神學講辭（第27-30講） 第 4-1 章 第 1/2 段

THE FOURTH THEOLOGICAL ORATION, ON THE SON. Since by the power of the Spirit we have sufficiently shaken loose for you the twists and tangles of their reasonings, and have now in summary dissolved — and, as I am persuaded, not obscurely, at least to the more fair-minded — the objections and counter-arguments drawn from the divine Scriptures, by which those who plunder the letter and steal the meaning of what is written carry off the multitude for themselves and trouble the way of truth;

having assigned the higher and more God-befitting sayings to the Godhead, and the lowlier and more human ones to the New Adam, the God who suffered for us, for our sake, against sin;

yet we have not gone through them one by one, since the discourse was pressing on.

But since you also seek in brief the solutions of these, that you may not be swept away by persuasive-sounding words, we will sum up these as well, dividing them into numbers for the sake of easy remembering.

For there is that one passage of theirs, and a very ready one too:

The Lord created me as the beginning of His ways, for His works.

How shall we meet this? Shall we not bring a charge against Solomon? Shall we not reject his earlier writings because of his final fall? Shall we not say that the saying belongs to Wisdom herself — to that knowledge, as it were, and to the craftsman-reason, by which all things were framed? For Scripture knows well how to personify even lifeless things, as in:

The sea said this and that;

and, The deep said, It is not in me;

and, The heavens declare the glory of God.

And again a sword is bidden do something, and mountains and hills are asked the reason of their skipping.

We say none of these things, even though by some who lived before us it has been laid down as a strong argument.

But let the saying belong to the Saviour Himself, to the true Wisdom.

Let us consider the matter a little together.

What among existing things is without a cause? The Godhead.

For no one can name a cause of God;

else this would be older than God.

But what is the cause of the manhood, which God assumed for our sake? Surely it is our salvation.

For what else? Since, therefore, we here clearly find both "He created" and "He begets me," the explanation is simple.

Whatever we find joined with the cause, let us assign to the manhood;

but whatever is unconditioned and without cause, let us reckon to the Godhead.

Is not, then, "He created" spoken with the cause? For "He created me," it says, "the beginning of His ways, for His works."

And the works of His hands are truth and judgement, for the sake of which He was anointed with Godhead.

For this is the anointing of the manhood.

But "He begets me" is without a cause;

or else show something appended to it.

What argument, then, will gainsay that Wisdom is called a creature in respect of the lower generation, but an offspring in respect of the first and more incomprehensible one? To this it follows also that He should be called a servant — one who serves many well — and that it should be a great thing for Him to be called a child of God.

For in very deed He served the flesh, and our birth, and our sufferings, for the sake of our freedom, and of all whom He saved that were held fast by sin.

And what is greater for man's lowliness than to be intertwined with God, and to become God by the union, and to be so visited by the Dayspring from on high that the holy thing born should be called the Son of the Most High, and that there should be given to Him the name which is above every name? And what is this but God? And that every knee should bow to Him who emptied Himself for us, and mingled the divine image with the form of a servant; and that all the house of Israel should know that God has made Him both Lord and Christ? For these things came to pass by the energy of the Begotten and the good pleasure of the Begetter.

And that He should have His seat at the right hand, until the subduing of His enemies.

And what is to be after this? To cease from His kingdom, or to be thrust out of the heavens? By whose stopping Him? Or for what cause? What a bold interpreter you are, and a great rebel against royalty!

And indeed you hear that of His kingdom there shall be no end.

But this you suffer through not knowing that "until" is not always set in opposition to the future, but lays down a limit up to a certain point, while it does not deny what is after that.

Or how will you understand — to say nothing of the rest — this:

I am with you, even unto the consummation of the age? Is it as though after this He would no longer be? And what is the sense of that? And not only this, but also through not distinguishing the things signified.

For He is said to reign in one sense as the Almighty, the King of both the willing and the unwilling;

but in another sense as working subjection, and placing us under His own kingdom, when we willingly accept being ruled.

Of the kingdom, then, understood in the former sense, there shall be no end.

But what of the second? Our being brought under His hand and saved.

For what need is there to work subjection upon those already subjected? After which He rises up to judge the earth, and to separate the saved from the perishing;

after which God stands in the midst of gods — that is, of the saved — discerning and distinguishing of what honour and abode each is worthy.

To this join also the subjection by which you subject the Son to the Father.

What, do you say He is not now subjected? And does He, being God, at all need to be made subject to God? You make your argument as though about some robber or some adversary of God.

But just as He who looses my curse was called a curse for my sake;

and He who takes away the sin of the world was called sin;

and instead of the old Adam He becomes a new one;

so also He makes my unsubjection His own, as the head of the whole body.

So long, then, as I am unsubjected and rebellious, both by denial of God and by my passions, Christ also, so far as concerns me, is called unsubjected.

But when all things shall be made subject to Him — and they shall be subjected by acknowledgement and transformation — then He too will have fulfilled the subjection, bringing me, who am saved, to God.

For this, according to my reasoning at least, is the subjection of Christ — the fulfilment of the Father's will.

But the Son subjects all to the Father, and the Father to the Son;

the one by working, the other by good pleasure, as we said before.

And thus He who subjects presents to God that which is subjected, making our state His own.

Of such a kind, it seems to me, is also this:

My God, my God, attend to me; why hast Thou forsaken me? For He was not Himself forsaken, either by the Father or by His own Godhead, as some think — as though it feared the suffering, and on that account drew back from the Sufferer.

For who compelled Him either to be born below at the beginning, or to go up to the cross? But in Himself, as I said, He typifies our condition.

For we were those formerly forsaken and overlooked, but now taken up and saved by the sufferings of Him who is impassible;

even as, making our folly and waywardness His own, He says what follows in the Psalm:

since the twenty-first Psalm refers manifestly to Christ.

And to the same contemplation belongs His learning obedience by the things which He suffered, and the crying, and the tears, and the supplication, and the being heard, and the reverence.

all of which are dramatized and wonderfully woven together for our sake.

For as the Word He was neither obedient nor disobedient;

for these things belong to those under authority, and to subordinates — the one to the more fair-minded, the other to those deserving of punishment.

But as in the form of a servant, He condescends to His fellow-servants and to servants, and takes on Himself an alien form, bearing me wholly in Himself with all that is mine, that in Himself He may consume the worse, as fire consumes wax, or the sun the mist of the earth, and that I may partake of what is His through the commingling.

For this reason He honours obedience in deed, and makes trial of it by suffering.

For mere disposition is not sufficient — just as it is not for us — unless we also pass through the experiences themselves.

For deed is the proof of disposition.

He measures all by His own sufferings, by the art of His love for mankind, so that He who is His own may know our condition through His own — both how much is required of us, and how much is allowed us — His mind reckoning together with the suffering also the weakness.

For if the Light was persecuted because of the veil, shining in the darkness, in this life, by the other darkness — I mean by the evil one and the tempter — how great is the darkness, being weaker? And what wonder is it if, when He utterly escaped, we should be in some measure overtaken? For it was a greater thing for Him to be persecuted than for us to be overtaken, in the judgement of those who reason rightly about these things.

And to what has been said I will yet add this, calling to mind the saying:

For in that He Himself has suffered, being tempted, He is able to help those who are tempted — a saying which clearly bears upon the same thought.

And God shall be all in all at the time of the restoration;

not the Father, as though the Son were wholly resolved into Him, as a torch into a great pyre, withdrawn for a time and then rejoined — for let not the Sabellians be corrupted by this saying — but the whole God, when we shall no longer be many, as we now are by our movements and passions, bearing in our very selves nothing at all of God, or but little, but shall be wholly God-like, capable of containing the whole God, and Him alone.

For this is the perfecting toward which we hasten;

and Paul himself bears witness to it especially.

For what he here says of God indefinitely, elsewhere he plainly limits to Christ.

What does he say? Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bond, free;

but Christ is all, and in all.

If, then, He were called greater, but not equal, perhaps this would be something for them;

but if we plainly find both, what will these noble fellows say? What is their strong point? How shall things irreconcilable be reconciled? For that the same thing should be both greater than and equal to the same thing is among things impossible;

or is it not plain that the "greater" is in respect of the cause, but the "equal" in respect of the nature? And this we, of our great fair-mindedness, confess.

But perhaps some other might say, in contending with our argument, that it is no lesser thing to be from such a cause than to be uncaused.

For He would share in the glory of the Unoriginate, because He is from the Unoriginate;

and there is added the generation — so great a thing, at least to those who have understanding, and so august.

For indeed to say that He is greater than what is conceived according to the manhood is true, but no great thing.

For what marvel is it if God is greater than man? Let this, then, be our word to those who boast of the "greater."

But "God" might be said — not of the Word, but of Him who is seen;

for how could there be a God of Him who is properly God? Just as also "Father" is said, not of the visible one, but of the Word.

so that the "properly" applies to both, but the "not properly" stands in the opposite way to how it does with us.

For of us He is properly God, but not properly Father.

And this is what produces the error among the heretics — the conjunction of the names, the names being interchanged because of the commingling.

But when the natures are distinguished, the names too are divided along with the conceptions.

That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory...

the God of Christ, but the Father of glory.

for even if the two together are one, yet not in nature, but in the conjunction of these.

What could be plainer than this? Let it be alleged as a fifth point, His receiving life, or judgement, or the inheritance of the nations, or authority over all flesh, or glory, or disciples, or whatever is so spoken.

and this belongs to the manhood.

But even if you should ascribe it to the Godhead, it is not absurd.

For you will not give it as something acquired, but as co-existing from the beginning, and that by the principle of nature, not of grace.

Let it be set down as a sixth point, that the Son can do nothing of Himself, except what He sees the Father doing.

Of those things which are spoken in one and the same way, neither the "can" nor the "cannot" applies;

for it is not a lack of power, and at one time, and in respect of one thing — as that a child cannot wrestle, or a puppy see, or this one contend against that one.

For perhaps he will at some time wrestle, and will see, and will contend against this one, even if against another he is unable.

But there is the "cannot" in the sense of "for the most part," as in:

A city set upon a high hill cannot be hid.

for perhaps someone might even be hidden, when something greater stands in front of it.

The sons of the bridechamber cannot fast, so long as the bridegroom is present with them;

whether He be the one bodily seen;

for the time of His sojourn is a time not of affliction but of gladness;

or whether He be understood as the Word.

For why need those who are cleansed by reason fast bodily? But there is the "cannot" in the sense of "not willed," as that He could not do miracles there because of the unbelief of those who were to receive them.

For since both things are needful for the cures — both the faith of those being healed and the power of the healer — it could not be that one of the pair should be lacking.

And I know not whether this too should not be added to the reasonable sense:

for the cure of those who would be harmed by it through unbelief is not reasonable.

And of the same kind of saying is this also:

The world cannot hate you;

and, How can you, being evil, speak good things? For how is any of these impossible, except in that it is not willed? And there is also of such a kind among the things said, that which is impossible by nature, but possible to God if He wills it, as that the same person cannot be born a second time;

and a needle that does not admit a camel.

for what would hinder these from coming to pass, if God should will it? But apart from all these there is the wholly impossible and inadmissible, such as that which we are now examining.

For just as we say it is impossible for God to be evil, or not to be;

for this would be a mark of God's powerlessness rather than of His power;

or that what is not should be, or that twice two should be both four and ten;

so it is impossible and unallowable for the Son to do anything which the Father does not do.

For all things that the Father has are the Son's;

as conversely the Son's are the Father's;

nothing, therefore, is peculiar, because they are common.

Since even Being itself is common and of equal honour, although it is the Son's from the Father.

in accordance with which this also is said:

not as though His living and being were held together from thence, but as existing from thence timelessly and without cause.

But how does He see the Father doing, and so do likewise? Is it as those who paint forms and letters, because they cannot otherwise hit upon the truth, except by looking to the archetype and being guided thence? And how does Wisdom need a teacher, or fail to do anything unless taught? And how does the Father do, or has done? Did He first establish another world instead of the present one, and will He establish the one to come, and the Son, looking to those, established the one and will establish the other? There are, then, four worlds according to this argument — some the works of the Father, some of the Son.

But He cleanses leprosies, and frees from demons and diseases, and gives life to the dead, and walks upon the sea, and does all the other things which He has done — on what occasion, or when, did the Father do these beforehand? Or is it not plain that the Father impresses the patterns of the same works, while the Word brings them to accomplishment — not slavishly, nor unskilfully, but knowingly and with mastery, and, to speak more fittingly, in a fatherly way? For thus do I receive the saying that whatever the Father does, these the Son likewise does;

not according to a likeness of the things done, but according to an equality of authority.

And this would be the meaning of "My Father works until now, and I work";

and not only this, but also the administration and preservation of the things they have made, as is shown by His making His angels spirits;

and by the earth being founded upon its sure foundation;

things once firmly set and brought into being;

and by the thunder being made firm, and the wind being created — things of which the Word was the cause once for all, while the energy continues even now.

Let it be said as a seventh point that the Son came down from heaven, not that He might do His own will, but the will of Him who sent Him.

If it were He who had come down that said these things, we should have said that the Word is figuring forth from the standpoint of the man — not of the man conceived as belonging to the Saviour, for that man's willing is not at all contrary to God, being wholly from God — but from the standpoint of the man as we are;

inasmuch as the human will does not always follow the divine, but for the most part resists and struggles against it.

For indeed we have understood that saying also in this way:

Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me;

nevertheless not what I will, but let Thy will prevail.

For it is not likely either that He was ignorant whether it were possible or not, nor that He set His own will against the will.

But since the Word is here speaking from the standpoint of the assumed manhood — for this is what came down, not the thing assumed — we shall meet it thus.

Not as though there were a will of the Son's own apart from the Father's, but as there being none, the meaning runs;

so that what is gathered may be of this sort:

Not that I may do my own will, for there is none of mine separate from Thine, but the will common to me and Thee — of whom, as the Godhead is one, so also is the will.

For many such sayings are spoken from the common standpoint, and not affirmatively but negatively, as in:

For God gives not the Spirit by measure;

for neither does He give, nor is it measured, for God is not measured out by God;

Neither is my sin, nor my transgression;

for the meaning is not that it exists, but that it does not exist;

Not for the sake of our righteousnesses which we have done;

and this is plain even in what follows;

for what, He says, is the will of the Father? That everyone who believes in the Son should be saved, and attain the last resurrection.

Is this, then, the will of the Father, but in no way of the Son? Or does He preach the gospel and is believed in unwillingly? And who would believe this? Since the saying that the Word which is heard is not the Son's but the Father's has the same force.

For how the common can be peculiar to anyone, or be his alone, this I cannot conceive, however much I consider it;

if you think thus concerning the willing, you will conceive rightly and very piously, as is my judgement and that of every fair-minded man.

That they may know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent;

None is good, save one, that is, God.

And this too seems to me to have an altogether very easy solution.

For if you set the "only true" upon the Father, where will you set Truth itself (the Son)? For if you understand "To the only wise God," or "Who only has immortality, dwelling in light unapproachable," or "To the King of the ages, incorruptible, invisible, and only wise God" in this way, the Son will be gone from you — condemned to death, or to darkness, or to not being wise, nor king, nor invisible, nor God at all, which is the sum of what has been said.

And how will He not lose, along with the other attributes, also goodness — or rather, that which belongs to God alone? But I think the saying:

That they may know Thee the only true God, is said for the doing away of those that are not really gods, but are so called.

And the saying "and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent" would be against us, if the "only true" were set in opposition to Him, and the word were not spoken concerning the Godhead held in common.

But the saying, None is good, has its answer to the tempting lawyer, who had testified goodness to Him as to a man.

For the supremely good, He says, belongs to God alone, even though a man also be so named, as in:

The good man out of the good treasure brings forth that which is good;

Do good, O Lord, to those who are good;

and whatever other such things are said concerning those things in us that are praised, upon whom the outflowing of the first Beautiful has come, even in a secondary sense.

If, then, we persuade you of this, it is best;

but if not, what will you say to those who allege elsewhere, according to your own suppositions, that the Son alone is called God? In what words? In those:

This is your God; no other shall be reckoned beside Him;

After this He appeared upon the earth, and dwelt among men.

for that this is said not concerning the Father but the Son, the addition plainly makes clear;

for this is He who conversed with us bodily, and came to be among those below.

If this be said against the Father, as if to do away with the so-called gods, we shall have made the Father lesser by the very means by which we strove on behalf of the Son.

And what could be more wretched or more disastrous than such a victory? Ninthly, they will allege this:

Ever living to make intercession for us.

well and very mystically and lovingly toward mankind.

for to intercede does not mean, as is the custom of the many, to seek vengeance;

for this would be in some way a mark of lowliness;

but it means to plead on our behalf by the word of His mediation;

even as the Spirit also is said to intercede for us.

For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.

For He still pleads even now, as man, on behalf of my salvation, because He is with the body which He assumed, until He makes me God by the power of His incarnation, even though He is no longer known after the flesh — I mean the fleshly passions, which, apart from sin, are ours.

And thus we have as Advocate Jesus Christ — not as one who grovels before the Father on our behalf, and falls down slavishly.

Away with a suspicion that is truly slavish and unworthy of the Spirit!

For neither is it right to seek this of the Father, nor for the Son to suffer it, nor to think it concerning God;

but by the things which He suffered, as man, He persuades us to be patient, as the Word and Counsellor.

This is what the intercession means to me.

And yet how can Wisdom be ignorant of anything that exists — He who is the Maker of the ages, the Consummator and Transformer, the End of all created things? He who knows the things of God as the spirit of man knows the things in him? For what is more perfect than this knowledge? And how does He accurately know the things before the hour, and the things as it were close upon the end, yet is ignorant of the hour itself? For the thing is like a riddle, as if one should say that he accurately knows the things before the wall, but is ignorant of the wall itself;

or, knowing well the end of the day, does not know the beginning of the night;

where the knowledge of the one necessarily brings in the other.

Or is it not plain to all that He knows as God, but says He is ignorant as man — if one separates the appearance from the thing conceived? For the fact that the title of "Son" is absolute and unrelated, no "whose" being attached to the Son, gives us this surmise, so that we may take the ignorance in the more reverent way, reckoning it to the human, not to the divine.

If, then, this argument is sufficient, here we shall stand, and let nothing further be sought;

but if not, at least, secondly, let the knowledge of the greatest things, like each of the other points, be referred to the cause, in honour of the Begetter.

But it seems to me that someone, even if he had not read it that way, like one of our own learned men, might reflect a little, that the Son does not know the day or the hour otherwise than because the Father does.

For what is the inference? Since the Father knows, on that account the Son also knows — as being plain that this is knowable and apprehensible to none, except to the first nature.

It remained for us to deal with His being commissioned, and having kept the commandments, and having always done the things that please Him;

and further, His perfecting, and His exaltation, and His learning obedience by the things which He suffered, and His high-priesthood and offering, and His being delivered up, and His prayer to Him who was able to save Him from death, and His agony, and His bloody sweat, and His prayer, and if there be any other such thing;

unless it were plain to all that such names belong to that which suffers, not to the immutable nature that is higher than suffering.

Concerning the objections, then, let so much be said, as being a sort of root and reminder for the more inquiring minds, with a view to a more perfect working-out.

the conceptions concerning Him being many — but to set forth what each one of them means, and to show the mystery of the names.

And this is shown not only by reasonings, but also by the wisest and most ancient of the Hebrews, as far as they have given us to conjecture.

For those who honoured the Divine with peculiar characters, and would not endure that anything which is after God, or is God, should be written with the same letters — judging it fitting that the Divine should be in this respect also uncommunicated to our own things — when would they ever have allowed the indissoluble and distinct Nature to be set forth by a dissoluble utterance? For neither did anyone ever breathe in the whole of the air, nor has any mind altogether contained, or any voice embraced, the substance of God.

But from the things around Him we sketch out the things concerning Him, and gather together some dim and feeble and varied notion, one from one source, another from another.

And this is the best theologian among us — not he who has found the whole (for our bondage does not admit of the whole), but he who imagines more than another, and gathers together in himself more of the likeness or shadow of the truth, or whatever we shall call it.

So far, then, as is within our reach, "He who is" and "God" are in some way more the names of the Substance;

not only because, when He spoke to Moses on the mountain and was asked His name, whatever it might be, He gave Himself this title, "He who is has sent me," bidding him say so to the people;

but also because we find this title the more proper.

For the name "God," even though, as those skilled in these things have etymologized, it is derived from "running" or "burning," because of the ever-moving and consuming nature with regard to evil dispositions — for hence He is called a consuming fire — yet it belongs to the relative terms, and is not absolute;

just as also the name "Lord," which is itself also said to be a name of God;

For I, He says, am the Lord thy God;

but we seek the nature whose being is self-existent, and not bound up with another;

and Being is the very own of God, and the whole of it, neither bounded nor cut off by what was before Him or after Him, for He was not, nor will be.

Of the other appellations, some are plainly of authority, others of the economy, and that of two kinds;

the one above the body, the other in the body;

for instance, the Almighty, and the King — whether of glory, or of the ages, or of the powers, or of the Beloved, or of those who reign;

and the Lord — whether of Sabaoth, which means of hosts, or of the powers, or of those who exercise lordship.

These, then, are plainly of authority;

but "God" is either of salvation, or of vengeances, or of peace, or of righteousness, or of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and of all spiritual Israel that sees God;

for since we are governed by these three — by fear of punishment, by hope of salvation, and besides by glory, and by the practice of the virtues from which these come;

the name "of vengeances" administers the fear;

that "of salvation," the hope;

that "of the virtues," the practice;

so that he who succeeds in any of these, bearing God in himself as it were, may press on the more toward perfection and toward the kinship that comes of the virtues.

These, then, are the names common to the Godhead.

But peculiar to the Unoriginate is "Father";

to Him who is begotten without beginning, "Son";

to Him who came forth, or proceeds, without being begotten, the Holy Spirit.

But let us come to the titles of the Son, which is what the discourse set out to speak of.

He is called Only-begotten, not because He is the only one from the only one and only one, but because He is so in a unique manner, not as bodies are.

And Word, because He is related to the Father as a word is to a mind;

not only because of the passionlessness of His generation, but also because of His conjunction, and His declaratory function.

And perhaps someone might say that He is so called as a definition is to the thing defined, since this also is called "logos" (definition).

For he who has comprehended the Son — for this is what "has seen" means — has comprehended the Father, He says;

for every offspring is a silent word of the one who begot it.

And if anyone should say that He is so called because He is present in all existing things, he will not miss the mark of the meaning.

For what is there that has not been held together by reason? And He is Wisdom, as the knowledge of things divine and human.

For how could He who made them be ignorant of the reasons of the things which He has made? And He is Power, as the preserver of created things, and the one who supplies the power for these to be held together.

And He is Truth, as being one, not many, in nature;

for the true is one, but the false is manifold;

and as the pure seal of the Father, and His most unerring impress.

And He is Image, as being of one substance, and because this (the Son) is from that (the Father), but the Father is not from this.

For this is the nature of an image, to be a copy of the archetype, and of that whose name it bears;