Anti-Arian Works 3 part 1/3

It has been said that the Father begot the Son ineffably of Himself, that is, of that which He Himself is. It has been added that He was born not from without, but of God. These statements need no reply, because they agree with our faith. First Objection. What is said to this? If He was born of God, He is from within God; but if He is not from within, neither is He of Him; if merely diverse terms are set down, what does it profit, if the truth itself does not confess it? Reply. Indeed, while the Father and the Son are named, in these two names a diversity of terms is acknowledged; but rather through these two diverse terms one nature of both is signified:

since the diversity of these names does not divide the natures, but shows the truth of the generation, so that from one true Father we may acknowledge that one true Son has existed; and thus, while the true generation of the Father and the true nativity of the Son are proclaimed, in the one begetter and the one begotten there may be acknowledged not only the unity of substance, but also in each the property of person, lest either He be thought to have been born who begot, or He who was born be thought to be other than He who begot.

For He who is the Father is not He who is the Son, since in each the property of the persons is reserved. But what the Father is, this the Son also is, because the Son was born God of God, perfect of perfect, immense of immense, omnipotent of omnipotent, co-eternal of the eternal Father, the same Truth saying: 'All things that the Father hath are mine' (John 17:10). Father therefore and Son are relative names, which do not separate the nature of the begetter and the begotten, but without doubt signify it to be one. But we have said that to be relative, which we refer to the acknowledging of another, so that while we name the one, we point to the other:

just as among men these relatives are often named: father and son, son and father, father-in-law and son-in-law, son-in-law and father-in-law; for one is called father, that he may be known to have begotten a son, and the other is called son, that he may be shown to have been begotten of a father. Nor in this diversity of names is found a diversity of natures, since each alike is called man, although one is named father and the other son. The one nature of father and son therefore could not be recognized, if these were not diverse terms, since if both were called fathers, they would surely be dissimilar in nature: for each would consist of himself and would not have a common substance with the other, nor would there be one deity in those who had not one nature;

and it would follow that two fathers should beget two sons, since unless a true offspring existed of each, the truth of the paternal name would appear in neither. Now indeed, in two sons born of different fathers, although there might be no diversity of the relative name, let it be considered whether there could be a common nature. Who does not see that in both the name of son is one, but the nature of both is not one? Rather, each son has a common nature not with the other son, with whom he had one name of relation, but with the father from whom he had existed. But what further should be disputed concerning two fathers and two sons?

since the truth of this assertion has no need of a diversity of persons, but for the proof of itself can more easily be supported by the consideration of a single man, by which it may be recognized that relative names by their diversity do not show a diversity of natures, but pertain chiefly to the signification of persons, namely that while one is shown, the person of the other also may be known; but that name is always common to father and son, not whereby a personal relation is shown, but whereby a substantial property is demonstrated: for was not Seth, born of Adam his father, and begotten of the unbegotten, called the son of Adam his father? He therefore, until he should reach the age of manhood, so as to beget a son, could not be called father;

And before he begot, he was only a son; but when he had begotten, he then also began to be a father. Therefore, though a diversity of the paternal name was added, no natural diversity was thereby made in him; and although one man had begun to have these two designations, in him the nature was not changed, nor divided, nor doubled: for he was a son, because he came forth from a father; he was a father, because he begot a son; yet he did not so possess the nature of a son, in which he was born, that, remaining in it, he could not be a father; nor did he acquire another essence together with the name of father, so as to lose the substance of a son in which he had been born. But, as is the truth, just as he was a man when he came into being as a son by being born, so he remained a man when he became a father by begetting.

Nor was he anything other than a man—both what Adam, from whom he himself was born, was, and what Enos, who was begotten from him, was. Therefore, in God the Father and God the Son, with the property of the persons preserved, let it not be called impossible—a thing that is proved even by the example of any human being; but let us distinguish what is known to pertain to relation and what to substance. For Father and Son are names of relation; but the name of the substance is one, which is called God. Therefore the names of relation they retain each singly; but the name of the substance they possess in common as one, because although one is called Father and the other Son, yet the Son is God in such a way as the Father is God.

For by those two names the true generation is known, but by this one common name the substantial unity is demonstrated. Objection 2. We recall that we have never read the things set forth above, because it is written of him: Who shall declare his generation (Isa. 53)? And, Scripture said, as it were, that there is none who might declare it. These men are to be warned, so that they may say they can know that his generation is unutterable, but not unknowable. Response. It is written: I believed, therefore have I spoken; and we believe, therefore we speak (2 Cor. 4:13), and we confidently profess that the generation of the Son is unutterable, yet not unknowable;

for it does not follow that what cannot be uttered cannot be known, since no one is able to utter God himself, and yet it is not permitted to anyone with impunity to be ignorant of him. Indeed God, though unutterable, is so far knowable that the blessed Apostle pronounces certain men inexcusable on this account: that when they had known God, they did not glorify him as God or give thanks (Rom. 1:21). For if the Lord did not wish to be acknowledged by us, he would not have said: If you had known me, you would surely have known my Father also (John 14:7). Nor would he have rebuked Philip, who said, Lord, show us the Father, and it suffices us, with this reproof, saying: I have been with you so long a time, and you have not known me:

Philip, he who has seen me has seen the Father also; for by this word the Lord willed to show that the whole of what was sought is found in himself: for it cannot be that the Son should have anything less than the eternal and immeasurable Father, in whom bodily dwells all the fullness of the Godhead (Col. 2:9). God, then, is not unknowable, though he be unutterable; but he is known by the faithful, that he may be loved, although he is uttered neither by human tongues nor by angelic. For the Apostle Paul shows that ignorance of God is nothing other than the servitude of demons, saying: But then indeed, not knowing God, you served those who by nature are not gods (Gal. 4:8).

Therefore, just as we ought not to be ignorant of Christ's divinity, though we cannot utter it, so, although no one has at hand an utterance of his nativity, nevertheless the knowledge of it is not taken away from the faithful. For who would proclaim one as born whose nativity he did not know? Who would call him Son and not know him begotten? Who could believe him a Father whom he does not consider to have begotten? The Father truly begot, and the Son was truly born. Therefore it is granted to us to acknowledge the true nativity of the Son, although it is not granted to utter in what manner he was born. Since even the prophet did not say, But who has acknowledged his generation, but, who has declared it (Isa. 53:8)?

Wherefore we worthily know the divine generation, as far as is lawful for man, when we both call it a true generation and proclaim that same generation, which is true, to be unutterable. The Son, then, is acknowledged to be truly born of the Father's substance, while his nativity, which is of the unutterable God, is proclaimed unutterable: for without doubt the true nativity of the Son is unutterable, because he has one substance with his unutterable begetter. Objection 3. His generation is to be rightly professed thus, as the Lord himself says through the Scriptures: The Lord created me the beginning of his ways; before the ages he founded me (Prov. 8:22). And it follows: And before all the hills he begot me. And again:

I came forth from the Father and came into this world (John 16:28). And again: The Lord said to me, You are my Son; this day have I begotten you (Ps. 2:7). And after he was known in the flesh, the evangelist professes of him, saying: And we saw his glory, glory as of the Only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth (John 1:14). And the Apostle says: Who is the Firstborn of every creature (Col. 1:15). Behold, we profess him created, founded, and begotten, without any irrational ambiguity. Response. In each nativity of Christ he is not [at a loss] who, in Christ the Son of God and of man, professes both the full divinity from the Father and the full manhood from the mother:

and thus he knows both substances in him to be true, while by faithful piety he distinguishes what befits eternity and what befits temporality. For neither ought we to be ignorant that he himself, in time, was according to the flesh created from man—he who, being without beginning according to divinity the Creator, was begotten of the Father: for in that nativity which has no beginning, the majesty of the everlasting divinity is acknowledged; but in this one, the compassion of the everlasting divinity is found. For he who, not created but the Creator, begotten of the Creator, had by his goodness created man, himself afterward by his compassion was created from man. Nor did he disdain to become his own work, whereby through him the state of his own work might be restored.

Therefore, Wisdom, wishing to foretell the mystery of this creation, so as to show the future sacrament of his Incarnation, said, after the prophetic manner in which future things are wont to be narrated under the announcement of past time: The Lord created me the beginning of his ways in his works (Prov. 8:22). He showed the cause of the creation while he did not keep silent that he was created the beginning of the ways of God in his works: for that he might show that it belongs not to that eternal nativity that he is said to be created, but to this time in which the Son of God is found to have taken flesh, let it be noted what he set before it: If I shall announce to you (he says) the things that come to pass daily, I will call to mind to declare the things that are from the ages (ibid. 21).

Therefore, since these things came to pass daily, he warns beforehand that things done from the ages are to be announced, and he shows that what he is about to tell us belongs not to eternity but to time. On this account he at once added: The Lord created me the beginning of his ways in his works. Therefore, in that Wisdom was created, it is not before the ages but from the ages; but in that the Son is set as created the beginning of the ways, what else is it than that he himself was made a way for us, so that, with him as guide and ruler, through the grace of adoption which we have received, an entrance might lie open for us by the divine gift unto the advancement of virtues? And that this may appear more evidently, we ought to attend to this: that the Son was made a creature—the beginning—not that he might again establish a new creation, but that he might renew that which of old had already been lost through age (i.e., the old thing);

For the apostles too are found to have made the beginning of this creation, by whose ministry he restored what had before fallen, as the blessed James says of God the Father: Of his own will he begot us by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of beginning of his creatures (James 1:18). Therefore by most evident proofs it is shown that in this place creation is to be referred not to the fashioning of all creatures, but to the reparation of men: just as holy David also prayed, when he had been terrified by the recollection of a twofold crime—not only of an outraged marriage bond, but also of an innocent husband slain.

When, therefore, he was pondering how to wash away the stain of so great a crime with a flood of tears, he poured out this amid the groans which he had as witnesses of his grief: Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within my bowels (Ps. 51:10). Signifying this: that a clean heart being created in him was that a right spirit be renewed within his bowels. To this end, therefore, Christ willed to be created, and his apostles to be made the beginning of this creation, so that through him the man who had perished through age might be renewed. But before the age, Wisdom said that she was founded, that she might demonstrate her nativity, by which she was born of the Father, to be immutable: for what is said to be founded is by no reasoning shaken; and what is not shaken is not changed.

But that the nativity of his divinity may be known to be without beginning, we must attend to what follows: Before he made the earth, before he established the depths, before the fountains of waters came forth, before the mountains were settled, but before all the hills he begot me (Prov. 8:23-26). When this word 'before' is said, absolutely every beginning is anticipated. This is to be considered, because wherever that divine and eternal nativity of the Son is demonstrated, it is not said when he was born, but 'before' is always placed, so that whatever man may wish to think of infinity and eternity, before everything that is conceived in thought, the Son's nativity may always be thought of:

and thus the nativity of the Son of God is known to be without beginning, in which nothing is continually found except the aforesaid 'before.' But we would wish to be answered whether this that is begotten is the same as that which is created. And if both are thought to be one, then let the world be called begotten by God—the world which cannot be begotten—as well as created. Let unbelieving men also be called sons of God, who have not been freed from the power of darkness; let them be called heirs of the future blessedness, who do not receive faith in the Savior. But if, as is the truth, it is one thing to be created and another to be begotten, let it be distinguished in which substance Christ is said to be created by God, and in which he is proclaimed begotten of the Father:

For the very passage of Scripture very easily shows to those who seek in which nature Christ is to be called created. Namely, in that nature in which it names him 'Lord,' so as to show in himself the truth of the servant's form, just as he also speaks in the psalm, saying: O Lord, I am your servant; I am your servant and the son of your handmaid (Ps. 116:16). Of the handmaid, then, was born the servant, who of the Father was begotten the Lord. On account of the form of a servant, therefore, he said: The Lord created me; he does not say himself created by the Father, but by the Lord. For where he is said to be begotten according to divinity, the Father is immediately named, just as he himself truly said: I came forth from the Father, and came (John 8:42); and the blessed evangelist says of him:

And we saw his glory, glory as of the Only-begotten of the Father (John 1:14). You see that here he did not say 'of the Lord,' but 'of the Father.' But in that the Apostle calls him the Firstborn of every creature (Col. 1:15), a creature is certainly understood as restored, not as fashioned: the creature of the sons of God, by which, from his servants, they were made his brethren—he who, according to the Apostle's saying, is not ashamed to call us brethren, saying: I will declare your name to my brethren; in the midst of the Church I will praise you. And again: I will put my trust in him. And again: Behold, I and the children whom God has given me (Heb. 2:12-13). Since, therefore, the children also shared in blood and flesh, he too likewise partook of the same;

that through death he might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil; that he might deliver those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. For nowhere did he take hold of angels, but he took hold of the seed of Abraham. Whence he ought in all things to be made like his brethren, that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest before God, that he might make propitiation for the sins of the people. For in that he himself suffered and was tempted, he is able to help those who are tempted (Heb. 2:14-18). We hear of Christ having brethren; we hear of the seed of Abraham; we hear of him destroying, through death, him who had the power of death; we hear of him tempted;

we hear of him suffering—and do we doubt to profess Christ the Firstborn of every creature according to the mystery of the Incarnation? Since again the blessed Apostle, in what testimony of his preaching we ought to receive him as Firstborn, shows: We know, he says, that to those who love God all things work together for good, to those who according to purpose are called saints. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he himself might be the Firstborn among many brethren (Rom. 8:28-29). He, therefore, who according to deity was always Only-begotten, without brethren, was made according to manhood the Firstborn among many brethren. This is taught more evidently again by that testimony of the Apostle:

where he is named the Firstborn from the dead (Col. 1:18). For what is the Firstborn from the dead, except the first of sinful men, the man Christ Jesus, exalted into the Son of God? But he was born not a sinner from sinners, as a man from men, but was born a man, taken up by God without any sin, so that he might reconcile sinful men to God, being freed from all sin. For it behooved such a man to be taken up by God, through whom men could be joined to God by a gratuitous justification. He is therefore the Firstborn of every creature (Col. 1:15)—of that creature, assuredly, of which we heard the blessed apostle James speak a little before:

Of his own will he begot us by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of beginning of his creatures (James 1:18). Of this creature the apostle Paul also says: If, then, there be any new creature in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17). Of which David also had foretold: Send forth your Spirit, and they shall be created; and you shall renew the face of the earth (Ps. 104:30). Otherwise, if according to the divine nativity Christ is received as the Firstborn of every creature, by what testimonies is he shown to be the Firstborn from the dead before every creature? Since those could not be called dead who had not yet even been created. Therefore we know Christ Only-begotten of the Father; let us profess him Firstborn of the Virgin:

for in that nativity he is truly the Only-begotten, in which, without beginning, God alone was born of God alone; but in this nativity he is the Firstborn of every creature (Col. 1:15), that is, of those whom he deigned to adopt to himself as brethren through faith. But as many as received him, to them he gave power to become sons of God, to those who believe in his name (John 1:12). This generation is likewise known to be proclaimed in the second psalm, where Christ, in the person of the manhood he assumed, says: The Lord said to me, You are my Son; this day have I begotten you (Ps. 2:7). And that he might show this to be said according to the mystery of the future Incarnation, he added:

Ask of me, and I will give you the nations for your inheritance and the ends of the earth for your possession. For how, according to the form of God, would he ask that the ends of the earth be possessed, when he promises and gives to his faithful the kingdom of heaven, which is greater? He, therefore, who, remaining in the form of God, for the salvation of servants was made a servant, according to the servile form, that he might receive the nations for inheritance and possession, asked for the ends of the earth—he who according to the divine nature, just as he made together with the Father all things which are in heaven and in earth, visible and invisible, so together with the Father always possessed all things. That this generation, which the second psalm intimates, pertains to the mystery of the Incarnation, the book of the Acts of the Apostles,

as Paul was speaking in the synagogue, bears witness; whose [discourse] to the Jews is found to be of this kind: And we announce to you that promise which was made to our fathers, since God has fulfilled it to our children, in raising up Jesus; as also it is written in the second psalm: You are my Son, this day have I begotten you (Acts 13:32-33). This, then, which the psalm said, the Apostle shows to be said of the Son according to this, in that he preaches him raised from the dead. Let it therefore be attended to what nature in Christ rose from the dead, and it will be understood in what respect Christ was begotten this day and received the ends of the earth to be possessed.

Let there therefore be acknowledged in Christ the property of each nature, so that it may be understood without error that he is both created, and founded, and begotten: begotten indeed and founded according to that whereby he was ineffably born of the Lord as Lord; but created according to the human generation whereby he was born of the handmaid as a servant, so that him whom the Father alone begot before all things by nature, he might beget for our salvation by grace. Wherefore we ought to acknowledge each nature in Christ the Lord, so that we may neither seem proud against the Creator, nor prove ungrateful for the benefit of our Savior, lest with the Savior he deny to himself the salvation which he seeks, who denies to the Creator the true deity from God the Father. Objection 4.

But those who irrationally presume to say that the Son was born of the Father's substance—let them nevertheless teach from the Scriptures how it is not a false profession of error, when one, saying that his generation is unutterable, asserts that he was born of the Father's substance. Response. The defect of the assertion is recognized when someone strives so to destroy the rule of another's faith that he is unwilling to put forth the firm sentence of his own belief. We, on this account, believe and confess the Son of God to be born of the Father's substance, that is, of that which the Father is. Since whatever is not the substance of God we cannot adore or worship as God, keeping the more carefully the precept of the law by which it is said:

Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one Lord. And, You shall adore the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve (Deut. 6:4, 13). This God we believe to be not the Father alone, but the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. For our faith, by which we worship and fear one God, is neither drawn together by unity of person, nor disjoined by substantial diversity: lest either we worship gods after the manner of the Gentiles by worshiping diverse substances, or with Sabellius deny the Son and the Spirit, not preserving the persons in the Trinity. The right belief of this faith is instilled into us in truth not only by prophetic but also by apostolic doctrine. For when Isaiah is made worthy of the vision of God, the inmost belief of this faith is [set forth],

with two seraphim crying out a third time: Holy, holy, holy (Isa. 6:3); and once introducing: The Lord God of Sabaoth. What is it that 'Holy' is said a third time, if the person in the Godhead is not threefold? Why is 'the Lord God' said but once, if the substance in the Godhead is not one? The Lord also, through Moses, wishing to bless the people, gave commandment for the blessing in this tenor: Thus (he says) shall you bless my people, and I will bless them. The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you, and have mercy on you. The Lord lift up his face upon you, and give you peace (Num. 6:23-26).

Three times is 'the Lord' said, and one Lord is always named, so that in the Trinity, which is the true God, neither may the property of the persons be confounded, nor the substantial unity be denied. David also, pleasing to God in all things, under this belief desires that the grace of the divine blessing be poured into the faithful people in these words: May God, our God, bless us; may God bless us, and let all the ends of the earth fear him (Ps. 67:6-7). With which sentence the blessed Apostle agrees, who, when he had said in a certain place: One God the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we through him (1 Cor. 8:6), said also of the Holy Spirit:

Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, in whom you were sealed unto the day of redemption (Eph. 4:30). And when he remembered that he had spoken of things from the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit, in order to show this Trinity to be one God, he says in another place: For of him, and through him, and in him are all things. And what he added in the singular: To him be glory unto the ages of ages (Rom. 11:36). That the Son was born of the Father's substance both the Christian faith rightly proclaims and Holy Scripture records. Paul the apostle says of the Son of God: Who, being the brightness of his glory and the figure of his substance (Heb. 1:3). The Lord again says to Jeremiah:

Take up a lamentation upon the mountains, and men did not hear the voice of my substance, from the birds of heaven even to the cattle (Jer. 9:10). But that the Son is the substance of the Father, the book of Wisdom evidently shows, saying: You fed your people with the food of angels; you furnished them bread from heaven prepared without labor, having in itself all delight and every savor of sweetness: for you did show your substance and your sweetness, which you have toward your children (Wisd. 16:20-21). That the bread given from heaven is the substance and sweetness of God, Scripture testifies: that the bread truly given from heaven is the Son of God is shown by the words of the Son himself, who says: I am the living bread which came down from heaven (John 6:41).