藥箱（駁八十異端） 第 1 章 第 56/82 段

'For if,' he says, 'he is from God, and God begot a son from himself—so to speak, by nature from his own hypostasis, or from his own essence—then he was either swollen, or underwent division, or was expanded in begetting, or contracted, or suffered some one of the bodily passions.'

And in all this they are simply mocking, projecting their own condition onto God and wishing to conjecture about God from themselves.

For in God there is none of these things.

For God is Spirit, and from himself he begot the Only-begotten—ineffably, incomprehensibly, and immaculately.

...is of his essence, he does not know, as he says, the day nor the hour; but concerning that day or that hour no one knows, neither the angels nor the Son, but the Father alone. And how did he come into flesh, if he is from the Father? And how could that uncontainable nature clothe itself in flesh, if it was from the Father according to nature?

And they do not realize how they are heaping up these arguments to their own shame.

For if it was because he had been altered from the Father's essence that he put on flesh and suffered and was crucified in it, let them show us which of the other spiritual beings, being creatures indeed, put on flesh.

For they cannot but confess the Son to be above all things.

Even if they call him a creature, they confess him to be above all his creatures.

But as though granting him a favor, they wish to attend to him in word, just like striking with one hand while anointing with the other.

For they wish to bestow this on him, as it were, by their own free choice, and they say:

'We call him a creature, but not as one of the creatures; and a product, but not as one of the products; and a begotten thing, but not as one of the begotten things'—so that by saying 'not as one of the begotten things' they may deprive him of begetting according to nature, and by saying 'not as one of the creatures' they may nonetheless declare him a true creature.

For whatever is a creature, remains a creature, even if it has a name ten thousandfold more exalted; it is the very same thing, equated with all other creatures.

For it is not because the sun is brighter than the others that it can fail to be a creature, just as the stone also is.

Nor, because the moon surpasses the stars, is it on that account not among the creatures.

'For behold, all things are your servants.'

For whatever exists has been created by him and is a servant.

But the Only-begotten is Truth, and his word is true, as he said:

'If you remain in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.' But if his word is truth and sets free those who are being freed, how much more is he himself free, being Truth, and setting free those who obey him, who were servants—since all things are servants of him, and of his Father, and of his Holy Spirit.

'How did he sojourn in the flesh, if he was of the Father's essence?' Let them then tell us how the angels, being his servants, did not take on flesh; how the archangels did not; how the hosts did not; how all the other spiritual beings did not. But such people say that the Spirit is even more inferior, a creature of a creature, being a product of the Word himself.

How then did the Spirit not take on flesh, being able—according to their own argument—to have a more mutable person than the Son? But because he was the Wisdom of the Father, he was well pleased, out of his own perfection, to assume our weakness upon himself, so that through himself salvation for the whole world might come about.

But by turning good things into evil, they show themselves ungrateful—ungrateful and unappreciative, insulters and blasphemers of their own Master.

As for the rest of what they say, they think in a diminished manner:

'How did he hunger, if he was of the Father's essence? For it is written concerning God: He will not hunger, nor will he thirst, nor is there any tracing out of his understanding.'

But this one both hungered and thirsted.

'How is it that he grew weary from the journey and sat down, when it is written also that God will not grow weary?'

'The Father who sent me is greater than I'? For the one who sends is one, and the one who is sent is another. And it is clear that the Father is not the Son, and the Son is not the Father.

For we do not speak as Sabellius did, who said that he was Son-Father.

For if he had not meant that the one who sent me is another, he would not have said, 'I am going to my God and your God, to my Father and your Father'; and yet the disciples were not begotten of God's essence according to nature.

'...your Father.' But great is the derangement of those who say such things.

For if he is called Son only in name and is not so by nature, he differs in nothing from all the other creatures, even if he exists in a position of surpassing rank.

For it is not because the king surpasses the prefects and generals that he therefore fails to be of like passions with the others, and a fellow-slave of the same creation, being himself mortal, just as those he rules over are.

And it is not because the sun surpasses the other stars, and the moon in its own order surpasses them, that they therefore fail to be subordinate elements submitting to the ordinance of the one Creator and Maker—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

And it is not because angels surpass visible things, and in rank are greater than all the rest—being created invisible, and enjoying as their foremost privilege the service of God in unceasing hymns, and having been created immortal by him according to grace and not according to nature, yet deemed worthy to become so from him who alone is immortal by nature and is in himself life and immortality—that they are thereby exempt from fear and trembling, and from being subject to accounting, examination, command, and ordinance under the holy Godhead.

For hence arises the precise point of truth that is sought: to call him Son, and indeed to say and to hold that he is Son not merely in name, but Son by nature, a true Son.

For among us too, many are called sons, though they are not our sons by nature.

But the true sons are called genuine, those who have been begotten by us according to nature.

If, then, he were called Son only in the sense that all were also called sons of God, he would differ in nothing from the rest.

And how then is he worshiped as God? For it would then be necessary that all the others also, upon whom the name of adoption has been invoked, should be worshiped just as he is, since they too are called sons of God.

But the truth is not so; rather, it always knows one Only-begotten Son of God, to whom all things render service and worship, and every knee shall bow, of things in heaven, and things on earth, and things under the earth, and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

But neither is the Holy Spirit equated with the other spirits, since the Spirit of God is one—a Spirit proceeding from the Father, and receiving from the Son.

But these men wish it to be a creature of a creature.

For they say, 'All things were made through him, and without him nothing was made.'

'Therefore,' they say, 'the Spirit too belongs among the things made, since all things were made through him.'

And these men, who have vainly destroyed their own souls, do not know that the created things are one thing, and the uncreated things another—Father and Son and Holy Spirit, one God, a Trinity in truth and a Unity in oneness.

For this is why there is one God: because there are not two Fathers, nor two Sons, nor two Holy Spirits; and because the Son is not alien to the Father, but begotten from him, and the Holy Spirit is not alien either—rather, the Son is Only-begotten, begotten without beginning and without time, while the Holy Spirit, as the Father himself and the Only-begotten know, is neither begotten nor created nor alien to the Father and the Son, but proceeds from the Father and receives from the Son.

'For my Spirit,' he says, 'stands in your midst'; and he anointed the Christ with the Holy Spirit. If the Only-begotten himself is anointed with the Spirit, who shall bring accusation against the Holy Trinity?

Then again the frenzied Arius says:

How is it that the Lord said, 'Why do you call me good? God alone is good' — as though he were denying his own goodness?

And who else is so good as the Only-begotten, who gave himself as a ransom for our souls? But they do not know the power and goodness of God, nor the dispensation of God's wisdom, being merely natural and fleshly men, examined and found wanting by the Holy Spirit, being empty of him, not possessing the gift of the Holy Spirit which makes every man wise.

Again, he says, the sons of Zebedee, through their mother, asked him that one might sit at his right hand and one at his left in his kingdom, and he said to them:

'The cup that I am about to drink, can you drink it?' And when they said, 'Yes,' he said to them, 'You will indeed drink my cup, but to sit at my right hand and at my left is not mine to give, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared by the Father.'

Then the apostle says, 'God raised him from the dead'—as though he had need of the one who raised him.

And, he says, there appeared an angel of the Lord strengthening him, when he was in agony, and he sweated, and his sweat became like drops of blood, as recorded in the Gospel according to Luke, when he went off and prayed, being about to be handed over.

And again, he says, on the cross he said:

'Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani'—that is, 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?' 'And do you see,' he says, 'how he is in need of help?' But as for his saying, 'I am in the Father and the Father in me,' and, 'The two of us are one,' 'that they also may be one'—so that when he says 'one,' he is certainly not speaking according to nature, but according to concord.

And not only this, but they also deny that he took a human soul, laying the groundwork for this very claim in advance.

For they confess that he had a true flesh from Mary, and everything that is in a human being, apart from a soul, so that when you hear about hunger, or thirst, or weariness, or travel, or sweat, or sleep, or indignation, and say that he needed these things on account of the incarnation, they will tell you afterward that flesh by itself does not produce these effects, unless it has a soul.

And indeed, in fact, this is so.

'What then is it,' he says, 'except that it was his divinity that was in need'—so that when they say his divinity was in need, they may declare him alien and estranged from the Father's true essence and nature.

But I think that for anyone possessed of understanding, from one or two or five of the arguments wickedly devised by them, once refuted and overturned, while the whole truth is proclaimed and clearly confirmed in the faith of orthodoxy, they will be refuted by those aforesaid who possess a godly mind—even if, after these resolutions, they bring forward ten thousand other contrived expressions.

For from the few, the majority will be dissolved, since they carry the same force.

And I shall begin first to speak from the point where they undertook to plant, wickedly, the root of their bitterness—from the saying spoken by Solomon: 'The Lord created me the beginning of his ways for his works.'

And nowhere at all did Scripture confirm this, nor did any of the apostles mention this saying so as to apply it to the name of Christ.

So then, it does not speak entirely about the Son of God, even though it says, 'I, Wisdom, dwelt with counsel and knowledge, and I called upon understanding.'

For how many are the 'wisdoms of God' spoken of in a loose, improper sense? But one alone is the Only-begotten, who is called so not in a loose sense, but in truth.

For all things are the wisdom of God, and whatever is from God, is wisdom.

But there is another wisdom, particular and above all things, that is, the Only-begotten, who is wisdom not in a misapplied sense but in truth, who is always with the Father, who is the power of God and the wisdom of God, according to what is written: 'but to us Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God' - yet there is also 'the wisdom of the poor man that is despised,' and since 'in the wisdom of God the world did not know God,' 'he was pleased to save those who believe through the foolishness of the gospel,' and 'God made foolish the wisdom of this world,' and 'God gave Solomon a heart like the sand of the sea,' and 'he grew wiser than the sons of Enak,' and 'God gave Bezalel wisdom' and 'God filled Uri with wisdom.'

And there is much to say concerning wisdom - what is the place of understanding, and whence wisdom is found? And indeed this celebrated Wisdom herself says: 'I, wisdom, have dwelt with counsel and knowledge, and I have called up understanding.'

'Through me kings reign, and through me the great are magnified, and rulers write righteousness, and tyrants hold sway over the earth.'

'abundant possessions, and righteousness'

'I walk in the way of righteousness, and I go about in the midst of the paths of judgment, that I may apportion substance to those who love me, and fill their treasuries with good things.'

'If I declare to you the things that happen day by day, I will remember also to recount the things from eternity.'

'The Lord created me the beginning of his ways for his works; before the age he founded me, in the beginning, before he made the earth, and before he made the depths, before the springs of the waters came forth, and before the mountains were settled - and before all the hills he begets me' - and so forth. Clearly, since certain persons wish to raise an objection to this saying, those on the opposing side make use of it as a rejoinder, by means of the name 'wisdom' and the sequence of the text that says 'the Lord created me,' together with the earlier statement, 'I, wisdom, have dwelt with counsel.'

For behold, he says, Wisdom, having named herself from the beginning and proceeding in due sequence, signifies herself, saying:

'I am Wisdom,' and further on she says:

'If I declare to you the things that happen day by day, I will remember also to recount the things from eternity.'

'The Lord created me the beginning of his ways'?

But we have said that there are many wisdoms spoken of in an improper sense, given by God from time to time, since God accomplishes all things in wisdom.

But there is one Wisdom that truly exists, the Father's own, God the Word subsisting in his own hypostasis.

For the saying itself does not at all compel me to understand it as concerning the Son of God.

For neither has Scripture made this plain, nor has any of the apostles mentioned it, nor even the gospel.

But if indeed this were taken as concerning the Son of God, the saying is not thereby identical in meaning, nor is it set forth for a straightforward, literal judgment.

For the whole book consists of proverbs.

And everything spoken in proverbial form is not identical in its force with its wording; rather, it is narrated with one form of expression but allegorized with another sense.

If, then, it says this, and some dare to apply it to the Son of God - God forbid -

this saying is not applied to his deity.

But if it can be fulfilled in his incarnate presence - since Wisdom herself built the house for herself - and if indeed it might piously be said, from the person of his becoming man, that his incarnate presence speaks concerning his own deity when it says, 'The Lord created me,' that is, 'built me in the womb of Mary,' 'the beginning of his ways for his works' (for the beginning of the ways of Christ's descent into the world is the body taken from Mary, unto the work of his righteousness and salvation) - yet all the same the man whose heart is diseased and who is struck with this grievous wound, holding enmity in his mind against the Son of God, will leap forward at once, saying that, he claims, it says:

'If I declare to you the things that happen day by day, I will remember also to recount the things from eternity' - and you see that it says 'from eternity,' whereas the incarnate presence of God, according to Matthew, came after sixty-two generations.

How then can the things from the beginning of the age be said of this one?

But those who have wandered from the whole way of truth do not know that, whenever divine Scripture begins to relate all that it wishes to teach, it does not proceed at once toward the archaic beginning and, so to speak, toward the main point, but begins from what is nearest, so that it may signify last that which pre-existed.

For this reason it also said, 'If I declare to you the things that happen day by day' - and from these I will likewise recall the things from eternity.

Just as also God first showed Moses the burning fire, and the vision that had just occurred took place in the fire of the bush.

And an angel spoke to him at once, but only afterward did the Lord speak from the bush.

But he, for his part, does not immediately ask about the things that are seen, but inquires about the things from the beginning.

'Come now,' he says, 'I will send you to the sons of Israel, and you shall say to them, "The God of our fathers has sent me."'

'The God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob' - naming those around Abraham, five or six generations before Moses; and since he said 'the God of the fathers,' he thereby declared the ancient matter.

Then something yet higher: 'If I go to them and they say to me -'

'What is his name? What shall I say to them?' - and then at last he reveals it:

And at first he began from the things nearest at hand, but at the last he made known the highest thing.

And you see how he showed the incarnate presence first, and the ultimate truth afterward.

Where are you being carried off to? Where are you going, you who walk the rough and stumbling way that leads into the chasm? Turn back!

For 'was,' and 'was,' and 'was' does not admit of ever 'not being.'

And you see how it signifies at once, first, the things nearest at hand: how Matthew displayed the way by means of the genealogy, and even he did not give precise detail on everything, but carried his account up toward the things above, even though it was indeed a genealogy; how Mark related the things accomplished in the world, and the voice crying in the wilderness, and the Lord who had been prophesied through the prophets and the law; how Luke led his account up from the things below to the things above; while John, coming afterward as the fourth, made known at last the crowning conclusion, the very purity of the order above and of the deity that ever exists. So also Solomon, speaking in proverbial fashion of 'the beginning of the ways' - if indeed some should wish to speak of this piously with reference to the incarnate dispensation, as though Wisdom herself were declaring, concerning the deity of Christ, that this very deity created the house, that this very deity wrought the flesh and the becoming man - 'the beginning of his ways for his works' being the salvation and goodness of mankind - then straightway thereafter, while the matter is still advancing, it says, 'He founded me in the beginning.'

Was the Son of God, then, having been created as to his deity, afterward founded? Let the engineers tell us, those surveyors of the things above, by what craft Wisdom was created, by what instrument she was founded.

But if we must think about this at all, let us flee from so great an abyss of blasphemy, so as not to lay a hand upon the deity of the Only-begotten, which ever exists with the Father and has been begotten from him.

For the Word was always with the Father, always Wisdom, always the Lord, God from God, always the true and not the counterfeit light, always having his being from the Father, both being the truth and existing as life.

- concerning this one? Then it says, 'He founded me in the beginning.'

So it is possible for the pious to see that here it signifies the human soul.

For 'the Lord created me' refers to the becoming man - the incarnate Word speaks thus, if indeed it may also be understood in this way.

And 'he founded' means that he was founded in the soul.

And 'before all the hills he begets me' is so that it might show the begetting from above.

And these things we have said, not defining them absolutely as being so in every respect, but rather having reflected on them piously with reference to the incarnate presence.

Even if it is necessary to speak in this way, nevertheless let no one compel us absolutely to say that this saying refers to Christ.

But if it is spoken concerning Christ, it also has its proper force - not as spoken by way of divination, but according to the piety of reasoning, so as not to reckon any diminution to the Son, nor to suppose that his deity is inferior in comparison to the Father's own substance.

For indeed some of our orthodox fathers have referred this to the incarnate presence, understanding it thus - if indeed one must speak so - concerning 'the Lord created me' and 'he founded me.'

And that this is a pious way of reasoning, great fathers have set forth.

And if any of the orthodox should not wish to accept this, he will not be compelled; but toward those who are strangers to the faith and estranged from it, this brings no harm whatsoever.

For this will not entail upon us any diminution regarding the Son, since his deity is free and always exists with the Father.

And whatever Christ suffered, he did suffer; but his nature was not thereby changed, and his deity remained in its own impassibility.

Wherefore, willing of his own good pleasure to suffer on behalf of the human race, since deity was unable to suffer, being in itself impassible, he - being Wisdom - took our passible body, so that in it he might consent to suffer and might undertake our sufferings in the flesh, his deity remaining present with it.

For indeed deity does not suffer.

For how could he who says, 'I am the life,' be able to die? But God remains impassible, and yet suffers together with the flesh, so that the suffering may be reckoned to his deity - the deity itself not suffering - so that our salvation might be in God.

But the suffering is in the flesh, so that we may not have a passible God, but an impassible one, who reckons the suffering to himself by his own choice, and not by necessity.

Nevertheless, these men, without having examined the Hebrew words, nor having come to know them, nor understanding what their force is, have risen up rashly and recklessly as fearsome enemies, seeking a pretext by which to mutilate the faith - or rather, themselves.

And since they found the phrase 'the Lord created me,' they recklessly, as though caught up in fantasy, dream up idle notions, having introduced into life things of no use whatsoever, and having thrown the inhabited world into turmoil.

But the Hebrew does not read this way:

wherefore Aquila renders it, 'The Lord possessed me.'

And those who beget children always say:

but not even Aquila has fully rendered its force.

For indeed 'I have acquired a son' implies something recent, but in God there is nothing recent.

Even if one confesses that the Son has been begotten from the Father and has not been created, he has been begotten timelessly and without beginning.

For there is no time between the Son and the Father, lest some time should thereby turn out to be prior to the Son.

For if all things came into being through him, then the times also came into being through him.

But if time existed prior to him who is before all things, how could this be? Yet if it were indeed so, another son would have to be sought, through whom time came into being before the Son.

And there are many things which lead into limitless perplexity the notions of men who busy themselves with excessive curiosity and accomplish no good.

'Adonai,' which means 'Lord'; 'qanani,' which can also be rendered 'he made me nest' and 'he acquired me.'

But the most precise statement is this:

For what offspring is not born according to the nature of the one who begot it? And here indeed, in bodily formations, through the union of male and female, the young that are brought forth come to be -- from man to beast and birds and the rest --

...to accomplish this, so that no one might reckon of him things that are not, and fall away from the truth -- for he sojourned among the human race and was, by nature, begotten of a woman, and lay in the womb of a virgin for the time of gestation; he was not conceived from the seed of a man, so that there might not be union and intercourse even in his enfleshed generation, but from his mother he received flesh in a single manner, and fulfilled in himself his own perfect incarnation -- not deficient, but true.

And it was not the case that, because he was not from the seed of a man, he lacked something;

For, possessing all things, he had all things perfectly -- flesh and sinews and veins and everything else that there is -- and a soul truly, and not in appearance, and a mind, and everything that belongs to humanity, without sin, as it is written that he was tempted in all things as a man, yet without sin; so that, having been begotten here in this single manner from a mother according to the flesh, perfectly and not defectively, he might show to those willing to see the truth, and not blind their own mind, that above he was perfectly begotten of the Father timelessly and without beginning, and below he was begotten of a mother alone, undefiled and unstained.

But in order that we may also interpret the expression 'Adonai qanani,' which means, 'The Lord brought me forth as a nestling,'

For everything that begets will beget something like itself.

Man begets man, and God begets God; and man begets according to the flesh, but God according to the Spirit.

And such as the man who begets is, such also is the one begotten by him.

The man who begets, being encompassed within passions, begets his own son accordingly; but the impassible God begot the son begotten by him impassibly, truly and not in appearance, from himself and not from outside himself, being an impassible Spirit and begetting Spirit impassibly, being an impassible God and having begotten a true God impassibly.

For if he himself created all things -- and you confess, O Arius, that God has created all things -- then he himself also begot the Son.

[You say:] 'If he begot, he suffered in the begetting' -- then we in turn will say to you: if in begetting he suffered, then in creating he grew weary.

But rather, whatever he wills, he has all at once, in himself, in perfection; and neither will passion fall upon the Son in the act of creating, nor will the divine be thought to be constrained by passion on account of the undefiled begetting of the Son.

For the Father is unchangeable, the Son is unchangeable, the Holy Spirit is unchangeable -- one essence, one Godhead.

Did he beget willingly, or unwillingly? I am not like you, O quarrelsome one, that I should think any such thing concerning God.

For if he begot unwillingly, then he begot against his will.

And if he begot willingly, then the will existed before the Son, and there would be at least a moment of time interposed with respect to the Son, on account of the will.

But in God there is no time interval leading to deliberation, nor deliberation leading to thought.

Therefore he begot neither willingly nor unwillingly, but in a nature that transcends the will.

For his is the nature of Godhead, which neither has need of deliberation nor does anything without deliberation, but has all things from itself at once, lacking nothing that exists.

Once again, this same Arius hunts for phrases, always roaming about everything and elaborating mischief for himself -- not as the divine Scripture has it, but as one himself diseased in his inquiries and word-battles, to no useful end, but to the ruin of himself and of those led astray by him -- and he seizes upon the saying in which the Lord, blessing his disciples, said: 'Father, grant them to have life in themselves.'

'And this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.'

But I have already dealt with all these matters in the great treatise on the Faith, which again, according to our own moderate capacity and weakness, being compelled by the urgent exhortation of the brethren, we wrote concerning the Faith -- a treatise to which we gave the name 'Ancoratus.'

just as, for those wishing to hold fast the holy faith of the fathers, both apostolic and prophetic, proclaimed in the holy Church of God from the beginning until now, we set it forth clearly, so that the mind might be held fast and secured, so as not to be fanned by the devices of the devil, nor harmed by the tossing of waves stirred up abundantly in the world by the heresies.

For thus also the Lord taught his own disciples, saying: 'If what you heard from the beginning remains in you' -- and if what you heard from the beginning remains in you, 'you will remain in me, and I in you, and I in the Father, and you in me.'

So then, the true things of the faith heard from the beginning from the Lord remain in the holy Church of God; and for this reason the holy Church of God and the orthodox faith remain in the Lord, and the Lord, the Only-begotten, remains in the Father, and the Father in the Son, and we in him through the Holy Spirit -- if we become temples containing his Holy Spirit;

just as the holy apostle of God said, 'You are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells in you.'