祈願書 第 2 章 第 2/6 段

one omnipotent, and another who is not omnipotent. But, O blindness in both! They have before their eyes what they might piously behold, yet strive impiously to wrangle by incautious stumblings: let them at least lend themselves their own senses, and they will perceive the truth of the pious faith. Let Sabellius, from admiration of the powers which Christ wrought, believe Christ to be true God, and not one who once began, but one who always was, and can do all things: let Arius believe this, and not blaspheme against Christ, whom he confesses to be the Son. Likewise Arius denies Christ to be the Father: let Sabellius too deny this, and piously believe that Christ is truly God, not being the Father, but the Son. Yet more plainly will I say it. Let Sabellius overcome Arius, that Christ is true God;

and let Arius overcome Sabellius, that Christ under the confession of the true God is also true Son: and to me a Catholic both have prevailed — nay, with me let both prevail over the error of impiety, when together with me they have understood the truth of the sacred faith, which both understands a plurality of persons, and the unity of the deity in this pronouncement of the Lord saying, 'I and the Father are one.' But this divine pronouncement, and this pious understanding of the divine pronouncement, the followers of Arius, when they seek to subvert it, interpret in another manner, and say: they are indeed one, but not in substance, not in deity, not in power, but in will — that is, because they have one and the same will, therefore He says, 'I and the Father are one.'

Say, O most impious ones, the Word of God is substantive; and does he who gave language its speech not know how to speak, and was he ignorant of how to unfold your lofty meaning in words proper and fitting, and was he ineffectual to say, 'I and the Father will one thing,' if indeed in this passage he wished a unity of will, and not of substance and deity, to be understood? XII. But now, I beg you, O Queen, remember what chapters you have deigned to write in the person of the heretics. The heretics themselves allege: 'The Father who sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say and what I should speak' (John XII, 49); and 'I came down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me, the Father' (John VI, 38).

This is the craft of the heretics: that in one place they deny what in another place they confess; so that when they see themselves vehemently bound by the resolutions of the present questions, they always slip away with a serpent's slipperiness. Surely you say, O heretics, that the Father gave a commandment to the Son, what he should say and what he should speak; and how, as though he did not know how to speak, do you correct his words—nay rather now the Father's words; for the Son, what he says and what he speaks, he both says and speaks according to the commandment which the Father gave him. Do you not now understand that, when with a profane spirit you strive to exercise your madness against the deity of the Son, you also burst out raging against the Father? The Son cries out, 'I and the Father are one.'

And you, like grammarians supplying as it were the inefficacy of the Lord's pronouncement by changing the underlying verb, correct it and say: 'What he says, are, must be understood as will; namely so that it was thus spoken, I and the Father will one thing.' But the Son cries out even against you, saying those words which he spoke to the Jews, the sharers of your impiety: 'Why do you not understand my speech?' (John VIII, 43). Let parables and allegories and riddles have their own place; yet in this passage it is most openly and fully said, 'I and the Father are one'; and in what manner they are one, he declares elsewhere also, when he says: 'Believe me, that I am in the Father, and the Father in me' (John X, 38).

And lest he should seem to claim for himself what was not his, in order to show the truth of his statement, he first said: 'Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? The words that I speak to you, I speak not of myself; but the Father, abiding in me, he himself speaks, and the works that I do, he himself does' (John XIV, 10). And elsewhere also: 'As the Father taught me, these things I speak; and he who sent me is with me, and has not left me alone, because the things that are pleasing to him I always do' (John VIII, 28, 29). Not because the Son was ignorant of what he ought to say—for what is there that the Wisdom of God should not know? But that he might soften the hardness of your untamed faith toward a devout understanding of the divine unity, also by the authority of the Father, he said:

'The Father abiding in me, he himself speaks' (John XIV, 10); or that other word, 'As the Father taught me, these things I speak' (John VIII, 28). Now just as the works of the Son are the works of the Father—in that, while the Son works, the Father abiding in him works—so what the Son speaks, the Father abiding in him speaks nothing other than what the Son speaks; for neither does the Son speak anything other than what the Father abiding in him speaks. Therefore the speech of the Father and the Son is the same, just as their operation is also the same; and for this reason he said, 'Otherwise believe for the very works' sake' (John XIV, 12). These things he certainly did in like manner as the Father, so that at last, even by the authority of the works, it might be believed that the Son is in the Father, and the Father in the Son. XIII.

But in what way that which he said is to be understood—'I in the Father and the Father in me'—has already been expounded above. Yet now I shall say it more briefly. It is to be heard according to the indifference of substance: 'I in the Father and the Father in me.' But also that which he said, 'I and the Father are one'—according to the indifference of substance the Father and the Son are one. I do not wish, then, O impious heretic, that you should take away the indifference of substance of the Father and the Son, and inopportunely insert a unity of will, which elsewhere you impiously deny by saying: 'It is written, I came down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me, the Father' (John VI, 38).

You who, in this passage, being ignorant of the mystery of his statement, so impiously deny that the will of the Father and the Son is one—how shall I believe you that you sincerely confess that one and the same will of the Father and the Son is signified in that which the Lord pronounced, saying, 'I and the Father are one'? If you truly believe that the Father and the Son are one in will, I do not see how you can deny that they are also one in substance and in divinity and in power. For why should there not be one substance, one divinity and power, in which there is one will? For if their will is on equal terms, on equal terms is their divinity. If their divinity is not on equal terms, neither is their will on equal terms.

For the will of God, and the will of anyone whatsoever who is not God, cannot be equal; because the force of the will of him who is God is one thing, and the force of the will of him who is not God is another. The will of God is naturally good, it is perfect, it is unchangeable, ever existing the same, existing without beginning, and persevering without end. But the will of him who is not God, in that it has a beginning—just as he himself who is not God can both waver and be turned, just as he himself who is not God—and through this it is not truly good, because not naturally good, nor truly perfect, since it can be turned and diminished: so that what it willed today, it may not will tomorrow, and what it did not will today, it may will tomorrow. XIV.

Let me say it more plainly by an example: that angel who is now the devil, before he became the devil, had a good will; but when he became the devil, by the agitation of his own choice he lost the good will; for this reason, namely, because he subsists from a thing made, and is not God by nature. This is to be thought also of every rational creature: for even if some of them have not turned aside, nor do they turn aside from the good will, yet they have in their nature the power to turn aside, because they are creatures and not God. For this very fact that they do not turn aside, they obtain by the perpetual observance of discipline, not from the truth of an unchangeable nature.

But God himself alone is without beginning good and perfect and unchangeable without beginning, having also a good and perfect and unchangeable will; not by institution, nor from any progress of observance does he have a good and perfect and unchangeable will, but from the truth of an unchangeable nature, by which he is also a good and perfect and unchangeable God. Let it be seen whether perhaps there is any heresy that rejects this meaning; yet you above all consent to this, O Arian, you who say that the very Son of God—whom you confess to be the Lord of all creation—is turnable and changeable, in that you proclaim him to have been made by God out of nothing, yet not truly born of God.

If this is your opinion, that every creature is turnable and changeable, and you say that Christ is a creature: then he too, according to you, existing of a turnable and changeable nature by reason of his condition, does not have an unchangeable and immutable will. And how do you interpret that the Father and the Son are one in will, when, according to you, the wills of the Father and the Son are diverse and contrary; namely because the one is immutable and unchangeable, while the other is changeable and convertible? You are caught and exposed, O fraudulent heretic, in how you try to entrap and ensnare simple souls. For, constrained and confined by the testimony of the Lord's pronouncement, who said:

'I and the Father are one,' so that, however you might fly away from this utterance which in clear words shows the unity of deity in the Father and the Son, you succumbed by necessity, not by choice, to this: that, as it were for a memorial in the present passage, with the tips of your lips, and so to speak, on the mere surface of the words, you might insert a unity of will, in order that you might the more expressly and vividly and to the very marrow exclude the unity of deity. For you take away the meaning of unity of substance, which is easily believed from the very simplicity of the words; and you interpret the meaning as unity of will;

so that, because the aforesaid rationale of his is not easily understood by all, you might meanwhile deceive the simple hearer, while you so act that he may not understand the unity of divinity. For the catholic faith too most sincerely and most truly believes the unity of will in the Father and the Son, not with the lips only but with the whole heart—a faith which also acknowledges the unity of substance and of divinity. For just as the Son is with the Father immutable and unchangeable in substance, so also is he with the Father immutable and unchangeable in will. And therefore the will of the Father and the Son is one, just as there is also one power and one image—or rather, let me say, that the Son himself is the will of the Father.

For just as the one image of the Father and the Son is so according to Moses, yet the Son himself too is written by the Apostle to be 'the image of the invisible God' (Colossians I, 15); so also, since the will of the Father and the Son is one, it is piously defined that the Son is the will of the Father. Just as he is the image of the invisible God, understand likewise concerning power also. For the catholic faith says that there is one power of the Father and the Son; and yet the Apostle writes that Christ is 'the power of God and the wisdom of God' (1 Corinthians I, 24). Piously, therefore, it is said that the Son is the will of the Father, just as the same one is himself the wisdom of God. And yet, if this meaning still troubles you, attend to what we say: certainly Christ is the wisdom of God.

But what is the will of God, other than the wisdom of God? For in God the will is not one thing and the wisdom another: in men indeed there can be a will that is not this same wisdom; because the will of man arrives at the wisdom possible for him by learning and meditation and progress. But the will of God arrives at wisdom not by learning, not by meditation, not by progress, but it, needing nothing, is naturally substantive wisdom. Whence Christ also, being the wisdom of God, is likewise the will of God; for in God the will is not one thing and the wisdom another. Concerning what the heretics say. 'Out of nothing,' they say, 'God made for himself a son: if he made him out of nothing, he is a creature, and not a son.' I.

David, striking the forehead of Goliath with a single cast of a stone, laid low that mighty enemy of great bulk (1 Samuel XVII, 50). But it is not of our strength to conquer with a single stone, for a twofold reason, as I think: because neither do we have such powers as David also had; and these men too much present a forehead hardened to impudence by their impieties. Hence, although we have already cast many stones not in vain, yet still, in the grace of God, it must be repeated by us, and that impudent forehead of theirs, which is without the seal of the Lord, must be battered with frequent stones of testimonies;

so that, even if their flesh does not pour out gore, yet, pierced with many wounds, at least their shame may blush with a suffusion of blood, if even from those things which you had written to be theirs they are overwhelmed. You say these are the words of the heretics. 'Out of nothing,' they say, 'God made for himself a son. If he made him out of nothing, he is a creature, and not a son.' And what is it, that you call him a son whom you affirm to be a creature, when you say that he was made out of nothing? You cannot, then, call him both a son and a creature: for a son consists from birth, but a creature from being made. Why do you profess things contrary to yourself? Choose one of two: say either a son truly a son, or a creature truly a creature.

If you so call him a son as to call him truly a son, you have denied that he is a creature. And how do you say that he was made out of nothing, whom you truly confess to be a son? But if you say that he is truly a creature, why do you name him a son, when in him you deny the truth of that name? II. But let us strike the impudence of his forehead with the living stones of the divine voice. You say that he is a creature; I say that he is a son; who shall pronounce between us concerning the truth of the profession? I think you would gladly have him judge, by whom you say Christ was made out of nothing, while we refuse it. Let us hear, then, what he himself pronounces from the heavens. 'This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased' (Matthew III, 17). Did he say:

'This is he whom I made out of nothing'? And see, that he said this then for the first time, when Jesus as man came to baptism; and, I think, for no other reason than because it could be believed that he was not the Son of God, who appeared bodily, and who, among other men, came himself too as a man, a sinner, to baptism, though he had no sins of his own. Lest therefore, when Jesus accomplishes the sacrament of baptism in the man he had assumed, he should not be believed to be truly the Son of God, the Father cries out from heaven, 'This is my beloved Son.' John too had indeed understood that this one was his Lord, when, to him coming to baptism, he said: 'I ought to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?' (Matthew III, 14).

But lest perhaps among others the testimony of John should not seem so great as to overcome faith in the flesh and lowliness in Christ, and absolutely all the things that were done through his flesh; he than whom none is greater, he than whom none is a better discerner, gives testimony from the heavens, saying: 'This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.' For as much as faith concerning the flesh of the Savior was manifest, so much ought faith concerning the deity of the Savior also to have been manifest: for then he is true God, if he is also a true Son. His flesh indeed, or rather let me say the man, no one doubted, because it could not even be doubted;

but that which was in the man, and was born together with the man, since it could not be seen through nature, lest it should be uncertain, is shown by the voice and as it were by the finger of the Father, who says: 'This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased'; and meanwhile, by equal authority, the faith of both substances—that is, of God and of man—is commended in Christ. For the Son of God himself was sealing in himself the faith of the man through the conception and birth of the Virgin, through the wailing of infancy, through the cradle and swaddling-cloths, through his mother's very breasts, through the very nourishment of the maternal milk, through the increases of bodily age, through this very thing that he came to be baptized.

You see how, meanwhile, up to the baptism he expressed in himself the truth of the man, doing this the more closely the more difficult it could be believed, that God should become man. And lest perhaps you think the Son of God was compelled to this, and not willingly made also the son of man, hear the Apostle saying concerning him: 'Who, when he was established in the form of God, did not think it robbery to be equal to God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant' (Philippians II, 6, 7). If, then, 'he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant,' he was not compelled, but willingly made the son of man, existing in the form of God, equal to God. You have, therefore, the Son expressing in himself the faith of the man. III.

Likewise let us see the faith of the divinity expressed in him; and although it has been sufficiently expressed above concerning the faith of his divinity, and there are still many other more copious things by which the faith of his divinity appears, yet those I now pass over in silence: for it suffices me if the Father alone meanwhile shows the faith of the divinity in Christ, saying: 'This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.' What do you say, heretic? You believe Christ without doubt, that he made himself the son of man; what do you judge concerning the Father? Is he truthful in your estimation, when he testifies that Christ is his Son? If you do not believe the Father, when he testifies that Christ is his Son, then Christ is of greater authority with you, whom you believe concerning the faith of the man in himself;

and the Father is less worthy of credit, whom you do not believe concerning the testimony of the Son. And how do you claim the Father to be the greater God, whose voice you depreciate as if it were of the least account? Or how do you assert Christ to be the lesser God, whom you believe as much as you do not even believe him whom you proclaim greater? This honor of yours is great which you bestow on the Father, that you do not believe him when he professes concerning his Son! Who nevertheless again and elsewhere professes that he is his Son, when the Lord ascended into the mountain with the apostles Peter and James and John, and his face shone like the sun (Matthew XVII, 2). Let the divine testimony again strike the impudence of your forehead: 'And behold,' he says, 'a bright cloud overshadowed them; and behold, a voice from the cloud, saying:

This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased: hear him' (Matthew XVII, 5). Certainly Moses and Elijah were seen alike speaking with him, whom assuredly you cannot deny to have been made sons of God by adoption; and how is it that the divine voice testifies concerning Christ alone, saying: 'This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased: hear him'? For if Christ too is a son by adoption, when he stood between two adoptive sons, he would surely have said, 'And this one is my son,' lest Christ alone should be believed to be a son; but when he said, 'This is my beloved Son,' he separated the sons of adoption, so that the property of true birth might be believed in Christ alone as Son.

But it is not enough that he professed Christ alone to be his Son; he added also that which was due to a true Son, saying, 'hear him.' He showed a great—nay, even an equal—authority in the Son, since the Son is to be so heard, just as the Father also is to be heard: 'Hear him,' he says. Whatever, therefore, Christ shall have already said, he is to be heard. And let us see whether he nowhere says that he is the Son of God, whether he nowhere professes that he has God as Father. It is his own voice: 'Every plant which my Father has not planted shall be rooted up' (Matthew XV, 13). And again: 'You have made my Father's house a house of merchandise' (John II, 16). Elsewhere also: 'And do you believe in the Son of God?' (John IX, 35).

He would never presume to say, 'My Father,' 'my Father's,' and 'do you believe in the Son of God?' unless there were a confidence of nature, which claims the appellation of truth in 'Father,' from the consciousness of his own birth. For why should he speak so boldly—he 'who humbled himself, becoming obedient even to the death of the cross'? IV. There are also very many other testimonies; but we are now not writing a book to pursue them all, but for the sake of brevity we close the sum with a few testimonies, so that that voice may be overwhelmed which denies that Christ is the Son of God. Indeed, Christ says that he is also the Son of man, when he says: 'And you shall see the Son of man' (Mark XIV, 62). And, 'Whom do they say the Son of man to be?' (Matthew XVI, 13).

For this is the sacrament of faith in Christ: that when you have believed him to be the Son of God, you may also believe that he was made the son of man. For that which he is the Son of God, he possesses by nature; but that which he was made the son of man, this he bestowed upon us as a benefit: and therefore he who does not believe Christ to be the Son of God is impious; but he too who disdains to confess that Christ was made the son of man is ungrateful. You, however, heretic, believe that Christ was made also the son of man, and when the Savior says this very thing of himself, you do not deny it. But indeed, when the Father has said, 'This is my Son,' and when the Son has said, 'My Father'; you, like the heart of Pharaoh, harden yourself, and do not believe?

It remains to your impudence that, like a melancholic not perceiving the truth, you should say that the Father and the Son have lied. 'I do not,' he says, 'deny that he is a son; but I deny that he is a true son': therefore Peter too merited the voice of blessedness for this reason, because he did not believe Christ to be a true son, although he confessed him to be the Son of the living God. Great indeed is the sacrament of the confessed faith in Peter's conscience, that while he says with his lips, 'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God' (Matthew XVI, 16), yet in his heart he holds that he is not the true Son of the living God! I am a man: I hear words, I understand words; the silent interpretation of the heart I cannot hear. He said Christ to be the Son of the living God:

unless he had added 'adoptive,' I understand nothing other than what he also speaks. Let Christ see to it, who as Lord and God looks upon his heart; but to me, who hear only with the ears, there ought to have been made manifest through the voice the confession of his heart, on whose account Peter too is questioned: for Peter was not questioned for himself alone, but for all of us; so that when he confesses well concerning Christ, we too might likewise learn to attain to blessedness by a like confession. And meanwhile let us see whether Peter worthily obtains the proclamation of blessedness, believing in his heart that he is not the true son, but adoptive; whether this is a worthy revelation of the Father, and not rather of flesh and blood.

Very many indeed are sons of God by adoption: not only Jeremiah, who, while he was still in his mother's womb, was sanctified (Jeremiah I, 5); nor John the Baptist alone, who as an infant in his mother's womb leaped for joy in the spirit (Luke I, 44); but neither Elijah alone, who has not yet suffered death, nor any whatsoever from the number of the prophets, one of whom, as is related in the Gospel (Matthew XVI, 14), was thought to be Christ; but to this name of adoption harlots and tax-collectors have come, though by amendment. And lest anyone think that I blaspheme, let him hear it said in the Gospel: 'Harlots and tax-collectors shall go before you into the kingdom of heaven' (Matthew XXI, 31), where there are none but sons of adoption.

When therefore the grace of adoption is denied neither to blasphemers nor to the base, if they correct themselves: did the Father reveal this to Peter as a great sacrament, namely that he is indeed the Son of the living God, but rather by adoption, and not by birth, and only in name, and not also in the truth of the name? Plainly, he who believes this is not blessed, but the most wretched of all men, having not only the understanding of flesh and blood, but even the spirit of the devil. But I beg you, O Queen, that you may perceive that many things could have been said in this place, which, hastening to what follows, I pass over; believing that, given the occasion, like one of the wisest, you can perceive more than we speak, according to the saying of Solomon:

'Give occasion to a wise man, and he will be wiser' (Proverbs IX, 9). V. This is your doctrine, Arians, this your singular interpretation, this the secret mystery of your faith: 'By adoption,' he says, 'Christ is a son, and not a true son.' Let us question John also: this one too could have learned the truth, either because he was present when Peter's praised confession was made, or from the special love of the Savior, by which he was so near to him that he even reclined upon his breast (John XIII, 23). Let us see what, clinging to his breast, he drew in. 'No one has ever seen God, except the only-begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father' (John I, 18). No creature sees God according to that which God is; and therefore he said:

'No one has ever seen God.' But it follows, and he says: 'except the only-begotten Son': therefore the only-begotten Son is not a creature, who sees God whom no creature has seen. And lest perhaps you should believe him to be one of the adoptive sons, he cut off the occasion of the impious meaning, when he called him not only a son, but even the only-begotten Son. This name has no companions: and although others are called sons, yet they are sons by adoption, not by nature. But Christ alone is the only-begotten Son, because he alone is the true Son, not by adoption, but by nature, not by appellation only, but also by lineage: he alone, I say, is the true Son, who is also in the bosom of the Father. The adoptive sons are in the bosom of Abraham;