Oration III Against the Arians 53–63

(And what is the advance spoken of, except, as I said before, the deification and grace imparted by Wisdom to human beings, sin and the corruption in them being abolished according to the likeness and kinship of the flesh of the Word?) For so, as the body grew in stature, the manifestation of the Godhead also increased in it, and it was shown to all that it is a temple of God, and that God was in the body. And if they contend that it was “the Word who became flesh” who was called “Jesus,” and refer the saying “advanced” to him, let them hear that neither does this diminish the Father's light (for this is what the Son is), but rather shows again that the Word became man and bore true flesh. And as we said that he suffered “in the flesh,” and hungered “in the flesh,” and toiled “in the flesh,” so too it might fittingly be said that he advanced “in the flesh.” For the advance of which we have spoken did not happen with the Word outside; for the flesh that advanced was in him, and is called his; and this, again, so that the advance of human beings might remain unfailing because of the Word who is with it. So neither was the advance the Word's, nor was the flesh Wisdom; but the flesh became Wisdom's body. Therefore, as we said before, it was not Wisdom, as Wisdom, that advanced by itself; but the human advanced in Wisdom, gradually rising above human nature and being deified, and becoming and appearing to all as Wisdom's instrument for the working of the Godhead and its shining forth. That is why he did not say, “The Word advanced,” but “Jesus,” which is the name by which the Lord was called when he became man; so that the advance belongs to human nature, as we said above.

So, as, when the flesh advanced, he himself is said to advance because of his possessing the body as his own, so too the things said about the time of his death, his being troubled and his weeping, must be taken in the same sense. For, going round up and down, and as though constructing their heresy again from these things, they say, “See, he wept, and said, ‘Now my soul is troubled,’ and he entreated that ‘the cup might pass’; how, then, if he said these things, is he God and Word of the Father?” Yes, it is written that “he wept,” you fighters against God, and that he said, “I am troubled,” and on the cross he said, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani,” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”; and he entreated that the cup might pass; for these things are written. But I would like you to answer again (for it is necessary to counter each of your objections in the same way): if the one speaking is a mere man, let him weep and fear death, as a man; but if he is the Word in flesh (for one must not shrink from always saying the same things), whom, being God, had he to fear? Or why did he fear death, being himself life and delivering others from death? Or how, saying, “Do not fear those who kill the body,” did he himself fear? And how did he who says to Abraham, “Do not fear, for I am with you,” and encourages Moses against Pharaoh, and says to the son of Nun, “Be strong and of good courage,” himself shrink from Herod and Pilate? Then, becoming a helper to others so that they should not fear (“The Lord,” it says, “is my helper; I will not fear what man shall do to me”), did he himself fear governors, mortal men? Did he who came against death himself shrink from death? And how is it not absurd and impious to say that he shrank from death or Hades, he at whom “the gatekeepers of Hades cowered when they saw him”? But if, on your view, the Word shrank, why, having spoken long before about the plot of the Jews, did he not flee, but when sought said, “I am he”? For he could have not died, as he said: “I have authority to lay down my life, and I have authority to take it again,” and “No one takes it from me.”

But these things were not proper by nature to the Word, as Word; rather, the Word was in the flesh that suffered such things, you Christ-fighters and ungrateful Jews. For these things were not said before the flesh; but when the Word became flesh and became man, then these things are written as said in human fashion. Indeed, he about whom these things are written himself raised Lazarus from the dead, and made the water wine, and granted sight to the man blind from birth, and said, “I and the Father are one.” If, then, they make the human things a pretext for thinking lowly of the Son of God, or rather for thinking him wholly a man from earth and not from heaven, why do they not also recognize from the divine works the Word who is in the Father, and henceforth renounce their own impiety? For they can see how the one who does the works is the same one who shows his body to be passible, by allowing it to weep and hunger and letting the properties of the body appear in him. For by such things he made known that, being impassible God, he had taken passible flesh; and by the works he showed himself to be the Word of God, who afterwards became man, saying, “‘Even if you do not believe me,’ seeing me clothed with a human body, yet ‘believe the works, so that you may know that I am in the Father and the Father in me.’” The Christ-fighters seem to me to have reached utter shamelessness and blasphemy. For when they hear, “I and the Father are one,” they force themselves to misinterpret the sense and to divide the unity of the Father and the Son; but when they hear that he wept, sweated, suffered, they do not look to the body, but on that account number with creation him through whom creation came to be. How, then, do these men differ any longer from the Jews? For as those, blaspheming, ascribed the works of God to Beelzebul, so these too, numbering with the creatures the Lord who did these works, will undergo the same unpardonable condemnation.

They ought, when they hear, “I and the Father are one,” to see the one Godhead and what is proper to the Father's substance; and when they hear “he wept” and the like, to say that these are proper to the body, especially since in each case they have a reasonable ground: the one is written as of God, the other is said because of his human body. For the things of the body would not have happened in one without a body, had he not taken a body that was corruptible and mortal; for holy Mary, from whom the body came, was mortal. That is why, since he came to be in a body that suffered, wept, and toiled, these things too, which are proper to the flesh, must be said of him together with the body. If, then, he wept and was troubled, it was not the Word, as Word, who wept and was troubled, but this was proper to the flesh; and if he entreated that the cup might pass, it was not the Godhead that shrank, but this passion too was proper to the humanity. And the saying, “Why have you forsaken me?”—the evangelists have recorded these things nevertheless as his, according to what was said before, although he suffered nothing (for the Word was impassible); since the Lord became man, and these things are done and said as by a man, so that he himself, lightening these sufferings of the flesh, might make it free of them. Hence the Lord cannot be forsaken by the Father, since he is always in him, both before he spoke and when he uttered this cry. Nor, again, is it right to say that the Lord shrank, he at whom “the gatekeepers of Hades cowered” and let Hades go; and “the tombs were opened, and many bodies of the saints arose, and appeared” to their own people. Let every heretic, then, be muzzled, and fear to say that the Lord shrank, he from whom death flees like a serpent, before whom demons tremble and the sea is afraid; because of whom the heavens are rent and all the powers are shaken. For see, when he said, “Why have you forsaken me?”, the Father showed that he was in him then too, as always. For the earth, recognizing its Master who spoke, at once trembled, and the veil was rent, and the sun was hidden, and the rocks were split, and the tombs, as I said before, were opened, and the dead in them were raised; and, what is wonderful, those who were present then and had denied him before, seeing these things afterwards, confess that “truly this is the Son of God.”

And as for his saying, “If it is possible, let the cup pass,” learn how, having said this, he rebuked Peter, saying, “You are not thinking the things of God, but the things of men.” For he willed what he asked to be spared, and it was for this that he had come; but the willing was his (for he came for this), while the shrinking belonged to the flesh; that is why he spoke such a word as man. And again, both were said by the same one, to show that he was God, himself willing, but that, having become man, he had flesh that shrank, and because of it he mingled his own will with human weakness, so that, doing away with this too, he might once more make man courageous in the face of death. See, then, a truly paradoxical thing: he whom the Christ-fighters think spoke from cowardice, by this supposed cowardice made human beings courageous and fearless. The blessed apostles after him, at any rate, came so to despise death through such words that they did not even care about those who “examined” them, but said, “We must obey God rather than men”; and the other holy martyrs were so courageous that they thought they were passing into life rather than enduring death. How, then, is it not absurd to admire the courage of the Word's servants, and yet say that the Word himself shrank, he because of whom they despised death? From the most steadfast purpose and courage of the holy martyrs it is shown that it was not the Godhead that shrank, but that the Saviour was taking away our shrinking. For as he “destroyed” death by death, and in human fashion all human things, so by his supposed shrinking he took away our shrinking and made human beings no longer fear death. He said these things, then, and at the same time acted. For to say, “Let the cup pass,” and “Why have you forsaken me?” was human; but divinely the same one made the sun fail and the dead rise. And again, while saying humanly, “Now my soul is troubled,” he also said divinely, “I have authority to lay down my life, and I have authority to take it again.” For to be troubled was proper to the flesh; but to have authority to lay down the life and take it up when he wills is no longer proper to human beings but belongs to the power of the Word. For a man dies not by his own authority, but by necessity of nature and unwillingly; but the Lord, being himself immortal but having mortal flesh, had it in his power, as God, to be separated from the body and to take it up again when he willed. Of this David too sings: “You will not abandon my soul to Hades, nor let your holy one see corruption.” For it was fitting that the flesh, being corruptible, should no longer remain mortal according to its own nature, but should remain incorruptible because of the Word who put it on. For as he, having come to be in our body, took on what is ours, so we, receiving him, partake of the immortality that comes from him.

In vain, then, do the Ariomaniacs pretend to be scandalized and think little of the Word because it is written “he was troubled” and “he wept.” For they seem not even to have human sense, since they are ignorant of human nature and its properties; for these very things they ought rather to marvel that the Word was in such suffering flesh, and neither hindered those who plotted against him nor took vengeance on those who killed him, though he could—he who prevented others from dying and raised the dead from the dead—but allowed his own body to suffer. For this is why he came, as I said before: to suffer in the flesh, so that thereafter the flesh might be made impassible and immortal; and so that, as we have often said, these outrages and happenings, reaching him, might no longer touch human beings, but be completely abolished by him; and so that thereafter they might remain incorruptible for ever, as a temple of the Word. If the Christ-fighters had understood these things in this way, and had recognized the church's scope as an anchor of the faith, they would not have “made shipwreck concerning the faith,” nor been so shameless as to resist those who wish to raise them from their fall, and rather to consider as enemies those who admonish them toward piety. But, as it seems, the heretic is truly a wicked thing, and has a heart corrupted in every way toward impiety. For see, refuted on every point and shown to be destitute of all understanding, they are not ashamed; but as the beast called the hydra in the Greek myths, when the first serpents were killed, brought forth other serpents, contending against the one who killed them by putting forth others, in the same way the fighters against God and God-haters, like hydras, falling in soul over the objections they put forward, invent for themselves other Jewish and foolish questions; and as though they held the truth as an enemy, they devise newer things, so as to show themselves Christ-fighters in everything.

For after so many refutations of them, at which even the devil himself, their father, would have gone back ashamed, again, as though devising from their crooked heart, they grumble, whispering to some and buzzing around others like gnats, saying, “Granted, you interpret these things so, and you prevail in arguments and proofs; but one must say that the Son came into being by the Father's counsel and will.” For by this too they deceive many, putting forward God's counsel and will. If one of those who believe rightly said this in simplicity, there would be nothing to suspect in what was said, since the orthodox mind would prevail over the simpler wording; but since the phrase comes from heretics, and the words of heretics are suspect, and, as it is written, “the impious steer deceits,” and “their words are deceitful,” even if they only nod, since their heart is corrupt, come, let us examine this saying too, lest, refuted on every point, they have now, like hydras, devised a newer phrase, so as by such fine talk and plausible stealth to sow their impiety again in another way. For he who says “the Son came into being by will” means the same as he who says “there was once when he was not,” and “the Son came into being from nothing,” and “he is a creature.” But since they were ashamed to say these things, the crafty men tried to signify them again in another way, putting forward “will,” as cuttlefish put forth their ink, so as to darken the simple by it, while they themselves do not forget their own heresy. For from where do they get “by counsel and will,” or from what Scripture do they put forward such things again? Let those tell us whose words are suspect and who are inventors of impiety. For the Father, revealing his own Word from heaven, showed that “this is my beloved Son”; and through David he said, “My heart has uttered a good Word”; and he commanded John to say, “In the beginning was the Word”; and David, singing, says, “For with you is the fountain of life, and in your light we shall see light”; and the apostle writes, “who, being the radiance of glory,” and again, “who, being in the form of God,” and “who is the image of the invisible God.”

Everywhere all of them speak of the Word's “being,” and nowhere do they say that he was “made” from “will,” or made at all; where, then, did these men find “a will or wish preceding” the Word of God—unless indeed, abandoning the Scriptures, they are playing the part of Valentinus's ill will too? For Ptolemy, the disciple of Valentinus, said that the unoriginate has two consorts, Thought and Will; that first he thought, then he willed; and that what he thought he could not put forth until the power of will came upon him. From there the Arians learned it, and want will and counsel to precede the Word. Let them, then, emulate the teachings of Valentinus; but we, reading the divine words, found “was” said of the Son, and heard that he alone is in the Father and is the Father's image; but only of originated things, since by nature they once were not but came to be afterwards, have we read of a preceding counsel and will, David singing in the hundred and thirteenth psalm thus: “But our God is in heaven and on earth; he has done whatever he willed”; and in the hundred and tenth: “Great are the works of the Lord, sought out in all his wills”; and again in the hundred and thirty-fourth: “Whatever the Lord willed he did, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and in all the deeps.” If, then, he is a work and a thing made, and one of all things, let him too be said to have come into being “by will”; for so Scripture has shown that things made come into being. And Asterius, the advocate of the heresy, agreeing with this, writes thus: “For if it is unworthy of the Creator to make by willing, let willing be removed equally in every case, so that his dignity may be kept intact; or if it befits God to will, let the better thing belong also to the first offspring. For it is not possible for one and the same God that willing should be fitting in the case of the things made, and not willing also be suitable.” The sophist, having packed a great deal of impiety into his words—that offspring and thing made are the same, and that the Son is one out of all the offspring that exist—concluded this: that it is fitting to speak of things made as coming by counsel and will.

If, then, he is other than all things, as was shown in what came before, and rather the works came into being through him, let him not be said to be “by will,” lest he too come into being in the way the things that came into being through him came to subsist. For Paul, not existing before, afterwards became “an apostle through the will of God”; and our calling, since it too once was not but has now come about, has a will that preceded it, and, as Paul himself says again, it came about “according to the good pleasure of his will.” And what is said through Moses, “Let there be light,” and “Let the earth bring forth,” and “Let us make man,” signifies, I think, as was also said before, the will of the maker. For the things that once were not but come to be from outside, the Creator deliberates to make; but his own Word, begotten from him by nature, he does not deliberate beforehand; for in him the Father makes the other things that he deliberates, and in him he creates; as James the apostle too taught, saying, “Having willed, he brought us forth by the Word of truth.” So God's will concerning all things, both those “born again” and those made once for all, is in the Word, in whom he both makes and regenerates what he has resolved; and this again the apostle indicates, writing to Thessalonica, “For this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” And if the will is in him in whom God makes, and the will of the Father is in Christ, how can he himself come into being by counsel and will? For if he too came into being by will, on your view, the will concerning him must also subsist in some other Word, through whom he too comes into being; for it has been shown that God's will is not in the things that come into being, but in him “through whom” and “in whom” all things made come into being. Then, since it is the same to say “by will” and “there was once when he was not,” let them be content to say “there was once when he was not,” so that, ashamed because times are signified by it, they may know that in saying “by will” too they signify times before the Son; for deliberation precedes the things that once were not, as with all creatures. But if the Word is the creator of the creatures, and himself coexists with the Father, how can deliberation precede him who is eternally, as though he were not? For if counsel precedes, how are “all things through him”? Rather, he too would be one of all things, a Son “brought forth” by will, as we too became sons “by the Word of truth”; and then we must, as has been said, seek another Word, through whom this one too came into being and was brought forth together with all the things that God willed.

If, then, there is another Word of God, let this one too have come into being by a Word; but if there is no other (and there is not), but “all things came into being through him” that the Father has willed, how is the many-headed knavery of these men not exposed? For, put to shame at saying that the Word of God is “a work” and “a creature” and “was not before he was begotten,” they say again in another way that he is a creature, putting forward “will,” and saying, “If he did not come into being by will, then God had a Son by necessity and unwillingly.” And who imposed the necessity on him, you most wicked men, who drag everything toward your heresy? For they have seen what is opposed to will, but have not perceived what is greater and lies above it. For as what is against one's inclination is opposed to will, so what is by nature lies above and precedes deliberation. A man builds a house by deliberating, but begets a son by nature; what is built by will began to come into being and is outside its maker, but the son is the proper offspring of the father's substance and is not outside him; that is why he does not deliberate about him, lest he seem to deliberate about himself. As far, then, as the son is above the creature, so far is what is by nature above what is by will; and on hearing this they ought not to reckon what is by nature under will. But they, forgetting that it is about the Son of God that they are hearing, dare to speak of human opposites in the case of God, “necessity” and “against one's inclination,” so as to deny that the Son of God is true Son. For let them tell us themselves: does God's being good and merciful belong to him from will, or not by will? If from will, one must consider that he began to be good, and that his not being good is possible; for deliberating and choosing can lean either way, and this is a property of a rational nature. But if, because of the absurdity that follows, he is good and merciful not from will, let them hear what they themselves said: “then he is good by necessity and unwillingly.” And who imposed the necessity on him? But if it is absurd to speak of necessity in God, and for this reason he is good by nature, much more, and more truly, would he be Father of the Son by nature and not from will.

Let them tell us this too (for against their shamelessness I wish to bring yet another question, a bolder one, but one that nevertheless looks to piety—be gracious, O Master): does the Father himself exist in this way, having first deliberated and then willed, or does he exist even before deliberating? For since they dare such things about the Word, they must also hear such things, so that they may know that such rashness of theirs reaches even to the Father himself. If, then, they say (having once deliberated about will) that he too exists from will, what then was he before deliberating? Or what more did he gain, as you say, after deliberating? But if such a question is absurd and incoherent, and it is not at all right to say such things (for it is enough for us, merely hearing about God, to know and understand that he is “He who is”), how would it not be irrational to entertain such thoughts about the Word of God, and to put forward “counsel and will”? For it is enough for us, merely hearing about the Word too, to know and understand that God, who does not exist from will, has his own Word not by will but by nature. And how does it not exceed all madness even to imagine that God himself deliberates, and considers, and chooses, and urges himself to will, so that he may not be without Word and without wisdom, but may have Word and Wisdom? For he who deliberates about what is proper to his own substance seems to deliberate about himself. Since, then, there is great blasphemy in such thinking, it would be piously said that originated things came into being by good pleasure and will, but that the Son is not a product of will that came into being afterwards, like creation, but by nature the proper offspring of the substance. For being the Father's own Word, he does not allow anyone to reckon any “will” before himself, since he himself is the living counsel of the Father, and power, and creator of the things that seem good to the Father. And this he says of himself in the Proverbs: “Mine are counsel and security, mine is understanding, and mine is strength.” For as, being himself the understanding in which “he prepared the heavens,” and being himself strength and power (for “Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God”), he now, with a change of phrase, said, “mine is understanding, and mine is strength,” so in saying “mine is counsel” he would himself be the living counsel of the Father; as we have also learned from the prophet that he becomes “the angel of great counsel,” and he himself was called the will of the Father. For so one must refute them, since they think human thoughts about God.