On the Trinity 1

I. The Arian impiety asserts many things with us in the same words, but not in the same sense, when it is called to confess the divine faith. For with the same expressions as we use, it speaks of God the Father and God the Son, and of all things made by God the Father through the Son, and of the Son begotten before the ages. But although it agrees with us in these words, it nevertheless breaks away from the pious sense of the catholic church by sacrilegious interpretations of the words, so speaking of the Father as not truly having begotten, and so declaring the Son that with them he is son by adoption, not by nature—that is, taken up from elsewhere into the name of son, not truly begotten of God the Father. For though it admits that the Son was born before the ages, it nevertheless ascribes a beginning to him by saying, "There was when he was not." And it says that all things were made through him in such a way that it asserts he was put in place from nothing existing, because it has presumed that he was not truly begotten of God the Father. And hence it wants people to be persuaded that Christ is indeed God, but not true God, since a beginning is assigned to him; and Son indeed, but so that he is understood to have been made, not born—since he was not truly born of the Father but put in place from nothing. For this reason too it believes him mutable, because in its faith he is not truly God, not a true Son. And to commend these impious meanings to the ignorant or simple, it also brings, as it thinks, testimonies of the divine Scriptures, saying that it is proved from the person of Wisdom: "The Lord created me the beginning of his ways for his works." And the apostle confirms that Christ is wisdom, saying: "Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God." It is established, then, that Christ, who is wisdom by the apostle's interpretation, is a creature; "and now," it says, "it follows that he is not true God, being a creature; nor a true Son, not being begotten of God but created; there was, then, when he was not."

II. These are the weapons of wickedness set forth, against which we are challenged to go, so that the impiety of the opposing assertion may be exposed—not indeed, as we said, by our own talent, but by the grace of God, which always helps pious endeavours. Only, I beg you, do not be wearied by our rough speech, but, attending to the force of the matters, give your vote to the truth. We are not writing this as a book, but contending in definite arguments as though with an adversary present. And first of all, against their saying "There was when he was not," we must reply that he always was, and set against it the testimony of the gospel, John saying: "In the beginning was the Word." For as Christ is the wisdom of God and the power of God, so also he is the Word of God. When, then, it says, "In the beginning was the Word," how does the Arian impiety say, "There was when he was not"? "In the beginning," it says, "was the Word"; it did not say, "In the beginning the Word was made"; and certainly what was in the beginning must be believed always to have been. For if, as impiety thinks, the Son is a thing made, divine Scripture would without doubt have declared at the beginning that very thing which was made, according to the pattern by which Moses too spoke, saying: "In the beginning God made heaven and earth." If the Son of God also were a thing made, John would have said: "In the beginning the Word was made." But the evangelist—or rather the Holy Spirit through the evangelist—foreseeing that there would be men of impious mind who would say of the Son, "There was when he was not," therefore began thus: "In the beginning was the Word"; for nothing is earlier than he who is found before the beginning. The divine Scriptures were published so that we might direct our faith according to their sense, not that we might insert our own senses into their sacred words. There may be some chapters which, by their obscurity, are thought to give occasion for ambiguity; certainly in this chapter there is no occasion for ambiguity. An interpreter may not think otherwise than is written; nor is there need for us now to bring in our own senses: it is enough for a full knowledge of the faith to be received that we recite the divine words. "In the beginning," it says, "was the Word." Is there here any notion of time, any suspicion of ages, or any interval of an instant or moment, that you dare to say, "There was when he was not"?

III. "In the beginning was the Word"; and lest you understand "word" as what is the function of a speaker, there follows: "and the Word was with God." It did not say, "the word which God spoke," but "and the Word was with God." Finally it interpreted what the Word is, saying: "and the Word was God." If in the beginning was the Word, and this same Word was with God, and the Word was God, the intention of impiety is confounded. For it is proved from this chapter that Christ the Son of God has always been, always inseparable from the Father, and always God. For as he is without beginning when it is said, "In the beginning was," so also when it is said, "was with God," his inseparability from the Father without beginning is declared. And when this Word is defined as God, there is no ambiguity that he is believed to be God without beginning. For what it said first, "In the beginning," must be referred to all: that is, "In the beginning was the Word"; and when there follows, "and the Word was with God, and the Word was God," without doubt "in the beginning" is to be understood. Indeed he himself concludes thus, saying: "He was in the beginning with God." How, then, "was there when he was not," who always is? How is he "from nothing existing," who is always with the Father? How is he a creature, who is always God—indeed, through whom every creature exists? For there follows: "All things were made through him." How was he "made from nothing existing," through whom all things were made? For if he too was made, how were all things made through him? For when he was being made, he who was not could not be his own author; and therefore he must be believed unmade, through whom all things were made; for it is empty and absurd that he too, when he did not exist, should be said to have been made through himself.

IV. Likewise Paul too teaches that Christ always was, and is God, and equal to the Father. For he is truly God precisely when he is equal to the Father, since he would not be called equal unless he were held to be truly God; it is an injury to the true God if one who is not true God is called his equal. So he sets down in his letter: "Have this mind in you which was in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant." If Christ is truly man, since he takes the form of a servant, he is also truly God, since he is said to be in the form of God; nor would he call him equal for any other reason except that he wished him to be understood as true God in the form of God. And he who is true God certainly always is; and of him who always is God it cannot be said, "There was when he was not." The apostle Paul also says that all things were made through him, writing: "For in him all things were created, whether in heaven or on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; all things were created through him and in him, and he is before all." Therefore he always is, through whom and in whom all things were made. The psalmist too, singing, says: "In wisdom you have made all things." Yet he did not say that wisdom itself was made; for the apostle too, when he says, "and he is before all," denied that he was made. For if he had wished him who was not to be believed made, he would have put it thus: "and he was made before all"; but when he says, "and he is before all," he gave a beginning to all those whom he precedes—indeed whose maker he is—but he himself is without beginning, who is said not to have been made before all but to be. Likewise the apostle says: "One God the Father, from whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord, our Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we through him"; and here, when he says all things are through Christ, he most plainly distinguished the maker from the things made, and showed that the nature of a thing made cannot be understood in him who made all things.

V. But let us see whether Moses too taught this same thing which the apostles announced, that is, that all things were made by God through the Son. Among other things, when he relates the making of the world, he says: "And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide between water and water; and it was so. And God made the firmament, and God divided through the middle of the water." When it says, "And God said, Let there be a firmament," the person of the Father is to be understood in the one speaking; but when it says, "And God made," the person of the Son is to be understood in the one making. For if you think it is not to be so understood, the apostle's assertion will be endangered, which says: "One God the Father, from whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord, our Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we through him." For unless you believe that the whole fabric of the world was made through the Son—indeed all things, invisible and visible—how do you receive in faith the voice of the apostle saying, "One Lord, our Jesus Christ, through whom are all things," and also what we quoted above, "For in him all things were created," and also, "In wisdom you have made all things"? John too pursued this: "All things were made through him." How "all things," if you deny that "and God made the firmament" and "God divided through the middle of the water" were said of the Son of God? Therefore Moses too presents the Son as maker, not made. For if he had learned, by the revelation of the Holy Spirit, that he was made, he would, among the other things he described as made, have mentioned that he too had first been made.

VI. But he proceeds more fully below, where the inhabitant of the world now built is to be made: "And God said, Let us make man in our image and likeness." For it is not of one person to say, "Let us make in our image and likeness," nor yet of a different deity. For the plurality of these words, that is, "let us make" and "our," signifies the persons of the Father and the Son; but that it says "image" in the singular shows one deity, one power, of both persons. If Christ is a creature, how is he employed as a partner with God in the work? For it is to him that "let us make" is said. If he is not a true Son, how has he one image with the Father? An adopted son does not have the image of the one adopting him; he can indeed have his generosity, but he cannot have the nature of his image. I know indeed that there are distinctions of images, which it would be long and unnecessary to go into now. But I claim what bears on the case, saying: in this place there is no distinction of image, where one image of the Father and the Son is declared. For he did not say, "Let us make in our images," but "in our image." And lest perhaps, whoever you are, heretic, with dull mind, you should claim that "let us make" could have been said even of one person—as the disposition of someone thinking to himself, not a designation of persons—there follows: "And God made man; in the image of God he made him." If anyone does not see what is set openly in the light, he is blind: "God," it says, "made; in the image of God he made." Is it not most evident that even then the Holy Spirit through Moses was treating the mysteries of the gospel, saying "God" and "God," yet not two gods, because there is one image of the Father and the Son? And oh, how providently everything was published! Sacred Scripture declares God and God, to exclude Sabellius, who maintains that the Father and the Son are one person; and, lest it introduce two gods, among words that signify a plurality of persons it inserted one image. You will find this to be so if you attend to the testimony that says, "Let us make man in our image." What are you doing, Arian impiety? If Christ is a creature, how is there one image of the creature and the creator?

VII. But lest Arius again, on the pretext of the persons, should bring in differences of natures: a difference of nature does not admit the sharing of one form. There are many sayings in the books of Moses by which the impious can be refuted in regard to the Son—indeed in regard to the Father too. For how does this impiety, which is exercised with a profane spirit against the Son, not also extend to the Father, since they take from the Father what is truly the Father's when they take from the Son what is truly the Son's? For how is he truly Father who, according to them, did not beget? How is Christ truly Son, whom they deny was truly begotten of him? But, as I said, there are many sayings in the books of Moses by which this impiety of theirs can be refuted; but since we are pursuing these things not with the care of one writing a book, but, as if in haste, sketching certain headings on a sheet so as to seem to have obeyed your command in some fashion, the other sayings must be passed over, especially since in the divine sayings it is not the number of testimonies but their authority that is to be sought, which is sufficient even if it is produced in one saying. For the present it is enough that in this one chapter Moses agreed with the gospels and the apostles. Moses proclaims God and God; just as we speak of the testimony above from Genesis, so John too announced God and God, saying: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." No one said two gods, although he said God and God; no one failed to announce one image of the Father and the Son; and therefore the catholic faith knows how to say one God in its confession—yet not so that by the confession of one God the Son is denied to be what God is; for as the Father is God, so also the Son is God. For if the Son is not God as the Father is God, how do they have one image according to Moses, or how, according to Paul, is Christ in the form of God, existing equal to God?

VIII. And when John asserts that the Word, God, was in the beginning with God, not outside God, by this inseparability of the Word of God from God he seems to me to signify the same thing as is in the signification of image and form. For if by one image and the same form the inseparability of the Father and the Son is shown, why should not John, when he announces the inseparability of God and God by saying, "and the Word was with God," and "he was in the beginning with God," be believed to have signified one image and the same form of the Father and the Son? This sense might indeed seem ambiguous, if the same evangelist had not pursued this very point more plainly a little below, saying: "and we saw his glory, glory as of the only-begotten from the Father." As there is one image and the same form, so too the glory of the Son is no other than that which is the Father's. Meanwhile you who say Christ is Son by adoption, how do you understand "his glory, glory as of the only-begotten from the Father"? For you profess that there are many sons of God by adoption; if Christ too is adopted, how is he the only-begotten from the Father, since he would not be only-begotten when there exist other sons by adoption? But if he is truly the only-begotten from the Father because he alone is begotten of that true Father himself, how is he asserted to be adopted, when an adopted son among many adopted cannot have the property of only-begotten from the Father? Even if there are adopted sons, it was said of none of them, "and we saw his glory, glory as of the only-begotten from the Father"; it was said of Christ alone. He, then, is not adopted, of whom is said what cannot be said of the adopted. And rightly he has one image with the Father, because he alone is the only-begotten from the Father. What wonder, then, if the Father's image is stamped in the Son's image? Therefore the Saviour himself said: "He who sees me sees the Father also"—I do not say this, as Sabellius does, as if he said that he himself is the Father who is also the Son. For I confess that he who begot is the Father, and he who was born is the Son. But when he says, "He who sees me sees the Father also," just as he shows that the Father and the Son are not one person, so he shows that there is one deity, since no difference is found in the substance of the Father and the Son.

IX. Again, in this place too I will say: if the Son is a creature, how does he who sees the Son see the Father also? No one sees the Father in the sight of a creature: from looking at a creature the creator can be seen, but the Father is not seen except by looking at the Son. If, then, Christ is a creature and not truly Son, the Father cannot be seen in the sight of a creature; and how does he say, "He who sees me sees the Father also," unless because the Son was truly born of God the Father? And therefore when you have seen the Son, you must have seen the Father also; for without the Son the Father is not, just as the Son is not without the Father. Hence too he added: "I am in the Father and the Father in me"—not, certainly, by some passive confusion, but because it follows that where the Father is, there the Son too is known to be, and where the Son is, there you may know the Father also to exist. There is also another sense of this saying, "He who has seen me has seen the Father also": it is not said that whoever had seen Jesus in the body with bodily eyes had seen the Father; otherwise the Lord's rebuke to Philip would be absurd, when he said, "Have I been with you so long, and you do not know me, Philip?" For according to the body not only Philip saw Jesus, but also all the Jews who opposed him; yet because they saw Jesus according to the body, they are not to be believed to have seen the Father too. What then is "He who has seen me has seen the Father also"? Direct the eye of the heart and see, with the gaze of spiritual faith, that Christ the Son of God is not a creature but the creator; consider that he is truly God, everlasting without beginning; and according to this, that he is God invisible, inestimable, incorruptible, unchangeable, and in all things such as is also his Father who begot him: and so, seeing the Son, there is no doubt that you have seen the Father also.

X. In this sense take also what he says: "I am in the Father and the Father in me." Since the Father is perfect, he begot a perfect Son; and since he is invisible, incomprehensible, inestimable God and true light, the Son too was born such as is he who begot him; and therefore he says, "I am in the Father and the Father in me"; for since all that belongs to the Father's power and deity is held in the Son, the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father. And therefore he said before: "If you knew me, you would know my Father also"; and here it is shown that the substance of the Father and the Son is the same, because there is one knowledge of both. But there is not one knowledge of the creature and the creator, because there is not one substance. But there is one knowledge of the Father and the Son; therefore the Son is not a creature but creator, as the Father too is creator; and he is God, as the Father is; yet we do not on this account say two gods. Here it is, impious heretic, that with devilish fury you blaze up as if at the folly of this confession, when you hear God and God and yet we do not say two gods. For, puffed up with worldly learning, you are incurably sick in this question, and you think you ought to force us to say two gods when we confess God and God. Unhappy man, do not gather the artful arguments of Aristotle against Christ, the Lord of all creation—you who profess yourself in some fashion a Christian—and do not come against the pious confession of the unspeakable mystery of God as a slanderer with a counting-board, a cheat trained in earthly reckoning. Look rather into the divine books, and use divine words about the divine faith. You have certainly read: "And in your light we shall see light." What distance of light from light is there here? For it would have set down a distance, if there had been one, lest anyone believe there was no distance of light from light; but if there is no distance, then there are not two lights but one light, since in the light of the Father the light of the Son is recognized. This is the light of which Daniel too speaks, saying: "And light is with him"; for this is not said of some creature, but of the splendour of God himself, existing as everlasting light. If the Father is everlasting light, without doubt the Son too is everlasting light. But if it is denied that the Son of God is everlasting light, how is the light of the Son, which is not everlasting, seen in the Father's everlasting light? But in the praises of God this saying of the saints is not false: "And in your light we shall see light." Therefore the light of the Son too is everlasting, which is not distant from the everlasting light of the Father; and therefore, although the Son is light and the Father is light, yet the light of the Father and the Son is one, because in the Father and the Son there is no division, no separation of light—as there is none of image according to Moses, nor of form according to the apostle Paul.

XI. The mystery, then, of inseparable unity lies in this, that both, that is, Father and Son, equally and undividedly, and not by portion, are one God; and of plurality in this, that the Father is one and the Son one. From this chapter too is made plain what we read in the gospel, the Saviour himself saying: "I and the Father are one." For "are" signifies a plurality of persons, because this one is the Father and this one the Son; but "one" marks one and the same substance and deity in the Father and the Son, so that the Father and the Son are truly one God, since both, that is, Father and Son, are one thing according to deity, not one person. "I and the Father are one": by this one saying both Sabellius is excluded and Arius refuted. For Sabellius says that the Father himself is also the Son, as if one had two names, and interprets "one" as said so that the singularity of one person might be believed. Arius, on the contrary, looking at "are" in this saying and understanding plurality, introduced an impious plurality of gods, believing one everlasting God and another who began to be God; one almighty, and another who is not almighty. But oh, the blindness in both! They have before their eyes what they might piously see, and they strive to quarrel impiously with heedless stumbling. Let them at least lend each other their senses, and they will see the truth of the pious faith. Sabellius, in admiration of the miracles that Christ worked, believes that Christ is true God, not one who once began, but one who always was and can do all things: let Arius believe this, and not blaspheme against Christ, whom he confesses as Son. Likewise Arius denies that Christ is the Father: let Sabellius deny this too, and believe piously that Christ is truly God, being not the Father but the Son. I will say it still more plainly. Let Sabellius defeat Arius in this, that Christ is true God; and let Arius defeat Sabellius in this, that Christ, under the confession of true God, is also a true Son: and for me, a catholic, both have won—indeed, let both win together with me against the error of impiety, when with me they have understood the truth of the sacred faith, which understands both the plurality of persons and the unity of deity in this declaration of the Lord: "I and the Father are one." But since the followers of Arius seek to overturn this divine declaration and this pious understanding of it, they interpret it another way and say: "They are one indeed, but not in substance, not in deity, not in power, but in will; that is, because they have one and the same will, therefore he says, 'I and the Father are one.'" Tell me, most impious men: the Word of God is substantial; did he who gave speech to the tongue not know how to speak, and was he ignorant how to set out your profound sense in proper and fitting words, and was he unable to say, "I and the Father will one thing," if in this place he wished the unity of will, not of substance and deity, to be understood?

XII. But now, I beg, Queen, remember the chapters you deigned to write out as the heretics' position. The heretics themselves say: "The Father who sent me himself gave me a command, what to say and what to speak"; and: "I came down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me, the Father." This is the artifice of the heretics: to deny in one place what they confess in another, so that when they see themselves tightly bound by the solutions of the questions in hand, they always slip away with serpentine slipperiness. Certainly, heretics, you say that the Father gave the Son a command what to say and what to speak; and how is it that, as if he did not know how to speak, you correct his words—indeed now the Father's, since what the Son says and speaks he says and speaks according to the command the Father gave him? Do you now understand that, while with a profane spirit you strive to exercise your madness against the deity of the Son, you break out raving against the Father too? The Son cries out: "I and the Father are one"; and you, like grammarians, supplying the supposed inadequacy of the Lord's declaration by changing a word, correct it and say: "This 'are' must be understood as 'will,' so that it was said thus: I and the Father will one thing." But the Son cries back against you too, saying what he said to the Jews, partners of your impiety: "Why do you not recognize my speech?" Let parables and allegories and riddles have their place; yet in this place it is said most plainly and fully, "I and the Father are one"; and how they are one he also declares elsewhere, when he says: "Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me"; and lest he seem to claim for himself what was not his, to show the truth of the saying he said before: "Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father in me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak of myself; but the Father abiding in me, he himself speaks, and the works that I do, he himself does." And elsewhere: "As the Father taught me, I speak these things; and he who sent me is with me, and he has not left me alone, because I always do what pleases him." Not that the Son did not know what he should speak—for what is there that the wisdom of God does not know?—but in order to soften the hardness of your untamed faith toward a pious understanding of the divine unity by the authority of the Father as well, he says: "The Father abiding in me himself speaks," or that, "As the Father taught me, I speak these things." As the works of the Son are the works of the Father, because when the Son acts, the Father abiding in him acts, so what the Son speaks, the Father abiding in him speaks—nothing other than what the Son speaks, since the Son too speaks nothing other than what the Father abiding in him speaks. The speech of the Father and the Son, then, is the same, as is their working; and so he said: "Otherwise believe because of the works themselves"—which he did just as the Father did—so that at least by the authority of the works it might be believed that the Son is in the Father and the Father in the Son.

XIII. How "I am in the Father and the Father in me" is to be understood has been explained above; but now I will say it more briefly. "I am in the Father and the Father in me" is to be heard according to the sameness of substance; and also in "I and the Father are one," the Father and the Son are one according to the sameness of substance. I do not want you, then, impious heretic, to take away the sameness of substance of the Father and the Son and thrust in, out of place, a unity of will—which elsewhere you impiously deny, saying: "It is written: I came down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me, the Father." You who in this chapter, ignorant of the mystery of his saying, so impiously deny that the Father and the Son have one will—how shall I believe that you sincerely confess that one and the same will of the Father and the Son is signified in the Lord's declaration, "I and the Father are one"? If you truly believe that the Father and the Son are one in will, I do not see how you can deny that they are one also in substance, divinity, and power. Why should those not have one substance, one divinity and power, who have one will? For if their will is equal, their divinity is equal; if their divinity is not equal, neither is their will. For the will of God and the will of anyone who is not God cannot be equal, because the force of the will of him who is God is one thing, and the force of the will of him who is not God another. The will of God is by nature good, perfect, unchangeable, always existing the same, existing without beginning and continuing without end. But the will of him who is not God, because it has a beginning, as he too who is not God has, can waver, can turn, as he too who is not God can; and therefore it is not truly good, because not good by nature, nor truly perfect, since it can turn and diminish, so that what it willed today it does not will tomorrow, and what it did not will today it wills tomorrow.

XIV. I will say it more plainly by an example. That angel who is now the devil, before he became the devil, had a good will; but when he became the devil, by the agitation of his own choice he lost his good will—because, of course, he subsists as a thing made, and is not God by nature. This must be thought of every rational creature too: for even though some of them have not turned and do not turn from a good will, yet they have in their nature the possibility of turning, because they are creatures and not God. That they do not turn they obtain from the perpetual observance of discipline, not from the truth of an unchangeable nature. But God alone himself is good and perfect and unchangeable without beginning, having also a good, perfect, and unchangeable will—not by institution, nor from progress in observance, but from the truth of the unchangeable nature by which he is good and perfect and unchangeable God. There may perhaps be some heresy that rejects this sense; but you, Arian, especially agree with it, you who say that the Son of God himself, whom you confess as Lord of all creation, is changeable and mutable, because you preach that he was made by God from nothing, not truly born of God. If this is your view, that every creature is changeable and mutable, and you say Christ is a creature, then he too, according to you, existing as changeable and mutable by the condition of his nature, does not have an unchangeable and immutable will. And how do you interpret that the Father and the Son are one in will, when, according to you, the wills of the Father and the Son are different and contrary—since one is immutable and unchangeable, the other mutable and changeable? You are caught and exposed, deceitful heretic, in how you try to get round and capture simple souls. For, constrained and hemmed in by the testimony of the Lord's declaration, "I and the Father are one," in order to escape somehow from this saying, which in clear words shows the unity of deity in the Father and the Son, you have yielded by necessity, not by choice, so far as to thrust in, at least for the moment in the present chapter, with the tips of your lips and, so to speak, on the surface of the words only, a unity of will, so as to exclude the unity of deity more expressly, more vigorously, and to the marrow. For you take away the sense, unity of substance, which is easily believed from the very simplicity of the words, and interpret the sense as unity of will, so that—since the reasoning given above is not easily understood by all—you may meanwhile deceive the simple hearer, while you contrive that he not understand the unity of divinity. For the catholic faith too believes most sincerely and truly in the unity of will in the Father and the Son—not with the lips only but with the whole heart—the faith that acknowledges the unity of substance and divinity as well. For as the Son is of an immutable and unchangeable substance with the Father, so the Son is of an immutable and unchangeable will with the Father. And therefore the will of the Father and the Son is one, as is their power and image—or rather I would say that the Son himself is the will of the Father. For although there is one image of the Father and the Son according to Moses, yet the Son himself is written by the apostle to be the image of the invisible God; so too, although there is one will of the Father and the Son, it is piously defined that the Son is the will of the Father. As he is the image of the invisible God, understand it likewise of power. For the catholic faith says that there is one power of the Father and the Son; and yet the apostle writes that Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. It is piously said, then, that the Son is the will of the Father, just as he is the wisdom of God. And if this sense still troubles you, attend to what we say: certainly Christ is the wisdom of God. And what is the will of God but the wisdom of God? For in God will is not one thing and wisdom another. In men, indeed, there can be will that is not wisdom, because a man's will reaches the wisdom possible to it by instruction, meditation, and progress. But the will of God does not reach wisdom by instruction, meditation, or progress; needing nothing, it is by nature substantial wisdom. Hence Christ too, being the wisdom of God, is also the will of God; for in God will is not one thing and wisdom another.