Homilies and Sermons 24.0–24.4

Against the Sabellians, and Arius, and the Ano[moeans].

[1] Judaism fights against Hellenism, and both against Christianity, just as the Egyptians and the Assyrians were hostile both to one another and to Israel (as in vice too we find cowardice and rashness opposed both to each other and to courage). Such is the battle that lies on either side against the rightness of the confession: on one side that of Sabellius, on the other that of those who preach the “unlike.” But we, as we fled the Greeks and turned away from their wicked idolatry and condemned their polytheism as atheism, so we fled also the blasphemy of the Jews, who deny the Son of God, fearing that threat: “Whoever denies me before men, I too will deny him before my Father in heaven.” Let us flee, then, as is fitting, those too who invent against the word of truth things akin to these. For since the devil, wise to do evil, saw the estrangement of Christians from Greeks and Jews, and that from the names themselves we have at once … the name, so he tries to bring in again the Jewish denial and the Greek polytheism. For those who say that the Only-begotten is a work of God and a thing made, and then worship him and call him God, … of idolatry, by serving the creature and not the Creator, plainly bring in the things of the Greeks; while those who deny God from God, and confess the Son in name but in deed and truth reject his existence, renew Judaism. For when they confess the Word, they liken him to the inward word; and when they say Wisdom, they say it is like the habit established in the soul of the learned; and for this reason they say there is one person of Father and Son, since a man too is called one, not divided from the word and wisdom present in him. And yet the evangelist cries out at once from the beginning, “And the Word was God,” giving the Son his own existence. For if the Word were in the heart, how could he be conceived as God? And how could he be with God? For the word in a man is neither man, nor is it said to be with him, but in him. For it is neither living nor subsisting; but the Word of God is life and truth. Our word no sooner is spoken than it is not; but about the Word of God, what does the psalm say? “Forever, O Lord, your word abides in heaven.” On this side, then, is this war; on the other, who and what is the struggle against the truth? They grant the existence, and agree that the Son has his own person and the Father his own; but they bring in an unlikeness of nature. They grant the name of Son as far as the sound, but in truth bring it down to creation, not abashed at the voice of the Lord, who shows himself to the one eager to see the Father: “He who has seen me,” he says, “has seen the Father.” This saying, rightly considered, stops the blasphemies of both. For he does not say that he himself is the Father, he who clearly distinguishes the persons in saying, “He who has seen me.” For by this he shows his own person; “has seen the Father,” referring to the Father's person and clearly distinguishing it from himself; and again in saying, “If you had known me, you would have known my Father also.” These words do not show a confusion of the persons, but present the exact sameness of the divinity. Let the opponents too hear the same saying: that whoever has been counted worthy of fellowship with the Son is not deprived of the Father. For the begetter did not beget something different, but such as he himself is. Hear, Anomoean: “I and the Father are one.” Hear you too, Sabellian: “I …” And each of you receives his own wound from the Gospel: you, take “one” of the exact likeness of nature; you, take “I came forth from him and go to him” of the difference of the persons. Let us agree, then, on these things and make peace, and lay down the long war against piety, throwing away these sharpened weapons of impiety, and recasting the spears into ploughshares and the swords into sickles. Neither should you say “alone,” but follow the one who says, “I am not alone, for the Father who sent me is with me.” The Father who sent is one, then, and the Son who was sent is another. And again: “I bear witness,” he says, “about myself …” And, “In your law,” he says, “it is written that the testimony of two men is true.” Count the persons, if you like. “I,” he says, “am the one who bears witness”: one. “And the one who sent me bears witness about me”: two. And it is not I who count so daringly; the Lord himself taught it, saying, “In your law it is written that the testimony of two men is true.” And you, who fight against God with another kind of impiety, who say that the Son is unlike God in nature, who do not grant equality, who introduce a separation of life, be abashed before Paul, who says, “who is the image of the invisible God”; and grant that the living image is exactly like the archetypal life. Confess the Father of a Son, not the maker of a creature. And in the true confession of the Father grant to the one begotten his equal honor with him, remembering the testimony of the evangelist, that he called God his own Father, making himself equal to God. Equality with the begetter is understood according to nature, not according to a measurement of bodily size. And how did he not count it robbery to be equal to God, if, as you blaspheme, he was never equal? And how was he in the form of God, who by your account was never like him?

[3] Such, then, is the war on either side; but what is the truth? Neither should you fear the confession of the persons; say Father, say also Son, … being taught a proper meaning for each name. For it is a terrible ingratitude not to accept the teachings of the Lord, who clearly distinguishes for us the otherness of the persons. “For if I go away,” he says, “I will ask the Father, and he will send you another Paraclete.” So the Son is the one who asks, the Father the one who is asked, the Paraclete the one who is sent. Are you not plainly shameless, when you hear “I” of the Son, “he” of the Father, “another” of the Holy Spirit, and yet mix everything, confuse everything, and put all the names on one thing? But neither should you seize on the distinction of the persons as a prize for impiety. For even if they are two in number, they are not separated in nature; nor does one who says “two” bring in estrangement. God is one, because the Father too is one; and the Son is also God, and there are not two gods, since the Son has identity with the Father. For I do not see one divinity in the Father and another in the Son, nor one nature there and another here. So that the distinctive property of the persons may be clear to you, count the Father by himself and the Son by himself; but so that you may not be split off into polytheism, confess one essence in both. So both Sabellius falls and the Anomoean …

[4] When I say one essence, do not think of two divided off from one, but of the Son subsisting from the Father as principle; not of Father and Son from one essence lying above them. For we do not speak of brothers, but confess Father and Son. The identity of essence is there because the Son is from the Father, not made by a command, but begotten from his nature; not divided off from the Father, but shining forth perfect from the perfect, who remains. And do not, I pray, you who either did not follow what was said perfectly, or have stood around us in malice, not seeking to receive anything useful from us but watching to seize on something we say, run about and say, “He preaches two gods, he proclaims polytheism.” Not two gods; for not two fathers either. The one who brings in two principles preaches two gods. Such is Marcion, and anyone like him in impiety. And again, the one who says that the one begotten is of another essence than the begetter, he too speaks of two gods, bringing in polytheism through the unlikeness of essence. For if one divinity is unbegotten and another begotten, it is you who preach polytheism, saying that the unbegotten is contrary to the begotten, and evidently positing contrary essences too, if indeed the essence of the Father is ingeneracy and the essence of the Son is begottenness. So you speak not only of two gods, but of gods fighting one another; and what is most terrible, you ascribe the fight not to choice but to a natural opposition, which can never come to peace. But the word of truth has escaped the contradictions on either side. For where there is one principle, and one who is from it, and one archetype and one image, the account of unity is not destroyed. For the Son, existing from the Father by begetting, and by nature expressing the Father in himself, as image has exact likeness, and as offspring preserves the identity of essence. For neither does one who looks at the king's image in the marketplace and calls the one on the panel king confess two kings, the image and the one whose image it is; nor, if he points to the one painted on the panel and says, “This is the king,” has he deprived the original of the name of king. Rather, he has confirmed the honor of the original by confessing this one. For if the image is king, much more surely is the one who provides the image with its cause king. But here wood and wax and the painter's art make the image corruptible, an imitation of the corruptible, an artificial copy of what was made; there, when you hear “image,” understand the radiance of the glory. What is the radiance, and what is the glory? The Apostle himself interpreted at once, adding: “and the exact imprint of his hypostasis.” The hypostasis, then, corresponds to the glory, and the imprint to the radiance. So, the glory remaining perfect and in no way diminished, the radiance comes forth perfect. And so the account of the image, received in a manner fitting God, presents to us the unity of the divinity. For this one is in that one, and that one in this; for this one is such as that one, and that one such as this. So the two are one, by not differing, and by the Son's not being conceived according to another form and a foreign character. Again, then, I say: one and one, but the nature is God, since through both one form is contemplated, shown wholly in both. But I have long seen you impatient with the discourse, and I almost seem to hear that … I do not touch. For every ear is now eager to hear the words about the Holy Spirit. I should most have wished … to hand it on to the hearers so: not always being called to account about the same things, but having those taught persuaded by one confession. But … disciples, wishing to test us, not seeking to receive themselves, we must, as in a law court, put forward our defense, and always be examined, and always say what we have received. But we urge you not to seek by every means to hear from us what pleases you, but what is pleasing to the Lord, in agreement with the Scriptures and not in conflict with the Fathers. What we said, then, about the Son, that one must confess his own person, this we have to say about the Holy Spirit too. For the Spirit is not the same as the Father because it is written, “God is Spirit.” Nor again is there one person of the Son and the Spirit because it is said, “If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not his,” and “Christ in you.” For some have been deceived by this into thinking that the Spirit and Christ are the same. But what do we say? That the kinship of nature is shown here, not a confusion of persons. For the Father exists, having perfect and needless being, root and spring of the Son and the Holy Spirit; the Son exists, living Word in full divinity, needless offspring of the Father; and the Spirit too is full, not a part of another, but contemplated perfect and complete in himself. The Son is joined to the Father without interval, and the Spirit is joined to the Son. For there is nothing that divides or cuts the conjunction from eternity. For no age falls between, nor does our soul admit a notion of separation, as though the Only-begotten were not always with the Father, or the Holy Spirit did not coexist with the Son.

[5] When, then, we join the Trinity together, do not imagine the three as parts of one undivided thing (the thought is impious), but receive the inseparable union of three perfect incorporeal [persons]. For where the Holy Spirit is present, there is the dwelling of Christ; and where Christ is, there evidently the Father is present. “Do you not know that your bodies are a temple of the Holy Spirit within you?” And, “If anyone destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him.” Being sanctified through the Spirit, then, we receive Christ dwelling in our inner man, and with Christ the Father, who make their common dwelling with the worthy. This union is shown also by the tradition of baptism and by the confession of faith. For if he were alien in nature, how was the Spirit numbered with them? And if he came into being later in time than the Father and the Son, how was he ranked with the eternal nature? But those who separate the Spirit from the Father and the Son and number him with creation make baptism incomplete and the confession of faith deficient. For neither … And if again one thing from creation is attached, the whole creation will come into the counting with the Father and the Son. For what prevents our saying, “We believe in the Father and the Son and in all creation”? For if it is pious to believe in a part of creation, it is surely much more august to take the whole of creation into the confession. But believing in all creation, you believe not only in angels and the ministering spirits, but also in whatever opposing powers there are, since they too are part of creation, and you will join yourself with them in your faith. So blasphemy against the Spirit leads you round to impious and unlawful words. For as soon as you said what should not be said about the Spirit, the Spirit's forsaking of you marked you. For as one who has shut his eyes has darkness as his own, so one who has withdrawn from the Spirit, coming outside of what enlightens, … by the [blindness] of the soul …

[6] But do not separate the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son; let the tradition shame you. The Lord taught so, the apostles preached it, the Fathers kept it, martyrs confirmed it. Be content to speak as you were taught, and do not give me these clever things: “It is unbegotten or begotten. If unbegotten, it is the Father; if begotten, the Son; if neither of these, a creature.” I know the Spirit with the Father, but not as Father; and I have received him with the Son, but not named Son. I understand his kinship with the Father, since he proceeds from the Father; his kinship with the Son, since I hear, “If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not his.” For if he is not Christ's own, how does he make us Christ's own? And I hear also of the Spirit of truth; and the truth is the Lord. And when I hear “Spirit of adoption,” I come to the thought of his unity of nature with the Son and the Father. For how does what is foreign adopt? How does what is alien make one's own? So I neither innovate words nor reject his dignity; but I groan and lament over those who dare to call him a creature, because through a small sophism … pit. For since, he says, … the mind … does not come under this division of the things that are. “For it is either unbegotten,” he says, “or begotten, or created; but it is neither the first nor the second; therefore it is the third.” This “therefore” of yours will make you liable to the eternal curse. Have you searched out everything? Have you brought everything under division by your own reasonings? Have you left nothing unexamined? Have you grasped everything with your mind? Have you shut up everything in your own comprehension? Do you know the things under the earth? Do you know the things in the … But if you are ignorant of many things, and what is unknown is ten thousand times more than what is known, why do you not, together with everything else, confess without shame a harmless ignorance also about the manner of existence of the Holy Spirit? I have no leisure to refute the vanity of your reasonings, nor to show how many things among the things that are have escaped the grasp of your reasonings; but I would gladly ask those of you … you, when you call the Holy Spirit a creature. Do you not fear the unforgivable sin? Or what do you think could be blasphemed more impiously than this? For from this one word all the most terrible things arise: estrangement from God in nature itself, the lowliness of servitude, ministerial services, deprivation of sanctification, since it does not belong to him by nature; and it will befall the Spirit to share in sanctification from distribution by grace, as do all the other things that have been sanctified. And as the manifestation of the Spirit is given us for profit, and is measured out to each according to the proportion of faith, so the Spirit too will share in sanctification, if he is really created, according to the supposition of the Pneumatomachians.

[7] But let us not leave unrefuted the folly of those who think they have grasped everything with their own mind. Let them answer us, then: what is the essence of the sensible sun? Is it one of the four elements, or composed of the four? But it is neither earth, nor air, nor water, nor fire. For these move in a straight line, some carried upward, others downward: earth and water move downward because of their weight, air and fire upward because of their lightness; but the sun's motion is circular. So it is not one of the four. But neither is it composed of them; for composites are held together with toil, having their constitution from contraries, and the contraries pull against one another in their motion. But the sun's motion is untiring, and for this reason … and ceaseless. So it is not composite. But among bodies a thing is either simple or composite. The sun is neither a simple body, for it does not move in a straight line, nor composite, for it does not tire in moving. Therefore the sun does not exist. Such are your clever divisions, laughed at by those who have eyes. Again, how do we human beings see? By receiving the impressions of visible things, or by sending out a power from ourselves? But we neither receive the images of visible things (for how is the hemisphere of the heaven reflected in the small opening of the pupil?), nor do we send out anything from ourselves (for again, how does what is sent out suffice to spread over the heaven?). If we neither receive the images of visible things nor send out any power from ourselves, then we do not see. What then? … the conclusions are true? How does your [reasoning] about the Spirit differ from such arguments, which you display to the eunuchs of the women? Do not listen maliciously. If the Spirit is from God, how do you bring him under creation? For you will not say that all things too are from God. For as Christ is called God's, not a creature as we too are (“For we are Christ's, and Christ is God's”), but we are called Christ's in one way, as servants of a Master, and Christ is called God's in another, as Son of the Father; so too the Spirit is not God's in the way all things are, because all things are from God. For it is not because there are ministering spirits too that the Holy Spirit is already like them on account of the name. For there is one who is truly Spirit. As there are many sons, but one true Son, so, even if all things are said to be from God, yet properly the Son is from God, and the Spirit is from God. For the Son came forth from the Father, and the Spirit proceeds from the Father. But the Son is from the Father by begetting, while the Spirit is from God ineffably. See, then, how great is the danger of belittling the glory of the Paraclete. The Son does not accept the honor given to himself when the Spirit is rejected. “For he,” it says, “will glorify me,” not as a servant together with creation. For if he glorified him together with all, it would not have been said “he.” But now the reference to the one shows the glory offered beyond the others. Not as those who say, “Glory to God in the highest”; but as the one who said, “Father, I have glorified you; I have finished the work you gave me.” And as the Father glorifies the Son, saying, “I have glorified you, and will glorify again,” so also the Son takes the Spirit into fellowship with himself and the Father. Or let someone show me a greater glory than this, and I grant that the opponents are right in everything. “Whoever rejects you rejects me.” Why? Clearly because of the Spirit dwelling in them. So whoever does not honor the Spirit does not honor the Son; and whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father. So ingratitude toward any one of the objects of faith is a denial of the whole divinity. If the Spirit is created, he is not divine. But “the divine Spirit,” it says, “made me.” And, “God filled him,” it says, “with the divine Spirit of wisdom and understanding.” Where, then, do you find the divine to belong: to creation or to divinity? If to creation, you will call the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ a creature; for it is written about him, “his eternal power and divinity.” But if to divinity, cease from your blasphemy and recognize the dignity of the Spirit. Are you so senseless as not to be led even by the word itself to worthy notions of the Spirit? …