For if, then, there remains for us in the nature of all things some other thing that is ineffable and incomprehensible — and there are countless such things, of the sort that have been promised to those who are dear to God, things that eye has not seen nor ear heard, and that have not entered into the heart of man, according to the sacred apostle — far more, then, would the matters concerning the primal generation of the only-begotten of God lie beyond every conception, being ineffable and unnameable, inconceivable and unthinkable, we having nothing further to say or think concerning him than, 'Who shall declare his generation?' But if someone, going further than this, should be led on by rashness to compare things wholly beyond conception to visible and corporeal examples, he might perhaps say that, just as a certain fragrance and a ray of light, the Son subsisted from infinite ages — or rather, before all ages — from the unbegotten nature and the ineffable essence of the Father, and having come into being, coexists and is ever together with the Father, as the sweet scent is with the perfume and the ray with the light — yet not in every respect similarly to the examples, as indeed has already been said before.
For lifeless bodies possess this accident within qualities; for the ray, being connatural with the nature of light and existing essentially together with light, could not subsist apart from that in which it is; whereas the Word of God has been made a distinct essence and subsists in his own right, and does not coexist with the Father unbegottenly, but as only-begotten Son, alone begotten of the Father before all ages. And fragrance, being a certain corporeal effluence of its substrate, and not, in its own right, apart from its first cause, fills that which draws near it — being itself, no less, a corporeal thing.
In this manner, then, the matters concerning the primal essential existence of our Savior will not be understood by us. For he has not come into being from the unbegotten essence by any passion or division, nor does he coexist with the Father without beginning; since the one is unbegotten, the other begotten, and the one is Father, the other Son. And everyone, whoever he may be, would confess that the Father exists prior to, and subsists before, the Son.
In this manner he would also be the image of God — again ineffably and inexplicably for us — a living image of the living God, subsisting in his own right, immaterially and incorporeally, and unmixed with anything contrary; yet not such an image as ours, which has one thing as its underlying substance and another as its form, but being wholly form itself, and assimilated to the Father in essence itself. So too, in this manner, he is the most vital fragrance of the Father — again ineffably for us, and inexplicably.
since indeed all things that are true concerning him would be ineffable by human voices, and inexplicable by the reasonings of mortals, according to strict reckoning. But yet, in such a manner as it is agreeable for us to hear, the oracles instruct us also concerning these matters.
Did not the sacred apostle also address himself and those like him as 'the fragrance of Christ,' through their participation in the Spirit of Christ? And in the Song of Songs the heavenly Bridegroom has been proclaimed 'perfume poured out.' Wherefore, through his outpouring, all things, both visible and invisible, both corporeal and incorporeal, both rational and irrational, having partaken, have been deemed worthy of participation in due proportion, and have shared in the fellowship of the divine Word.
The whole world imparts the apprehension of this divine breath to those whose rational senses are not maimed, in that bodies which are by nature earthy and perishable breathe forth an immaterial and incorruptible fragrance — while the God of all is the one who, from above, is the source, being himself, as Father of his only-begotten Word, the first and sovereign and only truly good, generative of good; and the Son, being second, and, as it were, supplied from the first and governing essence, is the one alone who has been described to us, obedient as we are to the oracle that instructs concerning him, as a kind of fragrance of the paternal essence — since indeed he is 'the vapor of the power of God, and a pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty, and the radiance of eternal light, and the spotless mirror of the working of God, and the image of his goodness.'
But nevertheless, let each of these matters be laid down however one might wish; for us it suffices to repeat once more that true and pious saying, by which we shall also set the resolution upon the questions raised — having already said many times, 'Who shall declare his generation?' For truly unattainable — and not to men alone, but even to powers beyond all created essence — is the generation of the only-begotten of God, just as our Savior and Lord himself, initiating his own disciples into these very mysteries, says: 'No one has known,' he says, 'the Father, except the Son.'
To which he adds also, 'and no one has known the Son, except the Father.' Since, then, the theology concerning both the Father and the Son is alike unknown to all except themselves, we must listen, as to things spoken in secret, to the words of Solomon cited above, where Wisdom says: 'Before the mountains were settled and the earth was fashioned, and before all the hills, he begets me.'
He further says that he was present with the Father as he was fashioning the heaven: 'When he was preparing the heaven, I was present with him.' And he shows also the eternal duration of his abiding with the Father from infinite ages, when he adds: 'I was beside him, fitting together; I was the one in whom he delighted, and day by day I rejoiced before his face.'
And as for 'the depths' and 'the springs of waters,' 'mountains' and 'hills,' and whatever else is named in this passage by common terms, one must either understand these as indicating, in part, the whole constitution of the world, or one must take them in a more figurative sense, transferring what is signified by them to intelligible essences and divine powers — of all of which the firstborn Wisdom and only-begotten and first-born Word of God pre-existed, whom we call Christ, being disciples of the apostle our teacher who says, 'Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God.' And here he is fittingly called by the title of 'Wisdom,' as belonging to the Father alone wise, the all-wise and scientific contemplations of the whole...
[...] and in the second [title] he honors him with a royal scepter, and in the third he bears witness to his perfection according to virtue. Then, upon these, he teaches that this very one, God and King, has been anointed by the most high God, and that in this way he has become Christ. For what else could one call the one who was anointed not by men, but by God himself who is over all? Accordingly, on this point he says, addressing the anointed one: 'O God, you have loved righteousness and hated iniquity; therefore God, your God, has anointed you.'
As if he were saying: 'The God who is over all has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions.' So that this anointing here signified was neither common nor earthly, nor like that legislated by Moses and prepared from perishable matter, with which the ancient priests and kings of the Hebrews were accustomed to be anointed.
Hence it is fittingly that he has been proclaimed to us both God and Christ at once, as being the only one who, not through men nor from men, but by the Maker of all things himself, has been anointed with an incorporeal and godlike anointing of divine joy and gladness.
For this reason he alone would rightly, alone blamelessly, alone truly and properly, be proclaimed Christ, in comparison with those called his companions. But who might his companions be, or who are they who are able to say, 'For we have become companions of Christ'? Concerning whom it has been said: 'Touch not my anointed ones, and do my prophets no harm.'
And now that Christ, beloved, and God, and King, has been clearly shown through these words, it is time for you to inquire how one so great is said to have enemies, and who they are, and for what cause; against whom he sharpened his own arrows and his own sword; and how it was not by martial array, but for the sake of truth and gentleness and righteousness, that he brought countless peoples into subjection to himself.
For one who inquires into these matters precisely, it would be well to transfer them to our Savior and Lord, Jesus the Christ of God, going back to what has been set forth in detail concerning his sojourn among men — in the course of which, having routed the hostile and invisible powers of the wicked and destructive demons, and of the evil and unclean spirits, he gathered to himself countless peoples out of all the nations. Him, then, it would be fitting from this to proclaim the true Christ of God — not anointed with common oil in the customary manner of men of old (for nothing of the kind is recorded of him), but with a better and divinely inspired anointing, on account of which he also says through Isaiah: 'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, wherefore he has anointed me.'
Wherefore, more than all those ever anointed in a more bodily manner among the Hebrews, he alone throughout the whole inhabited world is proclaimed among all as Christ, and has filled the entire inhabited world with the appellation of Christians derived from him. But in what manner we say he was anointed, and what the anointing was, and what the mode of the anointing, we have discussed sufficiently in the treatise before this one.
Upon his lips and in his teaching so great a grace was poured out, that in a short time it filled every place with the piety proclaimed by him; so that already, among all the nations, among those who follow his teaching, in accordance with the prophecy before us, he is invested with the glory both of king and of God, and is proclaimed Christ by all men.
Manifest also are his enemies — not only those who existed before his coming, but also those who continually make war upon his word, whether among men or among invisible powers; whom, by an invisible and hidden power, he has ever been overthrowing, and has made subject to himself peoples of every sort out of all the nations.
What follows in the Psalm — 'myrrh and cassia and stacte from your garments' — together with what comes after this, being spoken of as concerning a queen and a daughter who has left her father's house, and has been given in marriage to the aforementioned Christ, King and God, and who proclaims him her Lord — might be referred to the Church of the nations, which has turned away from its ancestral and demonic error, and has been purified and fitted together in fellowship with the divine Word, receiving its fitting interpretation at leisure.
The Lord said to my Lord, 'Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.' The Lord will send forth from Zion a scepter of power for you, and you shall have dominion in the midst of your enemies. With you is the sovereignty in the day of your power, amid the splendors of your holy ones. From the womb, before the morning star, I have begotten you. The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind: 'You are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek.'
'The Lord at your right hand.' The present Psalm also calls him Lord — our Savior and Lord, the firstborn of all creation, the Word of God, the Wisdom before the age, the beginning of the ways of God, the firstborn and only-begotten offspring of the Father, the one honored with the title of Christ — teaching that he is at once enthroned together with, and Son of, the God who is over all and Lord of all, and an eternal priest of the Father.
First, then, take note that this one has here been called the second offspring of God. And since it is believed that the matters of prophecy have been spoken to us by the Spirit of God, observe whether it is not indeed the Holy Spirit himself, speaking in the prophet, who proclaims his own Lord as second after the Lord of all. For it says, 'The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand.' The first Lord, as being the sovereign Master of all things universally, the Hebrews used to call by an unpronounceable name, expressed through the four letters; but the second they did not name in like manner, but called him 'Lord' as his own particular designation.
Fittingly, then, our Savior and Lord, Jesus the Christ of God himself, once asking the Pharisees, 'What do you think concerning the Christ? Whose son is he?' — when they said, 'David's' — adds, 'How then does David in the Spirit call him Lord, saying, "The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand"?' — almost as if he were explaining the saying to mean that it proclaims him Lord not only of David, but also of the Spirit in the prophet.
And if the prophetic Spirit — which we believe to be the Holy Spirit — confesses this one to be Lord, teaching that he is enthroned together with the Father, and not merely Lord in an unqualified sense, but also his own Lord, then far more, and to a much greater degree, would the rational powers that come after the Holy Spirit say this — as would the whole creation, both that seen in bodies and that which stands in incorporeal things — of all of which he might fittingly be shown to be Lord, being the sole one enthroned with the Father, through whom all things came into being, since, according to the wondrous apostle, 'in him were created all things in the heavens and upon the earth, whether visible or invisible.'
It is fitting, then, that he alone should have authority over the likeness to the Father, as being also alone shown to be enthroned together with the Father. It is manifest, therefore, that it is not lawful for any of the begotten to obtain the right hand of the almighty rule and kingship, except indeed for that one alone who, throughout the passages before us, is variously spoken of in theological terms.
Take note, then, that it is to one and the same person that the Lord who is highest and over all bestows both the word 'Sit at my right hand,' and 'Before the morning star I have begotten you'; and, with the confirmation of an oath, he hands down to him the unshaken and inviolable honor of a priesthood enduring to infinite age: 'The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, You are a priest forever.'
Who, then, could be conceived — certainly not a mortal man, nor even one of angelic nature — who, having been brought into being by God, has been made a priest for eternity, except that one alone who also said before, in the earlier words, 'The Lord created me the beginning of his ways for his works; before the age he founded me; in the beginning, before the mountains were settled, before all the hills, he begets me'? Apply your mind, then, carefully, attending both to the present Psalm and to the sayings set forth before it.
For in this psalm the Most High God enthrones the second, our Lord also, as co-seated with himself, saying, 'Sit at my right hand'; but in the one before this the Word declared that his throne endures for ever and ever, at the same time proclaiming him God by the words, 'Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever.'
Again, in the psalm now before us it says, 'The Lord shall send forth for you a rod of power out of Zion'; but in that former one, 'a rod of straightness is the rod of your kingdom.' And again the present one says, 'Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool, and you shall rule in the midst of your enemies'; but the former one says, 'Your arrows are sharpened, O mighty one, in the heart of the enemies of the king.' Therefore what is said about the enemies of the one signified agrees in both.
Who then, seeing with his own eyes the churches of our Savior flourishing in the midst of cities, villages, and regions throughout the whole inhabited world, and the peoples brought under his lordship, and the myriad multitudes everywhere consecrated to him, surrounded on every side by visible enemies among men and by invisible and unseen enemies and foes of the teaching of Christ, would not marvel at the present oracle, uttered concerning the person of the one prophesied, 'Rule in the midst of your enemies'?
And since in the former psalm he was anointed with the oil of gladness above your fellows, and among the Hebrews anointing was proper to priests, fittingly the psalm now in hand proclaims him more clearly still as priest, setting forth fuller teaching concerning him, by which it instructs that he alone, beyond all who have ever been, is an eternal priest — a thing that cannot be applied to any human nature.
It says that he is a priest 'according to the order of Melchizedek,' by way of contrast with the priest according to the ordinance of Moses — that is, Aaron, or one of his descendants — each of whom, not having been a priest before, was later anointed by men with some prepared unguent, and so became, so to speak, a shadowy and image-like Christ in types and symbols; and moreover, being mortal, laid aside the priesthood after no long time, and was priest only among the people of the Jews, and not among the other nations; and moreover did not enter upon his ministry with an oath sworn by God, but was honored by the judgment of men — so that at times one might be found among them unworthy of the service of God, such as Eli is recorded to have been.
Furthermore, that ancient priest according to the ordinance of Moses was judged fit solely from the tribe of Levi; and it was necessary in every case that he also bear his lineage from the succession of Aaron, and that he serve the Deity with a bodily worship consisting of sacrifices of irrational animals and blood. But the one named Melchizedek — which, translated into the Greek tongue, is 'king of righteousness,' and then 'king of Salem,' which would itself be 'king of peace' — is, according to the history, without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, and bears nothing at all in common with the manner of Aaron's priesthood.
For he was not chosen by men, nor anointed with prepared oil, nor was he of a lineage not yet even manifest; and, most paradoxical of all, he had not even been circumcised in the flesh, and yet he blesses Abraham, as being far superior to him; nor again did he serve as priest to the Most High God with sacrifices and libations, nor indeed did he perform his ministry in the temple at Jerusalem.
For how could he, when it did not even exist? Fittingly then, since nothing resembling Aaron was to befall our Savior Christ either — for he was not shown to be a priest later, having not been one before; rather, he became a priest not by 'becoming' but by 'being.' For one must attend carefully to the words, 'You are a priest forever.' For it does not say, 'You shall be,' as one who was not so before; nor again, 'you were so formerly, but now are not'; but, from him who said, 'I am he who is,' it is said, 'you are,' and 'you remain a priest forever.'
Since, then, Christ neither began his priesthood at a point in time, nor came from the priestly tribe, nor was anointed with prepared and bodily oil, nor was his priesthood destined to have an end, nor was he to be established for the Jews alone but for all nations as well — for all these reasons the psalm fittingly releases him from the ministry after the type of Aaron, and declares that he shall be a priest according to the order of Melchizedek.
And the fulfillment of the oracle is marvelous to behold, how our Savior Jesus Christ of God, after the manner of Melchizedek, even now still performs the priestly rites among men through his own ministers.
For just as that one, being priest of the nations, is nowhere found to have used bodily sacrifices, but blessed Abraham with wine and bread alone, in the same manner our Savior and Lord himself first, and then all those priests who come from him throughout all the nations, performing the spiritual priestly service according to the ordinances of the Church, signify by wine and bread the mysteries of his body and of the saving blood — Melchizedek having foreseen these things beforehand by the divine Spirit, and having made prior use of the images of things to come, as the writing of Moses testifies, saying: 'And Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine; now he was priest of the Most High God, and he blessed Abraham.'
Fittingly, then, the Lord God swore, with the taking of an oath, to the one signified alone, and 'will not repent,' saying, 'You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.'
Hear also what the Apostle says concerning these things: 'Wherein God, wishing more abundantly to show unto the heirs of the promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath, that by two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, we who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us.'
And he goes on to say: 'And those former priests indeed were many, because they were prevented by death from continuing; but he, because he continues forever, has an unchangeable priesthood. Wherefore also he is able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through him, seeing he ever lives to make intercession for them. For such a high priest indeed was fitting for us — holy, harmless, undefiled, separated from sinners, and made higher than the heavens.'
And he adds: 'Now the chief point of what we are saying is this: we have such a high priest, who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, a minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man.' Thus far the Apostle.
And the psalm, proceeding further, also indicates, in veiled fashion, the passion of the one prophesied, saying: 'He shall drink from the brook by the way; therefore shall he lift up his head.'
Another psalm also indicates that the 'brook' means the season of trials, saying: 'Our soul has passed through the torrent; then would our soul have passed through the overwhelming water.' In the brook, then, he says he shall drink — that is, the cup which he obscurely referred to at the time of the passion, saying: 'Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.'
And again: 'If it is not possible for this to pass unless I drink it, your will be done.' Having drunk this cup, then, he 'lifted up his head,' and, in the words of the Apostle: 'because he became obedient to the Father unto death, even death on a cross, therefore,' he says, 'God highly exalted him, raising him from the dead and seating him at his right hand, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come. And he put all things,' he says, 'under his feet,' according to the promise made to him, which he sets forth through the psalm, saying: 'Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool. Rule in the midst of your enemies.' It is evident to everyone that even now the power of our Savior, and the word of his teaching, rules in the midst of his enemies and adversaries, in the midst of all who have come to believe in him.
I the Lord made the earth, and man upon it; I with my hand established the heaven; I gave command to all the stars; I raised up the king with righteousness, and all his ways are straight. He shall build my city, and shall turn back the captivity of the people, not for ransom nor for gifts, says the Lord of Sabaoth.
Thus far, then, God the maker of all things, through the prophet, foretells these things concerning a certain king and savior who was to build up the commonwealth of piety, and to redeem the captivity that had befallen men through demonic error; and following upon this, the prophetic spirit hints at the subjection of the foreign nations — that they will be subjected to the one prophesied, and that those who are to be subjected will worship him as God, and will pray in him, because of the greater God who dwells in him — namely, the Father who is above all, and the God of all things.
The wording is as follows: 'Thus says the Lord: Egypt has labored, and the merchandise of the Ethiopians, and the Sabeans, men of stature, shall cross over to you, and shall become your slaves, and shall follow after you bound in fetters, and shall worship you, and shall pray in you, because God is in you, and there is no God besides you. For you are God, and we did not know it, O God of Israel, savior. All who set themselves against him shall be ashamed and confounded, and shall go away in shame.' Such is the prophecy. And I do not think anyone, however contentious he may be, will be able to gainsay the plain and clear sense of the wording, which so evidently introduces both the God of Israel as savior and another God within him. 'The righteous,' it says, 'shall worship you, and shall pray in you, because God is in you, and there is no God but you. For you are God, and we did not know it, O God of Israel, savior.'
Now the phrase 'we did not know,' spoken as from the person of those who had not previously recognized him, is found only in the Seventy; the Hebrew had it differently, which Aquila, translating, renders: 'God then, mighty, hiding himself, God of Israel, saving.'
Theodotion, however, renders: 'Therefore mighty, hidden God, saving.' Most remarkably he names Christ 'hidden God,' and he clearly teaches the reason why he calls him alone God among all begotten things, after the first and unbegotten — namely, the indwelling of the Father in him. For in him, according to the divine Apostle, 'it pleased the Father that all the fullness of the Godhead should dwell.'
This the wording indicates in saying, 'God is in you, and there is no God besides you.' Instead of 'besides you,' Theodotion has 'besides him,' reading: 'in whom there is no God besides him' — namely, the God who is in you, because of whom you also come to be God. According to Aquila it runs thus: 'only in you is the Mighty One, and there is none else beside you; God then, mighty and hiding himself, God, saving.' According to Symmachus: 'only in you is God, and there is none else, nor does another God exist; you are truly a hidden God, God of Israel, saving.'
For since, it says, God is in you, therefore you are a mighty and hidden God. It follows, then, from these things, that the true and only God would be one, being alone properly entitled to the appellation; while the second is deemed worthy of participation and communion with the true God, neither existing by himself, nor subsisting apart from the Father who makes him God, nor spoken of theologically apart from the Father, but being wholly this very thing — existing, living, and subsisting — on account of the Father who is in him, being with the Father, and being made God from him and through him, having his very being, together with his being God, not from himself, but received from the Father.
For this reason we have been taught to honor him also, after the Father, as God, on account of the God who dwells in him — just as the prophecies now before us contain. For just as the image of a king would be honored on account of him whose features and likeness it bears, and when the image is honored, the king himself is honored also, so that the one honored would be one, and not two — for there are not two kings, the first and true one and the one represented in the image, but the one comprising both, not only conceived of, but also named and honored, as one — so also the only-begotten Son, being the sole image of the invisible God, is fittingly, on account of him whose likeness he bears, proclaimed the image of the invisible God, and is made God by the Father himself, having such a nature by birth, from his very first existence, bearing the image of the Father as natural, not acquired.
Therefore he happens to be by nature both God and only-begotten Son together, and not like those who are adopted from without and hold the dignity of the appellation 'God' as something accruing to them; yet, although he is by nature only-begotten Son and is acclaimed as our God, he is not the first God, but is first the only-begotten Son of God, and for this reason God.