or how did He ascend bodily into heaven, and is proclaimed to be in His faithful ones on earth, if there is not in Him the immensity of divinity which can fill heaven and earth? For to the Corinthians Paul says: Do you not know your own selves, that Jesus Christ is in you? (2 Cor. 13:5). And to the Ephesians he says: That Christ dwells in the inner man by faith in your hearts (Eph. 3:16-17). And so the Son is in heaven, and dwells in us on earth—namely by that presence of His immensity by which the Father and the Holy Spirit dwell in us: for God the Father showed His dwelling in us thus, the prophet speaking: For I will dwell in them, and walk among them,

and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. Wherefore, come out from the midst of them, and be separate, says the Lord: and touch not the unclean thing, and I will receive you; and I will be to you a Father, and you shall be to Me sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty (2 Cor. 6:16-18). That the Holy Spirit also dwells in us alike, Paul shows, writing thus to the Corinthians: Know you not that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? (1 Cor. 3:16).

And lest any of those who reckon the Holy Spirit to be less than the Father and the Son should deny that, here where it is said the Spirit of God dwells in you, this pertains to the person of the Holy Spirit, what will he reply in that place where the Apostle instructs Timothy with the solicitude of fatherly love, saying: Guard the good deposit through the Holy Spirit, who dwells in us (2 Tim. 1:14)? CHAPTER XIX. Such dwelling is not local, but immense. Our heart is enlarged by God dwelling within. This dwelling of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit in us is surely not local, but immense; not comprehensible by thought, but venerable by faith:

for the Trinity dwells in its faithful ones, whole in each just as whole in all, which is neither extended by the space of heaven and earth, nor limited by the limit of the whole creation, nor divided piecemeal among separate men or separate places, nor absent from hell, since it is not absent from earth and heaven. For He who could make all things, He alone can fill the universe. But whoever considers the coming or the indwelling of the Son and of the Holy Spirit to be local, it is first necessary that he affirm the Father to dwell in us locally, and not only to dwell but even to walk; whom blessed Paul asserts to have said through the prophet: For I will dwell in them, and walk among them (2 Cor. 6:16).

Let it therefore be explained in what manner the Son or the Holy Spirit dwells in us. For if we believe these things are to be measured after the human manner, then He who is said only to dwell is of greater size than He who is shown even to walk in us: for He who dwells can fill the whole of what He dwells in; but He who is said to walk about is surely shown, beyond doubt, to be smaller than the space in which He walks. But a worse absurdity will follow this ineptitude of thought. For beyond doubt the spaces of our heart will appear greater than the Trinity itself, in which there would be a place which the Son and the Holy Spirit could fill by dwelling, and a place which the Father could not fill by walking about.

But if these things do not agree with the truth, let us believe that the dwelling of the Trinity is ineffably signified according to the incomprehensible majesty of that immensity; and when we hear that God dwells and walks in us, let us so understand it spiritually that we do not believe God is moved locally in our heart, but that our heart is enlarged in God. Of which enlargement of the heart the Apostle spoke, saying: Our mouth is open to you, O Corinthians: our heart is enlarged. And having the same recompense, I speak as to sons, be you also enlarged (2 Cor. 6:11, 13). Where a little after he set down the testimony of the prophet mentioned above, saying:

For you are the temple of the living God, as God says: For I will dwell in them, and walk among them (ibid., 16). CHAPTER XX. The immensity of the Trinity is shown from the form of baptism. Conclusion of the second book on the immensity of the divinity of the Son of God. But neither is that in any way to be omitted, by which the most manifest immensity of the Trinity, and its presence in all things not local, but divine and wondrous, is demonstrated—since, believing in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, according to the very command of the Lord, we know that baptism is performed everywhere. For if the whole Trinity is believed to sanctify in baptism, the whole Trinity is surely shown to be present;

but since baptism is everywhere at one time celebrated throughout the whole world in the name of the Trinity, if the whole Trinity is present to sanctify, behold, it everywhere wondrously exhibits the presence of its immense majesty: for it belongs to God alone to fill the universe at once. But if the whole Trinity is not everywhere present alike, if the Son or the Holy Spirit is thought to be absent, then surely He who cannot be present to sanctify is not to be named in baptism. Whoever therefore thinks that the equality of the Father's immensity is to be denied to the Son or to the Holy Spirit, let him first remove their name from the sacrament of baptism.

In this therefore is the truth of the catholic faith most especially recognized, which has rightly been accustomed to baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, since it trusts that the whole Trinity is everywhere present alike. The immensity of the divinity of the Son of God could still be demonstrated by innumerable testimonies; but we have preferred to set down a few out of many, wishing also to conclude the second book more swiftly; taking especial care that, in these things which we address to your clemency, a mind happily occupied with royal cares be not burdened by the length of the reading, but instructed by the manifestation of the truth.

Accordingly, the things which have been argued concerning the immensity of the divinity of the Son of God, let us conclude with this ending, so that the things which are to be said concerning the sacrament of the Lord's Passion we may begin afresh with a new opening. THIRD BOOK. ON THE SACRAMENT OF THE LORD'S PASSION. CHAPTER I. The difficulty of the third book on the Lord's Passion. The error of the Theopaschites. The word of the cross is foolishness to those who perish. Although in the second book, supported by the help of the supernal gift, we have proved the divinity of the Son of God to be immense, confined neither by time nor by place, inasmuch as it fills all things, contains all things, precedes all things by eternity, and equally encompasses all things by its immensity;

which we took the greatest care to demonstrate for this reason, that if any, even to now, are unable to think spiritually of God, they might be freed from the error of a local suspicion concerning the Son of God—no less remains to us the solicitude of completing this third volume also, in which we are surely to treat of the sacrament of the Lord's Passion, insofar as He Himself, who suffered for us, shall grant it. Here we are shaken with no small fear, nor are we pressed by light dread: for we are utterly (as far as pertains to us) too weak for the explanation of so great a profundity. But He who opened the mouths of the dumb, and made the tongues of infants eloquent (Wisd.

10:21), He Himself (as we trust) will give a direct and well-sounding speech in our mouth, and will bestow upon this work—which He deigns mercifully to work through us—so great a grace of demonstrating the truth, that by manifest documents of the Scriptures there may be made clear both the rectitude of catholic doctrine and the tortuous and manifold error of heretical depravity. For there are certain men who, thinking otherwise about the sacrament of the Lord's Passion than piety holds, while they seek salvation, incur the loss of salvation, and while they receive in God that which they discern in men, they pierce, as it were with a certain lance of perverse speech, the side of the Savior;

and whereas the unbelieving soldiers did not dare to disparage Him as He died, certain men now, under the disguise of the Christian name, do not fear to derogate from Him as He reigns. These are they who, in the one Christ, true God and perfect man, being perhaps unable—or at any rate neglecting—to consider the human and divine substance according to natural truth, fall into such error that they do not consider the human nature in the Son of God, the immutability of the divine power remaining, but disgrace the divine substance with the passibility of divine weakness. Foreseeing this by the divine Spirit, the Apostle said: For the word of the cross is indeed foolishness to those who perish, but to those who are saved it is the power of God (1 Cor. 1:18).

In the word of the cross there perish not only those who suppose that the Son of God could not suffer in the flesh the things which are human, but also those who believe that the divinity of the Son of God substantially felt pains or suffering on the cross. But how is the word of the cross the power of God, if the divine substance could be weakened on the cross? Or in what way will Christ lead us to the grace of immutability and incorruption, if He Himself is proved, according to His divine nature, to have been changed for the worse—since it is proper to the divine nature neither to suffer defect nor to admit increase? CHAPTER II. Christ must be treated of cautiously, on account of the two natures in one person.

Therefore, being about to treat of what in Christ is always impassible, and what before the death of the flesh was passible, we have thought it right first to insert into this little book what we believe and hold concerning the one Christ, God and man: lest anyone, when we have begun to demonstrate in the one Christ those things which pertain to the property of the divine and human nature, should either suppose that we believe in two Christs according to each nature, or think that a fourth person is inserted by us into the Trinity.

For we ourselves, holding fast to the same truth of the Gospel, so acknowledge the properties of each nature in Christ Jesus, the man who is the Mediator between God and men, that we in no way divide the unity of the person; for we know that the property of each substance so remained united in Christ, that the impassible God, suffering in the flesh, both felt a true passion (because he willed it) in true flesh, and yet remained utterly impassible in his divinity; nor did any other suffer in the flesh save he who in the true passion of the flesh remained wholly impassible; nor did any other deign to hand himself over to death, save he who was so able by dying to conquer death, that he could not feel death within death.

But in what manner we say these things concerning the unity of the person, while the property of the substances in Christ is preserved, the course of our profession set forth below will make plain. CHAPTER III. The right faith concerning the divinity of the Son of God. The person of the Father is one, that of the Son another, in one nature. Christ the Only-begotten of God, full of grace and truth. We believe, therefore, that the Son of God, before absolutely every beginning—that is, without any beginning of his own nativity—was begotten of the substance of the Father, God of God, Lord of Lord; not out of nothing, because he is of the Father; not so called merely by name, because he has his name from the truth of his nature; not from another nature, because there was nothing coeternal with God from which an origin might be furnished to the Son.

Nor is the Son later than he who begot him, nor lesser, but (as we also said in the second little book) altogether equal to the Father, both in the eternity of his immensity and in the immensity of his eternity; the unchangeable maker of changeable things, the timeless maker of temporal things and of the ages themselves; whom no place contains, whom no place lacks, because the immense Creator fills all things; who is not therefore not God because he is called begotten, but rather is worthily believed to be true precisely because he is proclaimed to have been begotten substantially of the Father: for when he is called begotten, this is not a name of divinity in the Son, but is a name of nativity in God; so that he who is established to have been begotten naturally of the Father may be established to be nothing other than God.

This one, therefore, existing eternally from the Father, held one nature together with God the Father, but took his own person from his begetter; because the divine nativity did not bring about a division of the natural unity, but distinguished the person of the Son subsisting from the Father; and by the very term "Father" it shows another who was born, so as to exclude the error of Sabellian confusion, just as the Son himself testifies, saying: 'There is another who bears witness of me, and I know that the testimony which he bears of me is true' (John 5:32). And that he might show whom he called "another," he added a little later: 'The Father who sent me, he himself bears witness of me' (ibid., 37). In another place likewise, distinguishing his own person and the Father's:

'I am not alone,' he says, 'because the Father is with me' (John 8:16). To teach thoroughly this distinction of the two persons and the profession of one substance in the Father and the Son, the Son himself says: 'He who believes in me does not believe in me, but in him who sent me; and he who sees me, sees him who sent me' (John 12:44). There is therefore one Son, begotten of the Father's nature, who is for this reason called Only-begotten, that by the property of the paternal nature he may be shown to be one and begotten. But this one who is called Only-begotten from the Father by nature, just as he is inseparable in the unity of nature, so he remains unconfusable in the property of person. For this reason the Son of God names himself alone the Only-begotten, saying:

'For God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life' (John 3:16). And a little after: 'He who believes in him is not judged; but he who does not believe is already judged, because he does not believe in the name of the only-begotten Son of God.' Concerning the Son alone indeed John testifies and says: 'The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth' (John 1:14). The Word made flesh is full of the grace of human assumption, because Christ has nothing in himself that is less than man;

and the same, the Only-begotten of the Father, is full of the truth of the paternal substance, because he naturally has in himself the whole fullness of the paternal divinity. Therefore the evangelist recognized as full of grace and truth him whom the grace of a true incarnation would show to be one and the same true man, and whom the truth of an eternal nativity would declare to be true God, the Only-begotten of the Father. But what profit is it to the Son that he be called by the name of Only-begotten, if he is deprived of the truth of the term? For he is called Only-begotten in vain, if in his generation there is proclaimed not a natural truth from a begetting God, but the largess of a creation from a giver. For to others also: 'As many as received him, to them he gave power to become the sons of God' (ibid., 12).

But if the only-begotten Son too is said to have been made by grace, and not truly begotten by nature, then without doubt he has lost the name and truth of the Only-begotten, since he has now begun to have brothers: for he is deprived of the truth of this name, if in the Only-begotten there is no natural truth from the Father. CHAPTER IV. The adoptive sons of God differ not in names, but in gifts; not in life, but in glory. For among the sons of God who do not subsist from the nature of God the Father, the fellowship of adoptive dignity can have a diversity of gifts, not of names; and the grace of the one adopting, though it promises to all who are born of God a gift of differing reward according to the merit of their labor, yet accommodates to all the one name of sons;

and to those reborn through true faith one life of the heavenly kingdom is promised, although a differing glory of reigning is bestowed, as blessed Paul says: 'There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for star differs from star in glory; so also is the resurrection of the dead' (1 Cor. 15:41); and yet to all of these, by that power which he gave them to become the sons of God, it shall alike be said to those on the right hand: 'Come, ye blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world' (Matt. 25:34); and likewise of all it is said: 'But the righteous shall go into life everlasting' (ibid., 46).

Equally, therefore, the unity of the adoptive name shall hold all the sons of God, although the difference of glory is destined to show the quality of their merits; nor in that we have begun to be spiritual by the rising of our nativity are we distinguished in name, though by advancement we are to be distinguished in reward. For in that he voluntarily begot us by the word of truth, the grace of the begetter has alike called us sons. But if that divine and eternal nativity of the Son is believed to have subsisted not from the nature of God the Father, but from grace, then he ought not to be called Only-begotten, but only begotten.

Since, just as the largess of the paternal adoption conferred on him the name of "begotten," so the fellowship of the paternal adoption granted also to us has excluded him from the name of "Only-begotten." For he is not called Only-begotten among many, although he can be called begotten together with the begotten. But if this is so, let it be deleted that John dared to write the name of Only-begotten, so that it may be proved false which he deserved to draw from the breast of truth. But if the property of the Only-begotten must be shown by the token of a manifest signification, then let many be called sons of God by grace, in such a way that one is known to be begotten by nature. For who has been born true God of true God, save the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father?

Him alone the exclusiveness of an incommunicable name sets apart from the other sons of God, because in him alone remains the natural truth from the Father. CHAPTER V. Christ emptied himself, and yet remained full of grace and truth. This true God and eternal life, 'though he was in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant' (Phil. 2:6): for the true God did not seize by robbery equality with the true God, which as eternal he possessed by natural unity with his begetter. Therefore the only-begotten Son of God, even when, taking the form of a servant, he emptied himself, remained full of grace and truth. 'We beheld,' says John, 'his glory, the glory as of the Only-begotten'

'from the Father, full of grace and truth' (John 1:14). This indeed is that which, in one and the same being who empties himself and is full of grace and truth, by the servant's form assumed, showed the truth of an altogether voluntary self-emptying, in which, remaining eternally the form of God, he displayed the fullness of grace and truth. What, therefore, is that emptying of the Only-begotten, but the passible and mortal humanity of Christ assumed? And what is the fullness of the Only-begotten, but the abiding impassible and immortal divinity of Christ? In whom the perfect man is full of grace, and in whom the perfect God is full of truth: which

without doubt bears the name of fullness, so that it may be shown to be of divinity; let us alike hear the Apostle speaking of Christ: 'For in him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and ye are complete in him' (Col. 2:9-10). And what is that fullness of the Godhead which dwells in Christ, let John show: 'The Word,' he says, 'was made flesh, and dwelt among us' (John 1:14). Of this fullness John the Baptist declares that we have received, saying: 'And of his fullness have we all received, and grace for grace.' CHAPTER VI. In the one Christ there are two natures, not confused, but united.

One therefore and the same is Christ, the Son of God and of man, who both emptied himself and remained full of grace and truth; truly made changeable, remaining unchangeable; truly suffering, not subject to suffering; truly dead, not feeling death, but extinguishing it. Yet all these things one Christ both did and endured, because in one and the same Christ the true nature of divinity and the true nature of humanity remained, while God, not confused with man but united to him, so displayed in one person the marks of each abiding nature, that as true and full God he shone forth by true and divine powers in the assumed man, and the truth of human weakness showed a true and complete man in God.

Wherefore the blessed Apostle both proclaims one and the same Christ crucified, and declares him the power and wisdom of God, saying: 'But we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews indeed a stumbling-block, and to the Gentiles foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God' (1 Cor. 1:23-24); and that in the weakness of the human assumption he might show the greatness of the divine power, he added: 'For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men' (ibid., 25). That Son of God, therefore, the power of God and the wisdom of God, in the beginning of our redemption, accomplished something different in the man

different, that is, from what he always had in the Father, because, namely, the nativity of majesty had one thing there, and the mercy of redemption required another thing here: for in that hidden mystery of the eternal nativity the eternal and unchangeable Father begot another, not a different one; and as much as he brought forth by begetting, so great did he himself remain; and he distinguished personally from himself the one whom naturally he has wholly in himself. This is made manifest to us by the utterance of the Son himself, saying: 'I am in the Father, and the Father in me' (John 14:10). Unconfusedly, therefore, nature unites both, although person inseparably distinguishes both; therefore the Son himself testifies: 'I and the Father are one' (John 10:30).

By this, that he says "one," the divinity is not separated from God; by this, that he says "are," the nativity is not confounded in the begetter. CHAPTER VII. It befitted the Mediator to have two natures. God became man, without any change of himself. Now here, while the exchange of our redemption was being transacted, it befitted full and true God to be united to full and true man: yet in such a way that, in the unity of person, neither could God be confounded in the man, nor the man in God: for never would any man have been fit to conquer the enemy of the human race, if in the Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, either something of the man had been less, or the man assumed by God had been consumed by the divine assumption;