On the Trinity 4.8–4.24

For they try, by celebrating the divinity of God the Father alone, to take from the Son that he is God; because it is written: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one.” And the Lord said the same to the teacher of the Law who asked what the greatest commandment in the Law was: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one.” And again Paul preaches thus: “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men.” Then they say that he alone is wise, so that no wisdom may be left to the Son, according to the Apostle's saying: “Now to him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery kept silent through eternal ages, but now made manifest through the prophetic Scriptures according to the command of the eternal God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith: to the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever.” Then that he alone is unbegotten and alone true, because Isaiah said: “They will bless you, the true God”; and the Lord testified to the same in the Gospels, saying: “And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” Then that he alone is good, so that there may be no goodness in the Son, because he said: “No one is good but the one God.” Then that he alone is powerful, because Paul said: “Whom in his own times the blessed and only Potentate will show us, the King of kings and Lord of lords.” Then they say they know him as unchangeable and immutable, because he said through the prophet: “I am the Lord your God, and I do not change”; and the apostle James said: “With whom there is no change.” They know him as a just judge, because it is written: “God is a just judge, strong and patient.” As caring for all, because the Lord said, when he was speaking of the birds: “And your heavenly Father feeds them”; and again: “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them falls to the ground without the will of your Father. But even the hairs of your head are numbered.” As foreseeing all things, as blessed Susanna says: “Eternal God, who knows hidden things, who knows all things before they come to be.” As one who cannot be contained, according to what is said: “Heaven is my throne, and earth the footstool of my feet. What house will you build me, or what is the place of my rest? For my hand made these things, and all these things are mine.” As containing all things, as Paul testifies: “For in him we live and move and are”; and as the Psalmist says: “Where shall I go from your Spirit, and where shall I flee from your face? If I ascend into heaven, you are there; if I descend into hell, you are present; if I take my wings before the dawn and dwell in the farthest parts of the sea, even there your hand will lead me and your right hand will hold me.” As incorporeal, because it is said: “For God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” As having immortality and being invisible, as Paul says: “Who alone has immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see”; and according to the Gospel: “No one has ever seen God, except the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father.” And as alone remaining unbegotten, because it is said: “I am who I am”; and again: “Thus you shall say to the children of Israel: He who is has sent me to you”; and through Jeremiah: “You who are Lord, O Lord.”

Who does not see that these things are full of fraud and deceit? Though they are subtly confused and mingled, they bear clear witness to the artful cunning and folly of malice and stupidity. For among other things they have added that they know the Father alone to be unbegotten: as though anyone could doubt, on this account, that he from whom was begotten the one through whom all things are received what he himself is from no one. For in the very fact that he is called Father, he is shown to be the author of the one he begot; he has a name which is understood not to come from another, and from which the one begotten is taught to have come into being. Let us, then, leave to God the Father what is proper to him, as his own and his secret, confessing in him the unbegotten power of eternal might. But I think no one doubts the reason why, in confessing God the Father, certain things are mentioned as though peculiar and private to him: it is so that no one besides him may be left a sharer in them. For when they say only true, only just, only wise, only invisible, only good, only powerful, only having immortality, by the very fact that he alone is these things, the Son, according to them, is cut off from sharing in them. For what is proper to one alone, as they say, is not shared by another. And if these things are thought to be in the Father alone and not also in the Son, it must be believed that God the Son is false, unwise, bodily according to visible matter, ill-willed, weak, and without immortality, since he is excluded from all these things in which the Father alone is.

As we are about to speak of the most complete majesty and fullest divinity of the only-begotten Son of God, we do not think anyone will judge that all the language we shall use tends to the dishonor of God the Father, as though something were taken from his dignity if any of these things is referred to the Son; for rather the honor of the Son is the Father's dignity, and the author from whom one worthy of such glory came forth is glorious. For the Son has nothing except what he has by birth, and admiration for the honor of the begotten lies in the honor of the one who begets. Any thought of dishonor, then, falls away, since whatever majesty is shown to be in the Son will overflow to magnify the power of him who begot such a Son.

It follows that, now that we know what they have confessed about the Father in order to disfigure the Son, we should hear what they have professed about the Son himself. For since we are going to answer each of their propositions and expose their irreligious teaching by the testimonies of the divine sayings, we must add to what they said about the Father what they then said about the Son: so that, by comparing their confession about the Father with that about the Son, we may keep one and the same order in answering each proposition. They say that the Son of God was begotten neither from any underlying matter, because all things were created through him; nor from God, because nothing can go out from God; but that he is from things that were not: that is, a perfect creature of God, yet not like the other creatures. And that he is a creature, because it is written: “The Lord created me in the beginning of his ways.” And that he is a perfect work, but not like other works: a work, because of what Paul said to the Hebrews: “Made so much better than the angels as he has inherited a more excellent name than they”; and again: “Therefore, holy brothers, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the apostle and high priest of our confession, Jesus Christ, who is faithful to him who made him.” To weaken the Son's strength, power, and divinity they use above all his saying: “The Father is greater than I.” And they grant that he is not one among all the creatures, because it is written: “All things were made through him.” They conclude the whole teaching of their irreligion in their own words, as follows: “A copy of the blasphemy of those who say that the Son of God is a creature.”

“We know one God, alone unmade, alone everlasting, alone without beginning, alone true, alone having immortality, alone best, alone powerful, creator of all, ordainer and disposer, unchangeable, immutable, just and best, God of the Law and the Prophets and the New Testament; that this God begot an only-begotten Son before all ages, through whom he made both the ages and all things; begotten not in appearance but in truth, having followed his will, immutable and unchangeable, a perfect creature of God, but not as one of the creatures; a work, but not as the other works; not, as Valentinus imagined, the offspring of the Father as an emanation; nor, as Mani set forth, the offspring as a part of the one substance of the Father; nor, as Sabellius, who divides the unity, said, that the Son is the same as the Father; nor, as Hieracas said, a lamp from a lamp, or a torch divided into two parts; nor one who existed before and was afterward born or created anew into a Son, as you yourself, most blessed pope, in the midst of the church and in the assembly of the brothers, have often refuted those who bring in such things; but, as we have said, created by the will of God before times and ages, receiving life and being from the Father, and glories, the Father causing them to subsist with him. For the Father, in giving him the inheritance of all things, did not deprive himself of what he holds in himself without being made; for he is the source of all.

“Therefore there are three substances (hypostases): Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And God is the cause of all, wholly without beginning and solitary; but the Son, put forth by the Father apart from time, and created and founded before the ages, was not before he was born; but, born apart from time before all things, he alone came into being from the Father alone. For he is not eternal, or co-eternal, or unmade together with the Father, nor does he have being together with the Father, as some say, or as those say who bring in two unborn principles; but as the unity and principle of all, so God is before all. Therefore he is also before the Son, as we have learned from you too, when you preached in the midst of the church. Inasmuch, then, as he has from God his being, and glories, and life, and all things have been handed over to him, in this respect God is his principle. And he rules over him as his God, since he is before him. For if the phrases ‘from him,’ and ‘from the womb,’ and ‘I came forth from the Father and have come’ are understood as meaning a part of him, of one substance, and as an extended emanation, then the Father will be composite, divisible, changeable, and a body, according to them; and, as far as lies with them, God who is without body will be subject to what follows from being a body.”

This is their error, this their deadly teaching. To confirm it they seize on testimonies from the divine sayings with a corrupted sense of understanding, and tell lies about them, taking advantage of human ignorance. No one should doubt that for knowledge of divine things divine teachings must be used. For human weakness will not attain knowledge of heavenly things by itself, nor will the perception of bodily things take to itself an understanding of invisible ones. Neither what is created and fleshly in us, nor what God has given us for the use of our life, can discern by its own judgment the nature and work of its Creator. Our minds do not rise to heavenly knowledge, nor will our weakness conceive incomprehensible power by any perception. God must be believed about himself, and we must submit to what he has granted to our knowledge of himself. Either he must be denied, as the pagans do, if his testimonies are rejected; or, if he is believed to be God, as he is, he cannot be understood otherwise than as he himself has testified of himself. Let men's own opinions cease, then, and let human counsels not stretch beyond the divine ordinance. Against irreligious and impious teachings about God, therefore, we follow the very authorities of the divine sayings; and we will treat each point on the authority of him about whom the question is asked, not fitting certain expressions, with their reasons removed, to deceive and wrongly instruct the ignorance of our hearers. For the understanding of what is said must be taken from the reasons for saying it, because the matter is not subject to the word, but the word to the matter. We will pursue everything, setting out both the reasons for speaking and the force of what is said. Let each point, then, be examined in the order in which they set it out.

For this is their principal point: “We know,” they say, “one only God,” since Moses says, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one.” But has anyone ever dared to doubt this? Or has any of those who believed in God ever been known to preach otherwise than that there is one God from whom are all things, one unbegotten power, and that this one power is without beginning? But it does not follow from God's being one that it can be denied of the Son of God that he is God. For Moses, or rather God through Moses, laid down this principal commandment for a people occupied, both in Egypt and in the desert, with idols and the cults of what they took to be gods: that they should believe in one God; and he laid it down truly and rightly. For there is one God from whom are all things. But let us see whether the same Moses also confessed that he through whom all things are is God. For it is not taken from the Father that he is the one God because the Son also is God. For he is God from God, one from one: one God for this reason, that God is from him. Conversely, the Son is no less God because the Father is the one God; for he is the only-begotten Son of God, not unbegotten, so as to take from the Father that he is the one God; nor anything other than God, because he was born from God. And though there ought to be no doubt that, by being born from God, he is God, which is why for our faith God is one, let us see whether Moses, who said to Israel, “The Lord your God is one,” preached the Son of God as God. For in confessing the divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ we shall have to use the testimony of the very one on whose authority the heretics, confessing only one God, think the Son must be denied to be God.

Since, then, it is the complete and perfect confession about God to speak as the Apostle does: “One God the Father, from whom are all things, and one Lord, our Jesus Christ, through whom are all things,” let us see what Moses says about the origin of the world. For he says: “And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the water, and let it divide between water and water; and it was so; and God made the firmament, and God divided through the midst of the water.” You have, then, God from whom, and you have God through whom. If you deny this, you must teach through whom what was made was made; or else show that the very nature of the things to be created obeyed God, so that at the words, “Let there be a firmament,” it made itself firm at the command of God's word. But the reasoning of divine Scripture does not admit this. For all things, according to the prophet, were made from nothing; no existing nature was changed into something else, but what was not was created and completed. Through whom? Hear the evangelist: “All things were made through him.” If you ask through whom, you will hear the same evangelist saying, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him.” And if you wish to deny that “Let there be a firmament” is seen to have been said by the Father, you will hear the prophet again saying: “He spoke, and they were made; he commanded, and they were created.” In the saying, then, “Let there be a firmament,” it is shown that the Father spoke. But in what is added, “And it was so,” and in God's being said to have made it, the person of the one who carries it out, who makes, is to be understood. For “he spoke, and they were made,” not merely “he willed, and made”; “he commanded, and they were created,” not merely “they came to be because it pleased him”; so that the office of a Mediator between himself and the things to be created should not be lacking. God, from whom are all things, says “let it be,” and God, through whom are all things, makes it, the same and equal name being confessed both in the signification of the speaker and in the working of the maker. But if you dare to say that “And God made” is not said of the Son, where then will be the saying, “All things were made through him,” and that apostolic one, “And one Lord, our Jesus Christ, through whom are all things,” and that one, “He spoke, and they were made”? But if these divine sayings refute your shamelessness, it is not taken from the Son of God that he is God by the saying, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one,” since by the very one who said this the Son too was preached as God in the very foundation of the world. But let us see how far this distinction between God who commands and God who makes is carried forward. For although common understanding does not admit that in the saying, “He commanded, and they were made,” one solitary and identical person is to be believed meant, yet, so that nothing can be doubted, the things that followed the creation of the world must be explained.

When, then, the world was finished and its inhabitant was to be formed, this is what is said about him: “And God said, Let us make man in our image and likeness.” I ask now: do you think God spoke to himself alone, or do you understand that this speech of his was addressed not to himself but to another? If you say he was alone, you are refuted by the very voice of him who said, “Let us make man in our image and likeness.” For God spoke through the lawgiver according to our understanding, that is, imparting to us knowledge of what he did in words which he wished us to use. The Son of God, through whom all things were made, was indeed signified in the saying, “And God said, Let there be a firmament,” and again in the saying, “And God made the firmament.” But so that this speech should not be thought empty and superfluous, as if he had told himself to make it and then made it himself (for what is so foreign to one who is alone as to tell himself that something must be made, when only his will was needed for it to be made?), he wished it to be understood more fully that this signification is not to be referred to himself alone. By saying, “Let us make man in our image and likeness,” he removed the understanding of a single one by professing a fellowship. But one who is solitary cannot have fellowship with himself. Nor does the solitude of a solitary one admit “let us make”; nor does anyone say “our” to one who is foreign to himself. Both words, “let us make” and “our,” just as they do not allow one solitary and identical person, so they do not signify one who is different and foreign. Or I ask: when you hear of one solitary, do you not think he is himself and the same? Or when you hear of one who is not himself and not the same, do you understand him as only solitary? In the solitary, then, one solitary will be found; but in one who is not the same and not himself, one not solitary. To the solitary, then, belong “I will make” and “my”; to one not solitary, “let us make” and “our.”

When, then, we read, “Let us make man in our image and likeness,” since both words signify that he is neither solitary only nor different, we too must confess him as neither solitary only nor diverse; the property of one nature in both being recognized from his saying “our image,” not “our images.” But it is not enough to have given an account of the words alone, unless the working of things also follows the understanding of what was said. For it is written thus: “And God made man; in the image of God he made him.” I ask: if the speech was that of one solitary, addressed to himself, what do you think should be understood here? For I now see a threefold signification: of the maker, of the one made, and of the pattern. The one made is man; God made him; and whom he made, he made in the image of God. If Genesis had been speaking of a solitary one, it would surely have said, “And he made him in his own image.” But, announcing the gospel mystery, it spoke not of two gods but of God and God, when it says that man was made by God in the image of God. And so God is found to work man after an image common to himself and God and after the same likeness: so that neither does the signification of the maker admit an understanding of solitude, nor does the work, made after the same image and likeness, allow a difference of divinity.

And although it may be thought superfluous after this to bring anything more, since in divine things it is not frequent repetition but simply having been said that suffices, yet we should learn what was said on this same matter elsewhere. For we must give an account not of the divine sayings but of our understanding. Among many commandments God speaks thus to Noah: “Whoever sheds the blood of a man, for his blood his own life will be shed; for I made man in the image of God.” Here too pattern, work, and worker are distinguished. God testifies that he made man in the image of God. When man was to be made, because he was speaking of himself but not to himself, he said “in our image”; but when man had been made, “God made man in the image of God.” He was certainly not ignorant of the proper use of words, so as to say, “I made him in my image,” if he had been speaking to himself. For he had said, to show the unity of nature, “Let us make in our image.” Nor again did he confuse the understanding of solitary and not solitary, when God, making man, made him in the image of God.

But if you want to assert that God the Father, solitary, said these things to himself, as though it could be granted you that one spoke with himself as with another, and that in “I made man in the image of God” he wished to be understood as saying “I made man in my image,” you are first refuted by your own testimony. For you said: “From the Father are all things, but through the Son are all things.” For in the saying, “Let us make man,” the origin is from him from whom the speech also began; but in God's making man in the image of God, he too is signified through whom the work is completed.

Then, so that you may not be free to lie on this point, Wisdom, whom you yourself have confessed to be Christ, will oppose you, saying: “When he set sure springs under heaven, when he made strong the foundations of the earth, I was with him, arranging. I was the one in whom he rejoiced. Daily I rejoiced in his sight at all times, when he rejoiced in the completed world and rejoiced in the sons of men.” Every pretext is shut off, and all error is forced to confess the truth. Wisdom, begotten of God before the ages, is present. And she is not only present but arranging. She is, then, arranging with him: understand the office of composing or disposing. For the Father, in speaking, brings about; the Son, in working what was said to be made, arranges. The distinction of persons is so made that the work is referred to both. For in the saying, “Let us make,” the command and the deed are made equal; but in what is written, “I was with him, arranging,” he shows that he was not alone in the work. And she rejoices before him who, she indicated, rejoiced with her in her joy. “Daily I rejoiced in his sight at all times, when he rejoiced in the completed world and rejoiced in the sons of men.” Wisdom has taught the cause of her joy. She rejoices because of the joy of the Father, who rejoices in the completion of the world and in the sons of men. For it is written: “And God saw that they were good.” She is glad that her works, accomplished through her at his command, please the Father. For she professes that her joy comes from this, that the Father was glad in the completed world and in the sons of men; in the sons of men because the whole beginning of the human race had already been established in the one Adam. So in the making of the world the Father does not speak to himself alone, since his Wisdom both works with him and rejoices in the completed work.

We know that many great matters remain for the full explanation of these sayings; but they are deferred by us rather than passed over, for a fuller treatment of them is reserved for the other propositions. For now we answer only what the impious said in the exposition of their faith, or rather their faithlessness: that only one God was preached by Moses. And we remember that he was truly so preached, because there is one God from whom are all things; but the Son's being God must not on that account be ignored, since the same Moses professed God and God throughout the whole body of his work. We must see, then, how the account of the election and the giving of the Law preach God and God in equal order of confession.

After many addresses of God to Abraham, when Sarah was provoked against Hagar, the barren mistress jealous of her maid's conception, and Hagar had fled from her presence, Scripture speaks of her thus: “And the angel of the Lord said to Hagar, Return to your mistress and humble yourself under her hands. And the angel of the Lord said to her, I will greatly multiply your seed, and it will not be counted for multitude.” And again: “And she called the name of the Lord who spoke with her, You are God who saw me.” The angel of God speaks (and in “angel of God” there is a twofold meaning: he who is, and he whose he is); and he speaks things not in keeping with the name of his office; for he says: “I will greatly multiply your seed, and it will not be counted for multitude.” The power of multiplying nations exceeds the ministry of an angel. But what, then, did Scripture testify about him who, as angel of God, spoke what belongs to God alone? “And she called the name of the Lord who spoke with her, You are God who saw me.” First angel of God; second Lord, for she called the name of the Lord who spoke with her; then third God, for “You are God who saw me.” He who was called angel of God is likewise Lord and God. And according to the prophet, the Son of God is the angel of great counsel. So that the distinction of persons might be complete, he was called angel of God; for he who is God from God is himself also the angel of God. But so that due honor might be given, he was proclaimed both Lord and God.

And here he is first angel, then afterward the same one is both Lord and God; but to Abraham he is only God. For safely, now that the distinction of persons has first been set out, so that the error of a solitary God may not lurk beneath, his complete and true name is spoken. For it is written: “And God said to Abraham, Behold, Sarah your wife will bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac; and I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant, and with his seed after him. As for Ishmael, behold, I have heard you, and I have blessed him, and I will increase him greatly; he will beget twelve nations, and I will make him a great nation.” Is there any doubt that he who was called angel of God is again called God as well? The speech is likewise about Ishmael, and he is to be multiplied by the same one, now as before. And lest perhaps the one who had spoken to Hagar should be thought not to be the one speaking, the divine word testifies that it is the same person, saying: “And I have blessed him and will multiply him.” The blessing is in the past, for he had already spoken to Hagar; the increase is in the future, for now for the first time God speaks to Abraham about Ishmael. To Abraham God speaks; to Hagar the angel of God spoke. He, then, who is angel is God, because he who is angel of God is God born from God. He was called angel of God because he is the angel of great counsel; but the same was afterward shown to be God, so that he who is God might not be believed to be an angel only. Let the discussion follow the order of events. The angel of the Lord spoke to Hagar; the same speaks to Abraham as God; the speech to both comes from the same one. Ishmael is blessed and is promised to be increased into a great nation.