On the Trinity 3.16–3.18

Having resolved to fight for their heresy by every means, they also take in a way they should not Paul’s word to Timothy that says, “To the King of the ages, incorruptible, invisible, the only wise God, be honor and glory for ever. Amen”; and, “Who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light”; and the word that stands in the Gospel, “That they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent”; and the prophecy that declares, “I alone stretched out the heaven”; saying that the words “alone” and “true God” do not admit a second or third hypostasis, but refer to the Father alone. But the word “alone” and “one,” whenever it is said of the Trinity in Scripture, is used because the Trinity exists in a unity of Godhead and is said to have “monarchy.” Therefore this same “alone” mentions either that one hypostasis, or two together, or the three undefiled hypostases, or is used without distinction. Moreover, it was said in this way by contrast with the falsely named so-called gods, just as it always drives out the demonic rule of many, [to those] who heard, “You are gods”; so that we may no longer be enslaved under the weak, multiform, changeable, and diversely minded elements, scattering our thoughts upon this fornication, according to the one who says, “The first fornication is the devising of idols.” Besides this, the word “alone” and “one” does not fit a creature properly and absolutely, because it is something common to all or to many at once, since all have many of the same substance and the same species, as was said in the fourteenth chapter of the first book. And the words “who alone has immortality” and “to the invisible, only wise God” were written because no creature has immortality, invisibility, and wisdom from itself and in every way, but … being these things together with the Father and the Spirit, [gives] the existence of immortality and invisibility; as Paul writes to the Corinthians the first time: “What do you have that you did not receive? And if you received it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?” For this reason too these words do not properly suit a thing made. For what does not have immortality from within itself is mortal in potency, and could even be extinguished, if perhaps its maker should will it, as he said in the Gospel: “Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna.” … for ease of learning, to work out each saying separately. Now he wrote “To the King of the ages, incorruptible, invisible, only wise God” after narrating many things of the world earlier in the Letter, and he added this over against the whole narrative, as will be clear to everyone who attends to the sense of the Letter. And “who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light” he wrote with reference to creation, as has been said. For eternal life and incorruption are immortality; and the words “truth” and “wisdom” are equivalent to the terms “true” and “wise”; and these belong absolutely to God alone; but the Son and the Holy Spirit are attested to be these things. And if, just as the Father creates, sanctifies, and justifies, so the Only-begotten and the Spirit of God do too, then “alone,” “true,” “wise,” “invisible God,” and “who alone has immortality” will apply properly to the Son and to the Spirit of God, as to the Father; just as the Scripture that speaks of the Only-begotten will suit [the Father] too: “This is our God; no other will be reckoned beside him.” For in all respects, if I may put it so, in which the Father differs from creation, the Son and the Spirit of God likewise differ. For how then does the Father alone have the things mentioned, if what is written about the Son and the Holy Spirit is true, and, “As the Father has life, so he has given to the [Son …]” … will show? And “That they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” includes the Son as well, and shows him equal to the Father, with whom his Spirit too is understood. The sending shows the economy. And the word “I alone stretched out the heaven” is not the Father’s. Otherwise how is it true that all things came to be through the Son? Or let them know that something similar was said prophetically of the Son in Job: “Who alone stretched out the heaven, and walks on the sea as on dry ground.” For he, as is plain to all, always worked wonders, but not least in the incarnation, and walked on the water as on a plain.

The Son and the Holy Spirit are attested in this way in the other things mentioned too. Concerning the only true God: as when John in so many words declares of the Son that he is true God, and only-begotten God; Jude calls him the only Master; and the prophet says, “You are the God who does wonders; you alone are the great God”; and elsewhere: “One Holy, one Lord Jesus Christ.” And concerning the Holy Spirit: as when Paul, full of understanding, testifies that it is the Spirit of God the Father, as our spirit is ours. And again he writes: “All these are worked by one and the same Spirit, distributing to each individually as it wills.” Concerning wisdom: as when [Paul says] of the [Son], “Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God,” and, “In whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” And David sings, “How great are your works, O Lord! You made all things in wisdom.” And as Isaiah prophesies, “And he, being wise, brought evils upon them.” And concerning the Holy Spirit: as when Isaiah [speaks of] “the Spirit of God, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and godliness.” Concerning incorruption and immortality something has been said already, but it is not out of place to set out other texts too: as when David sings of the soul-giving Only-begotten, whose eye and hearing, justice and love for humankind preside everywhere: “You are the same, and your years will not fail”; and, “For ever, O Lord, your word abides in heaven.” And concerning the Holy Spirit, who nourishes all things and shines on them with divine rays, even upon those who fall away …: “[your incorruptible Spirit] is in all things.”

To those who say, “Are not souls and angels, then, immortal and invisible?” one must answer thus. As to immortality, first in one way: their immortality in no way shares in the primordial and infinite immortality, but is inferior to it and distinguished from it as much as the thing made from its Maker. For this reason God was said to have immortality alone, as is easy to see if we bear in mind that none of these can either create or bestow immortality, as the only invisible and eternal Only-begotten and the Holy Spirit create and make [beings] immortal. In another way: souls and angels are both immortal, by the indestructibility and incorruptibility of their substance, and mortal, by being at times corrupted in will. For through change they sometimes fall into sin, from which death comes; in this sense Paul writes, “And the self-indulgent widow is dead,” though she has not yet departed this life, as was already explained in the book on the Holy Spirit. For mortal is opposed to immortal, and correspondingly immortal to mortal; and in the case of souls and angels “immortal” is understood when, besides not admitting death, that is, not being dissolved (since they are incomposite and indestructible in existence), they also do not fall into corruption of will, that is, if they remain unchanging; and “mortal” in the opposite case. In general such people seem not to know about statements that convert, and that not everything predicated of certain things under the same name converts. For God is in every way immortal; but what is immortal is not thereby God. As to invisibility: souls and angels are invisible to the eye of our body, being outside the visible properties (I mean color, shape, size), but visible to the mind, which is the eye of the soul; since they are not unattainable, being created in their existence, but we have a conception of them. So even if they are invisible to the impression of the eye’s sense, yet they are visible to the grasp of scientific contemplation. But God, who is above the invisible and the most hidden and above every mind, is by nature such as not only not to fall under sight, or sense at all, but not even to be discerned by the mind of the angels themselves, because he is incomprehensible and unapproachable. For that God is, is known to all; but what he is, or how he exists, to contemplate … of all natural things, in the manner mentioned: “the only immortal and wise God, and invisible.”

And indeed the blameless and unimpeachable words of the Lord of all in John, which say, “As the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself; and he has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man”; and again, “They were yours, and you gave them to me”; and again, “All things have been handed over to me by my Father”; and again …; and David’s words, “Ask of me, and I will give you the nations as your inheritance, and the ends of the earth as your possession”; and all such things, show the unspeakable economy. And what makes this still more unassailable, and compels everyone, at least those not wholly lifeless, to agree with us, is the addition that follows at once: “because he is the Son of Man.” For he was kindly disposed toward our race, and of his own will became poor in the flesh, as Paul writes, so that we, who are subject to all kinds of harm and change through both the ancient sin and the recent ones, might become rich by his poverty; and adapting himself suitably to all, he used the language familiar to us, so that we might understand the economy, [and not be overwhelmed] by the grandeur of …, … the wonders alone displaying his beginningless and self-sufficient Godhead; so that, speaking modestly, he even says: “The foxes of the field have holes, and the birds of heaven have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” For it was not fitting that the Master should possess anything on earth as his own. And in another way [it befitted] God, for whom display and contention with men were never …, … useful, and in no way harming his most serene and all-embracing nature, but benefiting us. For he always looks not to his own height, but to the lowliness of men. I will take him as my helper when he says to Peter: “But so that we may not give offense to them, go to the sea, cast a hook, and take the first fish that comes up; and when you open its mouth you will find a stater; take that and give it to them for me and for yourself.” But it is not right for a man to let fall words that befit God; for a king it is especially fitting to speak modestly (for he reaps greater glory from it, and the summit of honor is referred to him), but for a subject to utter royal words is unprofitable. … his words; and if he were a creature, again the lofty things he uttered would have no place. For how could life receive life, or how could he receive authority who according to Isaiah is God, mighty, holder of authority, who by his own authority gives life and being even to those who can die, who entrusted to Peter the keys of heavenly life? For the Apostle too cries out that “he did not count being equal to God a thing to be grasped,” in place of: he did not snatch, did not receive, being equal to God the Father. But if it had indeed been said of the Son’s Godhead, they ought to understand it thus: that in the same way as God’s “having life” does not show that he possesses something other than himself, as though he did not have it without beginning, but that he himself is what he is said to have, in the same way the Son’s having received life does not signify that he does not have it by nature. For the words “as he has” and “so he has given” show this: that the Son has life just as the Father has it without receiving it; and one must take, in a manner worthy of God, both “having life” and “in himself” of the Father, and “has given him” and “to have in himself” of the Son, … and rather to behold, from the necessity of the matter, the divine authority of the Son and the one will in both. For the life which he says the Father and the Son have in themselves is the one, super-substantial substance, and not one thing found in another; hence he said, “I am the life”; so that from this too it appears that the substance of the Son is not other than the substance of the Father. For if he is the life, and the Father has the same life, what else is found but that he is consubstantial? And if he is the life, how could he receive what he is? “But if he had it,” he says, “how did he receive it?” These too are trifles. For like receives from like, not to say that sometimes even a greater receives from a lesser, and the right hand from the left; and we know that some who were allotted judgment equally have at times yielded to one of them, even one placed above them; and it is customary to say, “They gave this man alone the matter to judge,” though he had the authority, and probably more of it. Accordingly he did not say, “What he does not have, he received”; rather the same evangelist also says, “He came to his own, and his own did not receive him; but to all who received him he gave power to become children of God.” By such words he showed not only that creation is the Son’s own, but also that the Son gives to the Father those who receive him, that is, those who believe, benefiting them everywhere, both as they receive him and as they are presented to the Father himself; for though they are of the world, he makes them by his own one [grace] citizens of heaven. And how do we too offer to God again what is God’s? Or how do we send up glory to him? Do we then give him what he does not have, or what he is not? It is enough, then, to answer them that he received in the way that he became poor willingly and became a curse. For what would they say if they were asked in turn: … and the true light and immortality, how did he become poor? Or how did the blessing become a curse for our sake?

So too might be understood what was said to the apostles in John: “If you loved me, you would have rejoiced that [I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I]” … according to the Godhead, he who said, “I am in the Father and the Father in me,” and, “The Father who dwells in me does the works,” and, “He who sent me is with me”? He of whom it is attested that “he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant,” and that “he was in the world, and the world came to be through him”? For one who sends, sends to a place where the sender and the one sent are not. But God is present everywhere and holds all things together, having grasped creation, neither going away nor coming back again, nor exchanging one place for another. For the sacred psalmist says: “The Lord is near to those who fear him”; and again: “If I go up to heaven, you are there; if I go down to Hades, [you are there; if I take my wings at dawn and] dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, and your right hand will hold me.” And Jeremiah: “I fill heaven and earth, says the Lord.” And the Acts: “Indeed he is not far from each one of us; for in him we live and move and have our being; as even some of your own poets have said” … “The Lord is near to all who call upon him” … “For we are also his offspring”; “and he, kindly to men …” And the Master himself explains that he never stripped the heavens of his presence, just as he does not now, after the ascension, leave the earth: “For behold,” he says, “I am with you always, to the end of the age”; confirming what was said by the sacred herald in the tenth psalm, by which he proclaimed that he is on earth and also sits in heaven on the divine throne; for he says: “The Lord is in his holy temple; the Lord, his throne is in heaven.” If this is so, then beyond dispute he said “I am going” and “he who sent me” as having taken the form of a servant, and because the Jews disbelieved the economy, and because he appeared in concord with God the Father; and not for this reason only, but also [to refute] those dull of mind who think of [him] as at once Father and Paraclete; and with them Mani too, who does not accept the Old Testament, but calls the Father inhuman, as having cast Adam out of paradise, and the Son alone loving to humankind, as having come of himself and saved. For how shall we owe thanks to Christ alone, since the Father too sent him? Scripture is accustomed to use the words “he who sent” and “he was sent” of the ineffable condescension; and as it was impossible for mortal speech to comprehend the uncontainable, so also it tells the story with an economy of words, so that no one might suspect that one God was opposed to another; since indeed “All things are full of God,” as has been said. To this the ever-living voice bears witness, saying, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this on account of the crowd standing around, that they may believe that you sent me”; that is: I knew that you always [hear me; but on account of the] crowd standing around, that they may believe, I said, “Father, I thank you,” that you sent me. He uttered the words in inverted order, acting cautiously, because … as also, concerning the Forerunner, who proclaimed the economy, [the evangelist] said: “There was a man sent from God”; and yet he was not sent from heaven. …

It is written that God is sent even by a man, and is named a man, while suffering no harm at all to his divine and true glory; as Moses says in Genesis: “And he crossed the brook and brought across all that he had. And Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until morning. And he saw that he could not [prevail against] Jacob in the wrestling, and he said to him, Send me away, for the dawn has come up. But he said, I will not send you away unless you bless me. And he said to him, What is your name? And he said, Jacob. And he said to him, Your name will no longer be called Jacob, but Israel shall be your name, because you have prevailed with God, and you will be strong with men. And Jacob asked and said, Tell me your name. And he said, Why do you ask my name? And he blessed him there. And Jacob called the name of that place Form of God; for I saw God face to face, and my soul was saved.” And that the one who wrestled and did not tell his name is God, the pro[phecy … shows: “I appeared to Abraham, Isaac,] and Jacob, your fathers, being their God, and my name I did not make known to them.”

And how is [the Father] greater according to the Godhead than him who made himself equal to the Father, who says, “I and the Father are one,” who is attested to be true God and Son and Only-begotten, “in whom dwells all the fullness of the Godhead,” and “great God, beside whom no other will be reckoned,” and as sitting together at the right hand? But confessedly “greater” too extends to the incarnation, because of which he who is wholly without share in change is written by the Apostle to have been made lower even than the angels, if it is right to say so, thus: “But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, because of the suffering of death …” … [not in the glory of the] heavens, but in the form of a servant on earth, when he came forth unchangeably from the Virgin, he said, “The Father who sent me is greater than I”; as if he said: the Godhead, unseen by you and by every mind, is greater than my visible condescension. For he who condescended in deed, serving and not being served, bearing the form of a servant, he who was in the form of God, how would he not condescend in words too, he who is above every word? So much so that in John he reproaches those who take the words of the economy in a mean sense, saying, “I honor my Father, and you dishonor me.” And the Father too honors the Son, saying, “Sit at my right hand,” and indeed drawing the worthy to him. And this very thing, calling God Father with confidence, shows that “greater” refers to the incarnation. It is easier, too, to establish from an example that “greater” was not said according to the Godhead. For the Lord says: “Truly I say to you, among those born of women there has not arisen one greater than John the Baptist.” But he did not say that John was greater as being of another, greater nature, or above men in that respect; for all who laid claim to virtue either equalled him or fell somewhat short; nor as being stronger in power, or as having been born longer ago; for he remained in the life of this world thirty years, and there were those who surpassed him in bodily strength and in number of years. He did not call him better than men in this respect, but in prophecy, which he received in a most inspired way. And again: “But he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.” He spoke of John the apostle, who was younger in years than John the Forerunner, but greater in the dignity of apostleship. “For God appointed in the Church,” as Paul writes, “first apostles, then prophets.” And he said “least in the kingdom of heaven” because the names of all the living are written in a book, and fittingly his name, as of one born later, is placed after. But some have understood this passage of the Master: least according to the form of a servant, in which he was suspected to be inferior to prophets and priests, but greater according to the Godhead. So in these respects too “greater” and “he who sent” bring no diminution to his consubstantiality with the Father. And, as was said a little earlier, one who uses refinement of words, and who always assigns first place to himself and demands honor, seems somehow to have conceit; and conceit is a kind of pride. And God has dishonored nothing more than pride; for God does not care more for the greater, but perhaps rather for the lesser. For he has the “greater” once for all as innate, even if he himself does not say it; and none of the right-minded disputes about this. For this reason he says, “If I bear witness to myself, my witness is [not true]” …. But so that this too might not be thought to come from his smallness, he says elsewhere, “Even if I bear witness [about myself, my witness is true]” … of “greater,” that it was said neither according to substance, nor power, nor the glory above. And those esteemed among the Greeks say: “God immortal, most high, dwelling in the aether …”