'For which cause He is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying: I will declare Thy name to My brethren' (Heb. 2:11). And He says this of us who according to the flesh was both born and suffered for us — nay rather, who so became a partaker of our nature that He came to be from that one man from whom we all were made; that He might teach the origin of the flesh from that one from whom we all draw our origin. But if the Trinity had taken on flesh for us, then, since we are made brethren to Him who was incarnate through the fellowship of the flesh, we should now be not only sons of God the Father, but also brethren of the whole Trinity; and Him whom we have as Father in heaven, human nativity would have made also our brother. It is a matter of great absurdity:
to suppose that He was begotten in time, to whom it is proper from eternity not to have been born, but to have begotten. This therefore accords with the true faith: to confess that neither the Father, nor the Spirit, but the Son alone — as He was alone born of God the Father, so alone was born of the Virgin Mary. Since, then, the Son alone as God took on flesh, therefore He made us sons of God, and, freed from the bondage of sin, restored us to true liberty. And because He alone was born of the Virgin, therefore He alone was delivered up for us: the Apostle testifying that 'God spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all' (Rom. 8:32). For of the Son Himself he also says:
'And that I now live in the flesh, I live in the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered Himself for me' (Gal. 2:20). And in another place he says: 'Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present wicked world, according to the will of God our Father, to whom is glory for ever and ever' (Gal. 1:3-5). As therefore the Father delivered up the Son, so the Son delivered up Himself; and as the Son gave Himself, so also the Father gave Him, the Son saying: 'For God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him may not perish, but may have life everlasting' (John 3:16).
All these things therefore being known, by which it is clearly shown that the Son alone took on flesh for our salvation, and that He alone was delivered up for our sins and endured the torment of passion and death, far be it that any of the faithful should say that God the Father was either born of the Virgin or delivered up for us. For these belong to the Son alone, who, as He deigned temporally to be born for us, so temporally to die. But if anyone assigns the taking on of flesh to God the Father, let him especially attend to this in the Gospel: that God who put on flesh most frequently named Himself not only Son of Man, but also Son of God. For to the man born blind whom He had enlightened He said: 'Dost thou believe in the Son of God?' He answered and said:
'Who is He, Lord, that I may believe in Him?' And Jesus said to him: 'Thou hast both seen Him, and it is He that talketh with thee.' And he said: 'I believe, Lord.' And falling down he adored Him (John 9:35 ff.). To the Jews also He said thus: 'Is it not written in your law, I said, You are gods? If He called them gods to whom the word of God was made, and the Scripture cannot be broken; do you say of Him whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest, because I said, I am the Son of God?' (John 10:34-36). And in another place He named Himself at once both Son of Man and Son of God, saying: 'As Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in Him may not perish, but may have life everlasting' (John 3:14).
(John 3:14). Where straightway the Savior added of Himself that which in this work has thus been set down by us, wherein He named Himself the Son of God, saying: 'For God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him may not perish, but may have life everlasting. For God sent not His Son to judge the world, but that the world may be saved by Him. He that believeth in Him is not judged; but he that believeth not is already judged, because he believeth not in the name of the only-begotten Son of God' (John 3:17 ff.). For also when He named Himself the Son of Man, saying to His disciples: 'Whom do men say that the Son of Man is?' (Matt. 16:13)
and having heard the manifold opinion of men — namely of those who out of their own will feigned for themselves a deadly falsehood concerning the Truth itself — He said: 'But whom do you say that I am?' Because Peter answering said, 'Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God' (ibid., 15-16), therefore he merited to be called blessed, the Lord Himself answering thus: 'Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona, because flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but My Father who is in heaven' (ibid., 17). Hence it is that also after the resurrection He testifies in these words that He would ascend to His Father: 'I ascend to My Father and to your Father, to My God and to your God' (John 20:17).
If therefore God who put on flesh is asserted to be Himself God the Father, then it is necessary that another be asserted to be the Father of that very Father; and thereby God the Father too would have had a Father, to whom He might say — or rather, to whom it is said: 'Father, glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son may glorify Thee' (John 17:1). And from this sacrilegious meaning, full of blasphemies, one falls also into this: that now not one Father is reckoned to be, but two — that is, one Father of the Son, whom truth knows, and another Father of the Father, whom vanity feigns. And where is it that the Apostle professes one God the Father, saying: 'But to us there is one God the Father, of whom are all things, and we in Him' (1 Cor. 8:6)?
And in another place: 'One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in us all' (Eph. 4:6). With whom, although the Son is by nature one God, yet according to the persons, one is the Father, another is the Son, another is the Holy Spirit. These persons the blessed John clearly shows, saying: 'He that loveth Him that begat, loveth Him also who is born of Him' (1 John 5:1). Likewise he says: 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God; the same was in the beginning with God' (John 1:1-2); and a little after, that he might show that flesh was taken by the Word alone, he says: 'And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us' (ibid., 14).
God the Word therefore was made flesh, not God with whom the Word was; because the Only-begotten, who is in the bosom of the Father, in that He is flesh, is full of grace, and in that He is the Word, is full of truth: He, the one Word made flesh, who dwelt among us. Of Him also the prophet says: 'This is our God, and no other shall be counted beside Him, who found out all the way of knowledge, and gave it to Jacob His servant, and to Israel His beloved. Afterward He was seen upon earth, and conversed with men' (Baruch 3:36-38). This testimony the true faith has received as spoken of the Son alone. For He it is who according to the flesh was seen upon earth, and conversed with men.
Whence the holy evangelist Matthew, wholly agreeing with the prophetic word, says that Jesus conversed with His disciples. For thus he says: 'And while they abode together in Galilee, Jesus said to them: The Son of Man shall be betrayed into the hands of men, and they shall kill Him, and the third day He shall rise again' (Matt. 17:21-22). Therefore He had come that He might be slain for us. But how should He be slain, if He were not betrayed? Or how betrayed, if He were not seized? And how seized, if He conversed not with men? Or how should He converse with men, if He were not seen upon earth? And how should He be seen, if He were not born? And how should He be born, if flesh were not conceived of flesh?
But if all these things had not come to pass, the counsel of the Lord, which abideth for ever, would in no wise be fulfilled. And that counsel remaining unfulfilled, no grace of salvation would be conferred upon us sinners. And how would there be in Him the true name by which He was called Jesus? For this we interpret as Savior. Wherefore the angel, saying to Joseph that Mary would bear the Son of God, added also this: 'And thou shalt call His name Jesus. For He shall save His people from their sins' (Matt. 1:21). And to Mary herself the angel spoke thus: 'Behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and shalt bring forth a Son, and thou shalt call His name Jesus. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Most High' (Luke 1:31-32).
Therefore God the Father is not born of the Virgin, seeing that He whom the Virgin brought forth was called the Son of the Most High. Since, then, there is one Father, and one Son, and one Holy Spirit, therefore He who by nature is the Son of the Most High, from the eternal divinity of the Father, the same Son of the Most High, according to the true faith, is called forth from the Virgin. Nor let it move thee that the prophet, speaking of the Son alone, said: 'This is our God, and no other shall be counted beside Him' (Baruch 3:36). Nor from this, that he said no other is counted beside Him, let anyone suppose that in person the same is Father who is Son.
The blessed Jeremiah, full of the Holy Spirit, said: 'This is our God, and no other shall be counted beside Him' — so that in what he said first, 'This is God,' we might recognize therein that no other is counted beside Him, because there is no other God besides Him. For by nature there is thus no other God besides the Holy Spirit, because there is not one God the Father, and another God the Son, and another God the Holy Spirit; but the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit are one God, and besides this our God there is no other God. Accordingly, our God is the Father in such wise that no other is counted beside Him; our God is likewise the Son in such wise that no other is counted beside Him; nonetheless our God is likewise the Holy Spirit in such wise that no other is counted beside Him:
because besides this one God there is no other God, of whom David says: 'For who is God but the Lord? or who is God but our God?' (Ps. 17:32). And God Himself says: 'See, see that I am God, and there is no other beside Me' (Deut. 32:39). Of this the blessed James also says: 'Thou believest that there is one God; thou dost well; the devils also believe, and tremble' (James 2:19). By nature, therefore, no other God is counted beside the Son, because no other God is counted beside the Father, nor is any other God counted beside the Holy Spirit. But in persons, another is the Father, another the Son, another the Holy Spirit; nor is the Father Himself He who is the Son, nor the Holy Spirit Himself He who is the Father or the Son;
but the same one God, Father and Son and Holy Spirit. The Son Himself, however, shows both the Father to be another in person, and the Holy Spirit, saying: 'There is another that beareth witness of Me, and I know that His testimony is true which He beareth of Me' (John 5:32). And lest anyone should think this to have been said of John, a little after He says: 'But I have a greater testimony than John. For the works which the Father hath given Me to accomplish, the very works which I do, bear witness of Me, that the Father hath sent Me. And the Father Himself who sent Me hath borne witness of Me' (ibid., 36). He shows the Holy Spirit also to be another in person, saying:
'If you love Me, keep My commandments; and I will ask the Father, and He shall give you another Paraclete, that He may abide with you for ever, the Spirit of truth' (John 14:15-17); of whom in another place also He says: 'When the Paraclete cometh, whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceedeth from the Father, He shall give testimony of Me' (John 15:26). But the majesty of the Father and of the Son is one, which comes not down from heaven to a place. For the supreme and true divinity cannot pass from place to place, because it is always everywhere whole. For one and the same is the majesty of the Trinity, which by nature is one boundless divinity. But, as I have said above, the nature of the Trinity is one in such wise that the person is not one.
Accordingly the Son, while the immensity of His majesty remained — which He has in common with the Father and the Holy Spirit — alone took on human nature into the unity of His person. To Him therefore there is not with the Father and the Holy Spirit a communion of the flesh assumed, because to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit the person is not common. That form of a servant, then, the whole Trinity made, which nevertheless the Son alone took into His own person. For He alone is the Word, and the Evangelist truly says, 'The Word was made flesh' (John 1:14); yet the Father did not command by some other Word that He should be made flesh: for the Father has one Word, through whom He made and makes all things, through whom He has said and says all things.
This Word was sent by the Father, when the Word was made flesh: but that He might be sent, the Father did not speak to Him by any transient words. For the eternal Word, born of the Father, is itself an eternal command from the Father, because the eternal generation of the Son is itself the eternal utterance of the Father. This Word is then heard by each one, when the truth of divinity and of incarnation is acknowledged. For just as each man has a word in his heart while he thinks — which word is not brought forth outwardly unless it be clothed with bodily voice, because through the voice received it can come to the knowledge of others;
yet when that word is shown by the voice of the speaker, it is in no wise separated from the innermost part of the heart, but this wondrously comes to pass, that it both comes whole to others by bodily utterance, and remains whole spiritually in the heart of the speaker: so also the Word of God the Father, born of the Father, remained in the Father — which would in no wise be acknowledged by us, unless it were clothed with the substance of flesh, as with a bodily voice. Thus the whole Word came to us, when the Word was made flesh, and the whole spiritual Word remained with the Father: equal to the Father, of whom it is ever born, and, that it might be perceived by us, lessened by the grace of the flesh assumed.
And thereby, of the Lord, the Lord remained Lord in the form of God, and, that He might come to the servants, from the handmaid He received the truth of the servile form. But the mystery of this servile form assumed some, understanding it too little, when they hear from us that one essence of the holy Trinity is preached, either deny, or doubt, that it could come to pass that the Son — who according to His divinity is preached by us as inseparable from the Father and the Holy Spirit — should both alone take on for us the truth of the servile form, and nonetheless remain inseparable with the Father and the Holy Spirit. But this would seem to them without doubt impossible, who, because they understand not the invisible things of God by the things that are made, do not behold them.
If they would attend to the common experience of human nature, they would find, even in that great sacrament of piety, the right lines of understanding. Since therefore there is one true divinity which in itself has three persons wholly inseparable — on account of which the Trinity itself is one God — and since in creatures no nature is found inseparable in three persons, let us attend to what takes place in each man, in whom we find not three persons in one nature, but two natures in one person. For God, by a wondrous work of His power, from two natures, that is, a rational soul and flesh, composed the one nature of man, and commanded the one person of man to remain in soul and flesh.
Behold, in man there are two natures in one person: so we say the Trinity is three persons in one nature. Let us therefore attend here to how, from these two natures remaining in one person, certain things are done in common, yet neither received nor possessed in common. For assuredly in ourselves we find something done by the joint office of flesh and soul, which nevertheless we attribute either to the flesh alone, or to the soul alone. For most certainly, just as the flesh alone is fed with bodily food, so the soul is spiritually nourished by the word of God.
And yet, that the flesh which is made of earth may be fed with earthly food, it eats with the soul cooperating, seeing that it lives from the soul, and therefore eats because it lives, usefully having in itself the office of the other cooperating with it — the soul — to which at once belongs both, from life, that it may eat, and from food, that it may live. When therefore food is taken, the operation is common to flesh and soul: which food nevertheless is found properly to pertain to the flesh alone. In receiving too the word of God, by which spiritual food the soul alone is fed, in order that it may come to that same food, it uses the office either of the eyes or of the ears. And thereby, that it may inwardly itself be fed, this is not accomplished without the operation of the flesh.
As therefore the operation of both natures is here found, while the receiving is of one, so let us believe that the human nature of the only-begotten God was made at once by the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, but was mercifully assumed for our salvation by the Son alone. You add, meanwhile, that one of you afterward said at that banquet that God did not make flies, fleas, scorpions, and bedbugs, but that after the casting down of that unworthy angel, the devil, all these things were made by the devil himself. And while you were saying that God made all things, and these very good, he said that you ought to consult me about this, that I might satisfy you on this point: whether, before the transgression, when God made all things, these were then made; or whether after the transgression.
These are the words with which your letter ends. But of this question there are two parts. For you have inquired both whether God made all those things, and when He made them. First therefore I see that we must discuss whether God made them. Here the blessed evangelist John shows us what we ought to think, saying: 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was made nothing' (John 1:1-3). See the holy evangelist, filled with the Spirit of God, in a few words wholesomely intimating to us not only the Creator, but also the creature. For in that he says, 'In the beginning was the Word,' the right faith understands in two ways:
that is, either that the Son was in the Father, because by nature the Father and the Son are one principle; or that not only the Father is without beginning, but also the Son. For that is most certainly called the true principle which is preceded by no principle of existence: but whatever begins to be in principle was made by the work of the creating God, and cannot have one nature with the Creator: for that is subject to a beginning which God created out of nothing. Accordingly, that is rightly said to be in the beginning to which it is natural always to be without a beginning of existence: which eternity without beginning is itself the true Divinity.
But this is found by nature in the one Son, who is born of the Father, and in the one Holy Spirit, who proceeds from the Father and the Son. Such, then, is what the evangelist says, 'In the beginning was the Word,' as if he said, 'The Word always was': for whatever principle a man may be able to conceive, that Word is never found to have begun at some time, but always to be in the beginning. Then, saying, 'the Word was with God,' he shows the nature of the Word to be neither temporal nor local. For the Word which was in the beginning has nothing of the beginning of time; it has nothing of the space of place, which before every creature subject to times and places was with God.
Then, saying, 'the Word was God,' he shows the one nature of the Father and the Son, since he said that the Word which was with God is by nature none other than God. For the evangelist, in first saying 'Word,' expressed the appellation of a person truly existing, which indeed is not common to the Father and the Son. For the Son alone is called the Word. But the natural signification required that, as the person, so also the name of the nature should be shown in the Word. Therefore the blessed evangelist subsequently added: 'And the Word was God,' and thus not only by a personal but also by a natural intimation he fulfilled the office of holy preaching concerning the only-begotten Son of God; so that, in naming Him the Word by a personal name, he might show the Son of the Father;
and in naming Him God by a common appellation, he might show Him to be one in nature with the Father. Then, that the natural unity might be more commended from the unity of the work, the blessed evangelist added: 'All things were made by Him, and without Him was made nothing.' Who said this? Surely he who, reclining upon the breast of Wisdom and Truth, received true knowledge of incomprehensible eternity; who, as he had known that the Father and the Son are one God, so also had known that all things were made by the Father through the Son. Whence all those things which were made through the Son the holy John so universally comprehended, that he said: 'All things were made by Him, and without Him was made nothing.'
Whoever therefore contends to deny that flies, fleas, scorpions, bedbugs, or any other things by which mortal sense is offended were made by God — let him either say that they were not made at all, or, if he says they were made, yet not by the Father through the Son — what else remains but that he should say the evangelist John lied in his preaching? 'For all things,' he says, 'were made by Him, and without Him was made nothing.' There is therefore nothing that the Father did not make, who made all things: nor is there anything that the Father did not make through the Son, without whom was made nothing. Accordingly, whatsoever is by nature anything, it must needs be reckoned among the works of Him through whom all things were made, and without whom was made nothing.
The evangelist, full of truth, bears witness; and no less, in the teaching of the Holy Spirit, did Paul too, the vessel of election and teacher of the nations, fail to make plain to us in faith and truth, saying what we have already set down above: 'But for us there is one God the Father, from whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we through him' (1 Cor. 8:6). These same things he took care to explain still more plainly in another place, saying: 'For in him were created all things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether Thrones, or Dominations, or Principalities, or Powers; all things were created through him and in him, and he is before all, and all things hold together in him' (Col.
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I, 16, 17). Nequisautemaudiens, incœloetinterraomniaperChristumetinChristocreata, quiahicmarenonnominatur, eteaquæinaquissuntabopcredivinaecreationisæstimetaliena, primitusipsiusGenesisattendatinitium, ubipræcipienteDominoproduxeruntaquæreptiliaanimarum, etavesquævolantsuperterram (Genes. I, 20), etagnoscatipsumesseinaquiscreatorempisciumetavium, quicreatorestinterralignorumetherbarum, similiterincæloluminariumctsLellarum; etsicutcognoscitDcumpriusfecissecœluminquoluminariaetstellasfaceret, priusfecisseterramquæipsojubenteherbaslignaqueproduceret ;
1:16-17). But lest anyone, hearing that all things in heaven and on earth were created through Christ and in Christ, should—because the sea is not here named—reckon that the things which are in the waters are alien to the work of the divine creation, let him first attend to the very beginning of Genesis, where, at the Lord's command, 'the waters brought forth the creeping things of living souls, and the birds that fly above the earth' (Gen. 1:20); and let him acknowledge that the very One is the creator of the fish and birds in the waters who is the creator of trees and herbs on the earth, and likewise of the luminaries and stars in heaven; and just as he recognizes that God first made the heaven in which he would make the luminaries and stars, and first made the earth which at his command would bring forth herbs and trees,
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itafecisseaquas, dequibusipsodicentereptiliaetvolatiliapariterexstilissent. NecenimdeaquisaliquidVerbocreasset, sicasdemaquasVerboanteanonfecisset. IndeestquodbeatusDaviduniversalitercaelum, terram, mare, cumomnibusquæineissuntaDeofactaessenontacuitdicens : BeatusvircujusDeusJacobadjutorejus, spesejusinDominoDeoipsiusquifecitcælumetterram, mare, etomniaquæineissunt (Psal. CXLV, 4, 5).
so too he made the waters, out of which, at his word, the creeping things and the flying things alike came to be. For he would not have created anything out of the waters by his Word, had he not first made those same waters by his Word. Hence it is that blessed David did not keep silent, but declared universally that heaven, earth, and sea, with all that is in them, were made by God, saying: 'Blessed is the man whose helper is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord his God, who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them' (Ps. 145:4-5).
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Quomodo (forteCum) ergopropheticatesteturauctoritascœlumetterram, mare, etomniaquæineissunt, aDcofactaesse, PaulusquoqueaposlolusasseratinChristocreataesseomniaincœloetinterra, visibiliaetinvisibilia, siveThronos, siveDominationes, sivePrincipatus, sivePotestates; quaraticncautquaveri- tateaDeoaliquisnonvultcrederecrealasinterramuscasatquescorpiones, pulicesetcimices, aquonegarenonpotestcreatosesseincælestibusThronos, Dominationes, PrincipatusetPoteslates? Er.
When, therefore, prophetic authority testifies that heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them were made by God, and the apostle Paul also asserts that in Christ all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether Thrones, or Dominations, or Principalities, or Powers—by what reasoning or by what truth does someone refuse to believe that the flies and scorpions, the fleas and bedbugs on earth were created by God, when he cannot deny that the Thrones, Dominations, Principalities and Powers in the heavens were created by him? And,
is that God who, creating above the heaven, established the angelic legions, to be denied to have made the scorpions on the earth—on which he made men, made beasts and cattle, made birds and fish? 28. What, I ask, displeases anyone in these scorpions, that anyone should suppose they were not made by God? For there is nothing in the body of the scorpion that does not commend the praise of the Creator. First of all, the very framework of its members, united and duly ordered, the fitting proportion and symmetry of its parts; then the soul giving life and sensation to the body—who could doubt that all these are good?
But indeed that force of venom which is found harmful to men, and reckoned dreadful in the body of the scorpion—would that from it men might learn to consider the penalty of their own transgression, and cease to ascribe falsely the good works of God to the devil! For they attend too little to how much natural fitness avails among the works of God, and how much due measure benefits individual things, or how much the excess of immoderation harms. (the text is corrupt) Since almighty God did not permit these things to abound overmuch—who does not praise the works of God even in the very scourges (perhaps 'lashes') themselves, when he sees a sinner chastised by a divine flogging? For God made, as it is written (Ecclesiastes