On the Orthodox Faith against the Arians 6–8

So, according to our capacity, our strength, our faith, let us consider what God is, and see whether anything can be compared with him. Certainly this is he of whom, when he is spoken of, nothing can be said; when he is estimated, he cannot be estimated; when he is compared, he cannot be compared; when he is defined, he grows by his very definition. He opens heaven with his hand and closes the whole circuit of the world in his fist. Him all things do not know as a whole, and yet know him by fearing. To his name and power this world is servant, and the momentary alternation of the elements succeeding one another testifies to it. See, then, whether there can be anything to which the Father and the Son can be compared; for the Son is such as the Father is: for he would not have said that he was one with the Father unless he knew himself to be such as the Father is. There is a certain Reason, which among the Greeks is called logos, which distinguishes the persons or names between the Father and the Son; because the Son himself is also called Reason. Yet this Reason is called by many names: now Word, now Power, now Wisdom, now right hand, now arm, now pearl, now treasure, now net, now plough, now fountain, now rock, now cornerstone, now lamb, now man, now calf, now eagle, now lion, now way. And so, since God is all in all, it is so that through these names the mysteries of the divine dispensations may be known, not so that the very majesty of the Son of God may be shown properly defined. For what is the Son, from that which the Father is? Another, the same. For he is called Word because he proceeded from the proper divine mouth, and the Father neither commanded nor did anything without him. He is called Power because he is truly from God and always with God, and all the power of the Father consists in him. He is called Wisdom because, coming from the heart of the Father, he unlocked heavenly secrets to believers. He is called right hand because through him all the divine works were accomplished. He is called arm because by him …. He is called pearl, so that nothing may be held more precious than he. He is called treasure, so that in him all the wealth and riches of the heavenly kingdoms may be recognized as stored up. He is called net, because through him and in him the diverse multitude of the nations is gathered from the sea of the world, like fish, through the water of baptism into the church, where the distinction of good and bad is recognized. He is called plough, because by the sign of his cross hard breasts are broken up, so that they may be prepared for the necessary seed. He is called fountain of living water, because from him thirsting hearts are watered with the grace of heavenly water. He is called rock, because he gives strength to believers and hardness to unbelievers. He is called cornerstone, because, the one mediator, he has joined in himself both walls, of the New and the Old Testament, holding them together. He is called lamb, so that the innocence and passion of Christ may be shown. He is called man, because according to the flesh he deigned to be born for us men. He is called calf, because for our salvation he endured to suffer. He is called eagle, because after his venerable resurrection he flies, as king of birds, to the seat of the Father. He is called lion, because he is King of kings, who crushed death and the devil by the power of his might. He is the way, because through him is the ascent. The truth, because he knows no lie. He is the life, because he gives life to all things. You see, then, that through these names the meanings of the divine dispensations and works are shown beforehand, yet God himself is not properly defined. So the Father is God immense, eternal, incomprehensible, inestimable. And his Son too is God, and our Lord, as great as the Father is, but from nowhere else than from the Father; because “I,” he says, “came forth from the Father,” that is, light from light.

But lest the heretic seize any occasion from this, when I set forth two names or two persons, that is, of the Father and the Son, as if I said two gods, as they invent two from diversity: we so name the Father and the Son as to mark one God in these persons and names. Let the philosophers see to it, let the heretics their disciples see to it, who vary with a diversity of powers: for us, however, there is one God, the Father, as the Apostle said, from whom are all things, and we from him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, God the Son of God, through whom are all things, and we through him. For by “two” what else is understood than a substance of two divided into parts, and, with the names themselves, a nature dissociated, and both the will of acting and commanding and the commands divided? But the Father and the Son, though they are believed to be two persons, are yet one in reason and substance. For a fellowship of unequals is an offence to the better; and to the injury of him who is true God, another, not true, is compared. But when I set forth the Father and the Son, I assign unity of kind; and if I divide it in persons, yet the same names again seal the distinctions of persons into their unity by the covenant of natural law. Hence the Son is as great as the Father will be seen to be, whole from whole, entire from entire, perfect from perfect and consummate power, as the Apostle says: “In whom all the fullness of divinity dwells bodily.” For Jeremiah too, the most accepted of the prophets, knowing this unity of divinity in the Father and the Son, says: “This is our God, and no other will be reckoned beside him: he found every way of understanding and gave it to Jacob his servant and to Israel his beloved. After this he was seen on earth and lived among men.” And Isaiah preaches the same thing, saying: “Thus says the Lord God: Egypt is wearied, and the merchandise of the Ethiopians, and the Sabaeans, men of stature, will pass over to you; they will be your servants and will walk after you bound in fetters, and they will pray to you, because God is in you, and there is no other God besides you; for you are God.” Lest you think I have said this with that arrogance with which Sabellius is reported to have spoken, who professes the Father himself to be the Son himself: we do not so force everything into one opinion as to be caught by the fraud of other heretics. But because in the very name of the persons an undivided authority is recognized, and the Son is named from the Father not by kind but personally, therefore we ascribe to the Father all that the Son is, and to the Son all that the Father is. Nothing will be thought not of the Father that is judged of the Son, nor not of the Son that is maintained of the Father; because the unity of majesty does not allow them to be called gods by a plural word, since it is agreed that the Father and the Son are of one substance, whence each is called one God. Fearing this above all, that unless the Father and the Son are one, the birth, being falsified, would recoil into reproach of its author: for this is what pleased the heretics, that that God almighty, invisible, immense, should degenerate in the Son, changed not only in power but in condition, as if the Father could not have from himself one such as he himself is. Therefore we maintain a true Son from a true Father, who always was and is of one substance with the Father. And this is what the Greeks call homoousion, that is, one with the other the same; so that the persons might be heard by name, and not so that the names might separate the substance.

But to expose the whole mystery of the Arian heresy, I will briefly show why they will not have the Son believed to be from the Father’s substance. For they say: “Since God the Father is almighty, invisible, unchangeable, immutable, perfect, always the same, eternal; but the Son is visible, because he was often seen by the fathers; and changeable and mutable, because he showed himself in various figures: if he were from the substance of the Father,” they say, “it could never be that before the assumption of the flesh he would be believed either visible or mutable; rather he would have remained in the equality in which the Father is, from whose substance he was; because what is from the Father must be believed unable to be seen, changed, or altered. To this is added that when he glided into Mary, when he filled the Virgin’s womb, something other than what had come was born from her. Hence,” they say, “the substance, now corrupted, changes its state, loses its order, being formed by that very change from God into man, from spirit into flesh. And certainly every transformation is the destruction of the former.” And so they say: “If the Son were from the Father’s substance, the Father too would now seem less, either by the handing over or by the end of his substance”; and therefore they preferred to believe the Son from another substance, which could be changed and altered and seen, because this may not be believed of the Father’s substance. This is the cause of the error, this the origin of the Arian heresy: that they do not understand the power of God, nor recognize the dispensation of so great a mystery, so that they compare God with human conditions. To them it must first be answered that the Son of God was not seen as he was God, but as man could grasp of God; next, that in the various figures he was not himself mutable and changeable, but that it belongs to the power of God that, when he deigns to reveal himself to individuals as he wills, he changes his appearance, not alters his substance; nor loses the property of his quality, but applies a tempering of his majesty according to the merit of the one who sees; yet he himself remains the same, as he always is, in the property of his substance, as it is written: “You will change them, and they will be changed; but you are the same, and your years will not fail.” For though there are many of the things seen in this world that are changed from one thing into another, so that they cease to be what they were and are what they were not before (as clay, when it is formed into a man, ceases to be clay; or fish or birds, when they come forth from water, are no longer water from that point, because they are something else; as the potter’s clay when it hardens into earthenware; as stone when it is burned and dissolved into lime; as sand when it is changed into glass, and other things that it would take long to list), yet there is a great difference, foolish heretic, between the things that were made and him who made all things as he willed. The things that were made serve the condition assigned to them; but he who made them is of his own will and his own right. Nor can he be changed into anything other than what he is by anyone’s compulsion; but as he wills, and to whom he wills, he shows himself. For if angels have often been seen in the form of men, and yet are nothing other than what they know themselves to be, nor change their substance when they take the form of a human body, how much more our Lord himself, who made all things, who by his own institution granted the angels themselves to be able to do this? Add to this that we hold that the Son of God, as has already been said, was so seen by the fathers that not all that is God was seen in him, but that the dispensations of things to come, which were to be fulfilled each in its own time, were discerned in him by an image. For who could see the Son of God before he took on visible matter, as it pleased him, or deigned to put on man himself? Though he was seen by Abraham, he was seen in the form of a human body, by which it was shown that in the last times he would come in man. To Jacob too he is seen sometimes in an angel, sometimes likewise in a man. He showed himself in an angel to indicate that he was the messenger of great counsel; in a man, with whom he is also described as having wrestled, to indicate especially the image of the future wrestling that he would have with Israel when he had come according to man. But so that he might believe him to be the Lord, with whom he was wrestling in so great a contest under the figure of a man, he received the name Israel, that is, a man seeing God. “I saw God,” he says, “face to face, and my soul was saved.” And certainly he had seen the figure of a man, which God, the Son of God, had put on. To Moses he appeared in the bush in a flame of fire, to show light to believers and judgment to unbelievers; because Christ is salvation to believers, punishment to unbelievers, as the Apostle says: “To some a fragrance of life unto life, to others a fragrance of death unto death.” He went before the people of Israel in a pillar of cloud by day and in a pillar of fire by night, as a guide of the journey, to show the grace of baptism through the cloud and the gift of the Holy Spirit through the fire; because the apostle Paul writes that the fathers were baptized in the cloud, and the Acts of the Apostles declare that the Spirit is like fire. You see, then, heretic, that throughout, the characters of the divine Scriptures were shown beforehand to the fathers for the honour of God; yet God himself was not properly revealed as he is. Indeed, when Moses prayed to see the face of God clearly, what did God at once say to him? “You will not be able,” he says, “to see my face; for man shall not see my face and live.” By the very fact that the sight is denied, the glory is marked out, which is as great as it must be believed to be, since it is declared invisible. So although Moses set out, declared, and expressed the situation of heaven, the orders of the world, the alternations of the elements, and finally the ornaments of the whole world; and although the Lord himself bore him witness, saying, “There will be none of the prophets like my servant Moses, to whom I have spoken face to face, mouth to mouth”: yet he could not see God clearly. Rightly worthy of all prophecy, but not so far as to be able to gaze upon God, being only a man. And certainly we maintain that all these words are the Son’s, who, we know, spoke with Moses on Mount Sinai, having come from the Father to carry out and unfold affairs; because it was fitting that all things from the beginning should be ordered, unfolded, and abide through him, so that this principal reason for having a Son might stand. And yet he is understood to have been seen in such a way that he was seen by taking on the arrangement of some visible matter, as I said, his invisibility being preserved, which the majesty poured round him set apart from the sight of all. For he was not so revealed to human sight that the whole deity appeared in him; but as a mirror encloses within its light the faces received, as it were in the full likeness of a man, so, the brightness of his majesty going before, what was seen was within that which showed an image of the truth, not God himself properly. So too when he deigned to put on man, he did not bring a stain on eternity so as to change spirit into flesh, but so that, having taken up man, he might grant immortality and the eternity of heavenly life. For though the Apostle says that he emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, we certainly do not understand him to have been so emptied that the same Spirit became something other than what he had been; but that, setting aside for a time the honour of his majesty, he put on a human body, by taking which he became the salvation of the nations. For as the sun, when it is covered by a cloud, has its brightness held back, not blinded; and that light which, spread through the whole world, floods all things with clear splendour is enclosed by a very small obstacle of cloud, not taken away: so too that man whom our Lord Jesus and Saviour, that is, God and the Son of God, put on did not cut off God in him, but hid him. Indeed, when on the mountain he raised himself a little beyond that man, the apostles, almost blinded by the brightness of his light, fell to the ground, being men, and were in danger of their lives, had not the Lord in his mercy helped them by again restraining the honour of his majesty, according to that saying: “No one has seen God and lived.” So, as the brightness of the sun, when it does not flash all the way to our sight, is safe in itself, because its not being seen belongs to our weakness, whose eyes the darkness of clouds has covered: so he shows that he lay hidden not by loss of his own brightness, but, as I said, by the benefit of the flesh, for the sake of which the Son of God endured to be the son of man. For the Virgin conceived of the Spirit of God, and what she conceived, this she bore, that is, God joined, as I have said, to his man; as he himself said: “What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the spirit is spirit”; because God is spirit, and he was born of God. As also the angel said to the Virgin Mary: “The Spirit of God will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the holy one who will be born of you will be called the Son of God.” You see, then, that the Spirit himself, that is, the Son of God, came to the Virgin, and from there came forth the Son of God and of man; and yet that the Son of God was not changed by the very clothing of flesh, but was the same in man as he had been before the world with the Father; through whom all things were made, and without whom nothing was made, as the Evangelist says: “The world was made through him, and the world did not know him.” For the rest, it is madness to believe that one can be set free by him who, to set free, was lost; to be born, was overwhelmed; to give immortality, passed over into death. But far be it, heretic, that the meaning of your iniquity be admitted by Catholics: for we believe the Word and Spirit, that is, the Son of God, immutable and unchangeable; who, when he put on man, did not change his state, did not lose his order, did not change his substance; but illuminated the defilements of that same body with the eternal light of his glory, so that through the path of his body the light of the Holy Spirit and the grace of eternal life might overflow to us. And though we believe that he suffered and was buried, yet it was that man who suffered whom the Son of God took up, whom he put on, whom he carried. But because whatever that man suffered was referred wholly to its author, therefore the death and passion of the Lord is spoken of; for it is agreed that what is God’s is immortal, what is man’s is perishable. On the third day too he rose, not God into man, but rather man into God. He ascended into heaven, he offered to his Father that man as a most welcome gift, he sat down at the right hand of the Father, according to what is written: “The Lord said to my Lord: Sit at my right hand.” He sent us the Holy Spirit from his own, and that one substance of his, as protector, sanctifier, and guide into eternal life, as it is written in the voice of God: “I will pour out of my Spirit upon my servants and my handmaids.” And again: “The Spirit will go forth from me.” And our Lord and Saviour himself says: “He will receive of mine”; that is, from what the Son is, since the Son too is from what the Father is. Then at the appointed time he will come to judge the living and the dead, to render rewards to believers and punishments to unbelievers. His kingdom is eternal and immortal; it has neither beginning nor end: to whom be honour and glory for ever and ever. You who read these things, I beseech you by God, do not twist the simplicity of my meaning into ambiguity, or draw it otherwise than it was said; for we confess the Father to be true Father, and the Son of God true Son of God, and we believe the Holy Spirit to be truly the Holy Spirit: confessing three persons of one substance and one divinity. But the sect of Sabellius and Photinus, and also of Arius, and whatever else comes against the rule of truth, we condemn. And keeping with every effort of mind and with whole faith the treatise of the Synod of Nicaea, we embrace it; for we know that this treatise has been set with unconquered truth against all heresies.