Works 6 part 3/5

1:15), as if he were reckoned firstborn in the order of things made, so that from him they might assign a certain sequence to the things of the world to be created. Finally, having removed the homoousion—that is, the term 'of one substance'—they posited the homoiousion, that is, 'like his maker,' since likeness is one thing and truth another. For man too was made to the image and likeness of God (Genesis 1:26), yet he is not God; nor must it be believed that what God is, man has come to be. Thus too they wish the Son of God to be 'like,' so that they may call him like from some other source, not from that one holy and blessed substance of the Father itself. But if he is not of the Father's substance, he is 'ex ouk onton,' that is, from things not existing at all, as the same Arius handed down.

For once that which is the Father is removed, from whatever source the Son shall have come, it is necessary that he have both a beginning from nothing and an origin from time. For nothing is without a beginning except God alone. Whence the Son too, as the Lord himself says: 'I and the Father are one' (John 10:30). He said this for the reason that he might show the names of two persons in the majesty of one Godhead, just as the prophet too, from the voice of God: 'My heart hath uttered forth a good Word,' he says, 'I tell my works to the king' (Psalm 45:1). You see therefore that this 'good Word' is the Son of God, whom we believe to have been born from no other source than from the paternal breast and (so to speak) from the womb of the heart of God. And accordingly he calls him king, because he himself is the King of kings:

God the Lord, to whom all divine works are subject; who said: 'All things that the Father hath are mine' (John 16:15). Concerning him the evangelist also says: 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things were made through him, and without him was made nothing' (John 1:1). Therefore that which was in the beginning must be believed always to have been. But to be from no other source than from him who has no beginning, that is, from the heart of the Father, because 'my heart,' he says, 'hath uttered forth a good Word.' For he did not say, 'In the beginning the Word was made,' but 'In the beginning,' he says, 'was the Word.' Whatever beginning of the Word you wish to mark, you will have it prejudged, because 'in the beginning,' he says, 'it was.'

Not that we speak of two beginnings from a diversity of things, but because the Word the Son is always with the Father, and is born of the Father. And accordingly, he whose origin has no beginning must be believed to be everlasting; because neither can the Father ever be named without the Son, nor can the Son be called without the Father, and thereby the Son is always, because the Father is always. 'And the Word,' he says, 'was God.' What is God always is; lest, if it were not always, it could not be true God: just as also in the name of wisdom, because according to the Apostle he himself is the wisdom of the Father (1 Corinthians 1:24). 'I,' he says, 'came forth from the mouth of the Most High' (Sirach 24:5). Therefore from no other source than from the Father, because always with the Father.

And therefore he is called the Wisdom of God, so that the Father may never be believed to have been without wisdom, that is, without his Son. This is that ineffable wisdom which in Solomon is described as the beginning of the ways of God, whether founded or begotten or created (Proverbs 8): yet which he so calls 'founded' as to show that she was always with God. For what beginning will you give to God, that you might be able to assign a beginning to his very wisdom? For God did not so found his wisdom as though at some time he had been without wisdom. But when he says 'the beginning of his ways,' he shows the beginning of the motion of some work, so that the wisdom of God has this beginning—that it proceeded from God for the founding of all things, both heavenly and earthly—not that it began to be in God.

Wisdom therefore was created—nay rather, begotten—not for herself who always was, but for those things which were to be made by her; so that, because how great and of what kind she was could not be known, her power and might might be known from the effect of her works, in order that, while we estimate the Maker from the things made, we might then fear all the more when we marvel at the things made. But if you so say that wisdom was created as to understand the Son of God to be a creature, the Apostle confronts you, condemning those who worship the creature, saying: 'Wherefore God gave them up unto the lust of their heart unto uncleanness, that they should dishonor their own bodies among themselves:'

who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is God blessed for ever (Romans 1:24-25). This, I say, is that Wisdom of God which says: 'I came forth from the mouth of the Most High' (Sirach 24:5), the founder and maker of the universe, that is, the Son of God through whom are all things and in whom are all things: because, as the Apostle said: 'In him were all things created that are in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominations or virtues or principalities or powers; all things were created through him and in him, and he is before all, and all things consist in him' (Colossians 1:16-17). Hence Solomon too:

'Though she is one,' he says, 'she can do all things, and remaining in herself she renews all things, and throughout the nations she passes into holy souls' (Wisdom 7:27). Confirming which the Apostle says that Christ dwells in the inner man (Ephesians 3:16), so that through him by whom from the beginning all things were made, through him also in the end all things may be saved. CHAPTER III. But you say to me that the homoousion—that is, the name 'of one substance'—ought not to be named for this reason, because it is not contained in the divine Scriptures. I too ask you, O man who forbid this: if it ought not to be named because it is not written, is it because it may not be so believed? But if it must be so believed, why should it not be so professed?

For 'with the heart,' says the Apostle, 'a man believes unto righteousness, but with the mouth confession is made unto salvation' (Romans 10:10). Or if it is for this reason not to be named, because it is also not to be believed, then the assertion of the Arian taint has prevailed—which for this reason denied the Father and the Son to be of one substance: because it brings in the Son of God as made now from nothing, now from the Father but from another substance, when it willed and how it willed and from whatever source it willed; provided only that it fabricates him to have subsisted from elsewhere, and not from that which is the Father. And even though it says he is born, yet this only verbally, because again it understands everything that is born to have been made; in that we too are called begotten of God, who admittedly are a thing made.

Or if you are not an Arian, and you acknowledge the true Son born of the true Father, not made, why do you not say that he is of one substance with the Father? In vain, O man, do you fear to profess what you believe; or in vain you believe, if you do not so believe, and you are deservedly branded a heretic. And although you have not changed the statement by which you thought you had forbidden the Son of God to be called a thing made; yet when you add, 'just as something of those things which have been made,' you openly show that you did not refuse him to be called a thing made for this reason, as though he ought not to be understood as made; but you do not wish him made in the way that something of those things which have been made is, yet still made. For you say he is made in another way, namely as a perfect creature, through whom all things were made;

provided only that you understand him too to be made, though not in the same way as the rest. But to return to that which I was at: you say that in the divine Scriptures the homoousion—that is, the term 'of one substance'—is not found. Suppose for the moment it be so; on the ground that wherever 'substance' is read, the thing belonging to God, not God, is to be understood: what of the fact that you likewise profess something else which is not written, that is, 'God of God' and 'light of light'? What do you say to this? Either hold the whole with me, or omit the whole. For if you fear to say the term 'of one substance' for the reason that it is not written, you must by the same token fear to profess 'God of God' and 'light of light.' But I prove that 'God of God' and 'light of light' and the term 'of one substance' are contained in the divine Scriptures.

For since the Son of God himself, who is God, says in his Gospel: 'I came forth from the Father' (John 16:28), rightly and deservedly we profess 'God of God'; because we know that the Son of God, true God, was born of God the Father, true God of true God. But not in that manner in which we are called gods (Psalm 82:6), or as Moses was called the god of Pharaoh (Exodus 7:1); but because he is the true Son, born of the true Father, not made, he is to be called truly and confidently God of God. So too 'light of light' (which is not written) you indeed say with me; but you by no means agree with me in meaning. And because it is written of the Father: 'God is light'; and of the Son: 'There was the true light which enlightens every man coming into this world' (1 John 1:5; John 1:9); and:

'The light shines in the darkness,' that is, Christ in the world, 'and the darkness did not overtake it' (John 1:9). These men, namely, whose heart is blinded by the darkness of ignorance, did not recognize Christ as true God and the true Son of God. But the Lord himself says: 'I am the light of the world: he that follows me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life' (John 8:12). Therefore, because the Father is light and the Son is light, rightly is it 'light of light.' But you assert 'light of light' as if from the Father, who is the true light, another light were made, which is not of the Father's own substance: but as any other light whatsoever, although it be made by God, is yet far other than he who made it: and therefore you say 'light from light,' not 'light of light.'

Since therefore I have premised these things; although you do not understand them with me, yet you in some way or other pronounce those very terms, even though they are not written: do you not then likewise profess with me the term 'of one substance,' which you think is not contained in the Scriptures? Except that there you had a way to cover your malicious meanings with hidden fraud in both cases; so that you might express this very thing with me by the sound of the voice, yet keep the understanding of the saying far apart. Just as those heretics also who deny the resurrection of the flesh, in order to deceive the souls of the simple, say 'woe' to those because they do not rise in the flesh. But if you press them as to why they have said this, since you know that they utterly deny the resurrection of the flesh, they will tell you:

Woe indeed shall be to him who has not been baptized in the flesh, so that his soul, while it is in the body, might rise again in that same flesh from the death of its own offenses, as from the tomb of its crimes, through baptism. For they defend the resurrection in the flesh of the soul alone, through the grace of the laver of life: for they exclude the salvation of the flesh itself. And these, through a plausible confession, by hidden fraud seduce the minds of the innocent. And just as a deadly cup tempered with the sweetness of honey is wont to destroy by a deceiving pleasantness; so too this evil, contaminating the senses of the hearers with a certain blot through the blandishment of the ears, infects them by the contagion of the adhering vice. CHAPTER IV.

Finally, even now they could name the homoousion, as well as other words, merely verbally, if they had a way to pervert it by their savage sense to another meaning. But when they saw themselves shut in by this word, they wished no mention at all of it to be made, lest either by professing it they should believe it, or believing it they should seem to have professed it: excusing themselves with subtle cleverness, that either it was not written, or that God ought not to be said to be in substance, lest he be thought corporeal. 'For God,' they say, 'brings it about that substance exists, yet not in such a way that God himself be reckoned in substance.' 'Indeed,' they say, 'since every substance receives contraries, but God, who can admit nothing diverse, ought not to be called substance.'

I would pardon you if you said this in simplicity, if you wished to know the reason of the matter, if you came to this question untrained, if you were not the very one who always asserted the Son of God to be either of another substance or of things not existing at all. But since you are the same man who, having here often been refuted, often confessed, often denied, and more often, by changing in another way, been condemned, who even now by force, ambition, and power stir up and confound everything: how do you suppose that I can pardon you, who rather frequently rework the same things? But lest this perversity seem to be condemned as prejudged rather than examined, let me briefly answer you concerning this objection.

You therefore forbid 'substance' to be named in God, as though everything that is called substance be held to be a thing of one and the same kind. Or are you ignorant that heavenly things subsist in one way, earthly in another; but that even among heavenly and worldly things themselves there is a great difference? For in one way the angels, in another the several virtues, received the substances of their own constitutions, just as the Apostle says: 'One is the glory of the sun, another the glory of the moon, another the glory of the stars' (1 Corinthians 15:41). So too in this world, as there are diverse kinds of things, so too diverse bodies of living creatures, and to all the substance of its own kind, as the Apostle says: 'Not all flesh is the same flesh' (1 Corinthians 15:39).

If therefore those things which were made by God have diverse qualities of their substances, do you suppose that in God there is such a substance as anything of those things which have been made possesses, so that it could receive contraries? God forbid. For what is the substance of God except that very thing which God is—simple, singular, pure, mixed with no compound, limpid, good, perfect, blessed, whole, wholly holy? Or do you suppose that what God is, is something empty and void? For to say this is blasphemy, that he should be thought empty through whom all things have subsisted, who produced all things by his word, composed them by reason, perfected them by power, by whose nod and command all things are governed, all things serve. And well is it written of God: 'I am who I am'; and:

'He who is hath sent me' (Exodus 3:14). And the Savior and Lord himself: 'This,' he says, 'is life eternal, that they may know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent' (John 17:3). God therefore is in his substance, the knowledge of whom is life eternal, and who is as great as cannot be told. He is then worthily esteemed when he is called inestimable: whether you will or no. Therefore that very thing which he is, this is the substance of that thing which is maintained to be: which nevertheless, as has already been said, of what greatness and of what quality it is, can neither be conceived by the mind, nor estimated by the senses, nor defined by the soul. Provided only that it be agreed that he is, which is believed to be;

so that of that very thing which God is, thence is the Son, so that he be the true Son, and the Father be true in the Son, and the Son in the Father. This will be the homoousion, that is, 'of one substance' with the Father. As the Lord himself says: 'I am in the Father, and the Father in me' (John 14:11). 'I and the Father are one' (John 10:30); and: 'I came forth from the Father' (John 16:28); and: 'He who sees me sees also the Father' (John 14:9). Not without reason, because the Son of God is born of God the Father: and therefore by the unity of substance and by the majesty of the Godhead they are one, just as Jeremiah also prophesied: 'Who shall stand in the substance of the Lord, and shall see the word of the Lord?' (Jeremiah 23:18). And again:

'If they had stood in my substance, and if they had heard my words, I would have turned them away from their most evil pursuits' (Jeremiah 23:22). And in Solomon: 'My substance is my sweetness' (Wisdom 16:21). CHAPTER V. Since therefore you recognize this unity of substance in the Father and the Son not only by prophetic but also by evangelical authority, how do you say that in the divine Scriptures the homoousion is not found? As though the homoousion were something other than what he says, 'I came forth from God the Father' (John 16:28); and, 'I and the Father are one' (John 10:30); or what the prophets openly intimated of the substance of God? But this is the rationale of the name: that you believe the unity of substance in the Father and the Son, although you cannot define the thing itself (which is unspeakable);

so that whether you say 'light of light,' or 'word of word,' or 'spirit of spirit,' or 'Lord of Lord,' whatever you shall have said of him, you nevertheless believe the Father and the Son to be of one essence, and from that very thing which the Father is, you understand the Son. For if you make any comparison concerning these things which are seen, in this matter, by the very dissimilarity of things you will show no reason, but will bring in the wrangling of disputations. And because it is written from the voice of God: 'To whom will you compare me?' (Isaiah 46:5), and therefore God, to whom nothing can be likened, let it suffice to believe what he himself is perceived to be, because he himself willed to be believed, not to be pointed out.

Finally, if from this very thing which you profess with me you wish to confer any likeness in God, I do not know whether what you have compared you could define more expressly. For instance, when you say 'light of light,' if you are compelled to explain it by a scrupulous narration, I ask how you believe 'light of light.' Whether as a lamp from a lamp, or as the sun from the sun, so that under this example you bring in either two lamps, or two suns, as it were two gods. Or do you signify as 'light of light' the splendor of the light of the same lamp, or the brightness of the sun shining from the same sun, so that you liken the Father's figure to the matrix of the light, but show the Son in the splendor of its brightness; which the prophet said of him:

'With thee is the fountain of life, and in thy light we shall see light' (Psalm 36:9). Or Solomon when he says: 'She is the brightness of eternal light, and the spotless mirror of God's majesty, and the image of his goodness' (Wisdom 7:26). Or the Apostle here preached our Savior to be the image of the invisible God (Colossians 1:15), inasmuch as the image of the sun is its own light which proceeds from the same sun. But how many things can be answered to these, which generate strifes (which the Apostle forbids [2 Timothy 2:14]), it is long to tell: since indeed it is agreed that that light which is God cannot be estimated, comprehended, or defined:

nor can anything truly of those things which are in this world be compared to the divine majesty, because nothing of all those things which are seen or spoken of can, according to that which God is, be estimated by a worthy likeness; since indeed he is greater than the very intellects and senses. Therefore I forewarned you that you should believe the divinity of the substance, and recognize the true Son of the true Father: but that you ought not to inquire about the quality of the thing, because you cannot know of what quality or how great it is. For this the prophets, this the Apostles preached. CHAPTER VI. Finally, according to our capacity, according to our strength, according to our faith, let us contemplate what God is, and let us see whether anything can be compared to him. Surely this is he of whom, even when he is spoken of, he cannot be spoken;

when he is estimated, he cannot be estimated; when he is compared, he cannot be compared; when he is defined, he grows by his very definition. He who covers heaven with his hand, encloses the whole compass of the world with his fist. Whom in his wholeness all things know not, and yet by fearing they know. To whose name and power this world is in service, and the very momentary alternation of the elements succeeding one another bears witness. See then whether there can be anything to which the Father and the Son can be compared; because the Son is such as is the Father. For he would not say that he himself is one with the Father, unless he knew himself to be such as the Father is. There is a certain reason which among the Greeks is called Logos, which distinguishes between the persons or names of the Father and the Son: because the Son himself too is called reason:

which reason nevertheless is called by many names. Now Word, now power, now wisdom, now right hand, now arm, now pearl, now treasure, now net, now plough, now fountain, now rock, now corner-stone, now field, now man, now calf, now eagle, now lion, now way, now truth, and life: since God is all in all, so that through these names the mysteries of the divine dispensations may be known, not that the very majesty of the Son of God be shown as properly defined. For what is more, concerning that which the Father is? Another, the same. For on this account too he is called Word, because he proceeded from the proper divine mouth, and the Father neither commanded nor did anything without him.

He is called Power, because He governs concerning God and is ever with God, and all the authority of the Father subsists in Him. He is named Wisdom, because, coming from the counsel of the Father, He unlocked the hidden things of heaven to those who believe. He is called the Right Hand, because through Him all the divine works were brought to perfection. He is called the Arm, because by Him all things are held together. He is named the Pearl, that nothing might be reckoned more precious than He. He is called the Treasure, that in Him all the wealth and riches of the heavenly kingdoms may be acknowledged to be stored up. He is called the Net, because through Him and in Him a diverse multitude of the nations, drawn like fish from the sea of this world, is gathered together in the Church through the water of baptism, where the distinction between the good and the evil is discerned.

He is named the Plough, because by the sign of His cross hard hearts are subdued, that they may of necessity be prepared for the seed itself. He is called the Fountain of living water, because from Him the thirsting hearts are watered with the grace of the heavenly water. He is called the Rock, because to those who believe He furnishes strength, but to the unbelieving, hardness. He is called the Cornerstone, because, being one and the Mediator, holding in Himself both walls of the New and the Old Testament, He joined them together. He is named the Lamb, that the innocence and passion of Christ might be shown forth. He is called Man, because according to the flesh He deigned to be born for us men. He is called the Calf, because for our salvation He endured to suffer.

He is called the Eagle, because after His venerable resurrection He flies back, as the king of winged creatures, to the seat of the Father. He is called the Lion, because He Himself is the King of kings, who by the might of His power crushed death and the devil. He is the Way, because through Him is the ascent. He is the Truth, because He knows no falsehood. He is the Life, because He Himself gives life to all things. You see, then, that through these names the significations of the dispensations and of the divine works are foreshown, yet God Himself is not properly defined? The Father, therefore, is God: immeasurable, eternal, incomprehensible, inestimable. And His Son also is God and our Lord, as great as the Father is, yet from no other source than from the Father; for 'I,' He says, 'came forth from the Father' (John 16:28), that is, Light from Light.

CHAPTER VII. But lest the heretic seize upon any occasion from this, when I set forth two names or two persons, that is, of the Father and of the Son, as though I were speaking of two gods, as they fabricate two out of the diversity: we, however, so name the Father and the Son that in these persons and names we set our seal upon one God. Let the philosophers see to it, let the heretical disciples of theirs see to it, who vary by a diversity of powers. For us, nevertheless, there is one God the Father, as the Apostle said, of whom are all things, and we from Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, God the Son of God, through whom are all things, and we through Him.

For by 'two,' what else is to be understood than a substance divided into parts between two, and a nature severed along with the very names, the will of acting and commanding as well as the authority itself divided? But the Father and the Son, although they are believed to be two persons, are nevertheless one in reason and in substance. For the affirming of unequals is an affront to the better; and it is reckoned an injury to Him who is the true God, that another, not true, should be compared with Him. He who unjustly compares God, does Him violence. But when I set forth the Father and the Son, I assign a unity of kind. And even if I divide that unity into persons, yet the distinction of persons in turn seals the same names into a unity of themselves, by the natural law of their covenant.

Whence the Son is also as great as the Father shall be seen to be: whole of whole, entire of entire, perfect of a perfect and consummate power: as the Apostle says, 'In whom dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily' (Col. 2:9). For Jeremiah also, most approved of the prophets, knowing this unity of the Godhead in the Father and the Son, says: 'This is our God, and no other shall be accounted beside Him: He has found out every way of prudence, and given it to Jacob His servant, and to Israel His beloved. After this He was seen upon earth, and conversed with men' (Baruch 3:36-38). And Isaiah proclaims this very thing, saying: 'Thus says the Lord God:'

'Egypt is wearied, and the traffic of the Ethiopians, and the Sabaeans, men of stature, shall come over to you: they shall be your servants, and shall walk after you bound in fetters, and they shall make supplication to you; for God is in you, and there is no other God beside you; for you are God' (Isa. 45:14). But lest you think I have said this with that arrogance with which Sabellius is reported to have spoken, who professes the Father Himself to be the Son Himself: we do not so force the whole into one opinion that we be caught by the fraud of other heretics. But because by the very name of persons an undivided authority is recognized, and the Son is named from the Father not by kind but personally, we therefore ascribe to the Father wholly what the Son is, and wholly to the Son what the Father is.

Nothing will appear to be the Father's that shall not be judged to be the Son's; nor anything the Son's that is not maintained to be the Father's: because the unity of majesty does not allow gods to be named by a plural word; inasmuch as it is established that the Father and the Son are of one substance, whence each is called one God. But before all things we fear this, lest, if the Father and the Son be not one, a nativity tampered with should recoil into the disrepute of its author. For this is what has pleased the heretics, that that almighty, invisible, immeasurable God should be degraded in the Son; with not only His power but also His condition changed, as though the Father could not have, from Himself, a Son such as He Himself also is.

Accordingly we maintain the true Son from the true Father, who always was, and is of one substance with the Father. And this is what the Greeks call homoousion, that is, with one another the same itself, that the persons might be a hearing of names, not that the words should separate the substance. CHAPTER VIII. But that I may expose the whole mystery of the Arian heresy, I will briefly disclose why they refuse to have the Son believed to be of the Father's substance. For they say: Since God the Father is almighty, invisible, unconvertible, immutable, perfect, ever the same, eternal; but the Son is visible, because He was often seen by the Fathers; and convertible and mutable, because He showed Himself in various figures to each one severally.