Oration I Against the Arians

1. The heresies that have departed from the truth, having devised a madness for themselves, are manifest, and their impiety has long been plain to all. For it is clear that those who invented these things “went out from us,” as the blessed John wrote, since the mind of such people neither was nor now is “with us.” Therefore also, as the Savior said, “not gathering with us, they scatter” with the devil, watching for those who sleep, so that by sowing their own poison of destruction they may have others to die with them. But one heresy, the last of the heresies, which has now gone out as the forerunner of the Antichrist, the one called Arian, is deceitful and crafty. Seeing its elder sisters, the other heresies, openly pilloried, it puts on a mask, clothing itself in the words of the Scriptures, as its father the devil does, and forces its way back into the paradise of the church, so that by pretending to be Christian it may deceive some, through the plausibility of its fallacies (for there is nothing reasonable in it), into thinking against Christ. And it has already led astray some of the foolish, so that they have not only been corrupted in their hearing but, like Eve, have taken and tasted, and now in their ignorance think “bitter sweet” and “call” the abominable heresy “good.” Therefore I have thought it necessary, at your urging, to rip open “the fold of the breastplate” of this foul heresy and to show the stench of its folly, so that those who are still far from it may flee it, and those deceived by it may repent, and, with the eyes of their heart opened, may understand that just as darkness is not light, nor falsehood truth, so neither is the Arian heresy good. And those who call these people “Christians” are greatly and utterly mistaken, as people who have neither read the Scriptures nor know at all what Christianity is and the faith that is in it.

2. For what likeness have they seen between the heresy and the godly faith, that they babble as though those people say nothing bad? This is truly to call even Caiaphas a Christian, still to count the traitor Judas among the apostles, to say that those who asked for Barabbas instead of the Savior did nothing wrong, to commend Hymenaeus and Alexander as right-minded, and to say that the apostle lied about them. But a Christian would not bear to hear these things, nor would anyone suppose that the man who dares to say this is of sound mind. For with them Arius stands in the place of Christ, as Mani does with the Manichaeans; and in place of Moses and the other saints they have found a certain Sotades, who is laughed at even among the Greeks, and the daughter of Herodias. For Arius has imitated the broken and effeminate style of the one, himself writing a “Thalia”; and he has emulated the dancing of the other, dancing and making sport in his blasphemies against the Savior. So those who fall into the heresy are perverted in mind and become senseless, and they “change” the name of “the Lord of glory” “into the likeness of the image of corruptible man,” and are now called “Arians” instead of “Christians,” and have this as the mark of their impiety. Let them not make excuses, nor, when reproached, lie against those who are not what they are, by calling Christians too after their teachers, so that they themselves may seem to be called Christians in the same way. Nor let them make a joke of it because they are ashamed of their own disgraceful name. If they are ashamed, let them hide their faces, or let them leap away from their own impiety. For never has a people taken its name from its own bishops, but from the Lord, in whom we have our faith. Thus, although the blessed apostles became our teachers and ministered the Savior's gospel, we were not named after them; rather from Christ we both are and are named “Christians.” But those who have from others the origin of what they regard as faith rightly also have their name from them, having become their property.

3. Of course, since all of us are and are called Christians from Christ, Marcion was long ago cast out for inventing a heresy; those who remained with the one who cast him out remained Christians, but those who followed Marcion were no longer called Christians but thereafter “Marcionites.” So too Valentinus, Basilides, Mani, and Simon the magician have given their own names to their followers; some are called “Valentinians,” others “Basilidians,” others “Manichaeans,” others “Simonians,” others “Phrygians” from Phrygia, and from Novatus “Novatians.” So too Meletius, cast out by Peter, the bishop and martyr, no longer called his followers Christians but “Meletians.” In the same way, when Alexander of blessed memory cast out Arius, those who remained with Alexander remained Christians; but those who went out with Arius left the Savior's name to us who are with Alexander, and were thereafter called “Arians.” See, then: after Alexander's death too, those in communion with Athanasius, his successor, and those with whom this same Athanasius is in communion, keep the same pattern. None of them bears his name, nor is he named after them, but all are again, as usual, called Christians. For even though we have successors of teachers and become their disciples, yet because we are taught by them the things of Christ, we are and are called Christians none the less. But those who follow heretics, even if they have countless successors, still bear without fail the name of the one who invented the heresy. Of course, though Arius has died and many of his own people have succeeded him, those who hold his views are nevertheless known by Arius and called “Arians.” And there is a remarkable proof of this: those from the Greeks who even now come into the church, abandoning the superstition of idols, take the name not of their catechists but of the Savior, and begin to be called “Christians” instead of “Greeks”; but those who go off to the Arians, or whoever change from the church to the heresy, abandon the name of Christ and are thereafter called “Arians,” as no longer holding the faith of Christ but having become successors of Arius's madness.

4. How then are they Christians who are not Christians but Ariomaniacs? Or how are they of the catholic church who have shaken off the apostolic faith and become “inventors of” new “evils,” who have abandoned the oracles of the divine Scriptures and call Arius's “Thalia” a new wisdom? They say this with reason, for they are proclaiming a new heresy. So one might well be astonished. Many have written many treatises and a great many homilies on the Old and the New Testaments, and a “Thalia” is found with none of them, not even among the serious writers of the Greeks, but only among those who sing such songs over their wine, with clapping and jokes, in their amusements, to make others laugh. Yet the admirable Arius, imitating nothing dignified and not even knowing what serious writers do, stole most of his ideas from the other heresies and emulated the buffoonery of Sotades alone. For what else was fitting for him, when he wished to dance against the Savior, than to set out his miserable little phrases of impiety in loose and slack meters? So that, as Wisdom says, “A man will be known from the utterance of his word,” so from these the unmanliness of the writer's soul and the corruption of his mind may be known. Indeed the crafty man did not escape notice; though he often twisted himself up and down like the serpent, he nevertheless fell into the error of the Pharisees. For they, wishing to break the law, pretended to study the words of the law; and wishing to deny the Lord who had been expected and was present, they pretended to name God, but were convicted of blasphemy when they said, “Why do you, being a man, make yourself God, and say, ‘I and the Father are one’?” So also the counterfeit and Sotadean Arius pretends to speak about God, inserting the words of the Scriptures, but he is convicted on every side as godless Arius, who denies the Son and counts him among the works.

5. The beginning, then, of Arius's “Thalia” and frivolity, with its effeminate style and meter, is this: “According to the faith of God's elect, God's wise ones, holy children, rightly dividing, who received God's Holy Spirit, these things I have learned from those who share in wisdom, the refined, taught by God, and wise in all things. In their footsteps I have come, walking with like opinion, I, the renowned, who have suffered much for God's glory; and having learned wisdom from God, I have come to know knowledge.” And the jests he rattles off in it, to be shunned and full of impiety, are of this kind: “God was not always Father; but there was a time when God was alone and was not yet Father; later he became Father. The Son was not always; for since all things came to be from nothing, and all things are creatures and works that have come to be, the Word of God himself also came to be from nothing, and ‘there was once when he was not’; and ‘he was not before he came to be,’ but he too had a beginning of being created.” “For God,” he says, “was alone, and the Word and Wisdom did not yet exist. Then, wishing to fashion us, he then made a certain one and named him Word and Wisdom and Son, so that he might fashion us through him.” So he says that there are two wisdoms: “one God's own, existing with God; and the Son came to be in this wisdom, and because he shares in it he was named only Wisdom and Word. For Wisdom,” he says, “came to exist by wisdom, by the will of the wise God.” So too he says that “there is another Word in God besides the Son, and because the Son shares in this, he in turn has been named Word and Son by grace.” This too is a view peculiar to their heresy, shown in other writings of theirs, that “there are many powers; one is God's own by nature and eternal; but Christ, again, is not the true power of God, but he too is one of the so-called powers, one of which, ‘the locust and the caterpillar,’ is called not only ‘power’ but ‘great’; and the others are many and like the Son, about which David also sings, saying, ‘The Lord of the powers.’ And by nature, like all things, the Word himself is changeable, but by his own free will, as long as he wishes, he remains good; when he wishes, however, he too can change, just as we can, being of a changeable nature. For this reason,” he says, “God, foreknowing that he would be good, gave him in advance this glory, which he would afterwards have as man, from his virtue; so that from his works, which God foreknew, God has made him to have become such as he now is.”

6. Again, he dared to say that “the Word is not even true God. Even if he is called God, he is not true God; but by participation in grace, like all the others, so he too is called God in name only. And as all things are foreign to God and unlike him in substance, so the Word too is alien to and unlike the Father's substance and property in every respect, but belongs to the things that are originated and created and is one of them.” After this, as if he had become heir to the devil's recklessness, he set down in the “Thalia” that “even to the Son the Father is invisible, and the Word can neither see nor know his own Father perfectly and exactly; but what he knows and what he sees, he knows and sees in proportion to his own measures, just as we too know according to our own capacity. For the Son,” he says, “not only does not know the Father exactly, for he falls short of comprehending him, but the Son does not even know his own substance; and the substances of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit are by nature divided, estranged, cut off, alien, and without share in one another”; and, as he himself put it, “they are utterly unlike one another in substances and glories, to infinity. So the Word,” he says, “as regards likeness of glory and substance, is entirely alien to both, the Father and the Holy Spirit.” For in these words the impious man spoke; and he said that the Son is divided off by himself and in every respect without share in the Father. These are parts of the fables of Arius set down in that ridiculous composition.

7. Who, then, hearing such things and the meter of the “Thalia,” would not rightly hate Arius, jesting about such matters as if on a stage? Who does not see him, by seeming to name God and speak about God, as the serpent counselling the woman? Who, reading what follows, does not see his impiety, as also the error into which the serpent afterwards led the woman by his cunning? Who is not astounded at such blasphemies? “Heaven,” as the prophet says, “was astonished, and the earth shuddered” at the transgression of the law; and the sun, more indignant still, not bearing the bodily outrages then done to the common Master of us all, which he willingly endured for us, turned away, drew in its rays, and made that day sunless. Then at the blasphemies of Arius, how will not all human nature be struck dumb, stop its ears and shut its eyes, so as to be able neither to hear such things nor to see the one who wrote them? And how will not the Lord himself cry out more justly against these men, as impious and ungrateful too, what he foretold through the prophet Hosea: “Woe to them, for they have leapt away from me; they are wretched, for they have acted impiously toward me; I redeemed them, but they spoke lies against me”; and a little later, “And they devised evil things against me; they turned away to nothing”? For having turned away from the Word of God who is, and fashioning for themselves one who is not, they have fallen into nothing. It was for this reason that the ecumenical council cast Arius out of the church for saying these things and anathematized him, not enduring his impiety; and from then on Arius's error was reckoned a heresy with something more than the other heresies, in that it was called Christ-fighting and was reckoned a forerunner of the Antichrist. Although, then, as I said before, so great a judgment is of itself fully sufficient to persuade all to flee from the impious heresy, yet since some of those called Christians, either from ignorance or from pretense, as was said before, consider the heresy no different from the truth and call those who hold these views Christians, come, let us question them as far as we can and uncover the heresy's craftiness. Perhaps, tied up in this way, they will be muzzled and flee from it “as from the face of a serpent.”

8. If, then, because he wrote certain words of divine Scripture in the “Thalia,” they think that his blasphemies are words of praise, then surely, when they see the Jews of today reading the law and the prophets, they too will for that reason deny Christ with them; and perhaps, when they hear the Manichaeans quoting some parts of the Gospels, they will deny the law and the prophets with them. But if they are so tossed about and babble such things out of ignorance, let them learn from the Scriptures that the devil too, the inventor of the heresies, because of the stench of his own wickedness, borrows the words of the Scriptures, so that, having them as a covering and sowing his own poison, he may deceive the simple. So he deceived Eve; so he fashioned the other heresies; so now too he persuaded Arius to speak and to make a show, supposedly, of opposing the heresies, so that he might introduce his own heresy unnoticed. Yet not even so did the crafty one escape notice. For having acted impiously toward the Word of God, he at once fell away from everything, and it has been shown to all that he was ignorant about the other things too and, holding nothing true at all, only pretends. For how could one who denies the Son, who reveals the Father, speak truly about the Father? Or how will he think rightly about the Spirit, when he speaks evil of the Word who supplies the Spirit? Who will believe him when he speaks about the resurrection, when he denies Christ, who became for us “the firstborn from the dead”? And how, being plainly ignorant of the Son's genuine and true begetting from the Father, will he not also go astray about his coming in the flesh? For so the Jews of that time too, denying the Word and saying, “We have no king but Caesar,” were all at once deprived of everything and became bereft of the light of the lamp, the fragrance of ointment, the knowledge of prophecy, and truth itself; and now, understanding nothing, they are like those walking in darkness. For who ever heard such things? Or from where, or from whom, did the flatterers and bribe-takers of the heresy hear such things? Who spoke such things to them when they were being catechized? Who told them, “Having abandoned the worship of the creation, come now again to worship a creature and a work”? But if they themselves admit that they are hearing such things now for the first time, let them not deny that this heresy is alien and not from the fathers. And what is not from the fathers but has been invented now, what else would it be but what the blessed Paul foretold: “In later times some will depart from the sound faith, giving heed to spirits of error and teachings of demons, in the hypocrisy of liars, seared in their own conscience,” and “turning away from the truth”?

9. For see: we speak boldly from the divine Scriptures about the godly faith, and set it like a lamp on the lampstand, saying: He is the true Son of the Father by nature and genuine, proper to his substance, the only-begotten Wisdom, and the true and only Word of God. He is not a creature nor a work, but an offspring proper to the Father's substance. Therefore he is true God, being “of one substance” with the true Father. But other beings, to whom he said, “I said, you are gods,” have this grace from the Father only by participation in the Word through the Spirit. For he is “the exact imprint of the Father's hypostasis,” and “light from light,” and the power and true image of the Father's substance. For this too the Lord said: “He who has seen me has seen the Father.” He always was and is, and never was not. For since the Father is eternal, his Word and Wisdom too must be eternal. But what, then, do they bring forward to us from the utterly blameworthy “Thalia”? Or rather, let them first read it aloud, imitating the style of the writer, so that, being mocked by others, they may learn into what a fall they lie; and then let them speak. What could they say from it, except that “God was not always Father, but became so later; the Son was not always, for he was not before he was begotten; he is not from the Father, but he too came to subsist from nothing; he is not proper to the Father's substance, for he is a creature and a work; and Christ is not true God, but he too was made God by participation; the Son does not know the Father exactly, nor does the Word see the Father perfectly, and the Word neither understands nor knows the Father exactly; he is not the true and only Word of the Father himself, but is called word and wisdom in name only, and is called son and power by grace; he is not unchangeable, like the Father, but changeable by nature, like the creatures, and he falls short of comprehending so as to know the Father perfectly”? A wonderful heresy indeed, which has not even plausibility, but imagines against him who is that he is not, and puts forward blasphemies instead of praises throughout! If anyone, then, having examined what both sides say, were asked whose faith he would choose, or whose words he would say are fitting for God, or rather, let these flatterers of impiety themselves say what one ought to answer when asked about God (for “the Word was God”). For from this the whole question about both positions will be settled, what it is fitting to say: “he was” or “he was not”; “always” or “before he came to be”; “eternal” or “from which time and since when”; “true” or “by adoption, participation, and in thought only”; to call him one of the things originated, or to join him to the Father; that he is unlike the Father in substance, or like and proper to the Father; that he is a creature, or that through him the creatures came to be; that he is the Father's very Word, or that there is another besides him, and that he came to be through that one and through another wisdom, and is called wisdom and word in name only, and has come to be a sharer in that wisdom and second to it.

10. Whose words, then, speak of God rightly and show that our Lord Jesus Christ is God and Son of the Father: those which you have vomited up, or those which we have spoken and speak from the Scriptures? If the Savior is neither God nor Word nor Son, you may say what you please, like the Greeks and the Jews of today. But if he is the Word of the Father and true Son, and “God from God,” and “blessed over all forever,” is it not right to obliterate and wipe out both their other phrases and the Arian “Thalia,” as an image of evils, full of all impiety? Whoever falls into it “does not know that the earthborn perish with her, and he meets the trap of Hades.” And they know this themselves, and like the crafty men they are, they hide it, not daring to speak these things out, but uttering other things instead. For if they say them, they will be condemned; and if they are suspected, they will be struck by all with the proofs from the Scriptures. For this reason, then, as “sons of this age,” having craftily lit what they suppose is their lamp with oil from the wild olive, and fearing that it may quickly be put out (for “the light of the ungodly,” it says, “is put out”), they “hide it under the bushel” of hypocrisy, and utter other things, and hold out the patronage of friends and the fear of Constantius, so that those who come to them may not, because of the hypocrisy and the promises, see the filth of the heresy. How then is the heresy not worthy of hatred on this count too, since it is hidden even by its own adherents as having no boldness, and is nursed like a snake? For where did they collect these little phrases for themselves? Or from whom did they receive them, that they have dared to say such things? They could not name any human being who supplied them. For who among humans, Greek or barbarian, dares to say that the one whom he confesses to be God is one of the creatures, and “he was not before he was made”? Or who is there who disbelieves the God in whom he has believed when he says, “This is my beloved Son,” and says that he is not a Son but a work? All would rather be the more indignant at those who rave in this way. Nor do they have their pretexts from the Scriptures; for it has often been shown, and will be shown now as well, that these things are foreign to the divine oracles. Since, then, it remains to say that they received this madness from the devil (for he alone is the sower of such things), come, let us stand against him; for it is with him that “our struggle” is, through these men. So that, with the Lord's help, when he falls as usual under refutation, they may be put to shame, seeing that the one who sowed the heresy in them is at a loss, and may learn, even at last, that being Arians they are not Christians.

11. You have said and you think, at his prompting, that (1.) “there was once when the Son was not.” This is the first garment of your notion that must be stripped off. Tell us, then, you slanderous and impious men: what was there once when the Son was not? If you mean the Father, your blasphemy is greater; for it is not right to say that he “once” was, or to signify him with the word “once.” For he always is, and now is; and as the Son is, so he is, and he is himself “he who is,” and Father of the Son. But if you say that the Son was once when he himself was not, the answer is foolish and senseless; for how could he both be and not be? So, being at a loss in this, you are compelled to say, “there was once a time when the Word was not”; for your very adverb “once” by its nature signifies this. And what you have further said in writing, “the Son was not before he was begotten,” is the same as your saying, “there was once when he was not”; for both the one and the other signify that there is time before the Word. Where, then, did you find these things? “Why have you too raged like the nations, and meditated vain” little phrases “against the Lord and against his Christ”? For none of the holy Scriptures has said anything of the kind about the Savior, but rather “always,” “eternal,” and “being always with the Father.” For “in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” And in the Revelation it says this: “He who is and who was and who is to come.” Who could take away eternity from “he who is” and “who was”? This is what Paul too, in his letter to the Romans, used to refute the Jews, writing: “from whom is the Christ according to the flesh, who is God over all, blessed forever”; and to shame the Greeks he said: “For his invisible things from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood through the things that are made, both his eternal power and divinity.” And what the power of God is, he himself teaches again, saying, “Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” For in saying this he certainly does not mean the Father, as you have often whispered to one another, saying, “The Father is his eternal power.” It is not so; for he did not say, “God himself is the power,” but “his” is the power. And it is plain to all that “his” is not “he,” yet not something foreign either, but rather proper to him. Read also the sequence of the words, and “turn to the Lord” (“now the Lord is the Spirit”), and you will see that what is meant is the Son.

12. For having mentioned the creation, he consistently writes also of the Creator's power in the creation, which is the Word of God, through whom also “all things came to be.” If, then, the creation is sufficient of itself alone, without the Son, to make God known, take care not to fall into thinking that the creation too came to be without the Son. But if it came to be through the Son, “and in him all things hold together,” then necessarily whoever contemplates the creation rightly contemplates also the Word who fashioned it, and through him begins to understand the Father. And if, as the Savior says, “No one knows the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son reveals him,” and when Philip said, “Show us the Father,” he did not say, “Look at the creation,” but, “He who has seen me has seen the Father,” then Paul rightly, blaming the Greeks because, while contemplating the harmony and order of the creation, they do not reflect on the Creator Word within it (for the creatures point to their own Creator), so that through them they might understand the true God and stop worshipping the creatures, said, “both his eternal power and divinity,” to signify the Son. And when the saints say, “He who exists before the ages,” and “through whom he made the ages,” they proclaim none the less the eternity and everlastingness of the Son, and in these words they signify God himself. For Isaiah says, “The eternal God, who made the ends of the earth”; and Susanna said, “O eternal God”; and Baruch wrote, “I will cry to the Eternal in my days,” and a little later, “For I have hoped in the Eternal for your salvation, and joy has come to me from the Holy One.” But since the apostle too, writing to the Hebrews, says, “who, being the radiance of his glory and the exact imprint of his hypostasis,” and David sings in the eighty-ninth psalm, “And let the brightness of the Lord be upon us,” and, “In your light we shall see light,” who is so senseless as to doubt that the Son always is? For when did anyone see light without the brightness of its “radiance,” so as to say of the Son also, “there was once when he was not,” or that “he was not before he was begotten”? And what is said to the Son in the hundred and forty-fourth psalm, “Your kingdom is a kingdom of all the ages,” does not allow anyone to reckon even the slightest interval in which the Word did not exist. For if every interval is measured in the ages, and the Word is king and maker of all the ages, then, since not even the slightest interval exists before him, it is madness to say, “there was once when the Eternal was not,” and “the Son is from nothing.” And since the Lord himself says, “I am the truth,” and does not say, “I became the truth,” but always says “I am”: “I am the shepherd,” “I am the light,” and again, “Do you not call me Lord and Teacher? And you say well, for so I am”; who, hearing such a word from God, the Wisdom and Word of the Father, speaking about himself, would still hesitate about the truth, and not at once believe that in the “I am” the eternity of the Son and his being without beginning before every age is signified?

13. That the Scriptures speak of the Son's eternity is clear, then, from what has been said. And that the very words the Arians utter, “he was not,” and “before,” and “when,” are what the same Scriptures say about the creatures, what is about to be said will show in turn. For Moses, recounting the origin of our world, says, “and every green thing of the field before it came to be on the earth, and all the grass of the field before it sprang up; for God had not sent rain on the earth, and there was no man to work the earth”; and in Deuteronomy, “when the Most High divided the nations.” And the Lord said in his own person, “If you loved me, you would have rejoiced because I said, ‘I am going to the Father,’ for the Father is greater than I. And now I have told you before it happens, so that when it happens you may believe”; and about the creation he says through Solomon, “Before he made the earth, and before he made the depths, and before the springs of the waters came forth, and before the mountains were set in place, and before all the hills, he begets me”; and, “Before Abraham came to be, I am.” And about Jeremiah he says, “Before I formed you in the womb, I know you.” And David sings, “Lord, you have become our refuge in generation and generation; before the mountains came to be and the earth and the world were formed, from age to age you are.” And in Daniel, “Susanna cried out with a loud voice and said, O eternal God, who knows what is hidden, who knows all things before they come to be.” So “he once was not,” “before he came to be,” “when,” and all such little phrases are fitly said of things originated and creatures, which came to be from nothing, but are foreign to the Word. And if the Scriptures say these things of things originated, but “always” of the Son, then, you fighters against God, the Son did not come to be from nothing, nor is he at all one of the things originated; he is the Father's image and eternal Word, never not being but always being, as the eternal radiance of an eternal light. Why then do you imagine times before the Son? Or why do you blaspheme the Word as coming after times, the Word through whom the ages too came to be? For how could time or age have come to exist at all when, on your view, the Word had not yet appeared, the Word “through whom all things came to be, and without him not one thing came to be”? Or why, when you mean time, do you not say openly, “there was a time when the Word was not”? You hide the word “time” to deceive the simple, but you do not hide your mind at all; indeed, even if you hid it, you could not escape notice. For again you mean times when you say, “there was once when he was not,” and “he was not before he was begotten.”

14. When these things are shown in this way, they grow still more shameless, saying: “If there was not once when he was not, but the Son is eternal and coexists with the Father, you are saying that he is no longer the Father's Son but his brother.” Senseless and contentious men! If we said only that he exists eternally with the Father, and not that he is Son, their pretended scruple would have some plausibility. But if, in calling him eternal, we confess him to be Son from the Father, how can the one begotten be thought the “brother” of the one who begot him? And if our faith is in Father and Son, what brotherhood is there between them? Or how can the Word be called brother of him whose Word he is? This objection does not come from men who are ignorant, for they themselves see the truth; but it is a Jewish pretext, and that of men who, as Solomon said, wish “to separate themselves” from the truth. For the Father and the Son were not begotten from some pre-existing origin, so as to be thought brothers; but the Father is the origin of the Son and his begetter, and the Father is father and did not become son of anyone; and the Son is son and not brother. And if he is called the eternal offspring of the Father, he is rightly so called. For the Father's substance was never incomplete, so that what is proper to it should be added to it afterwards; nor has the Son been begotten as a man from a man, so as to come later than his Father's existence; but he is God's offspring, and being the proper Son of God, who always is, he exists eternally. For it is characteristic of men to beget in time, because of the incompleteness of their nature; but God's offspring is eternal, because his nature is always complete. If, then, he is not a Son but has come to be a work from nothing, let them first prove it, and then, imagining him to be a work, let them cry out, “there was once when he was not”; for things originated came to be when they were not. But if he is a Son (for the Father says so, and the Scriptures proclaim it), and “Son” is nothing other than what is begotten from the Father, and what is begotten from the Father is his Word, Wisdom, and radiance, what must one say but that, in saying “there was once when the Son was not,” they are like robbers stripping the Word away from God, and saying openly against him that he was once without his own Word and Wisdom, and that the light was once without its brightness, and the spring was barren and dry? For even if, pretending to fear the word “time” because of those who reproach them, they say that he was before times, still, because they posit certain intervals in which they imagine he did not exist, they none the less mean times, and by introducing irrationality into God they commit great impiety.

15. And if, again, they agree to the name “Son” because they do not wish to be openly condemned by everyone, but deny that he is the proper offspring of the Father's substance, on the grounds that this could not be without the idea of parts and divisions, they none the less deny that he is a true Son, calling him “son” in name only. And how are they not greatly mistaken, thinking the things of bodies about the incorporeal one, and, because of the weakness of their own nature, denying what is by nature proper to the Father? It is time for them, since they do not understand how God is or what sort the Father is, to deny him too, since these senseless men measure the Father's offspring by themselves. Those so disposed, who think there cannot be a Son of God, deserve pity; yet it is right to question and refute them, since perhaps in this way they may come to their senses. If, as you say, “the Son is from nothing, and was not before he was begotten,” then surely he too was called son and God and wisdom by participation; for this is how all other things too hold together and are glorified by being sanctified. You must say, then, in what he participates. All other things participate in the Spirit; in what, then, according to you, would he participate? In the Spirit? But the Spirit himself rather “receives from” the Son, as he himself has said, and it is absurd to say that the Son is sanctified by the Spirit. So he participates in the Father; for this is what remains, and one must say it. And what is this, then, and where is it from? If it is something external, devised by the Father, he would no longer be participating in the Father, but in what came to be outside him; and he will no longer be even second after the Father, having that thing before him; nor could he be called Son of the Father, but of that by participating in which he was called son and God. But if this is absurd and impious, since the Father says, “This is my beloved Son,” and the Son says that “God is his own Father,” it is clear that what is participated in is not external but is “from the substance of the Father.” And again, if this is something other than the substance of the Son, the same absurdity will confront us, since something will again be found in between, from the Father, and the substance of the Son, whatever that is.

16. Since, then, such reasonings are shown to be absurd and contrary to the truth, we must say that what is “from the substance of the Father,” and proper to him, is wholly the Son. For to say that God is wholly “participated” is the same as to say that he also begets; and what does “to beget” signify but a son? Indeed all things participate in the Son himself, according to the grace of the Spirit that comes from him; and from this it becomes clear that the Son himself participates in nothing, but what is participated from the Father is the Son. For by participating in the Son himself we are said to participate in God. And this is what Peter said, “that you may become partakers of the divine nature,” as the apostle too says, “Do you not know that you are God's temple?” and, “For we are the temple of the living God.” And when we look at the Son himself, we see the Father; for the thought and understanding of the Son is knowledge about the Father, because he is the proper offspring from his substance. And just as none of you would any longer call being participated a passion or a division of God's substance (for it has been shown and agreed that God is participated, and that to be participated and to beget are the same), so the offspring is neither a passion nor a division of that blessed substance. So it is not incredible that God has a Son, the offspring of his own substance; nor, when we say “Son” and “offspring,” do we signify a passion or a division of God's substance; rather, knowing the genuine, true, and only-begotten Son of God, so we believe. And since it has been declared and shown that the offspring from the Father's substance is the Son, no one can any longer doubt, but it should be quite clear, that this is the Wisdom and the Word of the Father, in whom and through whom he creates and makes all things; this is his radiance, in whom he enlightens all things and is revealed to whomever he will; this is his exact imprint and image, in whom he is contemplated and known; for this reason too “he and the Father are one,” for whoever sees him sees the Father also. This is the Christ, in whom all things have been redeemed, and who has in turn wrought the new creation. And since the Son is such, it is not fitting, but most dangerous, to say that he is “a work from nothing,” or that “he was not before he was begotten.” For whoever speaks so of what is proper to the Father's substance ends by blaspheming the Father himself, since he thinks of him the same things that he falsely imagines about the offspring from him.

17. This alone, then, is enough to overturn the Arian heresy; yet one may see its heterodoxy from this too. If God is maker and creator, and creates his works through the Son, and one cannot see the things that come to be otherwise than as coming to be through the Word, how is it not blasphemous, since God is maker, to say that his creative Word and Wisdom “once was not”? It is the same as saying that God is not even a maker, since he did not have his own creative Word from himself, but that the one in whom he creates is brought in from outside, is foreign to him, and is unlike him in substance. Next, let them tell us, or rather let them see even from this their impiety in saying “there was once when he was not” and “he was not before he was begotten.” For if the Word does not exist eternally with the Father, the Trinity is not eternal; but there was a unit first, and later it became a Trinity by addition; and as time went on, according to them, the knowledge of theology grew and took shape. And again, if the Son is not the proper offspring of the Father's substance, but came to be from nothing, then the Trinity is made up from nothing, and “there was once when” the Trinity “was not,” but a unit; and the Trinity was once incomplete and later complete: incomplete before the Son came to be, complete when he had come to be. And from then on the thing originated is counted with the Creator, and what once was not is worshipped as God and glorified together with him who always is. And, what is worse, the Trinity is found to be unlike itself, made up of strange and alien natures and substances. To say this is nothing other than to say that the constitution of the Trinity is originated. What sort of worship of God, then, is this, which is not even like itself, but is completed by additions over time, and is once not so and then so? For it is likely that it will receive a further addition, and so on to infinity, since once, at the beginning, it gained its constitution by addition. And there is no doubt that it could also be diminished; for it is clear that what is added can also be taken away.

18. But it is not so; far from it! The Trinity is not originated; there is an eternal and single Godhead in the Trinity, and one glory of the holy Trinity. And you dare to split it into different natures! Though the Father is eternal, you say of the Word who sits with him, “there was once when he was not”; and though the Son sits with the Father, you think to put him far from him. The Trinity is creator and maker; and you are not afraid to bring it down to things from nothing. You are not ashamed to make servile things equal to the nobility of the Trinity, and to rank the King, the Lord Sabaoth, with his subjects. Stop mixing what cannot be mixed, or rather things that are not with him who is. Those who say these things cannot bring glory and honor to the Lord, but dishonor and disgrace; for whoever dishonors the Son dishonors the Father. For if the knowledge of God is now complete in a Trinity, and this is the true and only godliness, and this is the good and the truth, it must always have been so, so that the good and the truth did not come later, nor the fullness of the knowledge of God come together by addition. It must, then, have been so eternally; and if it was not so eternally, it ought not to be so now either, but it ought to be as you suppose it was from the beginning, so that there is no Trinity even now. But no Christian would put up with such heretics. For these are the ideas of the Greeks: to introduce an originated triad and to make it equal with originated things; for it belongs to originated things to admit of deficiencies and additions. But the faith of Christians knows the blessed Trinity as unchangeable, complete, and always the same; it neither adds anything more to the Trinity, nor reckons that it was ever lacking, for each of these is impious. Therefore it knows it as unmixed with originated things, and it worships it, guarding the undivided unity of its Godhead; and it flees the blasphemies of the Arians, and confesses and knows that the Son always is. For he is eternal, as the Father is, whose eternal Word he is. And let us look at this point again.

19. If God is and is called the fountain of wisdom and life, as through Jeremiah, “They have forsaken me, the fountain of living water”; and again, “A throne of glory, exalted, is our sanctuary; O Lord, hope of Israel, let all who have forsaken you be put to shame; let those who have turned away be written on the earth, because they have forsaken the Lord, the fountain of life”; and in Baruch it is written, “You have forsaken the fountain of wisdom”; it would follow that life and wisdom are neither foreign to the substance of the “fountain,” but proper to it, nor ever without existence, but always exist. Now the Son is these, who says, “I am the life,” and, “I, Wisdom, have made counsel my dwelling.” How then is he not impious who says, “there was once when the Son was not”? For it is the same as saying, “there was once when the fountain was dry, without life and wisdom.” But such a thing would not be a fountain; for what does not beget from itself is not a fountain. How full of absurdity this is! God promises that those who do his will shall be like a fountain whose water does not fail, saying through Isaiah the prophet, “And you shall be filled as your soul desires, and your bones shall be made fat, and you shall be like a well-watered garden, and like a fountain whose water has not failed”; but these men dare to slander God, who is called and is the fountain of wisdom, as barren and as once lacking his own wisdom. But what these men say is falsehood; the truth bears witness that God is the eternal fountain of his own wisdom. And since the fountain is eternal, the Wisdom too must necessarily be eternal. For in it all things came to be, as David sings, “In wisdom you made all things,” and Solomon says, “God founded the earth by wisdom, and prepared the heavens by understanding.” And this Wisdom is the Word, and “through him,” as John says, “all things came to be, and without him not one thing came to be.” And he is the Christ; for “there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and we for him, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we through him.” And if all things are through him, he himself would not be counted among the “all things.” For whoever dares to say that the one “through whom are all things” is one of the all things will surely think the same about God too, “from whom are all things.” But if anyone shuns this as absurd, and sets God apart as other than “all things,” it would follow that he should say that the only-begotten Son also, being proper to the Father's substance, is other than all things. And since he is not one of all things, it is not right to say of him, “there was once when he was not,” and “he was not before he was begotten.” For such expressions are fitly said of works; but the Son himself is such as the Father is, of whose substance he is the proper offspring, Word, and Wisdom. For this is proper to the Son in relation to the Father, and this shows the Father to be proper to the Son, so that we may neither say that God was ever without Word nor that the Son was ever without existence. For why is he Son, if not from him? Or why Word and Wisdom, if not always proper to him?

20. When, then, was God without what is proper to him? Or how can anyone reckon what is proper to him as foreign and of another substance? Other things, such as the things originated, have nothing like their maker in substance, but are outside him, having come to be through the Word by his grace and will, so that they can also cease to exist at some time, if their maker should so wish; for such is the nature of things originated. But as for what is proper to the Father's substance (for it has already been agreed that this is the Son), how is it not reckless and impious to say that it is “from nothing,” and that it “was not before it was begotten,” but was added on and can again at some time not be? Let anyone who merely thinks of this consider how the completeness and fullness of the Father's substance is taken away. For one may see the absurdity of the heresy still more clearly if one reflects that the Son is the “image” and “radiance of the Father,” and “exact imprint,” and “truth.” For if, when light exists, its radiance is its image, and when a hypostasis exists, its exact imprint is complete, and when the Father exists, the truth exists, then let those who measure the image and form of the Godhead by time consider into what a pit of impiety they fall. For if “the Son was not before he was begotten,” the truth was not always in God. But it is not right to say this. For since the Father exists, there was always in him the truth, which is the Son, who says, “I am the truth.” And since the hypostasis exists, its exact imprint and image must surely exist at once. For the image of God is not painted from outside; God himself is its begetter, and seeing himself in it he delights in it, as the Son himself says, “I was the one in whom he delighted.” When, then, did the Father not see himself in his own image? Or when did he not delight in it, that anyone should dare to say, “the image is from nothing,” and “the Father was not delighting before the image came to be”? And how could the maker and creator see himself in a created and originated substance? For the image must be such as its Father is.

21. Come, then, let us look at the attributes of the Father, so that we may recognize whether the image is really his. The Father is eternal, immortal, powerful, light, king, almighty, God, Lord, creator, and maker. These must be in the image, so that truly “whoever has seen” the Son “may see the Father.” But if it is not so, but, as the Arians think, the Son is originated and not eternal, this is not a true image of the Father; unless, then, they put away all shame and say that his being called “image” is not a mark of a like substance, but is only his name. But that, again, you enemies of Christ, is not an image nor an exact imprint. For what resemblance is there between things from nothing and him who created the things that were not into being? Or how can what is not be like him who is, falling short of him in having once not been, and in being ranked with the things that came to be? For since the Arians want him to be such, they have devised arguments for themselves, saying: “If the Son is the Father's offspring and image, and is like the Father in all things, then just as he was begotten, the Son also ought by all means to beget and become himself father of a son; and in turn the one begotten from him ought also to beget, and so on to infinity; for this is what shows the begotten to be like the begetter.” Inventors of blasphemies indeed are these fighters against God! In order not to confess the Son as the Father's image, they think bodily and earthly things about the Father himself, charging him with cuttings, outflowings, and inflowings. If, then, God is like a man, let him also be a begetter as a man is, so that the Son may become father of another, and so on in succession from one another, so that, on their view, the succession may grow into a multitude of gods. But if “God is not like a man” (and he is not), we must not reckon the things of men in his case. For irrational animals and men, after a creative beginning, are begotten by succession from one another; and the one begotten, having been begotten from a father who was himself begotten, naturally becomes father of another in turn, having in himself from his father that by which he himself came to be. Therefore among such beings there is not properly “father” and properly “son,” nor do “father” and “son” remain fixed in them; for the same person is son of the one who begot him and father of the one begotten from him. But in the Godhead it is not so; for God is not like a man. For the Father is not from a father, so he does not beget one who will become a father; nor is the Son from an outflowing of the Father, nor has he been begotten from a Father who was begotten, so he has not been begotten in order to beget. Hence in the Godhead alone the “Father” is properly father, and the “Son” properly son; and in them, and in them alone, it holds fast that the Father is always Father and the Son always Son.

22. So whoever asks why the Son does not beget a son, let him ask why the Father did not have a father. But both are absurd and full of all impiety. For as the Father is always Father and could never become Son, so the Son is always Son and could never become Father. And in this he is shown the more to be the exact imprint and image of the Father, remaining what he is and not changing, but having his sameness from the Father. If, then, the Father changes, let the image change too; for so the image and radiance stands in relation to the one who begot it. But if the Father is unchangeable, and remains what he is, then necessarily the image too remains what it is and will not change. And the Son is from the Father; so he will not become anything other than what is proper to the Father's substance. So in vain have the senseless men devised this too, wishing to cut the image away from the Father, in order to make the Son equal to originated things. Ranking him among these, following the teaching of Eusebius, and thinking him to be such as the things that came to be through him are, Arius and his followers leapt away from the truth. Having collected for themselves crafty little phrases, they used to go about at the beginning, when they were fabricating this heresy, and even now some of them, meeting boys in the marketplace, question them, not from the divine Scriptures, but as if belching out “the overflow of their heart,” saying: “Did he who is make the one who was not from him who is, or the one who is? Did he then make him when he was, or when he was not?” And again: “Is the unbegotten one, or two?” And: “Is he free and does he not change by his own choice, being of a changeable nature? For he is not like a stone, remaining unmoved of himself.” Then, going in to silly women, they utter to them in turn effeminate little phrases: “Did you have a son before you gave birth? As you did not, so the Son of God too was not before he was begotten.” With such words these disgraceful men dance and play, and liken God to men; and while claiming to be Christians, “they change the glory of God into the likeness of the image of corruptible man.”

23. Such things, so senseless and foolish, ought to get no answer at all. But so that their heresy may not seem to have anything firm, it is fitting to refute them on these points too, even if in passing, especially because of the silly women who are easily deceived by them. When they say these things, they ought also to ask an architect, “Can you build without underlying material? As you cannot, so God too could not make the universe without underlying material.” They ought also to ask every human being, “Can you exist without a place? As you cannot, so God too is in a place,” so that in this way they may be put to shame even by those who hear them. Or why is it that when they hear that God has a Son, they look at themselves and deny him, but when they hear that he creates and makes, they no longer set human things against it? They ought to think in human terms about creating too, and to supply God with material, so as to deny that God is creator also, and so wallow at last with the Manichaeans. But if the thought of God goes beyond these things, and anyone, on merely hearing, believes and knows that he is, not as we are, but as God, and creates, not as men create, but as God, it is clear that he also begets, not as men beget, but as God. For God does not imitate man; rather it is men who, because God is properly and alone truly Father of his own Son, have themselves been named fathers of their own children. For from him “every fatherhood in heaven and on earth is named.” And what they say, if it remains unexamined, makes them seem to have said something clever; but if anyone examines it with reason, they will be found to incur much laughter and mockery.

24. First, their first question, of this kind, is foolish and unclear. For they do not indicate whom they are asking about, so that the one questioned might answer; they simply say, “He who is, the one who is not.” Who, then, is “he who is,” and what are the things that are not, you Arians? Or who is he who is, and who is “he who is not,” and what are said to be things that are, or things that are not? For “he who is” can make both things that are not and things that are and things that already existed. A carpenter, for example, a goldsmith, and a potter each work, according to his own craft, on material that exists and is there before them, making whatever vessels they wish; and the God of all himself took dust from the earth, which exists and had already come to be from him, and formed man; yet the earth itself, which did not exist before, he later made to be through his own Word. If, then, this is how they ask, it is clear that the creation was not before it came to be, while men work on material that exists; and their argument will prove incoherent, since things come to be both from what is and from what is not, as we have said. But if they are speaking about God and his Word, let them add what is missing to the question and ask thus: “Was God, who is, once without Word, and was he, being light, without brightness? Or was he always Father of the Word?” Or again thus: “Did the Father, who is, make the Word when he was not, or does he have with him always the Word, the proper offspring of his substance?” Then it will be known that they are meddling with and daring to be clever about God himself and the one who is from him. For who will put up with them when they say that God was once without Word? They have fallen again into the same thing as before, although they tried hard to avoid it and to hide it with their sophistries; but they have not been able. For no one would even want to hear them raise doubts that God was not always Father but became so later, so that they may imagine that his Word too once was not, since there are many proofs against them already stated, and since John says, “the Word was,” and Paul writes again, “who, being the radiance of his glory,” and, “who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen.”

25. It would have been better for them to keep quiet; but since they do not stop, one might dare in turn to put this counter-question to their shameless question. Perhaps, seeing themselves hemmed in by similar absurdities, they will withdraw from their fight against the truth. First, then, calling earnestly on God to be merciful, one might meet them thus: “Did God, who is, come to be when he was not? Or does he exist even before he came to be? Being, then, did he make himself? Or is he from nothing, and, being nothing before, did he suddenly appear?” Such a question is absurd; yes, absurd and full of blasphemy; but it is like theirs, for whichever answer they give is full of all impiety. And if it is blasphemous and more than impious to ask such things about God, it would be blasphemous to ask such things about his Word too. Nevertheless, to do away with their irrational and foolish question, one must answer thus: being, God is eternally. Since, then, the Father always is, his radiance too is eternally, which is his Word. And again, God, who is, has from himself the Word, who also is. Neither was the Word added later, when he was not before, nor was the Father ever without Word. For the daring attack on the Son carries the blasphemy up to the Father, as if he devised wisdom, Word, and Son for himself from outside. For whichever of these you name, it signifies the offspring from the Father, as has been said. So their question of this kind does not hold together, and naturally: for denying the Word, they have a question without reason as well. For if someone looking at the sun were to ask about its radiance, and say, “Did that which is make what is not, or did it make it when it was?” he would not be thought to reason soundly, but to be thunderstruck, because he imagines what comes from the light to be from outside and asks when and where and whether it was made. So also anyone who reasons and inquires thus about the Son and the Father would be much madder still, because he brings the Word from the Father in upon him from outside, and, talking of shadows, calls the natural offspring a work and says, “He was not before he was begotten.” Nevertheless, let them hear this answer to their question: the Father, who is, made the Son, who is. For “the Word became flesh”; and him, being Son of God, he made at the consummation of the ages Son of Man as well, unless they are going to say, with the Samosatene, that he did not even exist before he became man. This is enough from us in answer to their first question.

26. And you, Arians, remembering your own words, tell us: did he who is need one who was not for the making of all things, or did he need one who was? For you have said, “He fashioned the Son for himself as an instrument out of what was not, so that he might make all things through him.” Which, then, is better: what needs, or what fills the need? Or do both fill what the other lacks? For in saying such things you show rather the weakness of the one who fashioned him, if he alone was not strong enough to make all things but devised an instrument for himself from outside, like a carpenter or a shipwright who cannot work at anything without an axe and a saw. What could be more impious than this? But why dwell on these things at all as if they were formidable, when what has already been said is enough to show that what they say is mere fantasy? As for their other quite silly and foolish inquiry, which they put to the silly women, again no answer at all should have been needed about it either, except what we have said before, that the begetting from God must not be measured by human nature. Yet so that in this too they may condemn themselves, it is good to meet them again from their own premises, as follows. If they ask parents about a son at all, let them consider where the child that is begotten comes from. For even if the parent did not have a son before he begot him, yet, when he had him, he had him not from outside nor as something foreign, but from himself, proper to his substance, and an unvarying image, so that the one is seen in the other and the other contemplated in the one. If, then, they take the time of those who beget from human examples, why do they not from the same examples consider the naturalness and the propriety of children to their parents, but, like snakes, pick out of the earth only what serves their poison? When they ask parents and say, “Did you not have a son before you begot him?” they should have added and said, “And when you have a son, do you buy him from outside like a house or some other possession?” so that the parent might answer you: “Not from outside, but he is from me. For things from outside are possessions and pass from one owner to another; but my son is from me, proper to and like my substance, not having come to me from another, but begotten from me; therefore I am wholly in him, while remaining myself what I am.” For so it is: even if the parent differs in time, since as a man he too has come to be in time, yet he too would have had his child always coexisting with him, if nature had not hindered and prevented it from being possible. For Levi too “was still in the loins” of his great-grandfather before he himself was begotten and before his grandfather begot. When, then, a man comes to that age at which nature gives the ability, at once, with nature unhindered, he becomes father of the son from himself.

27. So if they asked parents about children, and learned that children by nature are not from outside but from their parents, let them confess about the Word of God too that he is wholly from the Father. And if they raise the question of time, let them say what hinders God. (For it is necessary to refute their impiety from the very things they asked in mockery.) Let them say, then, what hinders God from being always Father of the Son; for it is agreed that what is begotten is from the father. And so that they may condemn themselves for thinking any such thing about God at all, just as they asked women about times, so let them ask the sun about its radiance and the spring about what comes from it, so that they may learn that, although these are offspring, they exist always with those from which they come. And if such parents have both the “natural” and the “always” in relation to their children, why do they, suspecting God to be less than things originated, not bring out their impiety more openly? But if they do not dare to say this openly, and it is agreed that the Son is not from outside but is by nature an offspring from the Father, and nothing hinders God (for “God is not like a man,” but is more than the sun, or rather is the God of the sun), it is clear that the Word is both from him and always coexisting with the Father, the Word through whom the Father made all things that were not to be. That the Son is not “from nothing,” then, but is eternal and from the Father, the fact itself shows; and the heretics' question to parents refutes their malice. For they have learned what is natural, and they have been put to shame about times as well.

28. That one must not compare God's begetting with human nature, nor think that his Son is a “part” of God, nor that the begetting signifies any “passion” at all, we have said already above, and we say the same now: “God is not like a man.” For men beget with passion, having a fluid nature, and waiting for times because of the weakness of their own nature; but this cannot be said of God. For he is not composed of parts, but, being impassible and simple, he is Father of the Son impassibly and without division. And there is great evidence and proof of this again from the divine Scriptures. For the Word of God is his Son, and the Son is the Word and Wisdom of the Father; and Word and Wisdom is neither a creature nor a part of him whose Word it is, nor an offspring begotten with passion. Joining both, then, Scripture said “Son,” in order to proclaim the natural and true offspring of the substance; and so that no one might suppose the offspring to be human, again signifying his substance, it says that he is “Word,” “Wisdom,” and “radiance.” For from this we reckon that the begetting is impassible, eternal, and fitting for God. What passion, then, or what part of the Father is the Word, the Wisdom, the radiance? Even these senseless men can learn this. For as they asked women about a son, so let them ask men about their word, so that they may learn that the word they utter is neither a passion of theirs nor a part of their mind. And if the word of men, though men are passible and divisible, is like this, why do they reckon passions and parts in the case of the incorporeal and indivisible God, so that, pretending to be reverent about this, they may deny the true and natural begetting of the Son? That the offspring from God is not a passion has been sufficiently proved above; and it has now been shown in particular that the Word is not begotten by passion. Let them hear the same about Wisdom: “God is not like a man”; let them not imagine anything human about him in this either. For while men have become receptive of wisdom, God, participating in nothing, is himself Father of his own Wisdom, and those who participate in it are usually called wise. And Wisdom itself is not a passion or a part, but the proper offspring of the Father. For this reason he is always Father, and “Father” was not added to God later, lest he be thought changeable too. For if it is good that he is Father, but he was not always Father, then the good was not always in him.

29. “But look,” they say, “God is also always a maker, and the power to create was not added to him later. Since he is creator, then, are his works eternal too, and is it not right to say of them either, ‘They were not before they came to be’?” Senseless Arians! What likeness is there between a son and a work, that they should say of creators what applies to a father? And how, when so great a difference between offspring and work has been shown above, do they persist in their ignorance? The same must be said again, then: the work is outside its maker, as has been said, but the son is the proper offspring of the substance. So the work need not always exist, for the craftsman works when he wishes; but the offspring is not subject to will, but is a property of the substance. And one could be and be called a maker even if the works do not yet exist; but one could not be called a father, nor be one, if no son exists. And if they meddle with the question why God, who is always able to make, does not always make, this daring too belongs to madmen. For “who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counsellor?” Or how will “the thing formed say” to the potter, “Why have you made me thus?” But so that we may not keep silent, even if we find only a faint argument, let them hear that, although God is always able to make, yet originated things could not be eternal; for they are from nothing, and were not before they came to be. And how could things that were not before they came to be coexist with God, who always is? Therefore God, looking to what was profitable for them, made all things when he saw that, once they had come to be, they could endure. And just as, although he was able from the beginning, in the time of Adam or Noah or Moses, to send his own Word, he did not send him until “the consummation of the ages” (for he saw that this was profitable for all creation), so too he made originated things when he wished and when it was profitable for them. But the Son, not being a work but proper to the Father's substance, always is. For since the Father always is, what is proper to his substance, which is his Word and Wisdom, must always be too. And the creatures, even if they do not yet exist, do not lessen the maker, for he has the ability to create when he wishes; but the offspring, if it is not always with the Father, is a lessening of the completeness of his substance. Hence the works were created through his Word when he wished; but the Son is always the proper offspring of the Father's substance.

30. These things gladden the faithful, but grieve the heretics, who see their heresy destroyed. And that further question of theirs, when they say, “Is the unoriginate one, or two?” shows their thinking to be not upright but suspect and full of guile. For they do not ask this for the honor of the Father, but for the dishonor of the Word. So if anyone, not knowing their craftiness, answers, “The unoriginate is one,” they at once vomit out their poison, saying, “Then the Son is one of the things originated, and we were right to say, ‘He was not before he came to be.’” For they mix up and stir up everything, only so that they may separate the Word from the Father and count the creator of all things among his works. First, then, they deserve condemnation on this score: while blaming the bishops who met at Nicaea for using words not found in Scripture (words that were not blasphemous, but were set down to destroy their impiety), they themselves have deserted to the same charge by uttering words not found in Scripture and devising insults against the Lord, “understanding neither what they say nor the things about which they make confident assertions.” Let them ask the Greeks, from whom they heard it (for it is not an invention of the Scriptures but of theirs), so that, hearing how many meanings the word has, they may learn that they do not even know how to ask properly about the things they speak of. For because of them I too have inquired, and learned that “unoriginate” is said of what “has not yet come to be but can come to be,” as wood that has not yet become a boat but can become one. And again “unoriginate” is said of what “neither has come to be nor can ever come to be,” as a triangle that is square, or an even number that is odd; for a triangle has never become square, nor could it ever, and an even number has never become odd, nor could it ever. And again “unoriginate” is said of what “exists, but has not come to be from anyone, nor has any father at all.” And the crafty sophist Asterius, the advocate of the heresy, added in his own little treatise that “unoriginate” is what is “not made, but always is.” So they ought to have added in what sense they understand “unoriginate” when they ask, so that the one questioned might answer correctly.

31. But if they think they are asking properly when they say, “Is the unoriginate one, or two?” they will hear first, as ignorant men, that there are both many and none: very many that “can come to be,” and none that “cannot,” as has been said. And if they ask in the sense Asterius favored, that what is not a work but always is, is unoriginate, let them hear not once but many times that the Son too could in this sense be called unoriginate. For he is neither one of the things originated nor a work, but exists eternally with the Father, as has already been shown, even if they change their ground many times only to say against the Lord, “He is from nothing,” and “He was not before he was begotten.” So, failing at every point, if they finally choose to ask in the sense of “what exists, but has neither been begotten from anyone nor has a father of its own,” they will hear from us too that in this sense the unoriginate is one and only, the Father; but they will gain nothing more by hearing it. For God's being called unoriginate in this sense does not show that the Son is originated, since it is clear from the proofs already given that the Word is such as the one who begot him. So if God is unoriginate, his image, which is his Word and Wisdom, is not originated but an offspring. For what resemblance does the originated have to the unoriginate? (One must not shrink from saying the same things again.) For if they want the originated to be like the unoriginate, so that whoever sees the one sees the other, they are not far from saying that the unoriginate is the image of creatures too; and then everything is confused by them: things originated made equal to the unoriginate, and the unoriginate brought down by being measured against the works, only so that they may bring the Son down among the works.

32. But I think that not even they will want to say such things any longer, if they listen to Asterius the sophist. For although he is eager to plead for the Arian heresy and says that “the unoriginate is one,” he says the opposite of this when he says that the wisdom of God too is unoriginate and without beginning. This is part of what he wrote: “The blessed Paul did not say that he preached Christ as ‘the’ power of God or ‘the’ wisdom of God, but, without the article, ‘God's power and God's wisdom,’ proclaiming that God's own power, which is innate in him and coexists with him unoriginately, is another.” And again, a little later: “Yet his eternal power and wisdom, which the reasonings of truth show to be without beginning and unoriginate, would surely be one.” For even if, misunderstanding the apostle's saying, he thought there were two wisdoms, yet in speaking of an unoriginate wisdom coexisting with God he no longer said that the unoriginate is one, but that there is another unoriginate with him. For what coexists does not coexist with itself but with another. So either let them follow Asterius and no longer ask, “Is the unoriginate one, or two?” so as not to fight against him by raising doubts; or, if they oppose him too, let them not lean on his little treatise, lest “biting one another they be consumed by one another.” Let this much be said briefly against their ignorance. But what could one say adequate to their crafty purpose? Who would not justly hate them for raving like this? For since they no longer have the boldness to say “from nothing” and “he was not before he was begotten,” they have devised for themselves the word “unoriginate,” so that by calling the Son originated among the simple they may signify again those very words, “from nothing” and “he once was not”; for by these, things originated and creatures are signified.

33. If, then, they are confident in what they say, they ought to stand by it, and not keep changing their shape in various ways. But they do not wish to, thinking that they can do anything easily if they hide their heresy under this name and put forward the word “unoriginate.” Yet the very word “unoriginate” does not have its meaning in relation to the Son, however they grumble, but in relation to things originated. And one may see something similar in “Almighty” and “Lord of the powers.” For if the Father rules and is lord over all things through the Word, and the Son reigns with the Father's kingdom and has power over all things, as the Word and image of the Father, it is quite clear that here too the Son is not counted with all things, and that God is not called Almighty and Lord on account of him, but on account of the things that came to be through the Son, over which he rules and is lord through the Word. So “unoriginate” too is used not on account of the Son but on account of the things that came to be through the Son; and rightly, since God is not like things originated, but is their creator and maker through the Son. And as “unoriginate” is said in relation to things originated, so “Father” points to the Son. Whoever names God maker and creator and unoriginate looks at and grasps the creatures and things originated; but whoever calls God Father at once thinks of and contemplates the Son. So one may well wonder at their contentiousness in impiety: although the name “unoriginate” has the good sense stated above and can be used with reverence, they bring it forward according to their own heresy to dishonor the Son, not having read that whoever honors the Son honors the Father, and “whoever dishonors the Son dishonors the Father.” For if they cared at all for reverent speech and for honoring the Father, they ought rather (and this would be better and greater) to know God and speak of him as “Father” than to name him in that way. For in calling God “unoriginate,” they speak of him, as has been said, from the works that came to be, as maker and creator only, thinking that from this they can signify the Word too as a work, as they please. But whoever calls God “Father” signifies him from the Son, knowing well that, since there is a Son, all originated things were necessarily created through the Son. And they, in saying “unoriginate,” signify him only from the works, and they themselves do not know the Son, just like the Greeks; but whoever calls God “Father” signifies him from the Word. And knowing the Word, he knows him to be creator, and understands that “through him all things came to be.”

34. So it would be more reverent and more true to signify God from the Son and call him “Father,” than to name him from his works only and call him “unoriginate.” For the latter, as I said, signifies only each of the works, and all of them together, that have come to be by God's will through the Word; but “Father” is said and stands fast only in relation to the Son. And as far as the Word surpasses things originated, so far and further would calling God “Father” surpass calling him “unoriginate.” For the latter is unscriptural and suspect, since it has various meanings, so that the mind of the one asked about it is carried round to many things; but “Father” is simple and scriptural, more true, and signifies the Son alone. And “unoriginate” was invented by the Greeks, who do not know the Son; but “Father” was made known and given to us by our Lord. For knowing whose Son he is, he said, “I am in the Father and the Father is in me,” and, “He who has seen me has seen the Father,” and, “I and the Father are one”; and nowhere does he himself appear calling the Father “unoriginate.” Rather, teaching us to pray, he did not say, “When you pray, say, O unoriginate God,” but rather, “When you pray, say, Our Father who art in heaven.” And he wished the sum of our faith to point to this, commanding us to be baptized, not into the name of unbegotten and originated, nor into the name of creator and creature, but “into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” For when we too are perfected in this way, though we are among the works, we are thereafter made sons; and when we say the name “Father,” we recognize from this name the Word also, who is in the Father himself. So their attempt concerning the word “unoriginate” has been shown to be vain, and to have nothing more than fantasy.

35. As for their asking whether “the Word is changeable,” it is superfluous to inquire into it; it is enough for me merely to write down what they say to show the daring of their impiety. For this is what they babble in the form of questions: “Is he free, or is he not? Is he good by choice, in accordance with his free will, and can he change if he wishes, being of a changeable nature? Or, like a stone or a piece of wood, does he not have a free choice to move and incline either way?” To say and think such things is not foreign to their heresy. For having once fashioned for themselves a god from nothing and a created son, they have consistently collected such phrases for themselves as fit a creature. But since, when they argue with members of the church and hear from them about the true and only Word of the Father, they dare to say such things about him, who could see a fouler doctrine than this? Who, merely hearing these things, even if he cannot answer, is not troubled and will not shut his ears, astonished at what they say and at hearing new words that carry blasphemy in their very utterance? For if the Word is changeable and altering, where will he stop, and what will be the end of his development? Or how can the changeable be like the unchangeable? How could anyone who “has seen” the changeable think that he has seen the unchangeable? In what condition must he come to be before one can see the Father in him? For it is clear that one will not always see the Father in him, because the Son is always changing and is of an altering nature. For the Father is unchangeable and unalterable, and is always the same and in the same state; but if the Son, according to them, is changeable, and not always the same, but of an ever-altering nature, how can such a one be the image of the Father, not having the likeness of his unchangeableness? And how is he “in the Father” at all, if his choice is uncertain? Perhaps too, being changeable and advancing daily, he is not yet complete. But let such madness of the Arians be gone, and let the truth shine and show them to be out of their minds. For how is he not complete who is equal to God? Or how is he not unchangeable who is one with the Father and is his Son, proper to his substance? And since the Father's substance is unchangeable, the proper offspring from it must also be unchangeable. But if, this being so, they falsely charge the Word with change, let them learn where their own reasoning is in danger; for “the tree is known by its fruit.” For this reason too “he who has seen the Son has seen the Father,” and the knowledge of the Son is knowledge of the Father.

36. So the image of the unchangeable God must be unalterable; for “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” And David, singing about him, says, “And you, Lord, in the beginning founded the earth, and the heavens are the works of your hands. They will perish, but you remain; and they will all grow old like a garment, and like a cloak you will roll them up, and they will be changed; but you are the same, and your years will not fail.” And the Lord himself says about himself through the prophet, “See me, see that I am,” and, “I have not changed.” Even if one can say that the meaning here refers to the Father, it also fits the Son to say this, especially because when he became man he shows his sameness and unchangeableness to those who think that because of the flesh he was altered and became something else. The saints, and still more the Lord, are more trustworthy than the malice of the impious. For in the passage of the hymn just quoted, Scripture, which says that the nature of all things originated and of the whole creation, signified by “heaven and earth,” is changeable and alterable, and excepts the Son from these, shows that he is in no way originated; indeed it teaches that he alters other things and is not himself altered, where it says, “But you are the same, and your years will not fail.” And rightly so. For things originated, being from nothing, and not existing before they come to be, have an altering nature, since they come to be when they were not; but the Son, being from the Father and proper to his substance, is unalterable and unchangeable, as the Father himself is. For it is not right to say that from the unchangeable substance a changeable word and an altering wisdom is begotten. For how is he still Word, if he is changeable? Or how is what alters still Wisdom? Unless, of course, they want him to be like an accident in a substance, as if in some particular substance a certain grace and habit of virtue had occurred, and this were so called Word and Son and Wisdom, so that it could be taken away from it and added to it. For they have often said such things, thinking in this way. But this is not the faith of Christians. For this does not show him to be truly the Word and Son of God, nor the wisdom to be true Wisdom. For how can what changes and alters, not standing fast in one and the same state, be true? But the Lord says, “I am the truth.” If, then, the Lord himself says this about himself and shows his unchangeableness, and the saints, having learned this, bear witness to it, and indeed our notions of God know this to be reverent, where did the impious devise these things? They vomited them out of their heart as out of corruption.

37. But since they allege the divine oracles as a pretext and force them into a false interpretation according to their own mind, it is necessary to answer them only so far as to vindicate the texts and to show that these have a right sense, while those men think wrongly. They say, then, that it is written in the apostle, “Therefore God also highly exalted him and granted him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth”; and in David, “Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your companions.” Then they add, as if saying something clever: “If he was exalted and received grace ‘therefore,’ and was anointed ‘therefore,’ he received a reward for his choice; and having acted by choice, he is certainly of a changeable nature.” Eusebius and Arius have dared not only to say but also to write these things, and their followers do not shrink from talking about them in the middle of the marketplace, not seeing what madness their argument contains. For if he received what he had as a reward for his choice, and would not have had it unless he had shown the work of one who needed it, then, having had these things from virtue and improvement, he was naturally called Son and God because of them, and is not a true Son. For what is from someone by nature is a true offspring, as Isaac was to Abraham, and Joseph to Jacob, and the radiance to the sun; but those so called from virtue and grace only have, instead of nature, the grace that comes from receiving, and are something other than what has been given them, like men who have received the Spirit by participation, about whom he also said, “I begot sons and raised them up, but they rejected me.” Of course, since they were not sons by nature, for that reason, when they changed, the Spirit was taken away and they were disowned; and again, when they repent, God, who gave them grace in this way at the beginning, will receive them, and giving them light will call them sons again.

38. If, then, they say this of the Savior too, he will be shown to be neither true, nor God, nor Son, nor like the Father, nor to have God at all as Father of his being according to substance, but only of the grace given him, while having God as creator of his being according to substance, like all things. And if he is such as they say, it will appear rather that he did not even have the name “Son” from the beginning, if indeed he had it as a prize for his works and his advance, and for no other advance than when he became man and took the form of a servant. For it is then, when “he became obedient to death,” that he is said to have been highly exalted and to have received the name as a grace, “so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow.” What, then, was he before this, if he was exalted only now, and only now began to be worshipped, and only now was called Son, when he became man? For he appears himself not to have improved the flesh at all, but rather to have been improved himself through it, if, according to their malice, he was exalted and called Son when he became man. What, then, was he before this? For one must ask them again, so that the end result of their impiety may be seen. For if the Lord is God, Son, Word, but was not these before he became man, then either he was something else besides these and later shared in them by virtue, as we have said; or, the other alternative (may it turn back on their own heads!), they must say that he did not even exist before this, but is wholly man by nature and nothing more. But this is not the mind of the church; it is the mind of the Samosatene and of the Jews of today. Why, then, if they think as they do, are they not circumcised like the Jews, instead of feigning Christianity and waging war on it? For if he was not, or was but was improved later, how did all things come to be through him? Or how did the Father delight in him, if he was not complete? And he himself, if he has been improved only now, how did he rejoice before this in the presence of the Father? And if he received worship after his death, how is Abraham seen worshipping him in the tent, and Moses in the bush? And, as Daniel saw, “ten thousand times ten thousands and thousands of thousands were serving him”? And if, according to them, he has received his improvement only now, how did the Son himself, recalling his glory before the world and above the world, say, “Glorify me, Father, with the glory that I had with you before the world existed”? If, according to them, he was exalted only now, how did he before this “bow the heavens and come down,” and again, “the Most High gave his voice”? So if the Son had glory even before the world came to be, and was “the Lord of glory” and Most High, and came down from heaven, and is always to be worshipped, then he was not improved by coming down, but rather he himself improved the things that needed improvement. And if he came down in order to improve them, he did not receive the title Son and God as a reward; rather he himself made us sons to the Father, and deified men by becoming man himself.

39. So he was not man first and later became God; but being God, he later became man, in order rather to deify us. For if he was called Son and God only when he became man, while before he became man God called the ancient peoples “sons,” and made Moses “god” to Pharaoh, and Scripture says of many, “God stood in the assembly of gods,” it is clear that he was called Son and God after them. How then are “all things through him,” and “he is before all things”? Or how is he “the firstborn of all creation,” if he has others called sons and gods before him? And how is it that the first sharers do not share in the Word? This opinion is not true; it is a pretext of the Judaizers of today. For how could anyone know God as Father at all? For there could be no adoption without the true Son, since he says, “No one knows the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son reveals him.” And how could there be deification without the Word and before him? Yet he said to their brothers the Jews, “If he called them gods to whom the Word of God came.” And if all who have been called sons and gods, whether on earth or in heaven, were adopted and deified through the Word, and the Son himself is the Word, it is clear that all are through him, but he himself is before all; or rather, he alone is true Son, and he alone is “true God from true God,” not having received these things as a reward for virtue, nor being something else besides them, but being these things by nature, according to substance. For he is the offspring of the Father's substance, so that no one can doubt that, in the likeness of the unchangeable Father, the Word too is unchangeable.

40. So far, using the conceptions that belong to the Son, we have met their irrational notions in the way the Lord himself has given us. But it is good next to set out the divine oracles as well, so that the Son's unchangeableness and his unalterable nature, which is the Father's, may be proved still further, and also their wrong-headedness. The apostle, then, writing to the Philippians, says: “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men; and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and granted him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” What could be clearer and more conclusive than this? He did not become better from a lower state; rather, “being” God, “he took the form of a servant,” and in taking it he was not improved, but “humbled himself.” Where, then, in these words is there a “reward of virtue,” or what advance and improvement is there in humbling oneself? For if, being God, he became man, and, having come down from on high, he is said to be “exalted,” where is he exalted, being God? It is clear again that, since God is Most High, his Word too must necessarily be most high. Where, then, could he be exalted further, he who is in the Father and “like the Father in all things”? So he has no need of any addition, and he is not as the Arians suppose. For if the Word came down in order to be exalted, and this is what is written, what need was there at all for him to humble himself, so as to seek to receive what he already had? And what grace did the giver of grace receive? Or how did he receive the name so as to be worshipped, he who is always worshipped in his name? Indeed, even before he became man, the saints call on him: “O God, save me by your name.” And again: “Some in chariots, and some in horses, but we will be magnified in the name of the Lord our God.” And he was worshipped by the patriarchs; and of the angels it is written, “And let all the angels of God worship him.”

41. And if, as David sings in the seventy-first psalm, “His name endures before the sun, and before the moon to generations of generations,” how did he receive what he always had, even before he now received it? Or how is he exalted who was most high even before he was exalted? Or how did he receive being worshipped, who was always worshipped even before he now received it? It is not a riddle, but a divine mystery. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”; but later, for our sakes, this “Word became flesh.” And what is now said, “he highly exalted,” does not signify that the substance of the Word is exalted, for he always was and is “equal to God”; the exaltation belongs to the humanity. These things are not said, then, before the Word became flesh, so that it may be clear that “he humbled” and “he highly exalted” are said of what is human. For what is humble is also what can be exalted; and if “he humbled” is written because of his taking of the flesh, it is clear that “he highly exalted” is because of it too. For man was in need of this, because of the lowliness of the flesh and of death. Since, then, the Word, being the image of the Father and immortal, “took the form of a servant,” and for our sake as man endured death in his own flesh, so that in this way he might offer himself for us through death to the Father, for this reason he is also said, as man, to be highly exalted because of us and for us, so that, just as by his death we all died in Christ, so in Christ himself we might in turn be highly exalted, being raised from the dead and going up into heaven, “where Jesus has entered as a forerunner on our behalf, not into copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us.” And if Christ has now entered heaven itself for us, although even before this and always he was Lord and maker of the heavens, then the exaltation too is now written for us. And just as he who sanctifies all says again to the Father that he “sanctifies himself for us,” not so that the Word may become holy, but so that he himself in himself may sanctify all of us, so also what is now said, “he highly exalted him,” is not so that he himself may be exalted (for he is most high), but so that he may “become righteousness” for us, and we may be exalted in him and enter the gates of heaven, which he in turn opened for us, while those who run before him say, “Lift up your gates, you rulers, and be lifted up, you eternal gates, and the King of glory shall come in.” For here too the gates were not shut to him, who is Lord and maker of all things; this too is written because of us, to whom the door of paradise was shut. So in a human way, because of the flesh he bore, “Lift up the gates” and “shall come in” are said of him, as of a man entering; but in a divine way it is said of him in turn, since “the Word is God,” that he is the Lord and the King of glory. The Spirit foretold such an exaltation, happening to us, in the eighty-eighth psalm, saying, “And in your righteousness they will be exalted, for you are the boast of their strength.” And if the Son is righteousness, then it is not he who is exalted as being in need, but we who are exalted in the righteousness, which is he.

42. And “he granted him,” too, is not written because of the Word himself. For again, even before he became man he was worshipped, as we said, by the angels and all creation, in virtue of what is proper to the Father; but this too is written of him because of us and for us. For as Christ died and was exalted as man, so as man he is said to “receive” what he always had as God, so that such a grace, once given, might reach us as well. For the Word was not lessened by taking a body, so as to seek to receive grace; rather he deified what he put on, and, more than that, “granted” this to the human race. For just as he was always worshipped, being the Word and “being in the form of God,” so, being the same and having become man and been called Jesus, he has none the less the whole creation under his feet, “bending the knee” to him “in this name” and “confessing” that the Word's becoming flesh and enduring death in the flesh did not happen to the dishonor of his Godhead, but “to the glory of God the Father.” And it is the Father's glory that man, who was made and was lost, should be found, and, having died, should be made alive, and should become God's temple. For while the powers in heaven, angels and archangels, always worshipped him, and now also worship the Lord “in the name of Jesus,” this grace and high exaltation is ours: that even having become man, the Son of God is worshipped, and the heavenly powers will not be astonished to see all of us, who are of one body with him, brought into their realms. This would not have happened otherwise, unless he who “was in the form of God” had taken “the form of a servant” and had “humbled himself,” allowing his body to come “to death.”

43. See, then: what men thought “the foolishness of God” because of the cross has become more honored than all things. For our resurrection is stored up in it; and no longer Israel alone, but now all the nations, as the prophet foretold, abandon their idols and acknowledge the true God, the Father of Christ; and the illusion of the demons has been abolished, and he alone who is truly God is worshipped in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. And the fact that the Lord, even having come in a body and been called Jesus, is worshipped and believed to be the Son of God, and that through him the Father is known, would show, as has been said, that it was not the Word, as Word, who received such grace, but we. For because of our kinship with his body we too have become “God's temple,” and have been made sons of God, so that the Lord is now worshipped in us too, and those who see “report,” as the apostle said, “that God is truly among them.” Just as John says in the Gospel, “But as many as received him, to them he gave power to become children of God”; and in the letter he writes, “By this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us.” And this too is a mark of the goodness he has shown us: we have been exalted because the Most High Lord is in us, and grace is given because of us, because the Lord who supplies the grace has become man like us; but the Savior himself “humbled himself” by taking our lowly body, and “took the form of a servant,” putting on the flesh that had been enslaved to sin. And he himself has gained nothing from us for his improvement, for the Word of God lacks nothing and is full; rather, we have been improved by him. For he is “the light that enlightens every man coming into the world.” And in vain do the Arians lean on the conjunction “therefore,” because Paul says, “Therefore God also highly exalted him.” For in saying this he did not mean a prize of virtue or the improvement of his advance, but the cause of the exaltation that has come to us. And what is this but that he who “was in the form of God,” the Son of a noble Father, “humbled himself” and became a servant in our place and for us? For if the Lord had not become man, we would not have been redeemed from our sins and risen from the dead, but would have remained dead under the earth; nor would we have been exalted to heaven, but would have remained in Hades. So “he highly exalted” and “he granted” are said because of us and for us.

44. This, then, I think is the meaning of the text, and a thoroughly ecclesiastical one. But one might also approach the text a second way, saying the same things in parallel: that it does not signify that the Word himself, as Word, is exalted (for he is, as was said a little before, most high and like the Father), but that, because of his becoming man, the text points to the resurrection from the dead. For having said, “he humbled himself to death,” he at once added, “therefore he highly exalted,” wishing to show that, although as man he is said to have died, yet, being life, he was exalted by the resurrection. For “he who came down is the same who also rose.” For he came down bodily; but he rose because he himself was God in a body. And this again is why, in this sense, he added the conjunction “therefore”: not as indicating a “reward of virtue” or of advance, but the cause for which the resurrection took place, and the cause for which all other men from Adam until now have died and remained dead, but he alone rose whole from the dead. And this cause is what he himself said before: that, being God, he became man. For all other men, being only from Adam, died and had death “reigning” over them; but this one is “the second man, from heaven,” for “the Word became flesh.” And such a man is called “man from heaven” and “heavenly,” because the Word “came down from heaven”; therefore he “was not held by death.” For even though he humbled himself, allowing his own body to come to death, since it was capable of death, yet he was highly exalted from the earth, because he was the Son of God in a body. So what is said here, “therefore God also highly exalted him,” is equal to what Peter says in the Acts: “whom God raised up, having loosed the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it.” For as it is written in Paul, since “being in the form of God” he became man and “humbled himself to death, therefore God also highly exalted him,” so it is said by Peter too that, since, being God, he became man, and the signs and wonders showed him to be God even to those who saw them, therefore “it was not possible for him to be held by death.” It was not possible for a man to accomplish this, for death belongs to men. Therefore the Word, being God, became flesh, so that, “put to death in the flesh,” he might make all alive by his own power.

45. But since he is said to be “exalted,” and that God “granted” him, and the heretics think this is a defect or a passion of the Word's substance, it is necessary to say how these things too are meant. He is said to be exalted from “the lower parts of the earth,” since death too is said to be his. Both are said to be his because it was his body, and not another's, that was exalted from the dead and taken up into heaven. And again, since the body is his, and the Word is not outside it, it is natural that when the body is exalted, he himself, as man, is said to be “exalted” because of the body. If, then, he did not become man, let these things not be said of him; but if “the Word became flesh,” the resurrection and the exaltation must be spoken of him as of a man, so that the death said to be his may be a ransom for the sin of men and the abolition of death, and the resurrection and exaltation may remain secure for us because of him. In both cases he said, “God highly exalted him,” and “God granted him,” so as to show from this too that it is not the Father who became flesh, but his Word who became man, who “receives” in a human way from the Father and is “exalted” by him, as has been said. And it is clear, and no one would doubt it, that what the Father gives, he gives through the Son. And this is a paradox and truly able to astonish: the grace that the Son gives from the Father, the Son himself is said to “receive”; and the exaltation that the Son effects from the Father, with this the Son himself is “exalted.” For he who is the Son of God himself became also Son of Man. As Word, he gives what comes from the Father; for all things that the Father does and gives, he does and supplies through him. But as Son of Man, he himself is said in a human way to receive what comes from himself, because the body, which by nature receives grace, is not another's but his own, as has been said. For he received according to the exaltation of the man; and the exaltation was his being deified. But the Word himself always had this according to his Father's Godhead and completeness.

46. What is written in the apostle, then, having this meaning, refutes the impious; and what is said by the hymn-writer has the same right sense again, which these men misinterpret but the psalmist shows to be reverent. For he too says, “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever. The scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated iniquity; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your companions.” See, you Arians, and recognize the truth even from this. The psalmist has called all of us “companions” (that is, sharers) of the Lord. If he were “from nothing” and one of the things originated, he too would have been one of those who share. But since he praised him as eternal God, saying, “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever,” and has shown that all other things share in him, what must we think but that he is other than things originated, and that he alone is the true Word of the Father, the radiance and the wisdom, in which all originated things share, and by which they are sanctified in the Spirit? So here too he is “anointed,” not so that he may become God, for he was so even before this; nor so that he may become king, for he reigned eternally, “being the image” of God, as the oracle shows; but this too, again, is written for us. For the kings of Israel became kings when they were anointed, not having been kings before, like David, Hezekiah, Josiah, and the others. But the Savior, on the contrary, being God, and always reigning with the kingdom of the Father, and being himself the one who supplies the Holy Spirit, is nevertheless now said to be “anointed,” so that, being said as man to be anointed with the Spirit, he might again prepare for us men not only exaltation and resurrection but also the indwelling and intimacy of the Spirit. The Lord himself indicated this in his own person when he said in the Gospel according to John, “I have sent them into the world, and for them I sanctify myself, so that they too may be sanctified in the truth.” In saying this he showed that he is not the one sanctified but the one who sanctifies. For he is not sanctified by another, but he sanctifies himself, so that we may be sanctified in the truth. And he who sanctifies himself is Lord of sanctifying. How, then, does this happen? What is he saying, but this: “I, being the Word of the Father, give the Spirit to myself become man; and in the Spirit I sanctify myself become man, so that from now on in me, who am truth (‘your Word is truth’), all may be sanctified”?

47. And if he sanctifies himself for our sake, and does this when he has become man, it is quite clear that the descent of the Spirit on him in the Jordan was a descent on us, because he bore our body. And it did not happen for the improvement of the Word, but again for our sanctification, so that we might share in his anointing, and it might be said of us, “Do you not know that you are God's temple, and the Spirit of God dwells in you?” For when the Lord, as man, was washed in the Jordan, it was we who were washed in him and by him. And when he received the Spirit, it was we who were made capable of receiving it by him. For this reason he was not anointed with oil like Aaron or David or all the others, but otherwise, above all his companions, “with the oil of gladness,” which he himself interprets as the Spirit, saying through the prophet, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me”; just as the apostle too said, “how God anointed him with the Holy Spirit.” When, then, were these things said of him, but when, having come in the flesh, he was baptized in the Jordan and “the Spirit came down upon him”? And yet the Lord himself says, “The Spirit will take from what is mine,” and, “I send him,” and to the disciples, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” And nevertheless he who supplies others, as Word and radiance of the Father, is now said to be “sanctified,” because again he has become man, and the body that is sanctified is his. From that time, then, we too have begun to receive the anointing and the seal, as John says, “And you have an anointing from the Holy One,” and the apostle, “And you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise.” So what is said is because of us and for us. What advance in improvement, then, and what “reward of virtue,” or of any conduct at all, on the Lord's part is shown from this? For if he had become God from not being God, if, not being king, he had been promoted to kingship, your argument would have had a shadow of plausibility. But if he is God, and “the throne of his kingdom is eternal,” where could God advance? Or what was lacking to him who sits on the Father's throne? And if, as the Lord himself said, the Spirit is his, and takes from what is his, and he himself sends him, then it is not the Word, as Word and Wisdom, who is anointed with the Spirit given by him, but the flesh assumed by him, which is anointed in him and by him, so that the sanctification that came to the Lord as man might come to all men from him. “For the Spirit,” he says, “does not speak on his own,” but it is the Word who gives him to those who are worthy. This too is like the text discussed before. For as the apostle wrote, “who, being in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant,” so David praises the Lord, who is eternal God and king, but was sent to us and assumed our body, which is mortal. For this is what he signifies when he sings, “Myrrh and stacte and cassia from your garments.” And this is shown by Nicodemus and by Mary's companions, when he “came bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, a hundred pounds,” and they brought what they had prepared for the burial of the Lord's body.

48. What advance, then, was it for the immortal to take on the mortal? Or what improvement for the eternal to put on the temporal? And what reward could be greater for God, the eternal King, who is in the bosom of the Father? Do you not see that this too was done and written because of us and for us, so that the Lord, having become man, might make us, who are mortal and temporal, immortal, and bring us into the eternal kingdom of heaven? Are you not ashamed of lying against the divine oracles? For when our Lord Jesus Christ came among us, we were improved, being set free from sin; but he himself is the same. He did not change because he became man (for the same thing must be said again), but, as it is written, “The Word of God abides forever.” Indeed, just as before his becoming man, being the Word, he supplied the Spirit to the saints as his own, so too, having become man, he sanctifies all by the Spirit and says to the disciples, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” And he gave it to Moses and to the seventy others; and through him David prayed to the Father, saying, “Do not take your Holy Spirit from me.” And having become man he said, “I will send you the Paraclete, the Spirit of truth”; and he sent him, being without falsehood, the Word of God. So “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever,” remaining unchangeable; and he is the same who gives and receives: giving as the Word of God, receiving as man. So it is not the Word, as Word, who is improved, for he had all things and always has them; it is men, who have in him and through him the beginning of their receiving. For when he is now said in a human way to be anointed, it is we who are anointed in him; since also when he is baptized, it is we who are baptized in him. The Savior makes all this still clearer when he says to the Father, “And the glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one.” So it was because of us that he asked for glory, and that “he received,” “he granted,” and “he highly exalted” have been said: so that we may receive, and he may grant to us, and we may be exalted in him; just as he also “sanctifies himself for us, so that we may be sanctified in him.”

49. And if, because “Therefore God, your God, has anointed you” is added in the psalm, they again provide themselves with a pretext for what they want from the word “therefore,” let those who are ignorant of the Scriptures and inventors of impiety know that here too “therefore” does not signify a reward of the Word's virtue or conduct, but again the cause of his coming down to us and of the anointing of the Spirit that took place in him for us. For he did not say, “Therefore he anointed you, so that you might become God, or king, or Son, or Word”; for he was so before this and always is, as has been shown. Rather he said: “Since you are God and king, therefore you were anointed; since it belonged to no one else to join man to the Holy Spirit but you, the image of the Father, after which we too were made in the beginning; for the Spirit too is yours.” For the nature of things originated was not trustworthy for this, since angels had transgressed and men had disobeyed. Therefore there was need of God (and “the Word is God”), so that he himself might set free those who had come under a curse. If, then, he were “from nothing,” he would not himself be the Christ, being one of all things and himself too a sharer. But since he is God, being the Son of God, and is eternal King, being the radiance and exact imprint of the Father, therefore he is rightly the expected Christ, whom the Father announces to men, revealing him to his holy prophets, so that, as we came to be through him, so in him the redemption of all from their sins might take place, and all things might be ruled by him. And this is the cause of the anointing that took place in him and of the Word's coming in the flesh. Foreseeing this, the psalmist, praising his Godhead and his Father's kingdom, cries out, “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; the scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom”; and announcing his coming down to us, he says, “Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your companions.”

50. What is surprising or incredible, then, if the Lord who gives the Spirit is now said to be anointed with the Spirit himself, when on another occasion, need requiring it, he did not refuse, because of his humanity, to call himself even less than the Spirit? For when the Jews said that “he cast out the demons by Beelzebul,” he answered and said to them, to refute their blasphemy, “But if I cast out the demons by the Spirit of God.” See: the giver of the Spirit now says that he casts out the demons by the Spirit. And this is said for no other reason than the flesh. For since human nature is not able by itself to cast out demons except by the power of the Spirit, he said as man, “But if I cast out the demons by the Spirit of God.” Indeed, indicating that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is greater than blasphemy against his humanity, he said, “Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven,” like those who said, “Is not this the carpenter's son?” But those who blaspheme against the Holy Spirit and ascribe the works of the Word to the devil will have a punishment they cannot escape. Such things the Lord said to the Jews as man; but to the disciples, showing his Godhead and majesty, and indicating that he is not less than the Spirit but equal, he gave the Spirit and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit,” and “I send him; he will glorify me,” and, “whatever he hears he will speak.” Just as here, then, the Lord himself, the giver of the Spirit, does not refuse to say as man that “he casts out the demons by the Spirit,” in the same way, being the same giver of the Spirit, he did not refuse to say, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me,” because “he became flesh,” as John said. This was to show that in both respects it is we who need the grace of the Spirit to be sanctified, and who cannot cast out demons without the power of the Spirit. Through whom and from whom should the Spirit be given but through the Son, whose the Spirit is? And when could we receive him, except when the Word became man? And as the apostle's saying shows that we would not have been redeemed and highly exalted unless he who “was in the form of God took the form of a servant,” so David too shows that we would not otherwise have shared in the Spirit and been sanctified, unless the giver of the Spirit, the Word himself, had said that he was anointed with the Spirit for us. Therefore we have received securely, since he is said to have been anointed in the flesh. For since the flesh in him was sanctified first, and he is said, as man, to have received because of it, we have the grace of the Spirit following, “receiving from his fullness.”

51. And “You have loved righteousness and hated iniquity,” which is added in the psalm, does not show, as you again understand it, that the Word's nature is “changeable,” but rather signifies from this too his unchangeableness. For since the nature of things originated is changeable, and some transgressed and others disobeyed, as has been said, and their conduct is not secure, but it often happens that one who is now good later changes and becomes different, so that one who was just now righteous is found unrighteous a little later, therefore again there was need of one who is unchangeable, so that men might have the immutability of the Word's righteousness as an image and pattern for virtue. And this understanding has a reason that is sound to those who think rightly. For since “the first man Adam” changed, and “through sin death entered the world,” it was therefore fitting that the second Adam should be unchangeable, so that, even if the serpent should attack again, the serpent's deceit might be weakened, and, since the Lord is unchangeable and unalterable, the serpent might become weak in his attacks against all. For just as, when Adam transgressed, sin reached “to all men,” so, when the Lord became man and overthrew the serpent, such strength will pass to all men, so that each of us may say, “For we are not ignorant of his designs.” So it is fitting that the Lord, who always and by nature is unchangeable, “loving righteousness and hating iniquity,” is anointed and himself sent, so that, being and remaining the same, and taking the changeable flesh, he might “condemn sin in it,” and make it free, so that it could thereafter “fulfil the righteous requirement of the law” in itself, and so be able to say, “But we are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in us.”

52. So here too, you Arians, this suspicion of yours has come to nothing, and you have alleged the words of the Scriptures in vain. For the Word of God is unchangeable, and is always the same, not in any ordinary way, but as the Father is. For how is he like the Father, if he is not so? Or how are “all things of the Father the Son's,” if he does not have the Father's unchangeableness and unalterableness too? He does not love one thing and hate the other as one subject to laws and able to incline either way, lest, choosing the one for fear of falling, he be brought in again as changeable in another way; but, being God and the Word of the Father, he is a just judge and a lover of virtue, or rather the supplier of virtue. Being righteous and holy by nature, then, he is therefore said to “love righteousness and hate iniquity,” which is the same as saying that he loves and takes to himself the virtuous, and turns away from and hates the unrighteous. For the divine Scriptures say the same of the Father: “The Lord is righteous and has loved righteousness,” and, “You have hated all who work lawlessness,” and, “He loves the gates of Zion, but does not greatly regard the dwellings of Jacob,” and, “Jacob he loved, but Esau he hated”; and according to Isaiah it is again the voice of God saying, “I am the Lord, who loves righteousness and hates robbery from iniquity.” So either let them take those words like these (for those too are written of the image of God), or, misunderstanding these like those, let them imagine the Father too to be changeable. But if even to hear others say this is not without danger, then we rightly understand God's being said to “love righteousness and hate robbery from iniquity,” not as though he could incline either way and were capable of the opposite, so as to choose this and not choose that (for this is proper to things originated), but that, as judge, he loves and takes to himself the righteous and stays far from the wicked. It would follow to think the same about the image of God, that he loves and hates in this way. For the nature of the image must be such as its Father is, even if the Arians, like blind men, see neither this nor anything else in the divine oracles. For having fallen away from the notions of their heart, or rather their delusions, they take refuge again in texts of the divine Scriptures; and in these too, being as usual without perception, they do not see the meaning in them. Rather, setting up their own impiety as a kind of rule, they twist all the divine oracles to fit it. Merely for uttering them they deserve to hear nothing else but, “You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God.” And if they persist, they deserve to be put to shame again and to hear, “Give to man the things that are man's, and to God the things that are God's.”

53. They say, then, that it is written in the Proverbs, “The Lord created me as the beginning of his ways, for his works”; and in the letter to the Hebrews, where the apostle says, “having become so much better than the angels, as he has inherited a more excellent name than they”; and a little later, “Therefore, holy brothers, sharers in a heavenly calling, consider the apostle and high priest of our confession, Jesus, who was faithful to him who made him”; and in the Acts, “Let all the house of Israel therefore know that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.” Bringing these texts up and down and going astray about their meaning, they have supposed from them that the Word of God is “a creature and a work and one of the things originated.” And so they deceive the thoughtless, putting forward the texts as a pretext, but sowing instead of the true meaning the poison of their own heresy. For “if they had known,” they would not have acted impiously toward “the Lord of glory,” nor misinterpreted what was well written. If, then, openly taking up the way of Caiaphas, they have decided to Judaize, so as not to know what is written, that “God will truly dwell on the earth,” let them not examine the apostolic words, for this is not the Jews' way. But if, mixing themselves with the godless Manichaeans, they deny that “the Word became flesh” and his coming in the flesh, let them not bring forward the Proverbs, for this too is foreign to the Manichaeans. But if, because of their position and the gain of avarice they have had from it, and because of their love of reputation, they do not dare to deny that “the Word became flesh,” since it is written, then either let them understand the words written about it rightly, of the Savior's coming in the body, or, if they deny the meaning, let them deny that the Lord became man at all. For it is unfitting to confess that “the Word became flesh” but to blush at what is written about him, and for that reason to corrupt its meaning.

54. For it is written, “having become so much better than the angels.” This must be examined first. And here, as it is fitting and necessary to do with all divine Scripture, one must faithfully take into account the time at which the apostle spoke, the person, and the matter about which he wrote, so that the reader, through ignorance of these or of anything else of the kind, may not fall outside the true meaning. The studious eunuch knew this when he asked Philip, “I beg you, about whom does the prophet say this? About himself or about someone else?” For he was afraid that, taking the reading of the wrong person, he might stray from the right meaning. And the disciples, wishing to learn the time of what was said, asked the Lord, “Tell us, when will these things be? And what is the sign of your coming?” Hearing from the Savior about the end, they wished to learn the time too, so that they themselves might not go astray and might be able to teach others. And having learned, they set right the Thessalonians, who were about to go astray. When, then, someone has a right knowledge of such things, he has a right and sound understanding of the faith; but if someone takes any of these wrongly, he at once falls into heresy. Thus Hymenaeus and Alexander and their followers erred about the time, “saying that the resurrection had already happened”; and the Galatians erred after the time, loving circumcision now. And the Jews have erred about the person, and still do, thinking that “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which means, God with us” is said of one of themselves; and when they think that “God will raise up a prophet for us” is said of one of the prophets; and when, not learning from Philip, they suppose that “He was led as a sheep to the slaughter” is said of Isaiah or of some other of the former prophets.

55. The fighters against Christ, having suffered the same thing, have fallen into a loathsome heresy. For if they had known the person, the matter, and the time of the apostle's saying, these senseless men would not have committed so great an impiety by taking what is human as referring to the Godhead. This can be seen if one takes the beginning of the passage rightly. For the apostle says, “Having spoken long ago to the fathers by the prophets in many parts and many ways, God has in these last days spoken to us by a Son”; then a little later he says, “having made purification for our sins by himself, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become so much better than the angels, as he has inherited a more excellent name than they.” So the apostle's saying refers to the time when “he spoke to us by a Son,” when also “purification of sins” took place. And when did he speak to us by a Son? And when did purification of sins take place? And when did he become man, but after the prophets, “in the last days”? Then, since his account concerns the economy on our behalf, and he is speaking of the last times, he consistently mentions that God was not silent toward men in the former times either; for he spoke to them “by the prophets.” And since the prophets ministered, and “the law was spoken through angels,” and the Son too came among us and “came to serve,” he necessarily added, “having become so much better than the angels,” wishing to show that, as far as a son differs from a servant, so far the Son's ministry has become better than the ministry of the servants. Distinguishing, then, the old ministry and the new, the apostle speaks boldly, writing to Jews and saying, “having become so much better than the angels.” For this reason he did not speak comparatively at all, saying “greater” or “more honored,” lest anyone think of him and them as of the same kind; but he said “better,” to make known the difference of the Son's nature from things begotten. We have the proof of this from the divine Scriptures, since David sings, “One day in your courts is better than thousands,” and Solomon cries out, “Take instruction and not silver, and knowledge rather than tested gold; for wisdom is better than precious stones, and nothing precious is worthy of her.” For how are wisdom and stones from the earth not of different substance and different in nature? What kinship is there between the heavenly courts and houses on earth? Or what likeness do temporal and mortal things have to eternal and spiritual ones? And this is what Isaiah says: “Thus says the Lord to the eunuchs, as many as keep my sabbaths and choose what I will and hold fast to my covenant: I will give them in my house and within my wall a named place; better than sons and daughters, I will give them an eternal name, and it will not fail.” So there is no kinship at all between the Son and the angels; and since there is no kinship, “better” was not said by way of comparison, but by way of distinction, because of the difference of his nature from theirs. And the apostle himself, interpreting “better,” places it in nothing else than the difference of the Son from things originated, saying that he is Son but they are servants; and he, as Son, “sits at the right hand” with the Father, while they, as servants, stand by and “are sent” and minister.

56. When these things are written in this way, you Arians, the Son is not signified by them as originated, but rather as other than things originated and proper to the Father, being in his bosom. For the word written here, “having become,” does not signify either that the Son is originated, as you think. If he had simply said “having become” and stopped, the Arians would have had a pretext. But since he had already spoken of the “Son,” having shown through the whole passage that he is other than things originated, he did not put “having become” by itself, but joined “better” to “having become.” For he considered the word indifferent, knowing that, in the case of one admitted to be a genuine Son, whoever says “having become” is saying the same as that he “has been” and that he is “better.” For with what is begotten it makes no difference whether one says “he has become” or “he has been made”; but things originated, being works of creation, cannot be called “begotten,” except that afterwards, having shared in the begotten Son, they too are said to have been begotten, not because of their own nature, but because of their participation in the Son in the Spirit. The divine Scripture knows this too. Of things originated it says, “All things came to be through him, and without him not one thing came to be,” and, “In wisdom you made all things”; but of sons who are begotten, “There came to be to Job seven sons and three daughters,” and, “Abraham was a hundred years old when Isaac his son came to be to him”; and Moses said, “If sons come to be to anyone.” So if the Son is other than things originated, and is the only proper offspring of the Father's substance, the Arians' pretext about “having become” has been made void. And if, put to shame on these points, they force themselves to say again that “the texts are spoken by way of comparison, and that therefore the things compared are of the same kind, so that the Son is of the nature of the angels,” they will be put to shame first of all for emulating and repeating the views of Valentinus, Carpocrates, and the other heretics, of whom the former said that the angels are of the same kind as Christ, and Carpocrates says that angels are the makers of the world. Perhaps these men too have learned from them to compare the Word of God with the angels.

57. But they will be put to shame for imagining such things by the hymn-writer, who says, “Who will be likened to the Lord among the sons of God?” and, “Who is like you among the gods, O Lord?” Yet let them hear, if even so they may learn, that comparisons are admittedly made between things of the same kind, and not between things of different kinds. No one would compare God with man, nor again man with irrational animals, nor wood with stones, because of the unlikeness of their nature; God is something beyond comparison, while man is compared with man, wood with wood, and stone with stone. And in such cases one would not say “better,” but “rather” and “more.” So Joseph was handsome rather than his brothers, and Rachel than Leah; and “star” is not “better” than “star,” but rather “differs in glory.” But in things of different kinds, when one sets them beside each other, then “better” is said to mark the difference, as was said about wisdom and stones. If, then, the apostle had said, “the Son surpasses the angels by so much more,” or, “is so much greater,” you would have had a pretext, as if the Son were being compared with the angels. But as it is, by saying that he is “better” and “differs as much” as a son stands apart from servants, he shows that he is other than the nature of the angels. And again, by saying that he is the one who “laid the foundation” of all things, he shows that he is other than all things originated. And since he is other and of a different substance from the nature of things originated, what comparison or likeness of his substance to things originated can there be? For if they should again think of anything of the kind, Paul will refute them, saying the same: “For to which of the angels did he ever say, ‘You are my Son, today I have begotten you’? And of the angels he says, ‘Who makes his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire.’”

58. See: of things originated he says “being made,” and that they are works; but to the Son he speaks not of making or of coming to be, but of eternity, kingship, and being creator, saying, “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever,” and, “You, Lord, in the beginning founded the earth, and the heavens are the works of your hands. They will perish, but you remain.” From these words even they could see, if they wished, that the one who creates is one thing and the things created another; he is God, they are originated, made from nothing. For what is said now, “they will perish,” is not said as though the creation will come to destruction, but to show the nature of originated things from their end. For things that can perish, even if they do not perish because of the grace of their maker, have nevertheless come to be “from nothing,” and bear witness that they “once were not.” For this reason, since these have such a nature, “but you remain” is said of the Son, to show his eternity. For since he does not have the capacity to perish, as originated things have, but has always remaining, it is foreign to him to be called “he was not before he was begotten,” but proper to him to be always and to remain with the Father. If the apostle had not written these things in the letter to the Hebrews, then from his other letters and from all Scripture they would truly have been prevented from imagining any such thing about the Word. But since he himself wrote it, and it has been shown above that the Son is the offspring of the Father's substance; that he is creator, and other things are created by him; that he is the radiance, Word, image, and Wisdom of the Father, while things originated stand somewhere below the Trinity and serve; then the Son is of a different kind and a different substance from things originated, and is rather proper to the Father's substance and of one nature with it. For this reason the Son himself did not say, “My Father is better than I,” lest anyone suppose him foreign to his nature, but said “greater,” not in any size or in time, but because of his begetting from the Father himself; yet in saying “greater” he again showed that he is proper to his substance.

59. And the apostle himself, when he said, “having become so much better than the angels,” did not primarily wish to compare the substance of the Word with things originated, for it cannot be compared, or rather they are altogether different. But looking to the Word's coming in the flesh and the economy he then carried out, he wished to show that he was not like those who had come before, so that, as much as he differs in nature from those sent before him, so much more the grace that came from him and through him might be better than the ministry through angels. For it belonged to servants only to demand the fruits, but to the Son and master to forgive the debts and to transfer the vineyard. And what the apostle adds shows the difference of the Son from things originated, when he says: “Therefore we must pay closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away. For if the word spoken through angels proved firm, and every transgression and disobedience received a just penalty, how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? It was first spoken through the Lord, and was confirmed to us by those who heard him.” But if the Son were one of the things originated, he would not have been “better” than them, nor would a greater punishment be laid up for “disobedience” because of him. For in the ministry of the angels there was no greater and lesser guilt for transgressors according to each angel; the law was one, and one the penalty against transgressors. But since the Word is not one of the things originated, but the Son of the Father, therefore, as much as he is better and what is done through him is better and different, so much worse would the punishment be. Let them look, then, at the grace given through the Son, and recognize that he is witnessed also by his works to be other than things originated, and alone true Son, “in the Father, and the Father in him.” The law “was spoken through angels” and “made no one perfect,” needing the coming of the Word, as Paul said; but the coming of the Word “completed the work” of the Father. And then “death reigned from Adam to Moses”; but the Word's coming “abolished death”; and no longer “in Adam do we all die,” but “in Christ we are all made alive.” And then the law was proclaimed from Dan to Beersheba, and “in Judea alone was God known”; but now “their voice has gone out into all the earth,” and “all the earth has been filled with the knowledge of God,” and the disciples “have made disciples of all nations,” and now what is written is fulfilled: “They shall all be taught by God.” And then what was shown was a type, but now the truth has been revealed. And the apostle himself explains this more clearly afterwards, saying, “By so much Jesus has become the guarantor of a better covenant”; and again, “But now he has obtained a more excellent ministry, as he is also mediator of a better covenant, which has been enacted on better promises”; and, “For the law made nothing perfect, but a better hope was brought in.” And again he says, “It was necessary, then, for the copies of the things in heaven to be purified with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.” So here and throughout he ascribes “better” to the Lord, who is better and other than things originated. For better is the sacrifice through him, better the hope in him, and the promises through him, not as great things compared with small ones, but as things different in nature from others, since the one who carried out this economy is better than things originated.

60. And the saying “he has become guarantor” again signifies the guarantee given by him on our behalf. For as, being the Word, he “became flesh,” and we attribute the “becoming” to the flesh (for it is originated and created), so here too we must take “he has become” in a secondary sense, because he became man. And let the contentious know that they fall away from this malicious idea of theirs as well. Let them hear that Paul, who knew him as Son, Wisdom, radiance, and image of the Father, does not signify that his substance came to be; here too he refers “becoming” to the ministry of the covenant, by which death, which once “reigned,” “was abolished.” For in this respect too the ministry through him has become better: “what the law could not do, because it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin: he condemned sin in the flesh,” removing from it the transgression by which it was always held captive, so that it could not receive the divine mind. And having made the flesh capable of receiving the Word, he has made us “no longer walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit,” and say again and again, “But we are not in the flesh but in the Spirit”; and that the Son of God came “into the world, not to judge the world, but” to redeem all, and “that the world might be saved through him.” For then the world, as liable, was judged by the law; but now the Word has taken the judgment on himself, and, having suffered in the body for all, has granted salvation to all. Seeing this, John cried out, “The law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” And grace is better than the law, and truth than the shadow.

61. So the “better,” as has been said, could not have come about through anyone else but the Son, “who sits at the right hand of the Father.” And what does this signify but the Son's genuineness, and that the Godhead of the Father is the Son's? For since the Son reigns with the Father's kingdom, he sits on the same throne as the Father; and being contemplated in the Father's Godhead, “the Word is God,” and “whoever sees the Son sees the Father”; and so there is one God. Sitting at the right hand, then, he does not make the Father left; but whatever is right and honorable in the Father, the Son also has, and he says, “All that the Father has is mine.” For this reason the Son, sitting at the right hand, also sees the Father at the right hand, even though, having become man, he says, “I saw the Lord always before me, for he is at my right hand, that I may not be shaken.” For in this too it is shown that the Son is in the Father and the Father in the Son. For since the Father is on the right, the Son is on the right; and since the Son sits at the right hand, the Father is in the Son. And the angels minister, going up and coming down; but of the Son it says, “And let all the angels of God worship him.” And when angels minister, they say, “I was sent to you,” and, “The Lord commanded”; but the Son, even though he says in a human way, “I was sent,” and comes “to complete the work” and “to serve,” nevertheless says, as being Word and image, “I am in the Father, and the Father is in me,” and, “He who has seen me has seen the Father,” and, “The Father who dwells in me does the works”; for what one contemplates in this image are the works of the Father. These things are enough to shame those who fight against the truth itself. But if, because it is written “having become better,” they do not want to hear “having become,” said of a Son, as equal to “having been” and “is,” nor to take and understand “having become” of the better ministry that came about, as we have said, but think that by this word the Word is called originated, let them hear these things again briefly, since they have forgotten what has been said.

62. If the Son is one of the angels, let “having become” be said of him as of them, and let him not differ from them at all in nature; but either let them too be “sons,” or let him be an “angel,” and let them all sit together at the right hand of the Father; or let the Son too stand with them all as a “ministering spirit, sent out for service,” just like them. But if Paul distinguishes the Son from things originated, saying, “For to which of the angels did he ever say, ‘You are my Son’?” and this one creates heaven and earth while they come to be through him, and he sits with the Father while they stand by ministering, to whom again is it not clear that he said “having become” not of the Word's substance, but of the ministry that came about through him? For as, being Word, he became flesh, so, having become man, “he became so much better” in his ministry than the ministry that came about through angels, as a son differs from servants and the creator from the things created. So let them stop taking “having become” of the Son's substance, for he is not one of the things originated; and let them know that “having become” indicates the ministry and the economy that came about. How he became better in ministry, being better in nature than things originated, what has been said above shows; and I think that even so they are put to shame. But if they keep contending, it would follow that we should close with their irrational daring and set against them similar texts said about the Father himself, so that either, put to shame, they may “keep their tongue from evil,” or they may know how deep in folly they are. It is written, then, “Become for me a protecting God and a house of refuge, to save me”; and again, “The Lord became a refuge for the poor”; and all such things as are found in the divine Scriptures. If, then, they say that these are said of the Son, which is perhaps nearer the truth, let them recognize that the saints ask him, who is not originated, to become their helper and house of refuge; and from now on let them take “having become,” “he made,” and “he created” of his coming in the flesh. For it was then that “he became” helper and house of refuge, when “he bore our sins in his own body on the tree,” and said, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

63. But if they say that the texts are said of the Father, will they, since here too “become” and “he became” are written, go so far as to say that God is originated? Yes, they will dare, just as they reason such things about his Word; for their logic leads them to suspect about the Father the same things they imagine about his Word. But may such a thing never even enter the mind of any of the faithful! For neither is the Son one of the things originated, nor do the words written and spoken here, “become” and “he became,” signify a beginning of being, but the help that “came about” for those in need. For God is always and the same; but men came to be afterwards through the Word, when the Father himself willed; and God is invisible and inaccessible to things originated, and especially to men on earth. When, then, men in weakness call on him, when being persecuted they ask for help, when wronged they pray, then the invisible one, being a lover of mankind, shines forth by his beneficence, which he performs through his own Word and in him. And then the manifestation of God comes to each according to his need: to the weak he “becomes” strength; to the persecuted a refuge and a house of salvation; and to the wronged he says, “While you are still speaking I will say, Here I am.” So whatever help comes to each person through the Son, each says that God “has become” this for him, since help comes from God himself through the Word. The usage of men knows this too, and anyone at all will agree that it is rightly said. Help has often come to men from men. One labored for someone wronged, as Abraham did for Lot; another opened his house to someone persecuted, as Obadiah did to the sons of the prophets; one gave rest to strangers, as Lot did to the angels; another supplied the needy, as Job did those who asked of him. So if each of those who had been helped were to say, “So-and-so became a helper to me,” and another, “And to me a refuge,” and, “to this one a supplier,” in saying this they would not be signifying the beginning of the origin or the substance of their benefactors, but the kindness that came to them from them. So when the saints say of God “he became” and “become,” they do not signify any beginning of origin (for God is without beginning and unoriginated), but the salvation that has come to men from him.

64. This being so understood, it would follow that in the case of the Son too, whatever and however often “he became” and “become” are said, the same meaning should be kept. So when we hear what is said, “having become better than the angels,” and “he became,” we should not imagine any beginning of the Word's coming to be, nor at all fancy from these words that he is originated, but understand what Paul says of the ministry and economy, when he became man. For when “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us,” and came “to serve” and to grant salvation to all, then he “became” salvation for us, became life, became propitiation; then his economy on our behalf “became better than the angels,” and he became the way and became the resurrection. And as “Become for me a protecting God” does not signify a coming into being of the substance of God himself, but his love for mankind, as has been said, so now too “having become better than the angels,” and “he became,” and “by so much Jesus has become a better guarantor,” do not signify that the substance of the Word is originated (far from it!), but the kindness that has come to us from his becoming man, even if the heretics are ungrateful and contentious for impiety.