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    "num": 154,
    "slug": "athanasius--four-discourses-against-the-arians",
    "title": "Four Discourses Against the Arians — St. Athanasius of Alexandria",
    "of": 425,
    "words": 74112,
    "text": "## Four Discourses Against the Arians\n\n*St. Athanasius of Alexandria · Saint · Doctor of the Church*\n\n**[Book 1, Chapter 1 §1]** Of all other heresies which have departed from the truth it is acknowledged that they have but devised a madness, and their irreligiousness has long since become notorious to all men. For that their authors went out from us, it plainly follows, as the blessed John has written, that they never thought nor now think with us. Wherefore, as says the Saviour, in that they gather not with us, they scatter with the devil, and keep an eye on those who slumber, that, by this second sowing of their own mortal poison, they may have companions in death. But, whereas one heresy, and that the last, which has now risen as harbinger of Antichrist, the Arian, as it is called, considering that other heresies, her elder sisters, have been openly proscribed, in her craft and cunning, affects to array herself in Scripture language , like her father the devil, and is forcing her way back into the Church's paradise,— that with the pretence of Christianity, her smooth sophistry (for reason she has none) may deceive men into wrong thoughts of Christ—nay, since she has already seduced certain of the foolish, not only to corrupt their ears, but even to take and eat with Eve, till in their ignorance which ensues they think bitter sweet, and admire this loathsome heresy, on this account I have thought it necessary, at your request, to unrip 'the folds of its breast-plate ,' and to show the ill savour of its folly. So while those who are far from it may continue to shun it, those whom it has deceived may repent; and, opening the eyes of their heart, may understand that darkness is not light, nor falsehood truth, nor Arianism good; nay, that those who call these men Christians are in great and grievous error, as neither having studied Scripture, nor understanding Christianity at all, and the faith which it contains.\n\n**[Book 1, Chapter 1 §2]** For what have they discovered in this heresy like to the religious Faith, that they vainly talk as if its supporters said no evil? This in truth is to call even Caiaphas a Christian, and to reckon the traitor Judas still among the Apostles, and to say that they who asked Barabbas instead of the Saviour did no evil, and to recommend Hymenæus and Alexander as right-minded men, and as if the Apostle slandered them. But neither can a Christian bear to hear this, nor can he consider the man who dared to say it sane in his understanding. For with them for Christ is Arius, as with the Manichees Manichæus; and for Moses and the other saints they have made the discovery of one Sotades , a man whom even Gentiles laugh at, and of the daughter of Herodias. For of the one has Arius imitated the dissolute and effeminate tone, in writing Thaliæ on his model; and the other he has rivalled in her dance, reeling and frolicking in his blasphemies against the Saviour; till the victims of his heresy lose their wits and go foolish, and change the Name of the Lord of glory into the likeness of the 'image of corruptible man ,' and for Christians come to be called Arians, bearing this badge of their irreligion. For let them not excuse themselves; nor retort their disgrace on those who are not as they, calling Christians after the names of their teachers , that they themselves may appear to have that Name in the same way. Nor let them make a jest of it, when they feel shame at their disgraceful appellation; rather, if they be ashamed, let them hide their faces, or let them recoil from their own irreligion. For never at any time did Christian people take their title from the Bishops among them, but from the Lord, on whom we rest our faith. Thus, though the blessed Apostles have become our teachers, and have ministered the Saviour's Gospel, yet not from them have we our title, but from Christ we are and are named Christians. But for those who derive the faith which they profess from others, good reason is it they should bear their name, whose property they have become.\n\n**[Book 1, Chapter 1 §3]** Yes surely; while all of us are and are called Christians after Christ, Marcion broached a heresy a long time since and was cast out; and those who continued with him who ejected him remained Christians; but those who followed Marcion were called Christians no more, but henceforth Marcionites. Thus Valentinus also, and Basilides, and Manichæus, and Simon Magus, have imparted their own name to their followers; and some are accosted as Valentinians, or as Basilidians, or as Manichees, or as Simonians; and other, Cataphrygians from Phrygia, and from Novatus Novatians. So too Meletius, when ejected by Peter the Bishop and Martyr, called his party no longer Christians, but Meletians , and so in consequence when Alexander of blessed memory had cast out Arius, those who remained with Alexander, remained Christians; but those who went out with Arius, left the Saviour's Name to us who were with Alexander, and as to them they were hence-forward denominated Arians. Behold then, after Alexander's death too, those who communicate with his successor Athanasius, and those with whom the said Athanasius communicates, are instances of the same rule; none of them bear his name, nor is he named from them, but all in like manner, and as is usual, are called Christians. For though we have a succession of teachers and become their disciples, yet, because we are taught by them the things of Christ, we both are, and are called, Christians all the same. But those who follow the heretics, though they have innumerable successors in their heresy, yet anyhow bear the name of him who devised it. Thus, though Arius be dead, and many of his party have succeeded him, yet those who think with him, as being known from Arius, are called Arians. And, what is a remarkable evidence of this, those of the Greeks who even at this time come into the Church, on giving up the superstition of idols, take the name, not of their catechists, but of the Saviour, and begin to be called Christians instead of Greeks: while those of them who go off to the heretics, and again all who from the Church change to this heresy, abandon Christ's name, and henceforth are called Arians, as no longer holding Christ's faith, but having inherited Arius's madness.\n\n**[Book 1, Chapter 1 §4]** How then can they be Christians, who for Christians are Ario-maniacs ? Or how are they of the Catholic Church, who have shaken off the Apostolical faith, and become authors of fresh evils? Who, after abandoning the oracles of divine Scripture, call Arius's Thaliæ a new wisdom? And with reason too, for they are announcing a new heresy. And hence a man may marvel, that, whereas many have written many treatises and abundant homilies upon the Old Testament and the New, yet in none of them is a Thalia found; nay nor among the more respectable of the Gentiles, but among those only who sing such strains over their cups, amid cheers and jokes, when men are merry, that the rest may laugh; till this marvellous Arius, taking no grave pattern, and ignorant even of what is respectable, while he stole largely from other heresies, would be original in the ludicrous, with none but Sotades for his rival. For what beseemed him more, when he would dance forth against the Saviour, than to throw his wretched words of irreligion into dissolute and loose metres? That, while 'a man,' as Wisdom says, 'is known from the utterance of his word ,' so from those numbers should be seen the writer's effeminate soul and corruption of thought. In truth, that crafty one did not escape detection; but, for all his many writhings to and fro, like the serpent, he did but fall into the error of the Pharisees. They, that they might transgress the Law, pretended to be anxious for the words of the Law, and that they might deny the expected and then present Lord, were hypocritical with God's name, and were convicted of blaspheming when they said, 'Why do You, being a man, make Yourself God,' and sayest, 'I and the Father are one John 10:30?' And so too, this counterfeit and Sotadean Arius, feigns to speak of God, introducing Scripture language , but is on all sides recognised as godless Arius, denying the Son, and reckoning Him among the creatures.\n\n**[Book 1, Chapter 2 §5]** Now the commencement of Arius's Thalia and flippancy, effeminate in tune and nature, runs thus:—\n\n**[Book 1, Chapter 2 (¶2)]** 'According to faith of God's elect, God's prudent ones, Holy children, rightly dividing, God's Holy Spirit receiving, Have I learned this from the partakers of wisdom, Accomplished, divinely taught, and wise in all things. Along their track, have I been walking, with like opinions. I the very famous, the much suffering for God's glory; And taught of God, I have acquired wisdom and knowledge.'\n\n**[Book 1, Chapter 2 (¶3)]** And the mockeries which he utters in it, repulsive and most irreligious, are such as these :— 'God was not always a Father.' but 'once God was alone, and not yet a Father, but afterwards He became a Father.' 'The Son was not always;' for, whereas all things were made out of nothing, and all existing creatures and works were made, so the Word of God Himself was 'made out of nothing,' and 'once He was not,' and 'He was not before His origination,' but He as others 'had an origin of creation.' 'For God,' he says, 'was alone, and the Word as yet was not, nor the Wisdom. Then, wishing to form us, thereupon He made a certain one, and named Him Word and Wisdom and Son, that He might form us by means of Him.' Accordingly, he says that there are two wisdoms, first, the attribute co-existent with God, and next, that in this wisdom the Son was originated, and was only named Wisdom and Word as partaking of it. 'For Wisdom,' says he, 'by the will of the wise God, had its existence in Wisdom.' In like manner, he says, that there is another Word in God besides the Son, and that the Son again, as partaking of it, is named Word and Son according to grace. And this too is an idea proper to their heresy, as shown in other works of theirs, that there are many powers; one of which is God's own by nature and eternal; but that Christ, on the other hand, is not the true power of God; but, as others, one of the so-called powers, one of which, namely, the locust and the caterpillar , is called in Scripture, not merely the power, but the 'great power.' The others are many and are like the Son, and of them David speaks in the Psalms, when he says, 'The Lord of hosts' or 'powers. ' And by nature, as all others, so the Word Himself is alterable, and remains good by His own free will, while He chooses; when, however, He wills, He can alter as we can, as being of an alterable nature. For 'therefore,' says he, 'as foreknowing that He would be good, did God by anticipation bestow on Him this glory, which afterwards, as man, He attained from virtue. Thus in consequence of His works fore-known , did God bring it to pass that He being such, should come to be.'\n\n**[Book 1, Chapter 2 §6]** Moreover he has dared to say, that 'the Word is not the very God;' 'though He is called God, yet He is not very God,' but 'by participation of grace, He, as others, is God only in name.' And, whereas all beings are foreign and different from God in essence, so too is 'the Word alien and unlike in all things to the Father's essence and propriety,' but belongs to things originated and created, and is one of these. Afterwards, as though he had succeeded to the devil's recklessness, he has stated in his Thalia, that 'even to the Son the Father is invisible,' and 'the Word cannot perfectly and exactly either see or know His own Father.' but even what He knows and what He sees, He knows and sees 'in proportion to His own measure,' as we also know according to our own power. For the Son, too, he says, not only knows not the Father exactly, for He fails in comprehension , but 'He knows not even His own essence;'— and that 'the essences of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, are separate in nature, and estranged, and disconnected, and alien , and without participation of each other ;' and, in his own words, 'utterly unlike from each other in essence and glory, unto infinity.' Thus as to 'likeness of glory and essence,' he says that the Word is entirely diverse from both the Father and the Holy Ghost. With such words has the irreligious spoken; maintaining that the Son is distinct by Himself, and in no respect partaker of the Father. These are portions of Arius's fables as they occur in that jocose composition.\n\n**[Book 1, Chapter 2 §7]** Who is there that hears all this, nay, the tune of the Thalia, but must hate, and justly hate, this Arius jesting on such matters as on a stage ? Who but must regard him, when he pretends to name God and speak of God, but as the serpent counselling the woman? Who, on reading what follows in his work, but must discern in his irreligious doctrine that error, into which by his sophistries the serpent in the sequel seduced the woman? Who at such blasphemies is not transported? 'The heaven,' as the Prophet says, 'was astonished, and the earth shuddered Jeremiah 2:12 ' at the transgression of the Law. But the sun, with greater horror, impatient of the bodily contumelies, which the common Lord of all voluntarily endured for us, turned away, and recalling his rays made that day sunless. And shall not all human kind at Arius's blasphemies be struck speechless, and stop their ears, and shut their eyes, to escape hearing them or seeing their author? Rather, will not the Lord Himself have reason to denounce men so irreligious, nay, so unthankful, in the words which He has already uttered by the prophet Hosea, 'Woe unto them, for they have fled from Me; destruction upon them, for they have transgressed against Me; though I have redeemed them, yet they have spoken lies against Me Hosea 7:13.' And soon after, 'They imagine mischief against Me; they turn away to nothing. ' For to turn away from the Word of God, which is, and to fashion to themselves one that is not, is to fall to what is nothing. For this was why the Ecumenical Council, when Arius thus spoke, cast him from the Church, and anathematized him, as impatient of such irreligion. And ever since has Arius's error been reckoned for a heresy more than ordinary, being known as Christ's foe, and harbinger of Antichrist. Though then so great a condemnation be itself of special weight to make men flee from that irreligious heresy , as I said above, yet since certain persons called Christian, either in ignorance or pretence, think it, as I then said, little different from the Truth, and call its professors Christians; proceed we to put some questions to them, according to our powers, thereby to expose the unscrupulousness of the heresy. Perhaps, when thus caught, they will be silenced, and flee from it, as from the sight of a serpent.\n\n**[Book 1, Chapter 3 §8]** If then the use of certain phrases of divine Scripture changes, in their opinion, the blasphemy of the Thalia into reverent language, of course they ought also to deny Christ with the present Jews, when they see how they study the Law and the Prophets; perhaps too they will deny the Law and the Prophets like Manichees , because the latter read some portions of the Gospels. If such bewilderment and empty speaking be from ignorance, Scripture will teach them, that the devil, the author of heresies, because of the ill savour which attaches to evil, borrows Scripture language, as a cloak wherewith to sow the ground with his own poison also, and to seduce the simple. Thus he deceived Eve; thus he framed former heresies; thus he persuaded Arius at this time to make a show of speaking against those former ones, that he might introduce his own without observation. And yet, after all, the man of craft did not escape. For being irreligious towards the Word of God, he lost his all at once , and betrayed to all men his ignorance of other heresies too ; and having not a particle of truth in his belief, does but pretend to it. For how can he speak truth concerning the Father, who denies the Son, that reveals concerning Him? Or how can he be orthodox concerning the Spirit, while he speaks profanely of the Word that supplies the Spirit? And who will trust him concerning the Resurrection, denying, as he does, Christ for us the first-begotten from the dead? And how shall he not err in respect to His incarnate presence, who is simply ignorant of the Son's genuine and true generation from the Father? For thus, the former Jews also, denying the Word, and saying, 'We have no king but Cæsar John 19:15,' were immediately stripped of all they had, and forfeited the light of the Lamp, the odour of ointment, knowledge of prophecy, and the Truth itself; till now they understand nothing, but are walking as in darkness. For who was ever yet a hearer of such a doctrine ? Or whence or from whom did the abettors and hirelings of the heresy gain it? Who thus expounded to them when they were at school ? Who told them, 'Abandon the worship of the creation, and then draw near and worship a creature and a work ?' But if they themselves own that they have heard it now for the first time, how can they deny that this heresy is foreign, and not from our fathers ? But what is not from our fathers, but has come to light in this day, how can it be but that of which the blessed Paul has foretold, that 'in the latter times some shall depart from the sound faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils, in the hypocrisy of liars; cauterized in their own conscience, and turning from the truth ?'\n\n**[Book 1, Chapter 3 §9]** For, behold, we take divine Scripture, and thence discourse with freedom of the religious Faith, and set it up as a light upon its candlestick, saying:— Very Son of the Father, natural and genuine, proper to His essence, Wisdom Only-begotten, and Very and Only Word of God is He; not a creature or work, but an offspring proper to the Father's essence. Wherefore He is very God, existing one in essence with the very Father; while other beings, to whom He said, 'I said you are Gods ,' had this grace from the Father, only by participation of the Word, through the Spirit. For He is the expression of the Father's Person, and Light from Light, and Power, and very Image of the Father's essence. For this too the Lord has said, 'He that has seen Me, has seen the Father John 14:9.' And He ever was and is and never was not. For the Father being everlasting, His Word and His Wisdom must be everlasting. On the other hand, what have these persons to show us from the infamous Thalia? Or, first of all, let them read it themselves, and copy the tone of the writer; at least the mockery which they will encounter from others may instruct them how low they have fallen; and then let them proceed to explain themselves. For what can they say from it, but that 'God was not always a Father, but became so afterwards; the Son was not always, for He was not before His generation; He is not from the Father, but He, as others, has come into subsistence out of nothing; He is not proper to the Father's essence, for He is a creature and work?' And 'Christ is not very God, but He, as others, was made God by participation; the Son has not exact knowledge of the Father, nor does the Word see the Father perfectly; and neither exactly understands nor knows the Father. He is not the very and only Word of the Father, but is in name only called Word and Wisdom, and is called by grace Son and Power. He is not unalterable, as the Father is, but alterable in nature, as the creatures, and He comes short of apprehending the perfect knowledge of the Father.' Wonderful this heresy, not plausible even, but making speculations against Him that is, that He be not, and everywhere putting forward blasphemy for reverent language! Were any one, after inquiring into both sides, to be asked, whether of the two he would follow in faith, or whether of the two spoke fitly of God—or rather let them say themselves, these abettors of irreligion, what, if a man be asked concerning God (for 'the Word was God?'), it were fit to answer. For from this one question the whole case on both sides may be determined, what is fitting to say—He was, or He was not; always, or before His birth; eternal, or from this and from then; true, or by adoption, and from participation and in idea ; to call Him one of things originated, or to unite Him to the Father; to consider Him unlike the Father in essence, or like and proper to Him; a creature, or Him through whom the creatures were originated; that He is the Father's Word, or that there is another word beside Him, and that by this other He was originated, and by another wisdom; and that He is only named Wisdom and Word, and has become a partaker of this wisdom, and second to it?\n\n**[Book 1, Chapter 3 §10]** Which of the two theologies sets forth our Lord Jesus Christ as God and Son of the Father, this which you vomited forth, or that which we have spoken and maintain from the Scriptures? If the Saviour be not God, nor Word, nor Son, you shall have leave to say what you will, and so shall the Gentiles, and the present Jews. But if He be Word of the Father and true Son, and God from God, and 'over all blessed for ever Romans 9:5,' is it not becoming to obliterate and blot out those other phrases and that Arian Thalia, as but a pattern of evil, a store of all irreligion, into which, whoso falls, 'knows not that giants perish with her, and reaches the depths of Hades ?' This they know themselves, and in their craft they conceal it, not having the courage to speak out, but uttering something else. For if they speak, a condemnation will follow; and if they be suspected, proofs from Scripture will be cast at them from every side. Wherefore, in their craft, as children of this world, after feeding their so-called lamp from the wild olive, and fearing lest it should soon be quenched (for it is said, 'the light of the wicked shall be put out Job 18:5,') they hide it under the bushel of their hypocrisy, and make a different profession, and boast of patronage of friends and authority of Constantius, that what with their hypocrisy and their professions, those who come to them may be kept from seeing how foul their heresy is. Is it not detestable even in this, that it dares not speak out, but is kept hidden by its own friends, and fostered as serpents are? For from what sources have they got together these words? Or from whom have they received what they venture to say ? Not any one man can they specify who has supplied it. For who is there in all mankind, Greek or Barbarian, who ventures to rank among creatures One whom he confesses the while to be God and says, that He was not till He was made? Or who is there, who to the God in whom he has put faith, refuses to give credit, when He says, 'This is My beloved Son Matthew 3:17,' on the pretence that He is not a Son, but a creature? Rather, such madness would rouse an universal indignation. Nor does Scripture afford them any pretext; for it has been often shown, and it shall be shown now, that their doctrine is alien to the divine oracles. Therefore, since all that remains is to say that from the devil came their mania (for of such opinions he alone is sower ), proceed we to resist him— for with him is our real conflict, and they are but instruments—that, the Lord aiding us, and the enemy, as he is wont, being overcome with arguments, they may be put to shame, when they see him without resource who sowed this heresy in them, and may learn, though late, that, as being Arians, they are not Christians.\n\n**[Book 1, Chapter 3 §11]** At his suggestion then you have maintained and you think, that 'there was once when the Son was not;' this is the first cloke of your views of doctrine which has to be stripped off. Say then what was once when the Son was not, O slanderous and irreligious men ? If you say the Father, your blasphemy is but greater; for it is impious to say that He was 'once,' or to signify Him by the word 'once.' For He is ever, and is now, and as the Son is, so is He, and is Himself He that is, and Father of the Son. But if you say that the Son was once, when He Himself was not, the answer is foolish and unmeaning. For how could He both be and not be? In this difficulty, you can but answer, that there was a time when the Word was not; for your very adverb 'once' naturally signifies this. And your other, 'The Son was not before His generation,' is equivalent to saying, 'There was once when He was not,' for both the one and the other signify that there is a time before the Word. Whence then this your discovery? Why do you, as 'the heathen, rage, and imagine vain phrases against the Lord and against His Christ.' for no holy Scripture has used such language of the Saviour, but rather 'always' and 'eternal' and 'coexistent always with the Father.' For, 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God John 1:1.' And in the Apocalypse he thus speaks ; 'Who is and who was and who is to come.' Now who can rob 'who is' and 'who was' of eternity? This too in confutation of the Jews has Paul written in his Epistle to the Romans, 'Of whom as concerning the flesh is Christ, who is over all, God blessed for ever Romans 9:5;' while silencing the Greeks, he has said, 'The visible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal Power and Godhead ;' and what the Power of God is, he teaches us elsewhere himself, 'Christ the Power of God and the Wisdom of God. ' Surely in these words he does not designate the Father, as you often whisper one to another, affirming that the Father is 'His eternal power.' This is not so; for he says not, 'God Himself is the power,' but 'His is the power.' Very plain is it to all that 'His' is not 'He;' yet not something alien but rather proper to Him. Study too the context and 'turn to the Lord.' now 'the Lord is that Spirit ;'and you will see that it is the Son who is signified.\n\n**[Book 1, Chapter 3 §12]** For after making mention of the creation, he naturally speaks of the Framer's Power as seen in it, which Power, I say, is the Word of God, by whom all things have been made. If indeed the creation is sufficient of itself alone, without the Son, to make God known, see that you fall not, from thinking that without the Son it has come to be. But if through the Son it has come to be, and 'in Him all things consist Colossians 1:17,' it must follow that he who contemplates the creation rightly, is contemplating also the Word who framed it, and through Him begins to apprehend the Father. And if, as the Saviour also says, 'No one knows the Father, save the Son, and he to whom the Son shall reveal Him Matthew 11:27,' and if on Philip's asking, 'Show us the Father,' He said not, 'Behold the creation,' but, 'He that has seen Me, has seen the Father John 14:8-9,' reasonably does Paul—while accusing the Greeks of contemplating the harmony and order of the creation without reflecting on the Framing Word within it (for the creatures witness to their own Framer) so as through the creation to apprehend the true God, and abandon their worship of it—reasonably has he said, 'His Eternal Power and Godhead Romans 1:20,' thereby signifying the Son. And where the sacred writers say, 'Who exists before the ages,' and 'By whom He made the ages Hebrews 1:2,' they thereby as clearly preach the eternal and everlasting being of the Son, even while they are designating God Himself. Thus, if Isaiah says, 'The Everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth Isaiah 40:28;' and Susanna said, 'O Everlasting God ;' and Baruch wrote, 'I will cry unto the Everlasting in my days,' and shortly after, 'My hope is in the Everlasting, that He will save you, and joy has come unto me from the Holy One ;' yet forasmuch as the Apostle, writing to the Hebrews, says, 'Who being the radiance of His glory and the Expression of His Person Hebrews 1:3;' and David too in the eighty-ninth Psalm, 'And the brightness of the Lord be upon us,' and, 'In Your Light shall we see Light ,' who has so little sense as to doubt of the eternity of the Son ? For when did man see light without the brightness of its radiance, that he may say of the Son, 'There was once, when He was not,' or 'Before His generation He was not.' And the words addressed to the Son in the hundred and forty-fourth Psalm, 'Your kingdom is a kingdom of all ages ,' forbid any one to imagine any interval at all in which the Word did not exist. For if every interval in the ages is measured, and of all the ages the Word is King and Maker, therefore, whereas no interval at all exists prior to Him , it were madness to say, 'There was once when the Everlasting was not,' and 'From nothing is the Son.' And whereas the Lord Himself says, 'I am the Truth ,' not 'I became the Truth.' but always, 'I am—I am the Shepherd,— I am the Light,'— and again, 'Call Me not, Lord and Master? And you call Me well, for so I am,' who, hearing such language from God, and the Wisdom, and Word of the Father, speaking of Himself, will any longer hesitate about the truth, and not immediately believe that in the phrase 'I am,' is signified that the Son is eternal and without beginning?\n\n**[Book 1, Chapter 3 §13]** It is plain then from the above that the Scriptures declare the Son's eternity; it is equally plain from what follows that the Arian phrases 'He was not,' and 'before' and 'when,' are in the same Scriptures predicated of creatures. Moses, for instance, in his account of the generation of our system, says, 'And every plant of the field, before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew; for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground Genesis 2:5.' And in Deuteronomy, 'When the Most High divided to the nations Deuteronomy 32:8.' And the Lord said in His own Person, 'If you loved Me, you would rejoice because I said, I go unto the Father, for My Father is greater than I. And now I have told you before it come to pass, that when it has come to pass, you might believe John 14:28-29.' And concerning the creation He says by Solomon, 'Or ever the earth was, when there were no depths, I was brought forth; when there were no fountains abounding with water. Before the mountains were settled, before the hills, was I brought forth Proverbs 8:23.' And, 'Before Abraham was, I am John 8:58.' And concerning Jeremiah He says, 'Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you Jeremiah 1:5.' And David in the Psalm says, 'Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever the earth and the world were made, You are, God from everlasting and world without end. ' And in Daniel, 'Susanna cried out with a loud voice and said, O everlasting God, that know the secrets, and know all things before they be. ' Thus it appears that the phrases 'once was not,' and 'before it came to be,' and 'when,' and the like, belong to things originate and creatures, which come out of nothing, but are alien to the Word. But if such terms are used in Scripture of things originate, but 'ever' of the Word, it follows, O you enemies of God, that the Son did not come out of nothing, nor is in the number of originated things at all, but is the Father's Image and Word eternal, never having not been, but being ever, as the eternal Radiance of a Light which is eternal. Why imagine then times before the Son? Or why blaspheme the Word as after times, by whom even the ages were made? For how did time or age at all subsist when the Word, as you say, had not appeared, 'through' whom 'all things have been made and without' whom 'not one thing was made John 1:3?' Or why, when you mean time, do you not plainly say, 'a time was when the Word was not?' But while you drop the word 'time' to deceive the simple, you do not at all conceal your own feeling, nor, even if you did, could you escape discovery. For you still simply mean times, when you say, 'There was when He was not,' and 'He was not before His generation.'\n\n**[Book 1, Chapter 5 §14]** When these points are thus proved, their profaneness goes further. 'If there never was, when the Son was not,' say they, 'but He is eternal, and coexists with the Father, you call Him no more the Father's Son, but brother. ' O insensate and contentious! For if we said only that He was eternally with the Father, and not His Son, their pretended scruple would have some plausibility; but if, while we say that He is eternal, we also confess Him to be Son from the Father, how can He that is begotten be considered brother of Him who begets? And if our faith is in Father and Son, what brotherhood is there between them? And how can the Word be called brother of Him whose Word He is? This is not an objection of men really ignorant, for they comprehend how the truth lies; but it is a Jewish pretence, and that from those who, in Solomon's words, 'through desire separate themselves Proverbs 18:1 ' from the truth. For the Father and the Son were not generated from some pre-existing origin , that we may account Them brothers, but the Father is the Origin of the Son and begot Him; and the Father is Father, and not born the Son of any; and the Son is Son, and not brother. Further, if He is called the eternal offspring of the Father, He is rightly so called. For never was the essence of the Father imperfect, that what is proper to it should be added afterwards ; nor, as man from man, has the Son been begotten, so as to be later than His Father's existence, but He is God's offspring, and as being proper Son of God, who is ever, He exists eternally. For, whereas it is proper to men to beget in time, from the imperfection of their nature , God's offspring is eternal, for His nature is ever perfect. If then He is not a Son, but a work made out of nothing, they have but to prove it; and then they are at liberty, as if imagining about a creature, to cry out, 'There was once when He was not;' for things which are originated were not, and have come to be. But if He is Son, as the Father says, and the Scriptures proclaim, and 'Son' is nothing else than what is generated from the Father; and what is generated from the Father is His Word, and Wisdom, and Radiance; what is to be said but that, in maintaining 'Once the Son was not,' they rob God of His Word, like plunderers, and openly predicate of Him that He was once without His proper Word and Wisdom, and that the Light was once without radiance, and the Fountain was once barren and dry ? For though they pretend alarm at the name of time, because of those who reproach them with it, and say, that He was before times, yet whereas they assign certain intervals, in which they imagine He was not, they are most irreligious still, as equally suggesting times, and imputing to God an absence of Reason.\n\n**[Book 1, Chapter 5 §15]** But if on the other hand, while they acknowledge with us the name of 'Son,' from an unwillingness to be publicly and generally condemned, they deny that the Son is the proper offspring of the Father's essence, on the ground that this must imply parts and divisions ; what is this but to deny that He is very Son, and only in name to call Him Son at all? And is it not a grievous error, to have material thoughts about what is immaterial, and because of the weakness of their proper nature to deny what is natural and proper to the Father? It does but remain, that they should deny Him also, because they understand not how God is , and what the Father is, now that, foolish men, they measure by themselves the Offspring of the Father. And persons in such a state of mind as to consider that there cannot be a Son of God, demand our pity; but they must be interrogated and exposed for the chance of bringing them to their senses. If then, as you say, 'the Son is from nothing,' and 'was not before His generation,' He, of course, as well as others, must be called Son and God and Wisdom only by participation; for thus all other creatures consist, and by sanctification are glorified. You have to tell us then, of what He is partaker. All other things partake of the Spirit, but He, according to you, of what is He partaker? Of the Spirit? Nay, rather the Spirit Himself takes from the Son, as He Himself says; and it is not reasonable to say that the latter is sanctified by the former. Therefore it is the Father that He partakes; for this only remains to say. But this, which is participated, what is it or whence ? If it be something external provided by the Father, He will not now be partaker of the Father, but of what is external to Him; and no longer will He be even second after the Father, since He has before Him this other; nor can He be called Son of the Father, but of that, as partaking which He has been called Son and God. And if this be unseemly and irreligious, when the Father says, 'This is My Beloved Son Matthew 3:17,' and when the Son says that God is His own Father, it follows that what is partaken is not external, but from the essence of the Father. And as to this again, if it be other than the essence of the Son, an equal extravagance will meet us; there being in that case something between this that is from the Father and the essence of the Son, whatever that be.\n\n**[Book 1, Chapter 5 §16]** Such thoughts then being evidently unseemly and untrue, we are driven to say that what is from the essence of the Father, and proper to Him, is entirely the Son; for it is all one to say that God is wholly participated, and that He begets; and what does begetting signify but a Son? And thus of the Son Himself, all things partake according to the grace of the Spirit coming from Him ; and this shows that the Son Himself partakes of nothing, but what is partaken from the Father, is the Son; for, as partaking of the Son Himself, we are said to partake of God; and this is what Peter said 'that you may be partakers in a divine nature 2 Peter 1:4;' as says too the Apostle, 'Do you not know, that you are a temple of God.' and, 'We are the temple of a living God. ' And beholding the Son, we see the Father; for the thought and comprehension of the Son, is knowledge concerning the Father, because He is His proper offspring from His essence. And since to be partaken no one of us would ever call affection or division of God's essence (for it has been shown and acknowledged that God is participated, and to be participated is the same thing as to beget); therefore that which is begotten is neither affection nor division of that blessed essence. Hence it is not incredible that God should have a Son, the Offspring of His own essence; nor do we imply affection or division of God's essence, when we speak of 'Son' and 'Offspring;' but rather, as acknowledging the genuine, and true, and Only-begotten of God, so we believe. If then, as we have stated and are showing, what is the Offspring of the Father's essence be the Son, we cannot hesitate, rather we must be certain, that the same is the Wisdom and Word of the Father, in and through whom He creates and makes all things; and His Brightness too, in whom He enlightens all things, and is revealed to whom He will; and His Expression and Image also, in whom He is contemplated and known, wherefore 'He and His Father are one John 10:30,' and whoso looks on Him looks on the Father; and the Christ, in whom all things are redeemed, and the new creation wrought afresh. And on the other hand, the Son being such Offspring, it is not fitting, rather it is full of peril, to say, that He is a work out of nothing, or that He was not before His generation. For he who thus speaks of that which is proper to the Father's essence, already blasphemes the Father Himself ; since he really thinks of Him what he falsely imagines of His offspring.\n\n**[Book 1, Chapter 6 §17]** This is of itself a sufficient refutation of the Arian heresy; however, its heterodoxy will appear also from the following:— If God be Maker and Creator, and create His works through the Son, and we cannot regard things which come to be, except as being through the Word, is it not blasphemous, God being Maker, to say, that His Framing Word and His Wisdom once was not? It is the same as saying, that God is not Maker, if He had not His proper Framing Word which is from Him, but that that by which He frames, accrues to Him from without , and is alien from Him, and unlike in essence. Next, let them tell us this—or rather learn from it how irreligious they are in saying, 'Once He was not,' and, 'He was not before His generation;'— for if the Word is not with the Father from everlasting, the Triad is not everlasting; but a Monad was first, and afterwards by addition it became a Triad; and so as time went on, it seems what we know concerning God grew and took shape. And further, if the Son is not proper offspring of the Father's essence, but of nothing has come to be, then of nothing the Triad consists, and once there was not a Triad, but a Monad; and a Triad once with deficiency, and then complete; deficient, before the Son was originated, complete when He had come to be; and henceforth a thing originated is reckoned with the Creator, and what once was not has divine worship and glory with Him who was ever. Nay, what is more serious still, the Triad is discovered to be unlike Itself, consisting of strange and alien natures and essences. And this, in other words, is saying, that the Triad has an originated consistence. What sort of a religion then is this, which is not even like itself, but is in process of completion as time goes on, and is now not thus, and then again thus? For probably it will receive some fresh accession, and so on without limit, since at first and at starting it took its consistence by way of accessions. And so undoubtedly it may decrease on the contrary, for what is added plainly admits of being subtracted.\n\n**[Book 1, Chapter 6 §18]** But this is not so: perish the thought; the Triad is not originated; but there is an eternal and one Godhead in a Triad, and there is one Glory of the Holy Triad. And you presume to divide it into different natures; the Father being eternal, yet you say of the Word which is seated by Him, 'Once He was not;' and, whereas the Son is seated by the Father, yet you think to place Him far from Him. The Triad is Creator and Framer, and you fear not to degrade It to things which are from nothing; you scruple not to equal servile beings to the nobility of the Triad, and to rank the King, the Lord of Sabaoth with subjects. Cease this confusion of things unassociable, or rather of things which are not with Him who is. Such statements do not glorify and honour the Lord, but the reverse; for he who dishonours the Son, dishonours also the Father. For if the doctrine of God is now perfect in a Triad, and this is the true and only Religion, and this is the good and the truth, it must have been always so, unless the good and the truth be something that came after, and the doctrine of God is completed by additions. I say, it must have been eternally so; but if not eternally, not so at present either, but at present so, as you suppose it was from the beginning—I mean, not a Triad now. But such heretics no Christian would bear; it belongs to Greeks, to introduce an originated Triad, and to level It with things originate; for these do admit of deficiencies and additions; but the faith of Christians acknowledges the blessed Triad as unalterable and perfect and ever what It was, neither adding to It what is more, nor imputing to It any loss (for both ideas are irreligious), and therefore it dissociates It from all things generated, and it guards as indivisible and worships the unity of the Godhead Itself; and shuns the Arian blasphemies, and confesses and acknowledges that the Son was ever; for He is eternal, as is the Father, of whom He is the Eternal Word,— to which subject let us now return again.\n\n**[Book 1, Chapter 6 §19]** If God be, and be called, the Fountain of wisdom and life— as He says by Jeremiah, 'They have forsaken Me the Fountain of living waters Jeremiah 2:13;' and again, 'A glorious high throne from the beginning, is the place of our sanctuary; O Lord, the Hope of Israel, all that forsake You shall be ashamed, and they that depart from Me shall be written in the earth, because they have forsaken the Lord, the Fountain of living waters ;' and in the book of Baruch it is written, 'You have forsaken the Fountain of wisdom Baruch 3:12,'— this implies that life and wisdom are not foreign to the Essence of the Fountain, but are proper to It, nor were at any time without existence, but were always. Now the Son is all this, who says, 'I am the Life John 14:6,' and, 'I Wisdom dwell with prudence Proverbs 8:12.' Is it not then irreligious to say, 'Once the Son was not?' for it is all one with saying, 'Once the Fountain was dry, destitute of Life and Wisdom.' But a fountain it would then cease to be; for what begets not from itself, is not a fountain. What a load of extravagance! For God promises that those who do His will shall be as a fountain which the water fails not, saying by Isaiah the prophet, 'And the Lord shall satisfy your soul in drought, and make your bones fat; and you shall be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not Isaiah 58:11.' And yet these, whereas God is called and is a Fountain of wisdom, dare to insult Him as barren and void of His proper Wisdom. But their doctrine is false; truth witnessing that God is the eternal Fountain of His proper Wisdom; and, if the Fountain be eternal, the Wisdom also must needs be eternal. For in It were all things made, as David says in the Psalm, 'In Wisdom have You made them all ;' and Solomon says, 'The Lord by Wisdom has formed the earth, by understanding has He established the heavens Proverbs 3:19.' And this Wisdom is the Word, and by Him, as John says, 'all things were made,' and 'without Him was made not one thing. ' And this Word is Christ; for 'there is One God, the Father, from whom are all things, and we for Him; and One Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we through Him 1 Corinthians 8:6.' And if all things are through Him, He Himself is not to be reckoned with that 'all.' For he who dares to call Him, through whom are things, one of that 'all,' surely will have like speculations concerning God, from whom are all. But if he shrinks from this as unseemly, and excludes God from that all, it is but consistent that he should also exclude from that all the Only-Begotten Son, as being proper to the Father's essence. And, if He be not one of the all , it is sin to say concerning Him, 'He was not,' and 'He was not before His generation.' Such words may be used of the creatures; but as to the Son, He is such as the Father is, of whose essence He is proper Offspring, Word, and Wisdom. For this is proper to the Son, as regards the Father, and this shows that the Father is proper to the Son; that we may neither say that God was ever without Word , nor that the Son was non-existent. For wherefore a Son, if not from Him? Or wherefore Word and Wisdom, if not ever proper to Him?\n\n**[Book 1, Chapter 6 §20]** When then was God without that which is proper to Him? Or how can a man consider that which is proper, as foreign and alien in essence? For other things, according to the nature of things originate, are without likeness in essence with the Maker; but are external to Him, made by the Word at His grace and will, and thus admit of ceasing to be, if it so pleases Him who made them ; for such is the nature of things originate. But as to what is proper to the Father's essence (for this we have already found to be the Son), what daring is it in irreligion to say that 'This comes from nothing,' and that 'It was not before generation,' but was adventitious , and can at some time cease to be again? Let a person only dwell upon this thought, and he will discern how the perfection and the plenitude of the Father's essence is impaired by this heresy; however, he will see its unseemliness still more clearly, if he considers that the Son is the Image and Radiance of the Father, and Expression, and Truth. For if, when Light exists, there be withal its Image, viz. Radiance, and, a Subsistence existing, there be of it the entire Expression, and, a Father existing, there be His Truth (viz. the Son); let them consider what depths of irreligion they fall into, who make time the measure of the Image and Form of the Godhead. For if the Son was not before His generation, Truth was not always in God, which it were a sin to say; for, since the Father was, there was ever in Him the Truth, which is the Son, who says, 'I am the Truth John 14:6.' And the Subsistence existing, of course there was immediately its Expression and Image; for God's Image is not delineated from without , but God Himself has begotten it; in which seeing Himself, He has delight, as the Son Himself says, 'I was His delight Proverbs 8:30.' When then did the Father not see Himself in His own Image? Or when had He not delight, that a man should dare to say, 'the Image is out of nothing,' and 'The Father had not delight before the Image was originated?' and how should the Maker and Creator see Himself in a created and originated essence? For such as is the Father, such must be the Image.\n\n**[Book 1, Chapter 6 §21]** Proceed we then to consider the attributes of the Father, and we shall come to know whether this Image is really His. The Father is eternal, immortal, powerful, light, King, Sovereign, God, Lord, Creator, and Maker. These attributes must be in the Image, to make it true that he 'that has seen' the Son 'has seen the Father John 14:9.' If the Son be not all this, but, as the Arians consider, originate, and not eternal, this is not a true Image of the Father, unless indeed they give up shame, and go on to say, that the title of Image, given to the Son, is not a token of a similar essence , but His name only. But this, on the other hand, O you enemies of Christ, is not an Image, nor is it an Expression. For what is the likeness of what is out of nothing to Him who brought what was nothing into being? Or how can that which is not, be like Him that is, being short of Him in once not being, and in its having its place among things originate? However, such the Arians wishing Him to be, devised for themselves arguments such as this—'If the Son is the Father's offspring and Image, and is like in all things to the Father, then it necessarily holds that as He is begotten, so He begets, and He too becomes father of a son. And again, he who is begotten from Him, begets in his turn, and so on without limit; for this is to make the Begotten like Him that begot Him.' Authors of blasphemy, verily, are these foes of God! Who, sooner than confess that the Son is the Father's Image , conceive material and earthly ideas concerning the Father Himself, ascribing to Him severings and effluences and influences. If then God be as man, let Him become also a parent as man, so that His Son should be father of another, and so in succession one from another, till the series they imagine grows into a multitude of gods. But if God be not as man, as He is not, we must not impute to Him the attributes of man. For brutes and men, after a Creator has begun them, are begotten by succession; and the son, having been begotten of a father who was a son, becomes accordingly in his turn a father to a son, in inheriting from his father that by which he himself has come to be. Hence in such instances there is not, properly speaking, either father or son, nor do the father and the son stay in their respective characters, for the son himself becomes a father, being son of his father, but father of his son. But it is not so in the Godhead; for not as man is God; for the Father is not from a father; therefore does He not beget one who shall become a father; nor is the Son from effluence of the Father, nor is He begotten from a father that was begotten; therefore neither is He begotten so as to beget. Thus it belongs to the Godhead alone, that the Father is properly father, and the Son properly son, and in Them, and Them only, does it hold that the Father is ever Father and the Son ever Son.\n\n**[Book 1, Chapter 6 §22]** Therefore he who asks why the Son is not to beget a son, must inquire why the Father had not a father. But both suppositions are unseemly and full of impiety. For as the Father is ever Father and never could become Son, so the Son is ever Son and never could become Father. For in this rather is He shown to be the Father's Expression and Image, remaining what He is and not changing, but thus receiving from the Father to be one and the same. If then the Father change, let the Image change; for so is the Image and Radiance in its relation towards Him who begot It. But if the Father is unalterable, and what He is that He continues, necessarily does the Image also continue what He is, and will not alter. Now He is Son from the Father; therefore He will not become other than is proper to the Father's essence. Idly then have the foolish ones devised this objection also, wishing to separate the Image from the Father, that they might level the Son with things originated.\n\n**[Book 1, Chapter 7 (¶1)]** 22 (continued). Ranking Him among these, according to the teaching of Eusebius, and accounting Him such as the things which come into being through Him, Arius and his fellows revolted from the truth, and used, when they commenced this heresy, to go about with dishonest phrases which they had got together; nay, up to this time some of them , when they fall in with boys in the market-place, question them, not out of divine Scripture, but thus, as if bursting with 'the abundance of their heart Matthew 12:34;'— 'He who is, did He make him who was not, from that which was [not], or him who was? Therefore did He make the Son, whereas He was, or whereas He was not ?' And again, 'Is the Unoriginate one or two?' and 'Has He free will, and yet does not alter at His own choice, as being of an alterable nature? For He is not as a stone to remain by Himself unmoveable.' Next they turn to silly women, and address them in turn in this womanish language; 'Had you a son before bearing? Now, as you had not, so neither was the Son of God before His generation.' In such language do the disgraceful men sport and revel, and liken God to men, pretending to be Christians, but changing God's glory 'into an image made like to corruptible man. '\n\n**[Book 1, Chapter 7 §23]** Words so senseless and dull deserved no answer at all; however, lest their heresy appear to have any foundation, it may be right, though we go out of the way for it, to refute them even here, especially on account of the silly women who are so readily deceived by them. When they thus speak, they should have inquired of an architect, whether he can build without materials; and if he cannot, whether it follows that God could not make the universe without materials. Or they should have asked every man, whether he can be without place; and if he cannot, whether it follows that God is in place, that so they may be brought to shame even by their audience. Or why is it that, on hearing that God has a Son, they deny Him by the parallel of themselves; whereas, if they hear that He creates and makes, no longer do they object their human ideas? They ought in creation also to entertain the same, and to supply God with materials, and so deny Him to be Creator, till they end in grovelling with Manichees. But if the bare idea of God transcends such thoughts, and, on very first hearing, a man believes and knows that He is in being, not as we are, and yet in being as God, and creates not as man creates, but yet creates as God, it is plain that He begets also not as men beget, but begets as God. For God does not make man His pattern; but rather we men, for that God is properly, and alone truly , Father of His Son, are also called fathers of our own children; for of Him 'is every fatherhood in heaven and earth named Ephesians 3:15.' And their positions, while unscrutinized, have a show of sense; but if any one scrutinize them by reason, they will be found to incur much derision and mockery.\n\n**[Book 1, Chapter 7 §24]** For first of all, as to their first question, which is such as this, how dull and vague it is! They do not explain who it is they ask about, so as to allow of an answer, but they say abstractedly, 'He who is,' 'him who is not.' Who then 'is,' and what 'are not,' O Arians? Or who 'is,' and who 'is not?' what are said 'to be,' what 'not to be?' for He that is, can make things which are not, and which are, and which were before. For instance, carpenter, and goldsmith, and potter, each, according to his own art, works upon materials previously existing, making what vessels he pleases; and the God of all Himself, having taken the dust of the earth existing and already brought to be, fashions man; that very earth, however, whereas it was not once, He has at one time made by His own Word. If then this is the meaning of their question, the creature on the one hand plainly was not before its origination, and men, on the other, work the existing material; and thus their reasoning is inconsequent, since both 'what is' becomes, and 'what is not' becomes, as these instances show. But if they speak concerning God and His Word, let them complete their question and then ask, Was the God, 'who is,' ever without Reason? And, whereas He is Light, was He ray-less? Or was He always Father of the Word? Or again in this manner. Has the Father 'who is' made the Word 'who is not,' or has He ever with Him His Word, as the proper offspring of His substance? This will show them that they do but presume and venture on sophisms about God and Him who is from Him. Who indeed can bear to hear them say that God was ever without Reason? This is what they fall into a second time, though endeavouring in vain to escape it and to hide it with their sophisms. Nay, one would fain not hear them disputing at all, that God was not always Father, but became so afterwards (which is necessary for their fantasy, that His Word once was not), considering the number of the proofs already adduced against them; while John besides says, 'The Word was John 1:1,' and Paul again writes, 'Who being the brightness of His glory Hebrews 1:3,' and, 'Who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen Romans 9:5.'\n\n**[Book 1, Chapter 7 §25]** They had best have been silent; but since it is otherwise, it remains to meet their shameless question with a bold retort. Perhaps on seeing the counter absurdities which beset themselves, they may cease to fight against the truth. After many prayers then that God would be gracious to us, thus we might ask them in turn; God who is, has He so become, whereas He was not? Or is He also before His coming into being? Whereas He is, did He make Himself, or is He of nothing, and being nothing before, did He suddenly appear Himself? Unseemly is such an enquiry, both unseemly and very blasphemous, yet parallel with theirs; for the answer they make abounds in irreligion. But if it be blasphemous and utterly irreligious thus to inquire about God, it will be blasphemous too to make the like inquiries about His Word. However, by way of exposing a question so senseless and so dull, it is necessary to answer thus:— whereas God is, He was eternally; since then the Father is ever, His Radiance ever is, which is His Word. And again, God who is, has from Himself His Word who also is; and neither has the Word been added, whereas He was not before, nor was the Father once without Reason. For this assault upon the Son makes the blasphemy recoil upon the Father; as if He devised for Himself a Wisdom, and Word, and Son from without ; for whichever of these titles you use, you denote the offspring from the Father, as has been said. So that this their objection does not hold; and naturally; for denying the Logos they in consequence ask questions which are illogical. As then if a person saw the sun, and then inquired concerning its radiance, and said, 'Did that which is make that which was, or that which was not,' he would be held not to reason sensibly, but to be utterly mazed, because he fancied what is from the Light to be external to it, and was raising questions, when and where and whether it were made; in like manner, thus to speculate concerning the Son and the Father and thus to inquire, is far greater madness, for it is to conceive of the Word of the Father as external to Him, and to idly call the natural offspring a work, with the avowal, 'He was not before His generation.' Nay, let them over and above take this answer to their question—The Father who was, made the Son who was, for 'the Word was made flesh John 1:14;' and, whereas He was Son of God, He made Him in consummation of the ages also Son of Man, unless forsooth, after the Samosatene, they affirm that He did not even exist at all, till He became man.\n\n**[Book 1, Chapter 7 §26]** This is sufficient from us in answer to their first question. And now on your part, O Arians, remembering your own words, tell us whether He who was needed one who was not for the framing of the universe, or one who was? You said that He made for Himself His Son out of nothing, as an instrument whereby to make the universe. Which then is superior, that which needs or that which supplies the need? Or does not each supply the deficiency of the other? You rather prove the weakness of the Maker, if He had not power of Himself to make the universe, but provided for Himself an instrument from without , as carpenter might do or shipwright, unable to work anything without adze and saw! Can anything be more irreligious? Yet why should one dwell on its heinousness, when enough has gone before to show that their doctrine is a mere fantasy?\n\n**[Book 1, Chapter 8 §26]** (continued). Nor is answer needful to their other very simple and foolish inquiry, which they put to silly women; or none besides that which has been already given, namely, that it is not suitable to measure divine generation by the nature of men. However, that as before they may pass judgment on themselves, it is well to meet them on the same ground, thus:— Plainly, if they inquire of parents concerning their son, let them consider whence is the child which is begotten. For, granting the parent had not a son before his begetting, still, after having him, he had him, not as external or as foreign, but as from himself, and proper to his essence and his exact image, so that the former is beheld in the latter, and the latter is contemplated in the former. If then they assume from human examples that generation implies time, why not from the same infer that it implies the Natural and the Proper , instead of extracting serpent-like from the earth only what turns to poison? Those who ask of parents, and say, 'Had you a son before you begot him?' should add, 'And if you had a son, did you purchase him from without as a house or any other possession.' And then you would be answered, 'He is not from without, but from myself. For things which are from without are possessions, and pass from one to another; but my son is from me, proper and similar to my essence, not become mine from another, but begotten of me; wherefore I too am wholly in him, while I remain myself what I am. ' For so it is; though the parent be distinct in time, as being man, who himself has come to be in time, yet he too would have had his child ever coexistent with him, but that his nature was a restraint and made it impossible. For Levi too was already in the loins of his great-grandfather, before his own actual generation, or that of his grandfather. When then the man comes to that age at which nature supplies the power, immediately, with nature, unrestrained, he becomes father of the son from himself.\n\n**[Book 1, Chapter 8 §27]** Therefore, if on asking parents about children, they get for answer, that children which are by nature are not from without, but from their parents, let them confess in like manner concerning the Word of God, that He is simply from the Father. And if they make a question of the time, let them say what is to restrain God— for it is necessary to prove their irreligion on the very ground on which their scoff is made— let them tell us, what is there to restrain God from being always Father of the Son; for that what is begotten must be from its father is undeniable. Moreover, they will pass judgment on themselves in attributing such things to God, if, as they questioned women on the subject of time, so they inquire of the sun concerning its radiance, and of the fountain concerning its issue. They will find that these, though an offspring, always exist with those things from which they are. And if parents, such as these, have in common with their children nature and duration, why, if they suppose God inferior to things that come to be , do they not openly say out their own irreligion? But if they do not dare to say this openly, and the Son is confessed to be, not from without, but a natural offspring from the Father, and that there is nothing which is a restraint to God (for not as man is He, but more than the sun, or rather the God of the sun), it follows that the Word is from Him and is ever co-existent with Him, through whom also the Father caused that all things which were not should be. That then the Son comes not of nothing but is eternal and from the Father, is certain even from the nature of the case; and the question of the heretics to parents exposes their perverseness; for they confess the point of nature, and now have been put to shame on the point of time.\n\n**[Book 1, Chapter 8 §28]** As we said above, so now we repeat, that the divine generation must not be compared to the nature of men, nor the Son considered to be part of God, nor the generation to imply any passion whatever; God is not as man; for men beget passibly, having a transitive nature, which waits for periods by reason of its weakness. But with God this cannot be; for He is not composed of parts, but being impassible and simple, He is impassibly and indivisibly Father of the Son. This again is strongly evidenced and proved by divine Scripture. For the Word of God is His Son, and the Son is the Father's Word and Wisdom; and Word and Wisdom is neither creature nor part of Him whose Word He is, nor an offspring passibly begotten. Uniting then the two titles, Scripture speaks of 'Son,' in order to herald the natural and true offspring of His essence; and, on the other hand, that none may think of the Offspring humanly, while signifying His essence, it also calls Him Word, Wisdom, and Radiance; to teach us that the generation was impassible, and eternal, and worthy of God. What affection then, or what part of the Father is the Word and the Wisdom and the Radiance? So much may be impressed even on these men of folly; for as they asked women concerning God's Son, so let them inquire of men concerning the Word, and they will find that the word which they put forth is neither an affection of them nor a part of their mind. But if such be the word of men, who are passible and partitive, why speculate they about passions and parts in the instance of the immaterial and indivisible God, that under pretence of reverence they may deny the true and natural generation of the Son? Enough was said above to show that the offspring from God is not an affection; and now it has been shown in particular that the Word is not begotten according to affection. The same may be said of Wisdom; God is not as man; nor must they here think humanly of Him. For, whereas men are capable of wisdom, God partakes in nothing, but is Himself the Father of His own Wisdom, of which whoso partake are given the name of wise. And this Wisdom too is not a passion, nor a part, but an Offspring proper to the Father. Wherefore He is ever Father, nor is the character of Father adventitious to God, lest He seem alterable; for if it is good that He be Father, but has not ever been Father, then good has not ever been in Him.\n\n**[Book 1, Chapter 8 §29]** But, observe, say they, God was always a Maker, nor is the power of framing adventitious to Him; does it follow then, that, because He is the Framer of all, therefore His works also are eternal, and is it wicked to say of them too, that they were not before origination? Senseless are these Arians; for what likeness is there between Son and work, that they should parallel a father's with a maker's function? How is it that, with that difference between offspring and work, which has been shown, they remain so ill-instructed? Let it be repeated then, that a work is external to the nature, but a son is the proper offspring of the essence; it follows that a work need not have been always, for the workman frames it when he will; but an offspring is not subject to will, but is proper to the essence. And a man may be and may be called Maker, though the works are not as yet; but father he cannot be called, nor can he be, unless a son exist. And if they curiously inquire why God, though always with the power to make, does not always make (though this also be the presumption of madmen, for 'who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been His Counsellor?' or how 'shall the thing formed say to' the potter, 'why did you make me thus ?' however, not to leave even a weak argument unnoticed), they must be told, that although God always had the power to make, yet the things originated had not the power of being eternal. For they are out of nothing, and therefore were not before their origination; but things which were not before their origination, how could these coexist with the ever-existing God? Wherefore God, looking to what was good for them, then made them all when He saw that, when originated, they were able to abide. And as, though He was able, even from the beginning in the time of Adam, or Noah, or Moses, to send His own Word, yet He sent Him not until the consummation of the ages (for this He saw to be good for the whole creation), so also things originated did He make when He would, and as was good for them. But the Son, not being a work, but proper to the Father's offspring, always is; for, whereas the Father always is, so what is proper to His essence must always be; and this is His Word and His Wisdom. And that creatures should not be in existence, does not disparage the Maker; for He has the power of framing them, when He wills; but for the offspring not to be ever with the Father, is a disparagement of the perfection of His essence. Wherefore His works were framed, when He would, through His Word; but the Son is ever the proper offspring of the Father's essence.\n\n**[Book 1, Chapter 9 §30]** These considerations encourage the faithful, and distress the heretical, perceiving, as they do, their heresy overthrown thereby. Moreover, their further question, 'whether the Unoriginate be one or two ,' shows how false are their views, how treacherous and full of guile. Not for the Father's honour ask they this, but for the dishonour of the Word. Accordingly, should any one, not aware of their craft, answer, 'the Unoriginated is one,' immediately they spirit out their own venom, saying, 'Therefore the Son is among things originated,' and well have we said, 'He was not before His generation.' Thus they make any kind of disturbance and confusion, provided they can but separate the Son from the Father, and reckon the Framer of all among His works. Now first they may be convicted on this score, that, while blaming the Nicene Bishops for their use of phrases not in Scripture, though these not injurious, but subversive of their irreligion, they themselves went off upon the same fault, that is, using words not in Scripture , and those in contumely of the Lord, knowing 'neither what they say nor whereof they affirm 1 Timothy 1:7.' For instance, let them ask the Greeks, who have been their instructors (for it is a word of their invention, not Scripture), and when they have been instructed in its various significations, then they will discover that they cannot even question properly, on the subject which they have undertaken. For they have led me to ascertain that by 'unoriginate' is meant what has not yet come to be, but is possible to be, as wood which is not yet become, but is capable of becoming, a vessel; and again what neither has nor ever can come to be, as a triangle quadrangular, and an even number odd. For a triangle neither has nor ever can become quadrangular; nor has even ever, nor can ever, become odd. Moreover, by 'unoriginate' is meant, what exists, but has not come into being from any, nor having a father at all. Further, Asterius, the unprincipled sophist, the patron too of this heresy, has added in his own treatise, that what is not made, but is ever, is 'unoriginate. ' They ought then, when they ask the question, to add in what sense they take the word 'unoriginate,' and then the parties questioned would be able to answer to the point.\n\n**[Book 1, Chapter 9 §31]** But if they still are satisfied with merely asking, 'Is the Unoriginate one or two?' they must be told first of all, as ill-educated men, that many are such and nothing is such, many, which are capable of origination, and nothing, which is not capable, as has been said. But if they ask according as Asterius ruled it, as if 'what is not a work but was always' were unoriginate, then they must constantly be told that the Son as well as the Father must in this sense be called unoriginate. For He is neither in the number of things originated, nor a work, but has ever been with the Father, as has already been shown, in spite of their many variations for the sole sake of speaking against the Lord, 'He is of nothing' and 'He was not before His generation.' When then, after failing at every turn, they betake themselves to the other sense of the question, 'existing but not generated of any nor having a father,' we shall tell them that the unoriginate in this sense is only one, namely the Father; and they will gain nothing by their question. For to say that God is in this sense Unoriginate, does not show that the Son is a thing originated, it being evident from the above proofs that the Word is such as He is who begot Him. Therefore if God be unoriginate, His Image is not originated, but an Offspring , which is His Word and His Wisdom. For what likeness has the originated to the unoriginate? (one must not weary of using repetition;) for if they will have it that the one is like the other, so that he who sees the one beholds the other, they are like to say that the Unoriginate is the image of creatures; the end of which is a confusion of the whole subject, an equalling of things originated with the Unoriginate, and a denial of the Unoriginate by measuring Him with the works; and all to reduce the Son into their number.\n\n**[Book 1, Chapter 9 §32]** However, I suppose even they will be unwilling to proceed to such lengths, if they follow Asterius the sophist. For he, earnest as he is in his advocacy of the Arian heresy, and maintaining that the Unoriginate is one, runs counter to them in saying, that the Wisdom of God is unoriginate and without beginning also. The following is a passage out of his work : 'The Blessed Paul said not that he preached Christ the power of God or the wisdom of God, but, without the article, 'God's power and God's wisdom 1 Corinthians 1:24;' thus preaching that the proper power of God Himself, which is natural to Him and co-existent with Him unoriginatedly, is something besides.' And again, soon after: 'However, His eternal power and wisdom, which truth argues to be without beginning and unoriginate; this must surely be one.' For though, misunderstanding the Apostle's words, he considered that there were two wisdoms; yet, by speaking still of a wisdom coexistent with Him, he declares that the Unoriginate is not simply one, but that there is another Unoriginate with Him. For what is coexistent, coexists not with itself, but with another. If then they agree with Asterius, let them never ask again, 'Is the Unoriginate one or two,' or they will have to contest the point with him; if, on the other hand, they differ even from him, let them not rely upon his treatise, lest, 'biting one another, they be consumed one of another Galatians 5:15.' So much on the point of their ignorance; but who can say enough on their crafty character? Who but would justly hate them while possessed by such a madness? For when they were no longer allowed to say 'out of nothing' and 'He was not before His generation,' they hit upon this word 'unoriginate,' that, by saying among the simple that the Son was 'originate,' they might imply the very same phrases 'out of nothing,' and 'He once was not;' for in such phrases things originated and creatures are implied.\n\n**[Book 1, Chapter 9 §33]** If they have confidence in their own positions, they should stand to them, and not change about so variously ; but this they will not, from an idea that success is easy, if they do but shelter their heresy under colour of the word 'unoriginate.' Yet after all, this term is not used in contrast with the Son, clamour as they may, but with things originated; and the like may be found in the words 'Almighty,' and 'Lord of the Powers. ' For if we say that the Father has power and mastery over all things by the Word, and the Son rules the Father's kingdom, and has the power of all, as His Word, and as the Image of the Father, it is quite plain that neither here is the Son reckoned among that all, nor is God called Almighty and Lord with reference to Him, but to those things which through the Son come to be, and over which He exercises power and mastery through the Word. And therefore the Unoriginate is specified not by contrast to the Son, but to the things which through the Son come to be. And excellently: since God is not as things originated, but is their Creator and Framer through the Son. And as the word 'Unoriginate' is specified relatively to things originated, so the word 'Father' is indicative of the Son. And he who names God Maker and Framer and Unoriginate, regards and apprehends things created and made; and he who calls God Father, thereby conceives and contemplates the Son. And hence one might marvel at the obstinacy which is added to their irreligion, that, whereas the term 'unoriginate' has the aforesaid good sense, and admits of being used religiously , they, in their own heresy, bring it forth for the dishonour of the Son, not having read that he who honours the Son honours the Father, and he who dishonours the Son, dishonours the Father. John 5:23 If they had any concern at all for reverent speaking and the honour due to the Father, it became them rather, and this were better and higher, to acknowledge and call God Father, than to give Him this name. For, in calling God unoriginate, they are, as I said before, calling Him from His works, and as Maker only and Framer, supposing that hence they may signify that the Word is a work after their own pleasure. But that he who calls God Father, signifies Him from the Son being well aware that if there be a Son, of necessity through that Son all things originate were created. And they, when they call Him Unoriginate, name Him only from His works, and know not the Son any more than the Greeks; but he who calls God Father, names Him from the Word; and knowing the Word, he acknowledges Him to be Framer of all, and understands that through Him all things have been made.\n\n**[Book 1, Chapter 9 §34]** Therefore it is more pious and more accurate to signify God from the Son and call Him Father, than to name Him from His works only and call Him Unoriginate. For the latter title, as I have said, does nothing more than signify all the works, individually and collectively, which have come to be at the will of God through the Word; but the title Father has its significance and its bearing only from the Son. And, whereas the Word surpasses things originated, by so much and more does calling God Father surpass the calling Him Unoriginate. For the latter is unscriptural and suspicious, because it has various senses; so that, when a man is asked concerning it, his mind is carried about to many ideas; but the word Father is simple and scriptural, and more accurate, and only implies the Son. And 'Unoriginate' is a word of the Greeks, who know not the Son; but 'Father' has been acknowledged and vouchsafed by our Lord. For He, knowing Himself whose Son He was, said, 'I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me;' and, 'He that has seen Me, has seen the Father,' and 'I and the Father are One ;' but nowhere is He found to call the Father Unoriginate. Moreover, when He teaches us to pray, He says not, 'When you pray, say, O God Unoriginate,' but rather, 'When you pray, say, Our Father, which art in heaven Luke 11:2.' And it was His will that the Summary of our faith should have the same bearing, in bidding us be baptized, not into the name of Unoriginate and originate, nor into the name of Creator and creature, but into the Name of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. For with such an initiation we too, being numbered among works, are made sons, and using the name of the Father, acknowledge from that name the Word also in the Father Himself. A vain thing then is their argument about the term 'Unoriginate,' as is now proved, and nothing more than a fantasy.\n\n**[Book 1, Chapter 10 §35]** As to their question whether the Word is alterable , it is superfluous to examine it; it is enough simply to write down what they say, and so to show its daring irreligion. How they trifle, appears from the following questions:— 'Has He free will, or has He not? Is He good from choice according to free will, and can He, if He will, alter, being of an alterable nature? Or, as wood or stone, has He not His choice free to be moved and incline hither and there?' It is but agreeable to their heresy thus to speak and think; for, when once they have framed to themselves a God out of nothing and a created Son, of course they also adopt such terms, as being suitable to a creature. However, when in their controversies with Churchmen they hear from them of the real and only Word of the Father, and yet venture thus to speak of Him, does not their doctrine then become the most loathsome that can be found? Is it not enough to distract a man on mere hearing, though unable to reply, and to make him stop his ears, from astonishment at the novelty of what he hears them say, which even to mention is to blaspheme? For if the Word be alterable and changing, where will He stay, and what will be the end of His development? How shall the alterable possibly be like the Unalterable? How should he who has seen the alterable, be considered to have seen the Unalterable? At what state must He arrive, for us to be able to behold in Him the Father? For it is plain that not at all times shall we see the Father in the Son, because the Son is ever altering, and is of changing nature. For the Father is unalterable and unchangeable, and is always in the same state and the same; but if, as they hold, the Son is alterable, and not always the same, but of an ever-changing nature, how can such a one be the Father's Image, not having the likeness of His unalterableness ? How can He be really in the Father, if His purpose is indeterminate? Nay, perhaps, as being alterable, and advancing daily, He is not perfect yet. But away with such madness of the Arians, and let the truth shine out, and show that they are foolish. For must not He be perfect who is equal to God? And must not He be unalterable, who is one with the Father, and His Son proper to His essence? And the Father's essence being unalterable, unalterable must be also the proper Offspring from it. And if they slanderously impute alteration to the Word, let them learn how much their own reason is in peril; for from the fruit is the tree known. For this is why he who has seen the Son has seen the Father; and why the knowledge of the Son is knowledge of the Father.\n\n**[Book 1, Chapter 10 §36]** Therefore the Image of the unalterable God must be unchangeable; for 'Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and for ever Hebrews 13:8.' And David in the Psalm says of Him, 'Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of Your hands. They shall perish, but You remain; and they all shall wax old as does a garment. And as a vesture shall Thou fold them up, and they shall be changed, but You are the same, and Your years shall not fail. ' And the Lord Himself says of Himself through the Prophet, 'See now that I, even I am He,' and 'I change not. ' It may be said indeed that what is here signified relates to the Father; yet it suits the Son also to say this, specially because, when made man, He manifests His own identity and unalterableness to such as suppose that by reason of the flesh He is changed and become other than He was. More trustworthy are the saints, or rather the Lord, than the perversity of the irreligious. For Scripture, as in the above-cited passage of the Psalter, signifying under the name of heaven and earth, that the nature of all things originate and created is alterable and changeable, yet excepting the Son from these, shows us thereby that He is no wise a thing originate; nay teaches that He changes everything else, and is Himself not changed, in saying, 'You are the same, and Your years shall not fail Hebrews 1:12.' And with reason; for things originate, being from nothing , and not being before their origination, because, in truth, they come to be after not being, have a nature which is changeable; but the Son, being from the Father, and proper to His essence, is unchangeable and unalterable as the Father Himself. For it were sin to say that from that essence which is unalterable was begotten an alterable word and a changeable wisdom. For how is He longer the Word, if He be alterable? Or can that be Wisdom which is changeable? Unless perhaps, as accident in essence , so they would have it, viz. as in any particular essence, a certain grace and habit of virtue exists accidentally, which is called Word and Son and Wisdom, and admits of being taken from it and added to it. For they have often expressed this sentiment, but it is not the faith of Christians; as not declaring that He is truly Word and Son of God, or that the wisdom intended is true Wisdom. For what alters and changes, and has no stay in one and the same condition, how can that be true? Whereas the Lord says, 'I am the Truth John 14:6.' If then the Lord Himself speaks thus concerning Himself, and declares His unalterableness, and the Saints have learned and testify this, nay and our notions of God acknowledge it as religious, whence did these men of irreligion draw this novelty? From their heart as from a seat of corruption did they vomit it forth.\n\n**[Book 1, Chapter 10 §37]** But since they allege the divine oracles and force on them a misinterpretation, according to their private sense , it becomes necessary to meet them just so far as to vindicate these passages, and to show that they bear an orthodox sense, and that our opponents are in error. They say then, that the Apostle writes, 'Wherefore God also has highly exalted Him, and given Him a Name which is above every name; that in the Name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven and things in earth and things under the earth Philippians 2:9-10;' and David, 'Wherefore God even Your God, has anointed You with the oil of gladness above Your fellows. ' Then they urge, as something acute: 'If He was exalted and received grace, on a 'wherefore,' and on a 'wherefore' He was anointed, He received a reward of His purpose; but having acted from purpose, He is altogether of an alterable nature.' This is what Eusebius and Arius have dared to say, nay to write; while their partizans do not shrink from conversing about it in full market-place, not seeing how mad an argument they use. For if He received what He had as a reward of His purpose, and would not have had it, unless He had needed it, and had His work to show for it, then having gained it from virtue and promotion, with reason had He 'therefore' been called Son and God, without being very Son. For what is from another by nature, is a real offspring, as Isaac was to Abraham, and Joseph to Jacob, and the radiance to the sun; but the so called sons from virtue and grace, have but in place of nature a grace by acquisition, and are something else besides the gift itself; as the men who have received the Spirit by participation, concerning whom Scripture says, 'I begot and exalted children, and they rebelled against Me. ' And of course, since they were not sons by nature, therefore, when they altered, the Spirit was taken away and they were disinherited; and again on their repentance that God who thus at the beginning gave them grace, will receive them, and give light, and call them sons again.\n\n**[Book 1, Chapter 10 §38]** But if they say this of the Saviour also, it follows that He is neither very God nor very Son, nor like the Father, nor in any wise has God for a Father of His being according to essence, but of the mere grace given to Him, and for a Creator of His being according to essence, after the similitude of all others. And being such, as they maintain, it will be manifest further that He had not the name 'Son' from the first, if so be it was the prize of works done and of that very same advance which He made when He became man, and took the form of the servant; but then, when, after becoming 'obedient unto death,' He was, as the text says, 'highly exalted,' and received that 'Name' as a grace, 'that in the Name of Jesus every knee should bow Philippians 2:8.' What then was before this, if then He was exalted, and then began to be worshipped, and then was called Son, when He became man? For He seems Himself not to have promoted the flesh at all, but rather to have been Himself promoted through it, if, according to their perverseness, He was then exalted and called Son, when He became man. What then was before this? One must urge the question on them again, to make it understood what their irreligious doctrine results in. For if the Lord be God, Son, Word, yet was not all these before He became man, either He was something else beside these, and afterwards became partaker of them for His virtue's sake, as we have said; or they must adopt the alternative (may it return upon their heads!) that He was not before that time, but is wholly man by nature and nothing more. But this is no sentiment of the Church. but of the Samosatene and of the present Jews. Why then, if they think as Jews, are they not circumcised with them too, instead of pretending Christianity, while they are its foes? For if He was not, or was indeed, but afterwards was promoted, how were all things made by Him, or how in Him, were He not perfect, did the Father delight Proverbs 8:30? And He, on the other hand, if now promoted, how did He before rejoice in the presence of the Father? And, if He received His worship after dying, how is Abraham seen to worship Him in the tent , and Moses in the bush? And, as Daniel saw, myriads of myriads, and thousands of thousands were ministering unto Him? And if, as they say, He had His promotion now, how did the Son Himself make mention of that His glory before and above the world, when He said, 'Glorify Thou Me, O Father, with the glory which I had with You before the world was John 17:5.' If, as they say, He was then exalted, how did He before that 'bow the heavens and come down;' and again, 'The Highest gave His thunder ?' Therefore, if, even before the world was made, the Son had that glory, and was Lord of glory and the Highest, and descended from heaven, and is ever to be worshipped, it follows that He had not promotion from His descent, but rather Himself promoted the things which needed promotion; and if He descended to effect their promotion, therefore He did not receive in reward the name of the Son and God, but rather He Himself has made us sons of the Father, and deified men by becoming Himself man.\n\n**[Book 1, Chapter 10 §39]** Therefore He was not man, and then became God, but He was God, and then became man, and that to deify us. Since, if when He became man, only then He was called Son and God, but before He became man, God called the ancient people sons, and made Moses a god of Pharaoh (and Scripture says of many, 'God stands in the congregation of Gods '), it is plain that He is called Son and God later than they. How then are all things through Him, and He before all? Or how is He 'first-born of the whole creation ,' if He has others before Him who are called sons and gods? And how is it that those first partakers do not partake of the Word? This opinion is not true; it is a device of our present Judaizers. For how in that case can any at all know God as their Father? For adoption there could not be apart from the real Son, who says, 'No one knows the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him Matthew 11:27.' And how can there be deifying apart from the Word and before Him? Yet, says He to their brethren the Jews, 'If He called them gods, unto whom the Word of God came John 10:35.' And if all that are called sons and gods, whether in earth or in heaven, were adopted and deified through the Word, and the Son Himself is the Word, it is plain that through Him are they all, and He Himself before all, or rather He Himself only is very Son , and He alone is very God from the very God, not receiving these prerogatives as a reward for His virtue, nor being another beside them, but being all these by nature and according to essence. For He is Offspring of the Father's essence, so that one cannot doubt that after the resemblance of the unalterable Father, the Word also is unalterable.\n\n**[Book 1, Chapter 10 §40]** Hitherto we have met their irrational conceits with the true conceptions implied in the Word 'Son,' as the Lord Himself has given us. But it will be well next to cite the divine oracles, that the unalterableness of the Son and His unchangeable nature, which is the Father's, as well as their perverseness, may be still more fully proved. The Apostle then, writing to the Philippians, says, 'Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus; who, being in the form of God, thought it not a prize to be equal with God; but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men. And, being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, becoming obedient to death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also highly exalted Him, and gave Him a Name which is above every name; that in the Name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father Philippians 2:5-11.' Can anything be plainer and more express than this? He was not from a lower state promoted: but rather, existing as God, He took the form of a servant, and in taking it, was not promoted but humbled Himself. Where then is there here any reward of virtue, or what advancement and promotion in humiliation? For if, being God, He became man, and descending from on high He is still said to be exalted, where is He exalted, being God? This withal being plain, that, since God is highest of all, His Word must necessarily be highest also. Where then could He be exalted higher, who is in the Father and like the Father in all things ? Therefore He is beyond the need of any addition; nor is such as the Arians think Him. For though the Word has descended in order to be exalted, and so it is written, yet what need was there that He should humble Himself, as if to seek that which He had already? And what grace did He receive who is the Giver of grace ? Or how did He receive that Name for worship, who is always worshipped by His Name? Nay, certainly before He became man, the sacred writers invoke Him, 'Save me, O God, for Your Name's sake ;'and again, 'Some put their trust in chariots, and some in horses, but we will remember the Name of the Lord our God. ' And while He was worshipped by the Patriarchs, concerning the Angels it is written, 'Let all the Angels of God worship Him Hebrews 1:6.'\n\n**[Book 1, Chapter 10 §41]** And if, as David says in the 71st Psalm, 'His Name remains before the sun, and before the moon, from one generation to another ,' how did He receive what He had always, even before He now received it? Or how is He exalted, being before His exaltation the Most High? Or how did He receive the right of being worshipped, who before He now received it, was ever worshipped? It is not a dark saying but a divine mystery. 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God;' but for our sakes afterwards the 'Word was made flesh. ' And the term in question, 'highly exalted,' does not signify that the essence of the Word was exalted, for He was ever and is 'equal to God Philippians 2:6,' but the exaltation is of the manhood. Accordingly this is not said before the Word became flesh; that it might be plain that 'humbled' and 'exalted' are spoken of His human nature; for where there is humble estate, there too may be exaltation; and if because of His taking flesh 'humbled' is written, it is clear that 'highly exalted' is also said because of it. For of this was man's nature in want, because of the humble estate of the flesh and of death. Since then the Word, being the Image of the Father and immortal, took the form of the servant, and as man underwent for us death in His flesh, that thereby He might offer Himself for us through death to the Father; therefore also, as man, He is said because of us and for us to be highly exalted, that as by His death we all died in Christ, so again in the Christ Himself we might be highly exalted, being raised from the dead, and ascending into heaven, 'whither the forerunner Jesus is for us entered, not into the figures of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us. ' But if now for us the Christ is entered into heaven itself, though He was even before and always Lord and Framer of the heavens, for us therefore is that present exaltation written. And as He Himself, who sanctifies all, says also that He sanctifies Himself to the Father for our sakes, not that the Word may become holy, but that He Himself may in Himself sanctify all of us, in like manner we must take the present phrase, 'He highly exalted Him,' not that He Himself should be exalted, for He is the highest, but that He may become righteousness for us , and we may be exalted in Him, and that we may enter the gates of heaven, which He has also opened for us, the forerunners saying, 'Lift up your gates, O you rulers, and be lifted up, you everlasting doors, and the King of Glory shall come in. ' For here also not on Him were shut the gates, as being Lord and Maker of all, but because of us is this too written, to whom the door of paradise was shut. And therefore in a human relation, because of the flesh which He bore, it is said of Him, 'Lift up your gates,' and 'shall come in,' as if a man were entering; but in a divine relation on the other hand it is said of Him, since 'the Word was God,' that He is the 'Lord' and the 'King of Glory.' Such our exaltation the Spirit foreannounced in the eighty-ninth Psalm, saying, 'And in Your righteousness shall they be exalted, for You are the glory of their strength. ' And if the Son be Righteousness, then He is not exalted as being Himself in need, but it is we who are exalted in that Righteousness, which is He 1 Corinthians 1:30 .\n\n**[Book 1, Chapter 10 §42]** And so too the words 'gave Him' are not written because of the Word Himself; for even before He became man He was worshipped, as we have said, by the Angels and the whole creation in virtue of being proper to the Father; but because of us and for us this too is written of Him. For as Christ died and was exalted as man, so, as man, is He said to take what, as God, He ever had, that even such a grant of grace might reach to us. For the Word was not impaired in receiving a body, that He should seek to receive a grace, but rather He deified that which He put on, and more than that, 'gave' it graciously to the race of man. For as He was ever worshipped as being the Word and existing in the form of God, so being what He ever was, though become man and called Jesus, He none the less has the whole creation under foot, and bending their knees to Him in this Name, and confessing that the Word's becoming flesh, and undergoing death in flesh, has not happened against the glory of His Godhead, but 'to the glory of God the Father.' For it is the Father's glory that man, made and then lost, should be found again; and, when dead, that he should be made alive, and should become God's temple. For whereas the powers in heaven, both Angels and Archangels, were ever worshipping the Lord, as they are now worshipping Him in the Name of Jesus, this is our grace and high exaltation, that even when He became man, the Son of God is worshipped, and the heavenly powers will not be astonished at seeing all of us, who are of one body with Him , introduced into their realms. And this had not been, unless He who existed in the form of God had taken on Him a servant's form, and had humbled Himself, yielding His body to come unto death.\n\n**[Book 1, Chapter 10 §43]** Behold then what men considered the foolishness of God because of the Cross, has become of all things most honoured. For our resurrection is stored up in it; and no longer Israel alone, but henceforth all the nations, as the Prophet has foretold, leave their idols and acknowledge the true God, the Father of the Christ. And the illusion of demons has come to nought, and He only who is really God is worshipped in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ. For the fact that the Lord, even when come in human body and called Jesus, was worshipped and believed to be God's Son, and that through Him the Father was known, shows, as has been said, that not the Word, considered as the Word, received this so great grace, but we. For because of our relationship to His Body we too have become God's temple, and in consequence are made God's sons, so that even in us the Lord is now worshipped, and beholders report, as the Apostle says, that God is in them of a truth. As also John says in the Gospel, 'As many as received Him, to them gave He power to become children of God John 1:12;' and in his Epistle he writes, 'By this we know that He abides in us by His Spirit which He has given us 1 John 3:24.' And this too is an evidence of His goodness towards us that, while we were exalted because that the Highest Lord is in us, and on our account grace was given to Him, because that the Lord who supplies the grace has become a man like us, He on the other hand, the Saviour, humbled Himself in taking 'our body of humiliation Philippians 3:21,' and took a servant's form, putting on that flesh which was enslaved to sin. And He indeed has gained nothing from us for His own promotion: for the Word of God is without want and full; but rather we were promoted from Him; for He is the 'Light, which lightens every man, coming into the world John 1:9.' And in vain do the Arians lay stress upon the conjunction 'wherefore,' because Paul has said, 'Wherefore, has God highly exalted Him.' For in saying this he did not imply any prize of virtue, nor promotion from advance , but the cause why the exaltation was bestowed upon us. And what is this but that He who existed in form of God, the Son of a noble Father, humbled Himself and became a servant instead of us and in our behalf? For if the Lord had not become man, we had not been redeemed from sins, not raised from the dead, but remaining dead under the earth; not exalted into heaven, but lying in Hades. Because of us then and in our behalf are the words, 'highly exalted' and 'given.'\n\n**[Book 1, Chapter 10 §44]** This then I consider the sense of this passage, and that, a very ecclesiastical sense. However, there is another way in which one might remark upon it, giving the same sense in a parallel way; viz. that, though it does not speak of the exaltation of the Word Himself, so far as He is Word (for He is, as was just now said, most high and like His Father), yet by reason of His becoming man it indicates His resurrection from the dead. For after saying, 'He has humbled Himself even unto death,' He immediately added, 'Wherefore He has highly exalted Him;' wishing to show, that, although as man He is said to have died, yet, as being Life, He was exalted on the resurrection; for 'He who descended, is the same also who rose again. ' He descended in body, and He rose again because He was God Himself in the body. And this again is the reason why according to this meaning he brought in the conjunction 'Wherefore;' not as a reward of virtue nor of advancement, but to signify the cause why the resurrection took place; and why, while all other men from Adam down to this time have died and remained dead, He only rose in integrity from the dead. The cause is this, which He Himself has already taught us, that, being God, He has become man. For all other men, being merely born of Adam, died, and death reigned over them; but He, the Second Man, is from heaven, for 'the Word was made flesh John 1:14,' and this Man is said to be from heaven and heavenly , because the Word descended from heaven; wherefore He was not held under death. For though He humbled Himself, yielding His own Body to come unto death, in that it was capable of death , yet He was highly exalted from earth, because He was God's Son in a body. Accordingly what is here said, 'Wherefore God also has highly exalted Him,' answers to Peter's words in the Acts, 'Whom God raised up, having loosed the bonds of death, because it was not possible that He should be holden of it Acts 2:24.' For as Paul has written, 'Since being in form of God He became man, and humbled Himself unto death, therefore God also has highly exalted Him,' so also Peter says, 'Since, being God, He became man, and signs and wonders proved Him to beholders to be God, therefore it was not possible that He should be holden of death.' To man it was not possible to succeed in this; for death belongs to man; wherefore, the Word, being God, became flesh, that, being put to death in the flesh, He might quicken all men by His own power.\n\n**[Book 1, Chapter 10 §45]** But since He Himself is said to be 'exalted,' and God 'gave' Him, and the heretics think this a defect or affection in the essence of the Word, it becomes necessary to explain how these words are used. He is said to be exalted from the lower parts of the earth, because death is ascribed even to Him. Both events are reckoned His, since it was His Body , and none other's, that was exalted from the dead and taken up into heaven. And again, the Body being His, and the Word not being external to it, it is natural that when the Body was exalted, He, as man, should, because of the body, be spoken of as exalted. If then He did not become man, let this not be said of Him: but if the Word became flesh, of necessity the resurrection and exaltation, as in the case of a man, must be ascribed to Him, that the death which is ascribed to Him may be a redemption of the sin of men and an abolition of death, and that the resurrection and exaltation may for His sake remain secure for us. In both respects he has said of Him, 'God has highly exalted Him,' and 'God has given to Him;' that herein moreover he may show that it is not the Father that has become flesh, but it is His Word, who has become man, and receives after the manner of men from the Father, and is exalted by Him, as has been said. And it is plain, nor would any one dispute it, that what the Father gives, He gives through. the Son. And it is marvellous and overwhelming verily; for the grace which the Son gives from the Father, that the Son Himself is said to receive; and the exaltation, which the Son bestows from the Father, with that the Son is Himself exalted. For He who is the Son of God, became Himself the Son of Man; and, as Word, He gives from the Father, for all things which the Father does and gives, He does and supplies through Him; and as the Son of Man, He Himself is said after the manner of men to receive what proceeds from Him, because His Body is none other than His, and is a natural recipient of grace, as has been said. For He received it as far as His man's nature was exalted; which exaltation was its being deified. But such an exaltation the Word Himself always had according to the Father's Godhead and perfection, which was His.\n\n**[Book 1, Chapter 10 §46]** Such an explanation of the Apostle's words confutes the irreligious men; and what the sacred poet says admits also the same orthodox sense, which they misinterpret, but which in the Psalmist is manifestly religious. He says then, 'Your throne, O God, is for ever and ever; a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of Your Kingdom. You have loved righteousness, and hated iniquity, therefore God, even Your God, has anointed You with the oil of gladness above Your fellows. ' Behold, O you Arians, and acknowledge even hence the truth. The Singer speaks of us all as 'fellows' or 'partakers' of the Lord: but were He one of things which come out of nothing and of things originate, He Himself had been one of those who partake. But, since he hymned Him as the eternal God, saying, 'Your throne, O God, is for ever and ever,' and has declared that all other things partake of Him, what conclusion must we draw, but that He is distinct from originated things, and He only the Father's veritable Word, Radiance, and Wisdom, which all things originate partake , being sanctified by Him in the Spirit ? And therefore He is here 'anointed,' not that He may become God, for He was so even before; nor that He may become King, for He had the Kingdom eternally, existing as God's Image, as the sacred Oracle shows; but in our behalf is this written, as before. For the Israelitish kings, upon their being anointed, then became kings, not being so before, as David, as Hezekiah, as Josiah, and the rest; but the Saviour on the contrary, being God, and ever ruling in the Father's Kingdom, and being Himself He that supplies the Holy Ghost, nevertheless is here said to be anointed, that, as before, being said as man to be anointed with the Spirit, He might provide for us men, not only exaltation and resurrection, but the indwelling and intimacy of the Spirit. And signifying this the Lord Himself has said by His own mouth in the Gospel according to John, 'I have sent them into the world, and for their sakes do I sanctify Myself, that they may be sanctified in the truth. ' In saying this He has shown that He is not the sanctified, but the Sanctifier; for He is not sanctified by other, but Himself sanctifies Himself, that we may be sanctified in the truth. He who sanctifies Himself is Lord of sanctification. How then does this take place? What does He mean but this? 'I, being the Father's Word, I give to Myself, when becoming man, the Spirit; and Myself, become man, do I sanctify in Him, that henceforth in Me, who am Truth (for Your Word is Truth), all may be sanctified.'\n\n**[Book 1, Chapter 10 §47]** If then for our sake He sanctifies Himself, and does this when He has become man, it is very plain that the Spirit's descent on Him in Jordan was a descent upon us, because of His bearing our body. And it did not take place for promotion to the Word, but again for our sanctification, that we might share His anointing, and of us it might be said, 'Do you not know that you are God's Temple, and the Spirit of God dwells in you 1 Corinthians 3:16?' For when the Lord, as man, was washed in Jordan, it was we who were washed in Him and by Him. And when He received the Spirit, we it was who by Him were made recipients of It. And moreover for this reason, not as Aaron or David or the rest, was He anointed with oil, but in another way above all His fellows, 'with the oil of gladness,' which He Himself interprets to be the Spirit, saying by the Prophet, 'The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because the Lord has anointed Me Isaiah 61:1;' as also the Apostle has said, 'How God anointed Him with the Holy Ghost. Acts 10:38 ' When then were these things spoken of Him but when He came in the flesh and was baptized in Jordan, and the Spirit descended on Him? And indeed the Lord Himself said, 'The Spirit shall take of Mine;' and 'I will send Him;' and to His disciples, 'Receive the Holy Ghost. ' And notwithstanding, He who, as the Word and Radiance of the Father, gives to others, now is said to be sanctified, because now He has become man, and the Body that is sanctified is His. From Him then we have begun to receive the unction and the seal, John saying, 'And you have an unction from the Holy One;' and the Apostle, 'And you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. ' Therefore because of us and for us are these words. What advance then of promotion, and reward of virtue or generally of conduct, is proved from this in our Lord's instance? For if He was not God, and then had become God, if not being King He was preferred to the Kingdom, your reasoning would have had some faint plausibility. But if He is God and the throne of His kingdom is everlasting, in what way could God advance? Or what was there wanting to Him who was sitting on His Father's throne? And if, as the Lord Himself has said, the Spirit is His, and takes of His, and He sends It, it is not the Word, considered as the Word and Wisdom, who is anointed with the Spirit which He Himself gives, but the flesh assumed by Him which is anointed in Him and by Him ; that the sanctification coming to the Lord as man, may come to all men from Him. For not of Itself, says He, does the Spirit speak, but the Word is He who gives It to the worthy. For this is like the passage considered above; for as the Apostle has written, 'Who existing in form of God thought it not a prize to be equal with God, but emptied Himself, and took a servant's form,' so David celebrates the Lord, as the everlasting God and King, but sent to us and assuming our body which is mortal. For this is his meaning in the Psalm, 'All your garments smell of myrrh, aloes, and cassia;' and it is represented by Nicodemus and by Mary's company, when the one came bringing 'a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about an hundred pounds weight;' and the others John 19:39; Luke 24:1 'the spices which they had prepared' for the burial of the Lord's body.\n\n**[Book 1, Chapter 10 §48]** What advancement then was it to the Immortal to have assumed the mortal? Or what promotion is it to the Everlasting to have put on the temporal? What reward can be great to the Everlasting God and King in the bosom of the Father? See ye not, that this too was done and written because of us and for us, that us who are mortal and temporal, the Lord, become man, might make immortal, and bring into the everlasting kingdom of heaven? Blush ye not, speaking lies against the divine oracles? For when our Lord Jesus Christ had been among us, we indeed were promoted, as rescued from sin; but He is the same ; nor did He alter, when He became man (to repeat what I have said), but, as has been written, 'The Word of God abides for ever. ' Surely as, before His becoming man, He, the Word, dispensed to the saints the Spirit as His own , so also when made man, He sanctifies all by the Spirit and says to His Disciples, 'Receive the Holy Ghost.' And He gave to Moses and the other seventy; and through Him David prayed to the Father, saying, 'Take not Your Holy Spirit from me. ' On the other hand, when made man, He said, 'I will send to you the Paraclete, the Spirit of truth John 15:26;' and He sent Him, He, the Word of God, as being faithful. Therefore 'Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and for ever Hebrews 13:8,' remaining unalterable, and at once gives and receives, giving as God's Word, receiving as man. It is not the Word then, viewed as the Word, that is promoted; for He had all things and has them always; but men, who have in Him and through Him their origin of receiving them. For, when He is now said to be anointed in a human respect, we it is who in Him are anointed; since also when He is baptized, we it is who in Him are baptized. But on all these things the Saviour throws much light, when He says to the Father, 'And the glory which You gave Me, I have given to them, that they may be one, even as We are one John 17:22.' Because of us then He asked for glory, and the words occur, 'took' and 'gave' and 'highly exalted,' that we might take, and to us might be given, and we might be exalted in Him; as also for us He sanctifies Himself, that we might be sanctified in Him.\n\n**[Book 1, Chapter 10 §49]** But if they take advantage of the word 'wherefore,' as connected with the passage in the Psalm, 'Wherefore God, even Your God, has anointed You,' for their own purposes, let these novices in Scripture and masters in irreligion know, that, as before, the word 'wherefore' does not imply reward of virtue or conduct in the Word, but the reason why He came down to us, and of the Spirit's anointing which took place in Him for our sakes. For He says not, 'Wherefore He anointed You in order to Your being God or King or Son or Word.' for so He was before and is for ever, as has been shown; but rather, 'Since You are God and King, therefore You were anointed, since none but You could unite man to the Holy Ghost, Thou the Image of the Father, in which we were made in the beginning; for Yours is even the Spirit.' For the nature of things originate could give no warranty for this, Angels having transgressed, and men disobeyed. Wherefore there was need of God and the Word is God; that those who had become under a curse, He Himself might set free. If then He was of nothing, He would not have been the Christ or Anointed, being one among others and having fellowship as the rest. But, whereas He is God, as being Son of God, and is everlasting King, and exists as Radiance and Expression Hebrews 1:3 of the Father, therefore fitly is He the expected Christ, whom the Father announces to mankind, by revelation to His holy Prophets; that as through Him we have come to be, so also in Him all men might be redeemed from their sins, and by Him all things might be ruled. And this is the cause of the anointing which took place in Him, and of the incarnate presence of the Word , which the Psalmist foreseeing, celebrates, first His Godhead and kingdom, which is the Father's, in these tones, 'Your throne, O God, is for ever and ever; a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of Your Kingdom ;' then announces His descent to us thus, 'Wherefore God, even Your God, has anointed You with the oil of gladness above Your fellows. '\n\n**[Book 1, Chapter 10 §50]** What is there to wonder at, what to disbelieve, if the Lord who gives the Spirit, is here said Himself to be anointed with the Spirit, at a time when, necessity requiring it, He did not refuse in respect of His manhood to call Himself inferior to the Spirit? For the Jews saying that He cast out devils in Beelzebub, He answered and said to them, for the exposure of their blasphemy, 'But if I through the Spirit of God cast out demons Matthew 12:28.' Behold, the Giver of the Spirit here says that He cast out demons in the Spirit; but this is not said, except because of His flesh. For since man's nature is not equal of itself to casting out demons, but only in power of the Spirit, therefore as man He said, 'But if I through the Spirit of God cast out demons.' Of course too He signified that the blasphemy offered to the Holy Ghost is greater than that against His humanity, when He said, 'Whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him;' such as were those who said, 'Is not this the carpenter's son ?' but they who blaspheme against the Holy Ghost, and ascribe the deeds of the Word to the devil, shall have inevitable punishment. This is what the Lord spoke to the Jews, as man; but to the disciples showing His Godhead and His majesty, and intimating that He was not inferior but equal to the Spirit, He gave the Spirit and said, 'Receive the Holy Ghost,' and 'I send Him,' and 'He shall glorify Me,' and 'Whatsoever He hears, that He shall speak. ' As then in this place the Lord Himself, the Giver of the Spirit, does not refuse to say that through the Spirit He casts out demons, as man; in like manner He the same, the Giver of the Spirit, refused not to say, 'The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me Isaiah 61:1,' in respect of His having become flesh, as John has said; that it might be shown in both these particulars, that we are they who need the Spirit's grace in our sanctification, and again who are unable to cast out demons without the Spirit's power. Through whom then and from whom behooved it that the Spirit should be given but through the Son, whose also the Spirit is? And when were we enabled to receive It, except when the Word became man? And, as the passage of the Apostle shows, that we had not been redeemed and highly exalted, had not He who exists in form of God taken a servant's form, so David also shows, that no otherwise should we have partaken the Spirit and been sanctified, but that the Giver of the Spirit, the Word Himself, hast spoken of Himself as anointed with the Spirit for us. And therefore have we securely received it, He being said to be anointed in the flesh; for the flesh being first sanctified in Him , and He being said, as man, to have received for its sake, we have the sequel of the Spirit grace, receiving 'out of His fullness John 1:16.'\n\n**[Book 1, Chapter 10 §51]** Nor do the words, 'You have loved righteousness and hated iniquity,' which are added in the Psalm, show, as again you suppose, that the Nature of the Word is alterable, but rather by their very force signify His unalterableness. For since of things originate the nature is alterable, and the one portion had transgressed and the other disobeyed, as has been said, and it is not certain how they will act, but it often happens that he who is now good afterwards alters and becomes different, so that one who was but now righteous, soon is found unrighteous, wherefore there was here also need of one unalterable, that men might have the immutability of the righteousness of the Word as an image and type for virtue. And this thought commends itself strongly to the right-minded. For since the first man Adam altered, and through sin death came into the world, therefore it became the second Adam to be unalterable; that, should the Serpent again assault, even the Serpent's deceit might be baffled, and, the Lord being unalterable and unchangeable, the Serpent might become powerless in his assault against all. For as when Adam had transgressed, his sin reached unto all men, so, when the Lord had become man and had overthrown the Serpent, that so great strength of His is to extend through all men, so that each of us may say, 'For we are not ignorant of his devices. 2 Corinthians 2:11 ' Good reason then that the Lord, who ever is in nature unalterable, loving righteousness and hating iniquity, should be anointed and Himself sent, that, He, being and remaining the same , by taking this alterable flesh, 'might condemn sin in it ,' and might secure its freedom, and its ability henceforth 'to fulfil the righteousness of the law?' in itself, so as to be able to say, 'But we are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwells in us Romans 8:9.'\n\n**[Book 1, Chapter 10 §52]** Vainly then, here again, O Arians, have you made this conjecture, and vainly alleged the words of Scripture; for God's Word is unalterable, and is ever in one state, not as it may happen , but as the Father is; since how is He like the Father, unless He be thus? Or how is all that is the Father's the Son's also, if He has not the unalterableness and unchangeableness of the Father ? Not as being subject to laws , and biassed to one side, does He love the one and hate the other, lest, if from fear of falling away He chooses the one, we admit that He is alterable otherwise also; but, as being God and the Father's Word, He is a just judge and lover of virtue, or rather its dispenser. Therefore being just and holy by nature, on this account He is said to love righteousness and to hate iniquity; as much as to say, that He loves and chooses the virtuous, and rejects and hates the unrighteous. And divine Scripture says the same of the Father; 'The Righteous Lord loves righteousness; Thou hatest all them that work iniquity ,' and 'The Lord loves the gates of Sion, more than all the dwellings of Jacob ;' and, 'Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated Malachi 1:2-3;' and in Isaiah there is the voice of God again saying, 'I the Lord love righteousness, and hate robbery of unrighteousness Isaiah 61:8.' Let them then expound those former words as these latter; for the former also are written of the Image of God: else, misinterpreting these as those, they will conceive that the Father too is alterable. But since the very hearing others say this is not without peril, we do well to think that God is said to love righteousness and to hate robbery of unrighteousness, not as if biassed to one side, and capable of the contrary, so as to select the latter and not choose the former, for this belongs to things originated, but that, as a judge, He loves and takes to Him the righteous and withdraws from the bad. It follows then to think the same concerning the Image of God also, that He loves and hates no otherwise than thus. For such must be the nature of the Image as is Its Father, though the Arians in their blindness fail to see either that image or any other truth of the divine oracles. For being forced from the conceptions or rather misconceptions of their own hearts, they fall back upon passages of divine Scripture, and here too from want of understanding, according to their wont, they discern not their meaning; but laying down their own irreligion as a sort of canon of interpretation , they wrest the whole of the divine oracles into accordance with it. And so on the bare mention of such doctrine, they deserve nothing but the reply, 'You do err, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God Matthew 22:29;' and if they persist in it, they must be put to silence, by the words, 'Render to' man 'the things that are' man's, 'and to God the things that are' God's.\n\n**[Book 1, Chapter 10 §53]** But it is written, say they, in the Proverbs, 'The Lord created me the beginning of His ways, for His Works ;' and in the Epistle to the Hebrews the Apostle says, 'Being made so much better than the Angels, as He has by inheritance obtained a more excellent Name than they. ' And soon after, 'Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus, who was faithful to Him that made Him. ' And in the Acts, 'Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God has made that same Jesus whom you have crucified both Lord and Christ. ' These passages they brought forward at every turn, mistaking their sense, under the idea that they proved that the Word of God was a creature and work and one of things originate; and thus they deceive the thoughtless, making the language of Scripture their pretence, but instead of the true sense sowing upon it the poison of their own heresy. For had they known, they would not have been irreligious against 'the Lord of glory 1 Corinthians 2:8,' nor have wrested the good words of Scripture. If then henceforward openly adopting Caiaphas's way, they have determined on judaizing, and are ignorant of the text, that verily God shall dwell upon the earth , let them not inquire into the Apostolical sayings; for this is not the manner of Jews. But if, mixing themselves up with the godless Manichees , they deny that 'the Word was made flesh,' and His Incarnate presence, then let them not bring forward the Proverbs, for this is out of place with the Manichees. But if for preferment-sake, and the lucre of avarice which follows , and the desire for good repute, they venture not on denying the text, 'The Word was made flesh,' since so it is written, either let them rightly interpret the words of Scripture, of the embodied presence of the Saviour, or, if they deny their sense, let them deny that the Lord became man at all. For it is unseemly, while confessing that 'the Word became flesh,' yet to be ashamed at what is written of Him, and on that account to corrupt the sense.\n\n**[Book 1, Chapter 10 §54]** For it is written, 'So much better than the Angels.' let us then first examine this. Now it is right and necessary, as in all divine Scripture, so here, faithfully to expound the time of which the Apostle wrote, and the person , and the point; lest the reader, from ignorance missing either these or any similar particular, may be wide of the true sense. This understood that inquiring eunuch, when he thus besought Philip, 'I pray you, of whom does the Prophet speak this? Of himself, or of some other man Acts 8:34?' for he feared lest, expounding the lesson unsuitably to the person, he should wander from the right sense. And the disciples, wishing to learn the time of what was foretold, besought the Lord, 'Tell us,' said they, 'when shall these things be? And what is the sign of Your coming Matthew 24:3?' And again, hearing from the Saviour the events of the end, they desired to learn the time of it, that they might be kept from error themselves, and might be able to teach others; as, for instance, when they had learned, they set right the Thessalonians , who were going wrong. When then one knows properly these points, his understanding of the faith is right and healthy; but if he mistakes any such points, immediately he falls into heresy. Thus Hymenæus and Alexander and their fellows were beside the time, when they said that the resurrection had already been; and the Galatians were after the time, in making much of circumcision now. And to miss the person was the lot of the Jews, and is still, who think that of one of themselves is said, 'Behold, the Virgin shall conceive, and bear a Son, and they shall call his Name Emmanuel, which is being interpreted, God with us Isaiah 7:14; Matthew 1:23;' and that, 'A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up to you Deuteronomy 18:15,' is spoken of one of the Prophets; and who, as to the words, 'He was led as a sheep to the slaughter Isaiah 53:7,' instead of learning from Philip, conjecture them spoken of Isaiah or some other of the former Prophets.\n\n**[Book 1, Chapter 10 §55]** (3.) Such has been the state of mind under which Christ's enemies have fallen into their execrable heresy. For had they known the person, and the subject, and the season of the Apostle's words, they would not have expounded of Christ's divinity what belongs to His manhood, nor in their folly have committed so great an act of irreligion. Now this will be readily seen, if one expounds properly the beginning of this lection. For the Apostle says, 'God who at sundry times and various manners spoke in times past unto the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken unto us by His Son Hebrews 1:1-2;' then again shortly after he says, 'when He had by Himself purged our sins, He sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become so much better than the Angels, as He has by inheritance obtained a more excellent Name than they. ' It appears then that the Apostle's words make mention of that time, when God spoke unto us by His Son, and when a purging of sins took place. Now when did He speak unto us by His Son, and when did purging of sins take place? And when did He become man? When, but subsequently to the Prophets in the last days? Next, proceeding with his account of the economy in which we were concerned, and speaking of the last times, he is naturally led to observe that not even in the former times was God silent with men, but spoke to them by the Prophets. And, whereas the prophets ministered, and the Law was spoken by Angels, while the Son too came on earth, and that in order to minister, he was forced to add, 'Become so much better than the Angels,' wishing to show that, as much as the son excels a servant, so much also the ministry of the Son is better than the ministry of servants. Contrasting then the old ministry and the new, the Apostle deals freely with the Jews, writing and saying, 'Become so much better than the Angels.' This is why throughout he uses no comparison, such as 'become greater,' or 'more honourable,' lest we should think of Him and them as one in kind, but 'better' is his word, by way of marking the difference of the Son's nature from things originated. And of this we have proof from divine Scripture; David, for instance, saying in the Psalm, 'One day in Your courts is better than a thousand :' and Solomon crying out, 'Receive my instruction and not silver, and knowledge rather than choice gold. For wisdom is better than rubies; and all the things that may be desired are not to be compared to it Proverbs 8:10-11.' Are not wisdom and stones of the earth different in essence and separate in nature? Are heavenly courts at all akin to earthly houses? Or is there any similarity between things eternal and spiritual, and things temporal and mortal? And this is what Isaiah says, 'Thus says the Lord unto the eunuchs that keep My sabbaths, and choose the things that please Me, and take hold of My Covenant; even unto them will I give in Mine house, and within My walls, a place and a name better than of sons and of daughters: I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off Isaiah 56:4-5.' In like manner there is nought akin between the Son and the Angels; so that the word 'better' is not used to compare but to contrast, because of the difference of His nature from them. And therefore the Apostle also himself, when he interprets the word 'better,' places its force in nothing short of the Son's excellence over things originated, calling the one Son, the other servants; the one, as a Son with the Father, sitting on the right; and the others, as servants, standing before Him, and being sent, and fulfilling offices.\n\n**[Book 1, Chapter 10 §56]** Scripture, in speaking thus, implies, O Arians, not that the Son is originate, but rather other than things originate, and proper to the Father, being in His bosom. (4.) Nor does even the expression 'become,' which here occurs, show that the Son is originate, as you suppose. If indeed it were simply 'become' and no more, a case might stand for the Arians; but, whereas they are forestalled with the word 'Son' throughout the passage, showing that He is other than things originate, so again not even the word 'become' occurs absolutely , but 'better' is immediately subjoined. For the writer thought the expression immaterial, knowing that in the case of one who was confessedly a genuine Son, to say 'become' is the same with saying that He had been made, and is, 'better.' For it matters not even if we speak of what is generate, as 'become' or 'made;' but on the contrary, things originate cannot be called generate, God's handiwork as they are, except so far as after their making they partake of the generate Son, and are therefore said to have been generated also, not at all in their own nature, but because of their participation of the Son in the Spirit. And this again divine Scripture recognises; for it says in the case of things originate, 'All things came to be through Him, and without Him nothing came to be John 1:3,' and, 'In wisdom have You made them all ;' but in the case of sons which are generate, 'To Job there came to be seven sons and three daughters Job 1:2,' and, 'Abraham was an hundred years old when there came to be to him Isaac his son Genesis 21:5;' and Moses said Deuteronomy 21:15, 'If to any one there come to be sons.' Therefore since the Son is other than things originate, alone the proper offspring of the Father's essence, this plea of the Arians about the word 'become' is worth nothing.\n\n**[Book 1, Chapter 10 (¶23)]** (5.) If moreover, baffled so far, they should still violently insist that the language is that of comparison, and that comparison in consequence implies oneness of kind, so that the Son is of the nature of Angels, they will in the first place incur the disgrace of rivalling and repeating what Valentinus held, and Carpocrates, and those other heretics, of whom the former said that the Angels were one in kind with the Christ, and Carpocrates that Angels are framers of the world. Perchance it is under the instruction of these masters that they compare the Word of God with the Angels.\n\n**[Book 1, Chapter 10 §57]** Though surely amid such speculations, they will be moved by the sacred poet, saying, 'Who is he among the gods that shall be like the Lord ,' and, 'Among the gods there is none like You, O Lord. ' However, they must be answered, with the chance of their profiting by it, that comparison confessedly does belong to subjects one in kind, not to those which differ. No one, for instance, would compare God with man, or again man with brutes, nor wood with stone, because their natures are unlike; but God is beyond comparison, and man is compared to man, and wood to wood, and stone to stone. Now in such cases we should not speak of 'better,' but of 'rather' and 'more;' thus Joseph was comely rather than his brethren, and Rachel than Leah; star is not better than star, but is the rather excellent in glory; whereas in bringing together things which differ in kind, then 'better' is used to mark the difference, as has been said in the case of wisdom and jewels. Had then the Apostle said, 'by so much has the Son precedence of the Angels,' or 'by so much greater,' you would have had a plea, as if the Son were compared with the Angels; but, as it is, in saying that He is 'better,' and differs as far as Son from servants, the Apostle shows that He is other than the Angels in nature.\n\n**[Book 1, Chapter 10 (¶25)]** (6.) Moreover by saying that He it is who has 'laid the foundation of all things Hebrews 1:10,' he shows that He is other than all things originate. But if He be other and different in essence from their nature, what comparison of His essence can there be, or what likeness to them? Though, even if they have any such thoughts, Paul shall refute them, who speaks to the very point, 'For unto which of the Angels said He at any time, You are My Son, this day have I begotten You? And of the Angels He says, Who makes His Angels spirits, and His ministers a flame of fire Hebrews 1:7.'\n\n**[Book 1, Chapter 10 §58]** Observe here, the word 'made' belongs to things originate, and he calls them things made; but to the Son he speaks not of making, nor of becoming, but of eternity and kingship, and a Framer's office, exclaiming, 'Your Throne, O God, is for ever and ever;' and, 'Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the works of Your hands; they shall perish, but You remain.' From which words even they, were they but willing, might perceive that the Framer is other than things framed, the former God, the latter things originate, made out of nothing. For what has been said, 'They shall perish,' is said, not as if the creation were destined for destruction, but to express the nature of things originate by the issue to which they tend. For things which admit of perishing, though through the grace of their Maker they perish not, yet have come out of nothing, and themselves witness that they once were not. And on this account, since their nature is such, it is said of the Son, 'You remain,' to show His eternity; for not having the capacity of perishing, as things originate have, but having eternal duration, it is foreign to Him to have it said, 'He was not before His generation,' but proper to Him to be always, and to endure together with the Father. And though the Apostle had not thus written in his Epistle to the Hebrews, still his other Epistles, and the whole of Scripture, would certainly forbid their entertaining such notions concerning the Word. But since he has here expressly written it, and, as has been above shown, the Son is Offspring of the Father's essence, and He is Framer, and other things are framed by Him, and He is the Radiance and Word and Image and Wisdom of the Father, and things originate stand and serve in their place below the Triad, therefore the Son is different in kind and different in essence from things originate, and on the contrary is proper to the Father's essence and one in nature with it. And hence it is that the Son too says not, 'My Father is better than I John 14:28,' lest we should conceive Him to be foreign to His Nature, but 'greater,' not indeed in greatness, nor in time, but because of His generation from the Father Himself , nay, in saying 'greater' He again shows that He is proper to His essence.\n\n**[Book 1, Chapter 10 §59]** (7). And the Apostle's own reason for saying, 'so much better than the Angels,' was not any wish in the first instance to compare the essence of the Word to things originate (for He cannot be compared, rather they are incommeasurable), but regarding the Word's visitation in the flesh, and the Economy which He then sustained, he wished to show that He was not like those who had gone before Him; so that, as much as He excelled in nature those who were sent afore by Him, by so much also the grace which came from and through Him was better than the ministry through Angels. For it is the function of servants, to demand the fruits and no more; but of the Son and Master to forgive the debts and to transfer the vineyard.\n\n**[Book 1, Chapter 10 (¶28)]** (8.) Certainly what the Apostle proceeds to say shows the excellence of the Son over things originate; 'Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip. For if the word spoken by Angels was steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward; how shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard Him Hebrews 2:1-3.' But if the Son were in the number of things originate, He was not better than they, nor did disobedience involve increase of punishment because of Him; any more than in the Ministry of Angels there was not, according to each Angel, greater or less guilt in the transgressors, but the Law was one, and one was its vengeance on transgressors. But, whereas the Word is not in the number of originate things, but is Son of the Father, therefore, as He Himself is better and His acts better and transcendent, so also the punishment is worse. Let them contemplate then the grace which is through the Son, and let them acknowledge the witness which He gives even from His works, that He is other than things originated, and alone the very Son in the Father and the Father in Him. And the Law was spoken by Angels, and perfected no one Hebrews 7:19, needing the visitation of the Word, as Paul has said; but that visitation has perfected the work of the Father. And then, from Adam unto Moses death reigned Romans 5:14; but the presence of the Word abolished death. 2 Timothy 1:10 And no longer in Adam are we all dying 1 Corinthians 15:22; but in Christ we are all reviving. And then, from Dan to Beersheba was the Law proclaimed, and in Judæa only was God known; but now, unto all the earth has gone forth their voice, and all the earth has been filled with the knowledge of God , and the disciples have made disciples of all the nations Matthew 28:19, and now is fulfilled what is written, 'They shall be all taught of God John 6:45; Isaiah 54:13.' And then what was revealed was but a type; but now the truth has been manifested. And this again the Apostle himself describes afterwards more clearly, saying, 'By so much was Jesus made a surety of a better testament;' and again, 'But now has He obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also He is the Mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises.' And, 'For the Law made nothing perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope did.' And again he says, 'It was therefore necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these; but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. ' Both in the verse before us, then, and throughout, does he ascribe the word 'better' to the Lord, who is better and other than originated things. For better is the sacrifice through Him, better the hope in Him; and also the promises through Him, not merely as great compared with small, but the one differing from the other in nature, because He who conducts this economy, is 'better' than things originated.\n\n**[Book 1, Chapter 10 §60]** (9.) Moreover the words 'He has become surety' denote the pledge in our behalf which He has provided. For as, being the 'Word,' He 'became flesh John 1:14 ' and 'become' we ascribe to the flesh, for it is originated and created, so do we here the expression 'He has become,' expounding it according to a second sense, viz. because He has become man. And let these contentious men know, that they fail in this their perverse purpose; let them know that Paul does not signify that His essence has become, knowing, as he did, that He is Son and Wisdom and Radiance and Image of the Father; but here too he refers the word 'become' to the ministry of that covenant, in which death which once ruled is abolished. Since here also the ministry through Him has become better, in that 'what the Law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin condemned sin in the flesh Romans 8:3,' ridding it of the trespass, in which, being continually held captive, it admitted not the Divine mind. And having rendered the flesh capable of the Word, He made us walk, no longer according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit, and say again and again, 'But we are not in the flesh but in the Spirit,' and, 'For the Son of God came into the world, not to judge the world, but to redeem all men, and that the world might be saved through Him John 3:17.' Formerly the world, as guilty, was under judgment from the Law; but now the Word has taken on Himself the judgment, and having suffered in the body for all, has bestowed salvation to all. With a view to this has John exclaimed, 'The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ John 1:17.' Better is grace than the Law, and truth than the shadow.\n\n**[Book 1, Chapter 10 §61]** (10.) 'Better' then, as has been said, could not have been brought to pass by any other than the Son, who sits on the right hand of the Father. And what does this denote but the Son's genuineness, and that the Godhead of the Father is the same as the Son's ? For in that the Son reigns in His Father's kingdom, is seated upon the same throne as the Father, and is contemplated in the Father's Godhead, therefore is the Word God, and whoso beholds the Son, beholds the Father; and thus there is one God. Sitting then on the right, yet He does not place His Father on the left ; but whatever is right and precious in the Father, that also the Son has, and says, 'All things that the Father has are Mine John 16:15.' Wherefore also the Son, though sitting on the right, also sees the Father on the right, though it be as become man that He says, 'I saw the Lord always before My face, for He is on My right hand, therefore I shall not fall. ' This shows moreover that the Son is in the Father and the Father in the Son; for the Father being on the right, the Son is on the right; and while the Son sits on the right of the Father, the Father is in the Son. And the Angels indeed minister ascending and descending; but concerning the Son he says, 'And let all the Angels of God worship Him Hebrews 1:6.' And when Angels minister, they say, 'I am sent unto you,' and, 'The Lord has commanded;' but the Son, though He say in human fashion, 'I am sent ,' and comes to finish the work and to minister, nevertheless says, as being Word and Image, 'I am in the Father, and the Father in Me;' and, 'He that has seen Me, has seen the Father.' and, 'The Father that abides in Me, He does the works ;' for what we behold in that Image are the Father's works.\n\n**[Book 1, Chapter 10 (¶31)]** (11.) What has been already said ought to shame those persons who are fighting against the very truth; however, if, because it is written, 'become better,' they refuse to understand 'become,' as used of the Son, as 'has been and is ;' or again as referring to the better covenant having come to be , as we have said, but consider from this expression that the Word is called originate, let them hear the same again in a concise form, since they have forgotten what has been said.\n\n**[Book 1, Chapter 10 §62]** If the Son be in the number of the Angels, then let the word 'become' apply to Him as to them, and let Him not differ at all from them in nature; but be they either sons with Him, or be He an Angel with them; sit they one and all together on the right hand of the Father, or be the Son standing with them all as a ministering Spirit, sent forth to minister Himself as they are. But if on the other hand Paul distinguishes the Son from things originate, saying, 'To which of the Angels said He at any time, You are My Son.' and the one frames heaven and earth, but they are made by Him; and He sits with the Father, but they stand by ministering, who does not see that he has not used the word 'become' of the essence of the Word, but of the ministration come through Him? For as, being the 'Word,' He 'became flesh,' so when become man, He became by so much better in His ministry, than the ministry which came by the Angels, as Son excels servants and Framer things framed. Let them cease therefore to take the word 'become' of the substance of the Son, for He is not one of originated things; and let them acknowledge that it is indicative of His ministry and the Economy which came to pass.\n\n**[Book 1, Chapter 10 (¶33)]** (12.) But how He became better in His ministry, being better in nature than things originate, appears from what has been said before, which, I consider, is sufficient in itself to put them to shame. But if they carry on the contest, it will be proper upon their rash daring to close with them, and to oppose to them those similar expressions which are used concerning the Father Himself. This may serve to shame them to refrain their tongue from evil, or may teach them the depth of their folly. Now it is written, 'Become my strong rock and house of defence, that You may save me. ' And again, 'The Lord became a defence for the oppressed ,' and the like which are found in divine Scripture. If then they apply these passages to the Son, which perhaps is nearest to the truth, then let them acknowledge that the sacred writers ask Him, as not being originate, to become to them 'a strong rock and house of defence;' and for the future let them understand 'become,' and 'He made,' and 'He created,' of His incarnate presence. For then did He become 'a strong rock and house of defence,' when He bore our sins in His own body upon the tree, and said, 'Come unto Me, all you that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest Matthew 11:28.'\n\n**[Book 1, Chapter 10 §63]** But if they refer these passages to the Father, will they, when it is here also written, 'Become' and 'He became,' venture so far as to affirm that God is originate? Yea, they will dare, as they thus argue concerning His Word; for the course of their argument carries them on to conjecture the same things concerning the Father, as they devise concerning His Word. But far be such a notion ever from the thoughts of all the faithful! For neither is the Son in the number of things originated, nor do the words of Scripture in question, 'Become,' and 'He became,' denote beginning of being, but that succour which was given to the needy. For God is always, and one and the same; but men have come to be afterwards through the Word, when the Father Himself willed it; and God is invisible and inaccessible to originated things, and especially to men upon earth. When then men in infirmity invoke Him, when in persecution they ask help, when under injuries they pray, then the Invisible, being a lover of man, shines forth upon them with His beneficence, which He exercises through and in His proper Word. And immediately the divine manifestation is made to every one according to his need, and is made to the weak health, and to the persecuted a 'refuge' and 'house of defence;' and to the injured He says, 'While you speak I will say, Here I am Isaiah 58:9.' Whatever defence then comes to each through the Son, that each says that God has come to be to himself, since succour comes from God Himself through the Word. Moreover the usage of men recognises this, and every one will confess its propriety. Often succour comes from man to man; one has undertaken toil for the injured, as Abraham for Lot; and another has opened his home to the persecuted, as Obadiah to the sons of the prophets; and another has entertained a stranger, as Lot the Angels; and another has supplied the needy, as Job those who begged of him. And then, should one and the other of these benefited persons say, 'Such a one became an assistance to me,' and another 'and to me a refuge,' and 'to another a supply,' yet in so saying would not be speaking of the original becoming or of the essence of their benefactors, but of the beneficence coming to themselves from them; so also when the saints say concerning God, 'He became' and 'become Thou,' they do not denote any original becoming, for God is without beginning and unoriginate, but the salvation which is made to be unto men from Him.\n\n**[Book 1, Chapter 10 §64]** This being so understood, it is parallel also respecting the Son, that whatever, and however often, is said, such as, 'He became' and 'become,' should ever have the same sense: so that as, when we hear the words in question, 'become better than the Angels' and 'He became,' we should not conceive any original becoming of the Word, nor in any way fancy from such terms that He is originate; but should understand Paul's words of His ministry and Economy when He became man. For when 'the Word became flesh and dwelt among us John 1:14 ' and came to minister and to grant salvation to all, then He became to us salvation, and became life, and became propitiation; then His economy in our behalf became much better than the Angels, and He became the Way and became the Resurrection. And as the words 'Become my strong rock' do not denote that the essence of God Himself became, but His lovingkindness, as has been said, so also here the 'having become better than the Angels,' and, 'He became,' and, 'by so much is Jesus become a better surety,' do not signify that the essence of the Word is originate (perish the thought!), but the beneficence which towards us came to be through His becoming Man; unthankful though the heretics be, and obstinate in behalf of their irreligion.\n\n**[Book 1, Chapter 10 (¶36)]** Source. Translated by John Henry Newman and Archibald Robertson. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 4. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1892.) Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. <http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/28161.htm>.\n\n**[Book 2, Chapter 17 §24]** (continued). And here it were well to ask them also this question , for a still clearer refutation of their heresy—Wherefore, when all things are creatures, and all are brought into consistence from nothing, and the Son Himself, according to you, is creature and work, and once was not, wherefore has He made 'all things through Him' alone, 'and without Him was made not one thing John 1:3?' or why is it, when 'all things' are spoken of, that no one thinks the Son is signified in the number, but only things originate; whereas when Scripture speaks of the Word, it does not understand Him as being in the number of 'all,' but places Him with the Father, as Him in whom Providence and salvation for 'all' are wrought and effected by the Father, though all things surely might at the same command have come to be, at which He was brought into being by God alone? For God is not wearied by commanding , nor is His strength unequal to the making of all things, that He should alone create the only Son , and need His ministry and aid for the framing of the rest. For He lets nothing stand over, which He wills to be done; but He willed only , and all things subsisted, and no one 'has resisted His will Romans 9:19.' Why then were not all things brought into being by God alone at that same command, at which the Son came into being? Or let them tell us, why did all things through Him come to be, who was Himself but originate? How void of reason! However, they say concerning Him, that 'God willing to create originate nature, when He saw that it could not endure the untempered hand of the Father, and to be created by Him, makes and creates first and alone one only, and calls Him Son and Word, that, through Him as a medium, all things might thereupon be brought to be. ' This they not only have said, but they have dared to put it into writing, namely, Eusebius, Arius, and Asterius who sacrificed.\n\n**[Book 2, Chapter 17 §25]** Is not this a full proof of that irreligion, with which they have drugged themselves with much madness, till they blush not to be intoxicate against the truth? For if they shall assign the toil of making all things as the reason why God made the Son only, the whole creation will cry out against them as saying unworthy things of God; and Isaiah too who has said in Scripture, 'The Everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, faints not, neither is weary: there is no searching of His understanding Isaiah 40:28.' And if God made the Son alone, as not deigning to make the rest, but committed them to the Son as an assistant, this on the other hand is unworthy of God, for in Him there is no pride. Nay the Lord reproves the thought, when He says, 'Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing?' and 'one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father which is in heaven.' And again, 'Take no thought for your life, what you shall eat, nor yet for your body, what you shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? Behold the fowls of the air, for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them; are you not much better than they? Which of you by taking thought, can add one cubit unto his stature? And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: and yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore if God so clothe the grass of the field which today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith ?' If then it be not unworthy of God to exercise His Providence, even down to things so small, a hair of the head, and a sparrow, and the grass of the field, also it was not unworthy of Him to make them. For what things are the subjects of His Providence, of those He is Maker through His proper Word. Nay a worse absurdity lies before the men who thus speak; for they distinguish between the creatures and the framing; and consider the latter the work of the Father, the creatures the work of the Son; whereas either all things must be brought to be by the Father with the Son, or if all that is originate comes to be through the Son, we must not call Him one of the originated things.\n\n**[Book 2, Chapter 17 §26]** Next, their folly may be exposed thus:— if even the Word be of originated nature, how, whereas this nature is too feeble to be God's own handywork, could He alone of all endure to be made by the unoriginate and unmitigated Essence of God, as you say? For it follows either that, if He could endure it, all could endure it, or, it being endurable by none, it was not endurable by the Word, for you say that He is one of originate things. And again, if because originate nature could not endure to be God's own handywork, there arose need of a mediator , it must follow, that, the Word being originate and a creature, there is need of medium in His framing also, since He too is of that originate nature which endures not to be made of God, but needs a medium. But if some being as a medium be found for Him, then again a fresh mediator is needed for that second, and thus tracing back and following out, we shall invent a vast crowd of accumulating mediators; and thus it will be impossible that the creation should subsist, as ever wanting a mediator, and that medium not coming into being without another mediator; for all of them will be of that originate nature which endures not to be made of God alone, as you say. How abundant is that folly, which obliges them to hold that what has already come into being, admits not of coming! Or perhaps they opine that they have not even come to be, as still seeking their mediator; for, on the ground of their so irreligious and futile notion , what is would not have subsistence, for want of the medium.\n\n**[Book 2, Chapter 17 §27]** But again they allege this:— 'Behold, through Moses too did He lead the people from Egypt, and through him He gave the Law, yet he was a man; so that it is possible for like to be brought into being by like.' They should veil their face when they say this, to save their much shame. For Moses was not sent to frame the world, nor to call into being things which were not, or to fashion men like himself, but only to be the minister of words to the people, and to King Pharaoh. And this is a very different thing, for to minister is of things originate as of servants, but to frame and to create is of God alone, and of His proper Word and His Wisdom. Wherefore, in the matter of framing, we shall find none but God's Word; for 'all things are made in Wisdom,' and 'without the Word was made not one thing.' But as regards ministrations there are, not one only, but man out of their whole number, whomever the Lord will send. For there are many Archangels, many Thrones, and Authorities, and Dominions, thousands of thousands, and myriads of myriads, standing before Him , ministering and ready to be sent. And many Prophets, and twelve Apostles, and Paul. And Moses himself was not alone, but Aaron with him, and next other seventy were filled with the Holy Ghost. And Moses was succeeded by Joshua the son of Nun, and he by the Judges, and they not by one, but by a number of Kings. If then the Son were a creature and one of things originate, there must have been many such sons, that God might have many such ministers, just as there is a multitude of those others. But if this is not to be seen, but while the creatures are many, the Word is one, any one will collect from this, that the Son differs from all, and is not on a level with the creatures, but proper to the Father. Hence there are not many Words, but one only Word of the one Father, and one Image of the one God. 'But behold,' they say, 'there is one sun only , and one earth.' Let them maintain, senseless as they are, that there is one water and one fire, and then they may be told that everything that is brought to be, is one in its own essence; but for the ministry and service committed to it, by itself it is not adequate nor sufficient alone. For God said, 'Let there be lights in the firmament of heaven, to give light upon the earth and to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years.' And then he says, 'And God made two great lights, the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: He made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven, to give light upon the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night. '\n\n**[Book 2, Chapter 17 §28]** Behold there are many lights, and not the sun only, nor the moon only, but each is one in essence, and yet the service of all is one and common; and what each lacks, is supplied by the other, and the office of lighting is performed by all. Thus the sun has authority to shine throughout the day and no more; and the moon through the night; and the stars together with them accomplish the seasons and years, and become for signs, each according to the need that calls for it. Thus too the earth is not for all things, but for the fruits only, and to be a ground to tread on for the living things that inhabit it. And the firmament is to divide between waters and waters, and to be a place to set the stars in. So also fire and water, with other things, have been brought into being to be the constituent parts of bodies; and in short no one thing is alone, but all things that are made, as if members of each other, make up as it were one body, namely, the world. If then they thus conceive of the Son, let all men throw stones at them, considering the Word to be a part of this universe, and a part insufficient without the rest for the service committed to Him. But if this be manifestly irreligious, let them acknowledge that the Word is not in the number of things originate, but the sole and proper Word of the Father, and their Framer. 'But,' say they, 'though He is a creature and of things originate; yet as from a master and artificer has He learned to frame, and thus ministered to God who taught Him.' For thus the Sophist Asterius, on the strength of having learned to deny the Lord, has dared to write, not observing the absurdity which follows. For if framing be a thing to be taught, let them beware lest they say that God Himself be a Framer not by nature but by science, so as to admit of His losing the power. Besides, if the Wisdom of God attained to frame by teaching, how is He still Wisdom, when He needs to learn? And what was He before He learned? For it was not Wisdom, if it needed teaching; it was surely but some empty thing, and not essential Wisdom , but from advancement it had the name of Wisdom, and will be only so long Wisdom as it can keep what it has learned. For what has accrued not by any nature, but from learning, admits of being one time unlearned. But to speak thus of the Word of God, is not the part of Christians but of Greeks.\n\n**[Book 2, Chapter 17 §29]** For if the power of framing accrues to anyone from teaching, these insensate men are ascribing jealousy and weakness to God—jealousy, in that He has not taught many how to frame, so that there may be around Him, as Archangels and Angels many, so framers many; and weakness, in that He could not make by Himself, but needed a fellow-worker, or under-worker; and that, though it has been already shown that created nature admits of being made by God alone, since they consider the Son to be of such a nature and so made. But God is deficient in nothing: perish the thought! For He has said Himself, 'I am full Isaiah 1:11.' Nor did the Word become Framer of all from teaching; but being the Image and Wisdom of the Father, He does the things of the Father. Nor has He made the Son for the making of things created; for behold, though the Son exists, still the Father is seen to work, as the Lord Himself says, 'My Father works hitherto and I work John 5:17.' If however, as you say, the Son came into being for the purpose of making the things after Him, and yet the Father is seen to work even after the Son, you must hold even in this light the making of such a Son to be superfluous. Besides, why, when He would create us, does He seek for a mediator at all, as if His will did not suffice to constitute whatever seemed good to Him? Yet the Scriptures say, 'He has done whatsoever pleased Him ,' and 'Who has resisted His will Romans 9:19?' And if His mere will is sufficient for the framing of all things, you make the office of a mediator superfluous; for your instance of Moses, and the sun and the moon has been shown not to hold. And here again is an argument to silence you. You say that God, willing the creation of originated nature, and deliberating concerning it, designs and creates the Son, that through Him He may frame us; now, if so, consider how great an irreligion you have dared to utter.\n\n**[Book 2, Chapter 17 §30]** First, the Son appears rather to have been for us brought to be, than we for Him; for we were not created for Him, but He is made for us ; so that He owes thanks to us, not we to Him, as the woman to the man. 'For the man,' says Scripture, 'was not created for the woman, but the woman for the man.' Therefore, as 'the man is the image and glory of God, and the woman the glory of the man 1 Corinthians 11:7, 9,' so we are made God's image and to His glory; but the Son is our image, and exists for our glory. And we were brought into being that we might be; but God's Word was made, as you must hold, not that He might be ; but as an instrument for our need, so that not we from Him, but He is constituted from our need. Are not men who even conceive such thoughts, more than insensate? For if for us the Word was made, He has not precedence of us with God; for He did not take counsel about us having Him within Him, but having us in Himself, counselled, as they say, concerning His own Word. But if so, perchance the Father had not even a will for the Son at all; for not as having a will for Him, did He create Him, but with a will for us, He formed Him for our sake; for He designed Him after designing us; so that, according to these irreligious men, henceforth the Son, who was made as an instrument, is superfluous, now that they are made for whom He was created. But if the Son alone was made by God alone, because He could endure it, but we, because we could not, were made by the Word, why does He not first take counsel about the Word, who could endure His making, instead of taking counsel about us? Or why does He not make more of Him who was strong, than of us who were weak? Or why making Him first, does He not counsel about Him first? Or why counselling about us first, does He not make us first, His will being sufficient for the constitution of all things? But He creates Him first, yet counsels first about us; and He wills us before the Mediator; and when He wills to create us, and counsels about us, He calls us creatures; but Him, whom He frames for us, He calls Son and proper Heir. But we, for whose sake He made Him, ought rather to be called sons; or certainly He, who is His Son, is rather the object of His previous thoughts and of His will, for whom He makes all us. Such the sickness, such the vomit of the heretics.\n\n**[Book 2, Chapter 17 §31]** But the sentiment of Truth in this matter must not be hidden, but must have high utterance. For the Word of God was not made for us, but rather we for Him, and 'in Him all things were created Colossians 1:16.' Nor for that we were weak, was He strong and made by the Father alone, that He might frame us by means of Him as an instrument; perish the thought! It is not so. For though it had seemed good to God not to make things originate, still had the Word been no less with God, and the Father in Him. At the same time, things originate could not without the Word be brought to be; hence they were made through Him—and reasonably. For since the Word is the Son of God by nature proper to His essence, and is from Him, and in Him , as He said Himself, the creatures could not have come to be, except through Him. For as the light enlightens all things by its radiance, and without its radiance nothing would be illuminated, so also the Father, as by a hand , in the Word wrought all things, and without Him makes nothing. For instance, God said, as Moses relates, 'Let there be light,' and 'Let the waters be gathered together,' and 'let the dry land appear,' and 'Let Us make man ;' as also Holy David in the Psalm, 'He spoke and they were made; He commanded and they were created. ' And He spoke , not that, as in the case of men, some under-worker might hear, and learning the will of Him who spoke might go away and do it; for this is what is proper to creatures, but it is unseemly so to think or speak of the Word. For the Word of God is Framer and Maker, and He is the Father's Will. Hence it is that divine Scripture says not that one heard and answered, as to the manner or nature of the things which He wished made; but God only said, 'Let it become,' and he adds, 'And it became;' for what He thought good and counselled, that immediately the Word began to do and to finish. For when God commands others, whether the Angels, or converses with Moses, or commands Abraham, then the hearer answers; and the one says, 'Whereby shall I know Genesis 15:8?' and the other, 'Send some one else Exodus 4:13;' and again, 'If they ask me, what is His Name, what shall I say to them ?' and the Angel said to Zacharias, 'Thus says the Lord ;' and he asked the Lord, 'O Lord of hosts, how long will You not have mercy on Jerusalem.' and waits to hear good words and comfortable. For each of these has the Mediator Word, and the Wisdom of God which makes known the will of the Father. But when that Word Himself works and creates, then there is no questioning and answer, for the Father is in Him and the Word in the Father; but it suffices to will, and the work is done; so that the word 'He said' is a token of the will for our sake, and 'It was so,' denotes the work which is done through the Word and the Wisdom, in which Wisdom also is the Will of the Father. And 'God said' is explained in 'the Word,' for, he says, 'You have made all things in Wisdom;' and 'By the Word of the Lord were the heavens made fast.' and 'There is one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by Him. '\n\n**[Book 2, Chapter 17 §32]** It is plain from this that the Arians are not fighting with us about their heresy; but while they pretend us, their real fight is against the Godhead Itself. For if the voice were ours which says, 'This it My Son ,' small were our complaint of them; but if it is the Father's voice, and the disciples heard it, and the Son too says of Himself, 'Before all the mountains He begot me ,' are they not fighting against God, as the giants in story, having their tongue, as the Psalmist says, a sharp sword for irreligion? For they neither feared the voice of the Father, nor reverenced the Saviour's words, nor trusted the Saints, one of whom writes, 'Who being the Brightness of His glory and the Expression of His subsistence,' and 'Christ the power of God and the Wisdom of God ;' and another says in the Psalm, 'With You is the well of life, and in Your Light shall we see light,' and 'You made all things in Wisdom ;' and the Prophets say, 'And the Word of the Lord came to me Jeremiah 2:1;' and John, 'In the beginning was the Word.' and Luke, 'As they delivered them unto us which from the beginning were eye-witnesses and ministers of the Word John 1:1; Luke 1:2;' and as David again says, 'He sent His Word and healed them. ' All these passages proscribe in every light the Arian heresy, and signify the eternity of the Word, and that He is not foreign but proper to the Father's Essence. For when saw any one light without radiance? Or who dares to say that the expression can be different from the subsistence? Or has not a man himself lost his mind who even entertains the thought that God was ever without Reason and without Wisdom? For such illustrations and such images has Scripture proposed, that, considering the inability of human nature to comprehend God, we might be able to form ideas even from these however poorly and dimly, and as far as is attainable. And as the creation contains abundant matter for the knowledge of the being of a God and a Providence ('for by the greatness and beauty of the creatures proportionably the Maker of them is seen Wisdom 13:5 '), and we learn from them without asking for voices, but hearing the Scriptures we believe, and surveying the very order and the harmony of all things, we acknowledge that He is Maker and Lord and God of all, and apprehend His marvellous Providence and governance over all things; so in like manner about the Son's Godhead, what has been above said is sufficient, and it becomes superfluous, or rather it is very mad to dispute about it, or to ask in an heretical way, How can the Son be from eternity? Or how can He be from the Father's Essence, yet not a part? Since what is said to be of another, is a part of him; and what is divided, is not whole.\n\n**[Book 2, Chapter 17 §33]** These are the evil sophistries of the heterodox; yet, though we have already shown their shallowness, the exact sense of these passages themselves and the force of these illustrations will serve to show the baseless nature of their loathsome tenet. For we see that reason is ever, and is from him and proper to his essence, whose reason it is, and does not admit a before and an after. So again we see that the radiance from the sun is proper to it, and the sun's essence is not divided or impaired; but its essence is whole and its radiance perfect and whole , yet without impairing the essence of light, but as a true offspring from it. We understand in like manner that the Son is begotten not from without but from the Father, and while the Father remains whole, the Expression of His Subsistence is ever, and preserves the Father's likeness and unvarying Image, so that he who sees Him, sees in Him the Subsistence too, of which He is the Expression. And from the operation of the Expression we understand the true Godhead of the Subsistence, as the Saviour Himself teaches when He says, 'The Father who dwells in Me, He does the works John 14:10 ' which I do; and 'I and the Father are one,' and 'I in the Father and the Father in Me John 10:30.' Therefore let this Christ— opposing heresy attempt first to divide the examples found in things originate, and say, 'Once the sun was without his radiance,' or, 'Radiance is not proper to the essence of light,' or 'It is indeed proper, but it is a part of light by division; and then let it divide Reason, and pronounce that it is foreign to mind, or that once it was not, or that it was not proper to its essence, or that it is by division a part of mind.' And so of His Expression and the Light and the Power, let it do violence to these as in the case of Reason and Radiance; and instead let it imagine what it will. But if such extravagance be impossible for them, are they not greatly beside themselves, presumptuously intruding into what is higher than things originate and their own nature, and essaying impossibilities ?\n\n**[Book 2, Chapter 17 §34]** For if in the case of these originate and irrational things offsprings are found which are not parts of the essences from which they are, nor subsist with passion, nor impair the essences of their originals, are they not mad again in seeking and conjecturing parts and passions in the instance of the immaterial and true God, and ascribing divisions to Him who is beyond passion and change, thereby to perplex the ears of the simple and to pervert them from the Truth? For who hears of a son but conceives of that which is proper to the father's essence? Who heard, in his first catechising , that God has a Son and has made all things by His proper Word, but understood it in that sense in which we now mean it? Who on the rise of this odious heresy of the Arians, was not at once startled at what he heard, as strange , and a second sowing, besides that Word which had been sown from the beginning? For what is sown in every soul from the beginning is that God has a Son, the Word, the Wisdom, the Power, that is, His Image and Radiance; from which it at once follows that He is always; that He is from the Father; that He is like; that He is the eternal offspring of His essence; and there is no idea involved in these of creature or work. But when the man who is an enemy, while men slept, made a second sowing , of 'He is a creature,' and 'There was once when He was not,' and 'How can it be?' thenceforth the wicked heresy of Christ's enemies rose as tares, and immediately, as bereft of every right thought, they meddle like robbers, and venture to say, 'How can the Son always exist with the Father.' for men come of men and are sons, after a time; and the father is thirty years old, when the son begins to be, being begotten; and in short of every son of man, it is true that he was not before his generation. And again they whisper, 'How can the Son be Word, or the Word be God's Image? For the word of men is composed of syllables , and only signifies the speaker's will, and then is over and is lost.'\n\n**[Book 2, Chapter 17 §35]** They then afresh, as if forgetting the proofs which have been already urged against them, 'pierce themselves through ' with these bonds of irreligion, and thus argue. But the word of truth confutes them as follows:— if they were disputing concerning any man, then let them exercise reason in this human way, both concerning His Word and His Son; but if of God who created man, no longer let them entertain human thoughts, but others which are above human nature. For such as he that begets, such of necessity is the offspring; and such as is the Word's Father, such must be also His Word. Now man, begotten in time, in time also himself begets the child; and whereas from nothing he came to be, therefore his word also is over and continues not. But God is not as man, as Scripture has said; but is existing and is ever; therefore also His Word is existing and is everlastingly with the Father, as radiance of light. And man's word is composed of syllables, and neither lives nor operates anything, but is only significant of the speaker's intention, and does but go forth and go by, no more to appear, since it was not at all before it was spoken; wherefore the word of man neither lives nor operates anything, nor in short is man. And this happens to it, as I said before, because man who begets it, has his nature out of nothing. But God's Word is not merely pronounced, as one may say, nor a sound of accents, nor by His Son is meant His command ; but as radiance of light, so is He perfect offspring from perfect. Hence He is God also, as being God's Image; for 'the Word was God John 1:1 ' says Scripture. And man's words avail not for operation; hence man works not by means of words but of hands, for they have being, and man's word subsists not. But the 'Word of God,' as the Apostle says, 'is living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in His sight; but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do. Hebrews 4:12-13 ' He is then Framer of all, 'and without Him was made not one thing John 1:3,' nor can anything be made without Him.\n\n**[Book 2, Chapter 17 §36]** Nor must we ask why the Word of God is not such as our word, considering God is not such as we, as has been before said; nor again is it right to seek how the word is from God, or how He is God's radiance, or how God begets, and what is the manner of His begetting. For a man must be beside himself to venture on such points; since a thing ineffable and proper to God's nature, and known to Him alone and to the Son, this he demands to be explained in words. It is all one as if they sought where God is, and how God is, and of what nature the Father is. But as to ask such questions is irreligious, and argues an ignorance of God, so it is not holy to venture such questions concerning the generation of the Son of God, nor to measure God and His Wisdom by our own nature and infirmity. Nor is a person at liberty on that account to swerve in his thoughts from the truth, nor, if any one is perplexed in such inquiries, ought he to disbelieve what is written. For it is better in perplexity to be silent and believe, than to disbelieve on account of the perplexity: for he who is perplexed may in some way obtain mercy , because, though he has questioned, he has yet kept quiet; but when a man is led by his perplexity into forming for himself doctrines which beseem not, and utters what is unworthy of God, such daring recurs a sentence without mercy. For in such perplexities divine Scripture is able to afford him some relief, so as to take rightly what is written, and to dwell upon our word as an illustration; that as it is proper to us and is from us, and not a work external to us, so also God's Word is proper to Him and from Him, and is not a work; and yet is not like the word of man, or else we must suppose God to be man. For observe, many and various are men's words which pass away day by day; because those that come before others continue not, but vanish. Now this happens because their authors are men, and have seasons which pass away, and ideas which are successive; and what strikes them first and second, that they utter; so that they have many words, and yet after them all nothing at all remaining; for the speaker ceases, and his word immediately is spent. But God's Word is one and the same, and, as it is written, 'The Word of God endures for ever ,' not changed, not before or after other, but existing the same always. For it was fitting, whereas God is One, that His Image should be One also, and His Word One and One His Wisdom.\n\n**[Book 2, Chapter 17 §37]** Wherefore I am in wonder how, whereas God is One, these men introduce, after their private notions, many images and wisdoms and words , and say that the Father's proper and natural Word is other than the Son, by whom He even made the Son and that He who is really Son is but notionally called Word, as vine, and way, and door, and tree of life; and that He is called Wisdom also in name, the proper and true Wisdom of the Father, which coexist ingenerately with Him, being other than the Son, by which He even made the Son, and named Him Wisdom as partaking of it. This they have not confined to words, but Arius composed in his Thalia, and the Sophist Asterius wrote, what we have stated above, as follows: 'Blessed Paul said not that he preached Christ, the Power of God or the Wisdom of God,' but without the addition of the article, 'God's power' and 'God's wisdom 1 Corinthians 1:24,' thus preaching that the proper Power of God Himself which is natural to Him, and co-existent in Him ingenerately, is something besides, generative indeed of Christ, and creative of the whole world, concerning which he teaches in his Epistle to the Romans thus—'The invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal Power and Godhead Romans 1:20.' For as no one would say that the Godhead there mentioned was Christ, but the Father Himself, so, as I think, 'His eternal Power and Godhead also is not the Only Begotten Son, but the Father who begot Him. ' And he teaches that there is another power and wisdom of God, manifested through Christ. And shortly after the same Asterius says, 'However His eternal power and wisdom, which truth argues to be without beginning and ingenerate, the same must surely be one. For there are many wisdoms which are one by one created by Him, of whom Christ is the first-born and only-begotten; all however equally depend on their Possessor. And all the powers are rightly called His who created and uses them:— as the Prophet says that the locust, which came to be a divine punishment of human sins, was called by God Himself not only a power, but a great power; and blessed David in most of the Psalms invites, not the Angels alone, but the Powers to praise God.'\n\n**[Book 2, Chapter 17 §38]** Now are they not worthy of all hatred for merely uttering this? For if, as they hold, He is Son, not because He is begotten of the Father and proper to His Essence, but that He is called Word only because of things rational , and Wisdom because of things gifted with wisdom, and Power because of things gifted with power, surely He must be named a Son because of those who are made sons: and perhaps because there are things existing, He has even His existence , in our notions only. And then after all what is He? For He is none of these Himself, if they are but His names : and He has but a semblance of being, and is decorated with these names from us. Rather this is some recklessness of the devil, or worse, if they are not unwilling that they should truly subsist themselves, but think that God's Word is but in name. Is not this portentous, to say that Wisdom coexists with the Father, yet not to say that this is the Christ, but that there are many created powers and wisdoms, of which one is the Lord whom they go on to compare to the caterpillar and locust? And are they not profligate, who, when they hear us say that the Word coexists with the Father, immediately murmur out, 'Are you not speaking of two Unoriginates?' yet in speaking themselves of 'His Unoriginate Wisdom,' do not see that they have already incurred themselves the charge which they so rashly urge against us ? Moreover, what folly is there in that thought of theirs, that the Unoriginate Wisdom coexisting with God is God Himself! For what coexists does not coexist with itself, but with some one else, as the Evangelists say of the Lord, that He was together with His disciples; for He was not together with Himself, but with His disciples—unless indeed they would say that God is of a compound nature, having wisdom a constituent or complement of His Essence, unoriginate as well as Himself , which moreover they pretend to be the framer of the world, that so they may deprive the Son of the framing of it. For there is nothing they would not maintain, sooner than hold the truth concerning the Lord.\n\n**[Book 2, Chapter 17 §39]** For where at all have they found in divine Scripture, or from whom have they heard, that there is another Word and another Wisdom besides this Son, that they should frame to themselves such a doctrine? True, indeed, it is written, 'Are not My words like fire, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces Jeremiah 23:29?' and in the Proverbs, 'I will make known My words unto you Proverbs 1:23;' but these are precepts and commands, which God has spoken to the saints through His proper and only true Word, concerning which the Psalmist said, 'I have refrained my feet from every evil way, that I may keep Your words. ' Such words accordingly the Saviour signifies to be distinct from Himself, when He says in His own person, 'The words which I have spoken unto you John 6:63.' For certainly such words are not offsprings or sons, nor are there so many words that frame the world, nor so many images of the One God, nor so many who have become men for us, nor as if from many such there were one who has become flesh, as John says; but as being the only Word of God was He preached by John, 'The Word was made flesh,' and 'all things were made by Him. ' Wherefore of Him alone, our Lord Jesus Christ, and of His oneness with the Father, are written and set forth the testimonies, both of the Father signifying that the Son is One, and of the saints, aware of this and saying that the Word is One, and that He is Only-Begotten. And His works also are set forth; for all things, visible and invisible, have been brought to be through Him, and 'without Him was made not one thing. ' But concerning another or any one else they have not a thought, nor frame to themselves words or wisdoms, of which neither name nor deed are signified by Scripture, but are named by these only. For it is their invention and Christ-opposing surmise, and they make the most of the name of the Word and the Wisdom; and framing to themselves others, they deny the true Word of God, and the real and only Wisdom of the Father, and thereby, miserable men, rival the Manichees. For they too, when they behold the works of God, deny Him the only and true God, and frame to themselves another, whom they can show neither by work, nor in any testimony drawn from the divine oracles.\n\n**[Book 2, Chapter 17 §40]** Therefore, if neither in the divine oracles is found another wisdom besides this Son, nor from the fathers have we heard of any such, yet they have confessed and written of the Wisdom coexisting with the Father unoriginately, proper to Him, and the Framer of the world, this must be the Son who even according to them is eternally coexistent with the Father. For He is Framer of all, as it is written, 'In Wisdom have You made them all. ' Nay, Asterius himself, as if forgetting what he wrote before, afterwards, in Caiaphas's fashion, involuntarily, when urging the Greeks, instead of naming many wisdoms, or the caterpillar, confesses but one, in these words—'God the Word is one, but many are the things rational; and one is the essence and nature of Wisdom, but many are the things wise and beautiful.' And soon afterwards he says again:— 'Who are they whom they honour with the title of God's children? For they will not say that they too are words, nor maintain that there are many wisdoms. For it is not possible, whereas the Word is one, and Wisdom has been set forth as one, to dispense to the multitude of children the Essence of the Word, and to bestow on them the appellation of Wisdom.' It is not then at all wonderful, that the Arians should battle with the truth, when they have collisions with their own principles and conflict with each other, at one time saying that there are many wisdoms, at another maintaining one; at one time classing wisdom with the caterpillar, at another saying that it coexists with the Father and is proper to Him; now that the Father alone is unoriginate, and then again that His Wisdom and His Power are unoriginate also. And they battle with us for saying that the Word of God is ever, yet forget their own doctrines, and say themselves that Wisdom coexists with God unoriginately. So dizzied are they in all these matters, denying the true Wisdom, and inventing one which is not, as the Manichees who make to themselves another God, after denying Him that is.\n\n**[Book 2, Chapter 17 §41]** But let the other heresies and the Manichees also know that the Father of the Christ is One, and is Lord and Maker of the creation through His proper Word. And let the Ario-maniacs know in particular, that the Word of God is One, being the only Son proper and genuine from His Essence, and having with His Father the oneness of Godhead indivisible, as we said many times, being taught it by the Saviour Himself. Since, were it not so, wherefore through Him does the Father create, and in Him reveal Himself to whom He will, and illuminate them? Or why too in the baptismal consecration is the Son named together with the Father? For if they say that the Father is not all-sufficient, then their answer is irreligious , but if He be, for this it is right to say, what is the need of the Son for framing the worlds, or for the holy laver? For what fellowship is there between creature and Creator? Or why is a thing made classed with the Maker in the consecration of all of us? Or why, as you hold, is faith in one Creator and in one creature delivered to us? For if it was that we might be joined to the Godhead, what need of the creature? But if that we might be united to the Son a creature, superfluous, according to you, is this naming of the Son in Baptism, for God who made Him a Son is able to make us sons also. Besides, if the Son be a creature, the nature of rational creatures being one, no help will come to creatures from a creature , since all need grace from God. We said a few words just now on the fitness that all things should be made by Him; but since the course of the discussion has led us also to mention holy Baptism, it is necessary to state, as I think and believe, that the Son is named with the Father, not as if the Father were not all-sufficient, not without meaning, and by accident; but, since He is God's Word and own Wisdom, and being His Radiance, is ever with the Father, therefore it is impossible, if the Father bestows grace, that He should not give it in the Son, for the Son is in the Father as the radiance in the light. For, not as if in need, but as a Father in His own Wisdom has God founded the earth, and made all things in the Word which is from Him, and in the Son confirms the Holy Laver. For where the Father is, there is the Son, and where the light, there the radiance; and as what the Father works, He works through the Son , and the Lord Himself says, 'What I see the Father do, that do I also;' so also when baptism is given, whom the Father baptizes, him the Son baptizes; and whom the Son baptizes, he is consecrated in the Holy Ghost. And again as when the sun shines, one might say that the radiance illuminates, for the light is one and indivisible, nor can be detached, so where the Father is or is named, there plainly is the Son also; and is the Father named in Baptism? Then must the Son be named with Him.\n\n**[Book 2, Chapter 17 §42]** Therefore, when He made His promise to the saints, He thus spoke; 'I and the Father will come, and make Our abode in him;' and again, 'that, as I and Thou are One, so they may be one in Us.' And the grace given is one, given from the Father in the Son, as Paul writes in every Epistle, 'Grace unto you, and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. ' For the light must be with the ray, and the radiance must be contemplated together with its own light. Whence the Jews, as denying the Son as well as they, have not the Father either; for, as having left the 'Fountain of Wisdom Baruch 3:12,' as Baruch reproaches them, they put from them the Wisdom springing from it, our Lord Jesus Christ (for 'Christ,' says the Apostle, is 'God's power and God's wisdom 1 Corinthians 1:24),' when they said, 'We have no king but Cæsar John 19:15.' The Jews then have the penal award of their denial; for their city as well as their reasoning came to nought. And these too hazard the fullness of the mystery, I mean Baptism; for if the consecration is given to us into the Name of Father and Son, and they do not confess a true Father, because they deny what is from Him and like His Essence, and deny also the true Son, and name another of their own framing as created out of nothing, is not the rite administered by them altogether empty and unprofitable, making a show, but in reality being no help towards religion? For the Arians do not baptize into Father and Son, but into Creator and creature, and into Maker and work. And as a creature is other than the Son, so the Baptism, which is supposed to be given by them, is other than the truth, though they pretend to name the Name of the Father and the Son, because of the words of Scripture, For not he who simply says, 'O Lord,' gives Baptism; but he who with the Name has also the right faith. On this account therefore our Saviour also did not simply command to baptize, but first says, 'Teach;' then thus: 'Baptize into the Name of Father, and Son, and Holy Ghost;' that the right faith might follow upon learning, and together with faith might come the consecration of Baptism.\n\n**[Book 2, Chapter 17 §43]** There are many other heresies too, which use the words only, but not in a right sense, as I have said, nor with sound faith , and in consequence the water which they administer is unprofitable, as deficient in piety, so that he who is sprinkled by them is rather polluted by irreligion than redeemed. So Gentiles also, though the name of God is on their lips, incur the charge of Atheism , because they know not the real and very God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. So Manichees and Phrygians , and the disciples of the Samosatene, though using the Names, nevertheless are heretics, and the Arians follow in the same course, though they read the words of Scripture, and use the Names, yet they too mock those who receive the rite from them, being more irreligious than the other heresies, and advancing beyond them, and making them seem innocent by their own recklessness of speech. For these other heresies lie against the truth in some certain respect, either erring concerning the Lord's Body, as if He did not take flesh of Mary, or as if He has not died at all, nor become man, but only appeared, and was not truly, and seemed to have a body when He had not, and seemed to have the shape of man, as visions in a dream; but the Arians are without disguise irreligious against the Father Himself. For hearing from the Scriptures that His Godhead is represented in the Son as in an image, they blaspheme, saying, that it is a creature, and everywhere concerning that Image, they carry about with them the phrase, 'He was not,' as mud in a wallet , and spit it forth as serpents their venom. Then, whereas their doctrine is nauseous to all men, immediately, as a support against its fall, they prop up the heresy with human patronage, that the simple, at the sight or even by the fear may overlook the mischief of their perversity. Right indeed is it to pity their dupes; well is it to weep over them, for that they sacrifice their own interest for that immediate phantasy which pleasures furnish, and forfeit their future hope. In thinking to be baptized into the name of one who exists not, they will receive nothing; and ranking themselves with a creature, from the creation they will have no help, and believing in one unlike and foreign to the Father in essence, to the Father they will not be joined, not having His own Son by nature, who is from Him, who is in the Father, and in whom the Father is, as He Himself has said; but being led astray by them, the wretched men henceforth remain destitute and stripped of the Godhead. For this phantasy of earthly goods will not follow them upon their death; nor when they see the Lord whom they have denied, sitting on His Father's throne, and judging quick and dead, will they be able to call to their help any one of those who have now deceived them; for they shall see them also at the judgment-seat, repenting for their deeds of sin and irreligion.\n\n**[Book 2, Chapter 17 §44]** We have gone through thus much before the passage in the Proverbs, resisting the insensate fables which their hearts have invented, that they may know that the Son of God ought not to be called a creature, and may learn lightly to read what admits in truth of a right explanation. For it is written, 'The Lord created me a beginning of His ways, for His works ;' since, however, these are proverbs, and it is expressed in the way of proverbs, we must not expound them nakedly in their first sense, but we must inquire into the person, and thus religiously put the sense on it. For what is said in proverbs, is not said plainly, but is put forth latently , as the Lord Himself has taught us in the Gospel according to John, saying, 'These things have I spoken unto you in proverbs, but the time comes when I shall no more speak unto you in proverbs, but openly John 16:25.' Therefore it is necessary to unfold the sense of what is said, and to seek it as something hidden, and not nakedly to expound as if the meaning were spoken 'plainly,' lest by a false interpretation we wander from the truth. If then what is written be about Angel, or any other of things originate, as concerning one of us who are works, let it be said, 'created me;' but if it be the Wisdom of God, in whom all things originate have been framed, that speaks concerning Itself, what ought we to understand but that 'He created' means nothing contrary to 'He begot.' Nor, as forgetting that It is Creator and Framer, or ignorant of the difference between the Creator and the creatures, does It number Itself among the creatures; but It signifies a certain sense, as in proverbs, not 'plainly,' but latent; which It inspired the saints to use in prophecy, while soon after It does Itself give the meaning of 'He created' in other but parallel expressions, saying, 'Wisdom made herself a house Proverbs 9:1.' Now it is plain that our body is Wisdom's house , which It took on Itself to become man; hence consistently does John say, 'The Word was made flesh John 1:14;' and by Solomon Wisdom says of Itself with cautious exactness , not 'I am a creature,' but only 'The Lord created me a beginning of His ways for His works ,' yet not 'created me that I might have being,' nor 'because I have a creature's beginning and origin.'\n\n**[Book 2, Chapter 17 §45]** For in this passage, not as signifying the Essence of His Godhead, nor His own everlasting and genuine generation from the Father, has the Word spoken by Solomon, but on the other hand His manhood and Economy towards us. And, as I said before, He has not said 'I am a creature,' or 'I became a creature,' but only 'He created. ' For the creatures, having a created essence, are originate, and are said to be created, and of course the creature is created: but this mere term 'He created' does not necessarily signify the essence or the generation, but indicates something else as coming to pass in Him of whom it speaks, and not simply that He who is said to be created, is at once in His Nature and Essence a creature. And this difference divine Scripture recognises, saying concerning the creatures, 'The earth is full of Your creation,' and 'the creation itself groans together and travails together ;' and in the Apocalypse it says, 'And the third part of the creatures in the sea died which had life;' as also Paul says, 'Every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be refused if it be received with thanksgiving ;' and in the book of Wisdom it is written, 'Having ordained man through Your wisdom, that he should have dominion over the creatures which You have made Wisdom 9:2.' And these, being creatures, are also said to be created, as we may further hear from the Lord, who says, 'He who created them, made them male and female ;' and from Moses in the Song, who writes, 'Ask now of the days that are past, which were before you since the day that God created man upon the earth, and from the one side of heaven unto the other Deuteronomy 4:32.' And Paul in Colossians, 'Who is the Image of the Invisible God, the Firstborn of every creature, for in Him were all things created that are in heaven, and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers; all things were created through Him, and for Him, and He is before all. '\n\n**[Book 2, Chapter 17 §46]** That to be called creatures, then, and to be created belongs to things which have by nature a created essence, these passages are sufficient to remind us, though Scripture is full of the like; on the other hand that the single word 'He created' does not simply denote the essence and mode of generation, David shows in the Psalm, 'This shall be written for another generation, and the people that is created shall praise the Lord ;' and again, 'Create in me a clean heart, O God ;' and Paul in Ephesians says, 'Having abolished the law of commandments contained in ordinances, for to create in Himself of two one new man Ephesians 2:15;' and again, 'Put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. ' For neither David spoke of any people created in essence, nor prayed to have another heart than that he had, but meant renovation according to God and renewal; nor did Paul signify two persons created in essence in the Lord, nor again did he counsel us to put on any other man; but he called the life according to virtue the 'man after God,' and by the 'created' in Christ he meant the two people who are renewed in Him. Such too is the language of the book of Jeremiah; 'The Lord created a new salvation for a planting, in which salvation men shall walk to and fro ;' and in thus speaking, he does not mean any essence of a creature, but prophesies of the renewal of salvation among men, which has taken place in Christ for us. Such then being the difference between 'the creatures' and the single word 'He created,' if you find anywhere in divine Scripture the Lord called 'creature,' produce it and fight; but if it is nowhere written that He is a creature, only He Himself says about Himself in the Proverbs, 'The Lord created me,' shame upon you, both on the ground of the distinction aforesaid and for that the diction is like that of proverbs; and accordingly let 'He created' be understood, not of His being a creature, but of that human nature which became His, for to this belongs creation. Indeed is it not evidently unfair in you, when David and Paul say 'He created,' then indeed not to understand it of the essence and the generation, but the renewal; yet, when the Lord says 'He created' to number His essence with the creatures? And again when Scripture says, 'Wisdom built her an house, she set it upon seven pillars Proverbs 9:1,' to understand 'house' allegorically, but to take 'He created' as it stands, and to fasten on it the idea of creature? And neither His being Framer of all has had any weight with you, nor have you feared His being the sole and proper Offspring of the Father, but recklessly, as if you had enlisted against Him, do ye fight, and think less of Him than of men.\n\n**[Book 2, Chapter 17 §47]** For the very passage proves that it is only an invention of your own to call the Lord creature. For the Lord, knowing His own Essence to be the Only-begotten Wisdom and Offspring of the Father, and other than things originate and natural creatures, says in love to man, 'The Lord created me a beginning of His ways,' as if to say, 'My Father has prepared for Me a body, and has created Me for men in behalf of their salvation.' For, as when John says, 'The Word was made flesh John 1:14,' we do not conceive the whole Word Himself to be flesh , but to have put on flesh and become man, and on hearing, 'Christ has become a curse for us,' and 'He has made Him sin for us who knew no sin ,' we do not simply conceive this, that whole Christ has become curse and sin, but that He has taken on Him the curse which lay against us (as the Apostle has said, 'Has redeemed us from the curse,' and 'has carried,' as Isaiah has said, 'our sins,' and as Peter has written, 'has borne them in the body on the wood '); so, if it is said in the Proverbs 'He created,' we must not conceive that the whole Word is in nature a creature, but that He put on the created body and that God created Him for our sakes, preparing for Him the created body, as it is written, for us, that in Him we might be capable of being renewed and deified. What then deceived you, O senseless, to call the Creator a creature? Or whence did you purchase for you this new thought, to parade it ? For the Proverbs say 'He created,' but they call not the Son creature, but Offspring; and, according to the distinction in Scripture aforesaid of 'He created' and 'creature,' they acknowledge, what is by nature proper to the Son, that He is the Only-begotten Wisdom and Framer of the creatures, and when they say 'He created,' they say it not in respect of His Essence, but signify that He was becoming a beginning of many ways; so that 'He created' is in contrast to 'Offspring,' and His being called the 'Beginning of ways ' to His being the Only-begotten Word.\n\n**[Book 2, Chapter 17 §48]** For if He is Offspring, how call ye Him creature? For no one says that He begets what He creates, nor calls His proper offspring creatures; and again, if He is Only-begotten, how becomes He 'beginning of the ways?' for of necessity, if He was created a beginning of all things, He is no longer alone, as having those who came into being after Him. For Reuben, when he became a beginning of the children , was not only-begotten, but in time indeed first, but in nature and relationship one among those who came after him. Therefore if the Word also is 'a beginning of the ways,' He must be such as the ways are, and the ways must be such as the Word, though in point of time He be created first of them. For the beginning or initiative of a city is such as the other parts of the city are, and the members too being joined to it, make the city whole and one, as the many members of one body; nor does one part of it make, and another come to be, and is subject to the former, but all the city equally has its government and constitution from its maker. If then the Lord is in such sense created as a 'beginning' of all things, it would follow that He and all other things together make up the unity of the creation, and He neither differs from all others, though He become the 'beginning' of all, nor is He Lord of them, though older in point of time; but He has the same manner of framing and the same Lord as the rest. Nay, if He be a creature, as you hold, how can He be created sole and first at all, so as to be beginning of all? When it is plain from what has been said, that among the creatures not any is of a constant nature and of prior formation, but each has its origination with all the rest, however it may excel others in glory. For as to the separate stars or the great lights, not this appeared first, and that second, but in one day and by the same command, they were all called into being. And such was the original formation of the quadrupeds, and of birds, and fishes, and cattle, and plants; thus too has the race made after God's Image come to be, namely men; for though Adam only was formed out of earth, yet in him was involved the succession of the whole race.\n\n**[Book 2, Chapter 17 §49]** And from the visible creation, we clearly discern that His invisible things also, 'being perceived by the things that are made Romans 1:20,' are not independent of each other; for it was not first one and then another, but all at once were constituted after their kind. For the Apostle did not number individually, so as to say 'whether Angel, or Throne, or Dominion, or Authority,' but he mentions together all according to their kind, 'whether Angels, or Archangels, or Principalities :' for in this way is the origination of the creatures. If then, as I have said, the Word were creature He must have been brought into being, not first of them, but with all the other Powers, though in glory He excel the rest ever so much. For so we find it to be in their case, that at once they came to be, with neither first nor second, and they differ from each other in glory, some on the right of the throne, some all around, and some on the left, but one and all praising and standing in service before the Lord. Therefore if the Word be creature He would not be first or beginning of the rest; yet if He be before all, as indeed He is, and is Himself alone First and Son, it does not follow that He is beginning of all things as to His Essence , for what is the beginning of all is in the number of all. And if He is not such a beginning, then neither is He a creature, but it is very plain that He differs in essence and nature from the creatures, and is other than they, and is Likeness and Image of the sole and true God, being Himself sole also. Hence He is not classed with creatures in Scripture, but David rebukes those who dare even to think of Him as such, saying, 'Who among the gods is like the Lord ?' and 'Who is like the Lord among the sons of God.' and Baruch, 'This is our God, and another shall not be reckoned with Him Baruch 3:35.' For the One creates, and the rest are created; and the One is the own Word and Wisdom of the Father's Essence, and through this Word things which came to be, which before existed not, were made.\n\n**[Book 2, Chapter 17 §50]** Your famous assertion then, that the Son is a creature, is not true, but is your fantasy only; nay Solomon convicts you of having many times slandered him. For he has not called Him creature, but God's Offspring and Wisdom, saying, 'God in Wisdom established the earth,' and 'Wisdom built her an house. ' And the very passage in question proves your irreligious spirit; for it is written, 'The Lord created me a beginning of His ways for His works.' Therefore if He is before all things, yet says 'He created me' (not 'that I might make the works,' but) 'for the works,' unless 'He created' relates to something later than Himself, He will seem later than the works, finding them on His creation already in existence before Him, for the sake of which He is also brought into being. And if so, how is He before all things notwithstanding? And how were all things made through Him and consist in Him? For behold, you say that the works consisted before Him, for which He is created and sent. But it is not so; perish the thought! false is the supposition of the heretics. For the Word of God is not creature but Creator; and says in the manner of proverbs, 'He created me' when He put on created flesh. And something besides may be understood from the passage itself; for, being Son and having God for His Father, for He is His proper Offspring, yet here He names the Father Lord; not that He was servant, but because He took the servant's form. For it became Him, on the one hand being the Word from the Father, to call God Father: for this is proper to son towards father; on the other, having come to finish the work, and taken a servant's form, to name the Father Lord. And this difference He Himself has taught by an apt distinction, saying in the Gospels, 'I thank You, O Father,' and then, 'Lord of heaven and earth Matthew 11:25.' For He calls God His Father, but of the creatures He names Him Lord; as showing clearly from these words, that, when He put on the creature , then it was He called the Father Lord. For in the prayer of David the Holy Spirit marks the same distinction, saying in the Psalms, 'Give Your strength unto Your Child, and help the Son of Your handmaid. ' For the natural and true child of God is one, and the sons of the handmaid, that is, of the nature of things originate, are other. Wherefore the One, as Son, has the Father's might; but the rest are in need of salvation.\n\n**[Book 2, Chapter 17 §51]** (But if, because He was called child, they idly talk, let them know that both Isaac was named Abraham's child, and the son of the Shunamite was called young child.) Reasonably then, we being servants, when He became as we, He too calls the Father Lord, as we do; and this He has so done from love to man, that we too, being servants by nature, and receiving the Spirit of the Son, might have confidence to call Him by grace Father, who is by nature our Lord. But as we, in calling the Lord Father, do not deny our servitude by nature (for we are His works, and it is 'He that has made us, and not we ourselves '), so when the Son, on taking the servant's form, says, 'The Lord created me a beginning of His ways,' let them not deny the eternity of His Godhead, and that 'in the beginning was the Word,' and 'all things were made by Him,' and 'in Him all things were created. '\n\n**[Book 2, Chapter 17 (¶29)]** 51 (continued). For the passage in the Proverbs, as I have said before, signifies, not the Essence, but the manhood of the Word; for if He says that He was created 'for the works,' He shows His intention of signifying, not His Essence, but the Economy which took place 'for His works,' which comes second to being. For things which are in formation and creation are made specially that they may be and exist , and next they have to do whatever the Word bids them, as may be seen in the case of all things. For Adam was created, not that He might work, but that first he might be man; for it was after this that he received the command to work. And Noah was created, not because of the ark, but that first he might exist and be a man; for after this he received commandment to prepare the ark. And the like will be found in every case on inquiring into it—thus the great Moses first was made a man, and next was entrusted with the government of the people. Therefore here too we must suppose the like; for you see, that the Word is not created into existence, but, 'In the beginning was the Word,' and He is afterwards sent 'for the works' and the Economy towards them. For before the works were made, the Son was ever, nor was there yet need that He should be created; but when the works were created and need arose afterwards of the Economy for their restoration, then it was that the Word took upon Himself this condescension and assimilation to the works; which He has shown us by the word 'He created.' And through the Prophet Isaiah willing to signify the like, He says again: 'And now thus says the Lord, who formed me from the womb to be His servant, to gather together Jacob unto Him and Israel, I shall be brought together and be glorified before the Lord. '\n\n**[Book 2, Chapter 17 §52]** See here too, He is formed, not into existence, but in order to gather together the tribes, which were in existence before He was formed. For as in the former passage stands 'He created,' so in this 'He formed;' and as there 'for the works,' so here 'to gather together;' so that in every point of view it appears that 'He created' and 'He formed' are said after 'the Word was.' For as before His forming the tribes existed, for whose sake He was formed, so does it appear that the works exist, for which He was created. And when 'in the beginning was the Word,' not yet were the works, as I have said before; but when the works were made and the need required, then 'He created' was said; and as if some son, when the servants were lost, and in the hands of the enemy by their own carelessness, and need was urgent, were sent by his father to succour and recover them, and on setting out were to put over him the like dress with them, and should fashion himself as they, lest the capturers, recognising him as the master, should take to flight and prevent his descending to those who were hidden under the earth by them; and then were any one to inquire of him, why he did so, were to make answer, 'My Father thus formed and prepared me for his works,' while in thus speaking, he neither implies that he is a servant nor one of the works, nor speaks of the beginning of His origination, but of the subsequent charge given him over the works—in the same way the Lord also, having put over Him our flesh, and 'being found in fashion as a man,' if He were questioned by those who saw Him thus and marvelled, would say, 'The Lord created Me the beginning of His ways for His works,' and 'He formed Me to gather together Israel.' This again the Spirit foretells in the Psalms, saying, 'You set Him over the works of Your hands Hebrews 2:7;' which elsewhere the Lord signified of Himself, 'I am set as King by Him upon His holy hill of Sion. ' And as, when He shone in the body upon Sion, He had not His beginning of existence or of reign, but being God's Word and everlasting King, He vouchsafed that His kingdom should shine in a human way in Sion, that redeeming them and us from the sin which reigned in them, He might bring them under His Father's Kingdom, so, on being set 'for the works,' He is not set for things which did not yet exist, but for such as already were and needed restoration.\n\n**[Book 2, Chapter 17 §53]** 'He created' then and 'He formed' and 'He set,' having the same meaning, do not denote the beginning of His being, or of His essence as created, but His beneficent renovation which came to pass for us. Accordingly, though He thus speaks, yet He taught also that He Himself existed before this, when He said, 'Before Abraham came to be, I am John 8:58;' and 'when He prepared the heavens, I was present with Him;' and 'I was with Him disposing things. ' And as He Himself was before Abraham came to be, and Israel had come into being after Abraham, and plainly He exists first and is formed afterwards, and His forming signifies not His beginning of being but His taking manhood, wherein also He collects together the tribes of Israel; so, as 'being always with the Father,' He Himself is Framer of the creation, and His works are evidently later than Himself, and 'He created' signifies, not His beginning of being, but the Economy which took place for the works, which He effected in the flesh. For it became Him, being other than the works, nay rather their Framer, to take upon Himself their renovation , that, whereas He is created for us, all things may be now created in Him. For when He said 'He created,' He immediately added the reason, naming 'the works,' that His creation for the works might signify His becoming man for their renovation. And this is usual with divine Scripture ; for when it signifies the fleshly origination of the Son, it adds also the cause for which He became man; but when he speaks or His servants declare anything of His Godhead, all is said in simple diction, and with an absolute sense, and without reason being added. For He is the Father's Radiance; and as the Father is, but not for any reason, neither must we seek the reason of that Radiance. Thus it is written, 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God John 1:1;' and the wherefore it assigns not ; but when 'the Word was made flesh John 1:14,' then it adds the reason why, saying, 'And dwelt among us.' And again the Apostle saying, 'Who being in the form of God,' has not introduced the reason, till 'He took on Him the form of a servant;' for then he continues, 'He humbled Himself unto death, even the death of the cross Philippians 2:6-8;' for it was for this that He both became flesh and took the form of a servant.\n\n**[Book 2, Chapter 17 §54]** And the Lord Himself has spoken many things in proverbs; but when giving us notices about Himself, He has spoken absolutely ; 'I in the Father and the Father in Me,' and 'I and the Father are one,' and, 'He that has seen Me, has seen the Father,' and 'I am the Light of the world,' and, 'I am the Truth ;' not setting down in every case the reason, nor the wherefore, lest He should seem second to those things for which He was made. For that reason would needs take precedence of Him, without which not even He Himself had come into being. Paul, for instance, 'separated an Apostle for the Gospel, which the Lord had promised afore by the Prophets Romans 1:1-2,' was thereby made subordinate to the Gospel, of which he was made minister, and John, being chosen to prepare the Lord's way, was made subordinate to the Lord; but the Lord, not being made subordinate to any reason why He should be Word, save only that He is the Father's Offspring and Only-begotten Wisdom, when He becomes man, then assigns the reason why He is about to take flesh. For the need of man preceded His becoming man, apart from which He had not put on flesh. And what the need was for which He became man, He Himself thus signifies, 'I came down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him that sent Me. And this is the will of Him which has sent Me, that of all which He has given Me, I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day. And this is the will of My Father, that every one which sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life, and I will raise him up at the last day. ' And again; 'I have come a light into the world, that whosoever believes in Me, should not abide in darkness. ' And again he says; 'To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. ' And John has written: 'For this was manifested the Son of God, that He might destroy the works of the devil 1 John 3:8.'\n\n**[Book 2, Chapter 17 §55]** To give a witness then, and for our sakes to undergo death, to raise man up and destroy the works of the devil , the Saviour came, and this is the reason of His incarnate presence. For otherwise a resurrection had not been, unless there had been death; and how had death been, unless He had had a mortal body? This the Apostle, learning from Him, thus sets forth, 'Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same; that through death He might bring to nought him that had the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage Hebrews 2:14-15.' And, 'Since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead 1 Corinthians 15:21.' And again, 'For what the Law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh; that the ordinance of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit Romans 8:3-4.' And John says, 'For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved John 3:17.' And again, the Saviour has spoken in His own person, 'For judgment am I come into this world, that they who see not might see, and that they which see might become blind. ' Not for Himself then, but for our salvation, and to abolish death, and to condemn sin, and to give sight to the blind, and to raise up all from the dead, has He come; but if not for Himself, but for us, by consequence not for Himself but for us is He created. But if not for Himself is He created, but for us, then He is not Himself a creature, but, as having put on our flesh, He uses such language. And that this is the sense of the Scriptures, we may learn from the Apostle, who says in Ephesians, 'Having broken down the middle wall of partition between us, having abolished in His flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances, to create in Himself of two one new man, so making peace Ephesians 2:14-15.' But if in Him the two are created, and these are in His body, reasonably then, bearing the two in Himself, He is as if Himself created; for those who were created in Himself He made one, and He was in them, as they. And thus, the two being created in Him, He may say suitably, 'The Lord created me.' For as by receiving our infirmities, He is said to be infirm Himself, though not Himself infirm, for He is the Power of God, and He became sin for us and a curse, though not having sinned Himself, but because He Himself bare our sins and our curse, so , by creating us in Him, let Him say, 'He created me for the works,' though not Himself a creature.\n\n**[Book 2, Chapter 17 §56]** For if, as they hold, the Essence of the Word being of created nature, therefore He says, 'The Lord created me,' being a creature, He was not created for us; but if He was not created for us, we are not created in Him; and, if not created in Him, we have Him not in ourselves but externally; as, for instance, as receiving instruction from Him as from a teacher. And it being so with us, sin has not lost its reign over the flesh, being inherent and not cast out of it. But the Apostle opposes such a doctrine a little before, when he says, 'For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus Ephesians 2:10;' and if in Christ we are created, then it is not He who is created, but we in Him; and thus the words 'He created' are for our sake. For because of our need, the Word, though being Creator, endured words which are used of creatures; which are not proper to Him, as being the Word, but are ours who are created in Him. And as, since the Father is always, so is His Word, and always being, always says 'I was daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him Proverbs 8:30,' and 'I am in the Father and the Father in Me John 14:10;' so, when for our need He became man, consistently does He use language, as ourselves, 'The Lord has created Me,' that, by His dwelling in the flesh, sin might perfectly be expelled from the flesh, and we might have a free mind. For what ought He, when made man, to say? 'In the beginning I was man?' this were neither suitable to Him nor true; and as it beseemed not to say this, so it is natural and proper in the case of man to say, 'He created' and 'He made' Him. On this account then the reason of 'He created' is added, namely, the need of the works; and where the reason is added, surely the reason rightly explains the lection. Thus here, when He says 'He created,' He sets down the cause, 'the works;' on the other hand, when He signifies absolutely the generation from the Father, straightway He adds, 'Before all the hills He begets me Proverbs 8:25;' but He does not add the 'wherefore,' as in the case of 'He created,' saying, 'for the works,' but absolutely, 'He begets me,' as in the text, 'In the beginning was the Word John 1:1.' For, though no works had been created, still 'the Word' of God 'was,' and 'the Word was God.' And His becoming man would not have taken place, had not the need of men become a cause. The Son then is not a creature.\n\n**[Book 2, Chapter 17 §57]** For had He been a creature, He had not said, 'He begets me,' for the creatures are from without, and are works of the Maker; but the Offspring is not from without nor a work, but from the Father, and proper to His Essence. Wherefore they are creatures; this God's Word and Only-begotten Son. For instance, Moses did not say of the creation, 'In the beginning He begot,' nor 'In the beginning was,' but 'In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth Genesis 1:1.' Nor did David say in the Psalm, 'Your hands have begotten me,' but 'made me and fashioned me ,' everywhere applying the word 'made' to the creatures. But to the Son contrariwise; for he has not said 'I made,' but 'I begot ,' and 'He begets me,' and 'My heart uttered a good Word. ' And in the instance of the creation, 'In the beginning He made;' but in the instance of the Son, 'In the beginning was the Word John 1:1.' And there is this difference, that the creatures are made upon the beginning, and have a beginning of existence connected with an interval; wherefore also what is said of them, 'In the beginning He made,' is as much as saying of them, 'From the beginning He made:'— as the Lord, knowing that which He had made, taught, when He silenced the Pharisees, with the words, 'He which made them from the beginning, made them male and female Matthew 19:4;' for from some beginning, when they were not yet, were originate things brought into being and created. This too the Holy Spirit has signified in the Psalms, saying, 'Thou, Lord, at the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth ;' and again, 'O think upon Your congregation which You have purchased from the beginning ;' now it is plain that what takes place at the beginning, has a beginning of creation, and that from some beginning God purchased His congregation. And that 'In the beginning He made,' from his saying 'made,' means 'began to make,' Moses himself shows by saying, after the completion of all things, 'And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because that in it He had rested from all His work which God began to make Genesis 2:3.' Therefore the creatures began to be made; but the Word of God, not having beginning of being, certainly did not begin to be, nor begin to come to be, but was ever. And the works have their beginning in their making, and their beginning precedes their coming to be; but the Word, not being of things which come to be, rather comes to be Himself the Framer of those which have a beginning. And the being of things originate is measured by their becoming , and from some beginning does God begin to make them through the Word, that it may be known that they were not before their origination; but the Word has His being, in no other beginning than the Father, whom they allow to be without beginning, so that He too exists without beginning in the Father, being His Offspring, not His creature.\n\n**[Book 2, Chapter 17 §58]** Thus does divine Scripture recognise the difference between the Offspring and things made, and show that the Offspring is a Son, not begun from any beginning, but eternal; but that the thing made, as an external work of the Maker, began to come into being. John therefore delivering divine doctrine about the Son, and knowing the difference of the phrases, said not, 'In the beginning has become' or 'been made,' but 'In the beginning was the Word.' that we might understand 'Offspring' by 'was,' and not account of Him by intervals, but believe the Son always and eternally to exist. And with these proofs, how, O Arians, misunderstanding the passage in Deuteronomy, did you venture a fresh act of irreligion against the Lord, saying that 'He is a work,' or 'creature,' or indeed 'offspring?' for offspring and work you take to mean the same thing; but here too you shall be shown to be as unlearned as you are irreligious. Your first passage is this, 'Is not He your Father that bought you? Did He not make you and create you ?' And shortly after in the same Song he says, 'God that begot you you deserted, and forgattest God that nourished you. ' Now the meaning conveyed in these passages is very remarkable; for he says not first 'He begot,' lest that term should be taken as indiscriminate with 'He made,' and these men should have a pretence for saying, 'Moses tells us indeed that God said from the beginning, Let Us make man Genesis 1:26,' but he soon after says himself, 'God that begot you you deserted,' as if the terms were indifferent; for offspring and work are the same. But after the words 'bought' and 'made,' he has added last of all 'begot,' that the sentence might carry its own interpretation; for in the word 'made' he accurately denotes what belongs to men by nature, to be works and things made; but in the word 'begot' he shows God's lovingkindness exercised towards men after He had created them. And since they have proved ungrateful upon this, thereupon Moses reproaches them, saying first, 'Do ye thus requite the Lord.' and then adds, 'Is not He your Father that bought you? Did He not make you and create you Deuteronomy 32:6?' And next he says, 'They sacrificed unto devils, not to God, to gods whom they knew not. New gods and strange came up, whom your fathers knew not; the God that begot you you deserted. '\n\n**[Book 2, Chapter 17 §59]** For God not only created them to be men, but called them to be sons, as having begotten them. For the term 'begot' is here as elsewhere expressive of a Son, as He says by the Prophet, 'I begot sons and exalted them;' and generally, when Scripture wishes to signify a son, it does so, not by the term 'created,' but undoubtedly by that of 'begot.' And this John seems to say, 'He gave to them power to become children of God, even to them that believe in His Name; which were begotten not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God John 1:12-13.' And here too the cautious distinction is well kept up, for first he says 'become,' because they are not called sons by nature but by adoption; then he says 'were begotten,' because they too had received at any rate the name of son. But the People, as says the Prophet, 'despised' their Benefactor. But this is God's kindness to man, that of whom He is Maker, of them according to grace He afterwards becomes Father also; becomes, that is, when men, His creatures, receive into their hearts, as the Apostle says, 'the Spirit of His Son, crying, Abba, Father. ' And these are they who, having received the Word, gained power from Him to become sons of God; for they could not become sons, being by nature creatures, otherwise than by receiving the Spirit of the natural and true Son. Wherefore, that this might be, 'The Word became flesh,' that He might make man capable of Godhead. This same meaning may be gained also from the Prophet Malachi, who says, 'Hath not One God created us? Have we not all one Father Malachi 2:10?' for first he puts 'created,' next 'Father,' to show, as the other writers, that from the beginning we were creatures by nature, and God is our Creator through the Word; but afterwards we were made sons, and thenceforward God the Creator becomes our Father also. Therefore 'Father' is proper to the Son; and not 'creature,' but 'Son' is proper to the Father. Accordingly this passage also proves, that we are not sons by nature, but the Son who is in us ; and again, that God is not our Father by nature, but of that Word in us, in whom and because of whom we 'cry, Abba, Father Galatians 4:6.' And so in like manner, the Father calls them sons in whomsoever He sees His own Son, and says, 'I begot.' since begetting is significant of a Son, and making is indicative of the works. And thus it is that we are not begotten first, but made; for it is written, 'Let Us make man Genesis 1:26;' but afterwards, on receiving the grace of the Spirit, we are said thenceforth to be begotten also; just as the great Moses in his Song with an apposite meaning says first 'He bought,' and afterwards 'He begot.' lest, hearing 'He begot,' they might forget their own original nature; but that they might know that from the beginning they are creatures, but when according to grace they are said to be begotten, as sons, still no less than before are men works according to nature.\n\n**[Book 2, Chapter 17 §60]** And that creature and offspring are not the same, but differ from each other in nature and the signification of the words, the Lord Himself shows even in the Proverbs. For having said, 'The Lord created me a beginning of His ways;' He has added, 'But before all the hills He begot me.' If then the Word were by nature and in His Essence a creature, and there were no difference between offspring and creature, He would not have added, 'He begot me,' but had been satisfied with 'He created,' as if that term implied 'He begot.' but, as it is, after saying, 'He created me a beginning of His ways for His works,' He has added, not simply 'begot me,' but with the connection of the conjunction 'But,' as guarding thereby the term 'created,' when he says, 'But before all the hills He begot me.' For 'begot me' succeeding in such close connection to 'created me,' makes the meaning one, and shows that 'created' is said with an object , but that 'begot me' is prior to 'created me.' For as, if He had said the reverse, 'The Lord begot me,' and went on, 'But before the hills He created me,' 'created' would certainly precede 'begot,' so having said first 'created,' and then added 'But before all the hills He begot me,' He necessarily shows that 'begot' preceded 'created.' For in saying, 'Before all He begot me,' He intimates that He is other than all things; it having been shown to be true in an earlier part of this book, that no one creature was made before another, but all things originate subsisted at once together upon one and the same command. Therefore neither do the words which follow 'created,' also follow 'begot me;' but in the case of 'created' is added 'beginning of ways,' but of 'begot me,' He says not, 'He begot me as a beginning,' but 'before all He begot me.' But He who is before all is not a beginning of all, but is other than all ; but if other than all (in which 'all' the beginning of all is included), it follows that He is other than the creatures; and it becomes a clear point, that the Word, being other than all things and before all, afterwards is created 'a beginning of the ways for works,' because He became man, that, as the Apostle has said, He who is the 'Beginning' and 'First-born from the dead, in all things might have the preeminence Colossians 1:18.'\n\n**[Book 2, Chapter 17 §61]** Such then being the difference between 'created' and 'begot me,' and between 'beginning of ways' and 'before all,' God, being first Creator, next, as has been said, becomes Father of men, because of His Word dwelling in them. But in the case of the Word the reverse; for God, being His Father by nature, becomes afterwards both His Creator and Maker, when the Word puts on that flesh which was created and made, and becomes man. For, as men, receiving the Spirit of the Son, become children through Him, so the Word of God, when He Himself puts on the flesh of man, then is said both to be created and to have been made. If then we are by nature sons, then is He by nature creature and work; but if we become sons by adoption and grace, then has the Word also, when in grace towards us He became man, said, 'The Lord created me.' And in the next place, when He put on a created nature and became like us in body, reasonably was He therefore called both our Brother and 'First-born. ' For though it was after us that He was made man for us, and our brother by similitude of body, still He is therefore called and is the 'First-born' of us, because, all men being lost, according to the transgression of Adam, His flesh before all others was saved and liberated, as being the Word's body ; and henceforth we, becoming incorporate with It, are saved after Its pattern. For in It the Lord becomes our guide to the Kingdom of Heaven and to His own Father, saying, 'I am the way' and 'the door ,' and 'through Me all must enter.' Whence also is He said to be 'First-born from the dead Revelation 1:5,' not that He died before us, for we had died first; but because having undergone death for us and abolished it, He was the first to rise, as man, for our sakes raising His own Body. Henceforth He having risen, we too from Him and because of Him rise in due course from the dead.\n\n**[Book 2, Chapter 17 §62]** But if He is also called 'First-born of the creation ,' still this is not as if He were levelled to the creatures, and only first of them in point of time (for how should that be, since He is 'Only-begotten?'), but it is because of the Word's condescension to the creatures, according to which He has become the 'Brother' of 'many.' For the term 'Only-begotten' is used where there are no brethren, but 'First-born ' because of brethren. Accordingly it is nowhere written in the Scriptures, 'the first-born of God,' nor 'the creature of God;' but 'Only-begotten' and 'Son' and 'Word' and 'Wisdom,' refer to Him as proper to the Father. Thus, 'We have seen His glory, the glory as of the Only-begotten of the Father John 1:14;' and 'God sent His Only-begotten Son 1 John 4:9;' and 'O Lord, Your Word endures for ever ;' and 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God;' and 'Christ the Power of God and the Wisdom of God 1 Corinthians 1:24;' and 'This is My beloved Son.' and 'You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God. ' But 'first-born' implied the descent to the creation ; for of it has He been called first-born; and 'He created' implies His grace towards the works, for for them is He created. If then He is Only-begotten, as indeed He is, 'First-born' needs some explanation; but if He be really First-born, then He is not Only-begotten. For the same cannot be both Only-begotten and First-born, except in different relations;— that is, Only-begotten, because of His generation from the Father, as has been said; and First-born, because of His condescension to the creation and His making the many His brethren. Certainly, those two terms being inconsistent with each other, one should say that the attribute of being Only-begotten has justly the preference in the instance of the Word, in that there is no other Word, or other Wisdom, but He alone is very Son of the Father. Moreover , as was before said, not in connection with any reason, but absolutely it is said of Him, 'The Only-begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father John 1:18;' but the word 'First-born' has again the creation as a reason in connection with it, which Paul proceeds to say, 'for in Him all things were created Colossians 1:16.' But if all the creatures were created in Him, He is other than the creatures, and is not a creature, but the Creator of the creatures.\n\n**[Book 2, Chapter 17 §63]** Not then because He was from the Father was He called 'First-born,' but because in Him the creation came to be; and as before the creation He was the Son, through whom was the creation, so also before He was called the First-born of the whole creation, not the less was the Word Himself with God and the Word was God. But this also not understanding, these irreligious men go about saying, 'If He is First-born of all creation, it is plain that He too is one of the creation.' Senseless men! If He is simply 'First-born of the whole creation,' then He is other than the whole creation; for he says not, 'He is First-born above the rest of the creatures,' lest He be reckoned to be as one of the creatures, but it is written, 'of the whole creation,' that He may appear other than the creation. Reuben, for instance, is not said to be first-born of all the children of Jacob , but of Jacob himself and his brethren; lest he should be thought to be some other beside the children of Jacob. Nay, even concerning the Lord Himself the Apostle says not, 'that He may become First-born of all,' lest He be thought to bear a body other than ours, but 'among many brethren Romans 8:29,' because of the likeness of the flesh. If then the Word also were one of the creatures, Scripture would have said of Him also that He was First-born of other creatures; but in fact, the saints saying that He is 'First-born of the whole creation Colossians 1:15,' the Son of God is plainly shown to be other than the whole creation and not a creature. For if He is a creature, He will be First-born of Himself. How then is it possible, O Arians, for Him to be before and after Himself? Next, if He is a creature, and the whole creation through Him came to be, and in Him consists, how can He both create the creation and be one of the things which consist in Him? Since then such a notion is in itself unseemly, it is proved against them by the truth, that He is called 'First-born among many brethren?' because of the relationship of the flesh, and 'First-born from the dead,' because the resurrection of the dead is from Him and after Him; and 'First-born of the whole creation,' because of the Father's love to man, which brought it to pass that in His Word not only 'all things consist ,' but the creation itself, of which the Apostle speaks, 'waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God, shall be delivered' one time 'from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. ' Of this creation thus delivered, the Lord will be First-born, both of it and of all those who are made children, that by His being called first, those that come after Him may abide , as depending on the Word as a beginning.\n\n**[Book 2, Chapter 17 §64]** And I think that the irreligious men themselves will be shamed from such a thought; for if the case stands not as we have said, but they will rule it that He is 'First-born of the whole creation' as in essence— a creature among creatures, let them reflect that they will be conceiving Him as brother and fellow of the things without reason and life. For of the whole creation these also are parts; and the 'First-born' must be first indeed in point of time but only thus, and in kind and similitude must be the same with all. How then can they say this without exceeding all measures of irreligion? Or who will endure them, if this is their language? Or who can but hate them even imagining such things? For it is evident to all, that neither for Himself, as being a creature, nor as having any connection according to essence with the whole creation, has He been called 'First-born' of it: but because the Word, when at the beginning He framed the creatures, condescended to things originate, that it might be possible for them to come to be. For they could not have endured His nature, which was untempered splendour, even that of the Father, unless condescending by the Father's love for man He had supported them and taken hold of them and brought them into existence ; and next, because, by this condescension of the Word, the creation too is made a son through Him, that He might be in all respects 'First-born' of it, as has been said, both in creating, and also in being brought for the sake of all into this very world. For so it is written, 'When He brings the First-born into the world, He says, Let all the Angels of God worship Him Hebrews 1:6.' Let Christ's enemies hear and tear themselves to pieces, because His coming into the world is what makes Him called 'First-born' of all; and thus the Son is the Father's 'Only-begotten,' because He alone is from Him, and He is the 'First-born of creation,' because of this adoption of all as sons. And as He is First-born among brethren and rose from the dead 'the first fruits of them that slept 1 Corinthians 15:20;' so, since it became Him 'in all things to have the preeminence Colossians 1:18,' therefore He is created 'a beginning of ways,' that we, walking along it and entering through Him who says, 'I am the Way' and 'the Door,' and partaking of the knowledge of the Father, may also hear the words, 'Blessed are the undefiled in the Way,' and 'Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. '\n\n**[Book 2, Chapter 17 §65]** And thus since the truth declares that the Word is not by nature a creature, it is fitting now to say, in what sense He is 'beginning of ways.' For when the first way, which was through Adam, was lost, and in place of paradise we deviated unto death, and heard the words, 'Dust you are, and unto dust Genesis 3:19 shall you return,' therefore the Word of God, who loves man, puts on Him created flesh at the Father's will , that whereas the first man had made it dead through the transgression, He Himself might quicken it in the blood of His own body , and might open 'for us a way new and living,' as the Apostle says, 'through the veil, that is to say, His flesh Hebrews 10:20;' which he signifies elsewhere thus, 'Wherefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation; old things are passed away, behold all things have become new 2 Corinthians 5:17.' But if a new creation has come to pass, some one must be first of this creation; now a man, made of earth only, such as we have become from the transgression, he could not be. For in the first creation, men had become unfaithful, and through them that first creation had been lost; and there was need of some one else to renew the first creation, and preserve the new which had come to be. Therefore from love to man none other than the Lord, the 'beginning' of the new creation, is created as 'the Way,' and consistently says, 'The Lord created me a beginning of ways for His works;' that man might walk no longer according to that first creation, but there being as it were a beginning of a new creation, and with the Christ 'a beginning of its ways,' we might follow Him henceforth, who says to us, 'I am the Way:'— as the blessed Apostle teaches in Colossians, saying, 'He is the Head of the body, the Church, who is the Beginning, the First-born from the dead, that in all things He might have the preeminence.'\n\n**[Book 2, Chapter 17 §66]** For if, as has been said, because of the resurrection from the dead He is called a beginning, and then a resurrection took place when He, bearing our flesh, had given Himself to death for us, it is evident that His words, 'He created me a beginning of ways,' is indicative not of His essence , but of His bodily presence. For to the body death was proper ; and in like manner to the bodily presence are the words proper, 'The Lord created me a beginning of His ways.' For since the Saviour was thus created according to the flesh, and had become a beginning of things new created, and had our first fruits, viz. that human flesh which He took to Himself, therefore after Him, as is fit, is created also the people to come, David saying, 'Let this be written for another generation, and the people that shall be created shall praise the Lord. ' And again in the twenty-first Psalm, 'The generation to come shall declare unto the Lord, and they shall declare His righteousness, unto a people that shall be born whom the Lord made. ' For we shall no more hear, 'In the day that you eat thereof, you shall surely die Genesis 2:17,' but 'Where I am, there ye' shall 'be also;' so that we may say, 'We are His workmanship, created unto good works John 14:3; Ephesians 2:10.' And again, since God's work, that is, man, though created perfect, has become wanting through the transgression, and dead by sin, and it was unbecoming that the work of God should remain imperfect (wherefore all the saints were praying concerning this, for instance in the hundred and thirty-seventh Psalm, saying, 'Lord, You shall requite for me; despise not then the works of Your hands '); therefore the perfect Word of God puts around Him an imperfect body, and is said to be created 'for the works;' that, paying the debt in our stead, He might, by Himself, perfect what was wanting to man. Now immortality was wanting to him, and the way to paradise. This then is what the Saviour says, 'I glorified You on the earth, I perfected the work which You have given Me to do John 17:4;' and again, 'The works which the Father has given Me to perfect, the same works that I do, bear witness of Me;' but 'the works ' He here says that the Father had given Him to perfect, are those for which He is created, saying in the Proverbs, 'The Lord created me a beginning of His ways, for His works;' for it is all one to say, 'The Father has given me the works,' and 'The Lord created me for the works.'\n\n**[Book 2, Chapter 17 §67]** When then received He the works to perfect, O God's enemies? For from this also 'He created' will be understood. If you say, 'At the beginning when He brought them into being out of what was not,' it is an untruth; for they were not yet made; whereas He appears to speak as taking what was already in being. Nor is it pious to refer to the time which preceded the Word's becoming flesh, lest His coming should thereupon seem superfluous, since for the sake of these works that coming took place. Therefore it remains for us to say that when He has become man, then He took the works. For then He perfected them, by healing our wounds and vouchsafing to us the resurrection from the dead. But if, when the Word became flesh, then were given to Him the works, plainly when He became man, then also is He created for the works. Not of His essence then is 'He created' indicative, as has many times been said, but of His bodily generation. For then, because the works had become imperfect and mutilated from the transgression, He is said in respect to the body to be created; that by perfecting them and making them whole, He might present the Church unto the Father, as the Apostle says, 'not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but holy and without blemish Ephesians 5:27.' Mankind then is perfected in Him and restored, as it was made at the beginning, nay, with greater grace. For, on rising from the dead, we shall no longer fear death, but shall ever reign in Christ in the heavens. And this has been done, since the own Word of God Himself, who is from the Father, has put on the flesh, and become man. For if, being a creature, He had become man, man had remained just what he was, not joined to God; for how had a work been joined to the Creator by a work ? Or what succour had come from like to like, when one as well as other needed it ? And how, were the Word a creature, had He power to undo God's sentence, and to remit sin, whereas it is written in the Prophets, that this is God's doing? For 'who is a God like You, that pardons iniquity, and passes by transgression Micah 7:18?' For whereas God has said, 'Dust you are, and unto dust shall you return Genesis 3:19,' men have become mortal; how then could things originate undo sin? But the Lord is He who has undone it, as He says Himself, 'Unless the Son shall make you free ;' and the Son, who made free, has shown in truth that He is no creature, nor one of things originate, but the proper Word and Image of the Father's Essence, who at the beginning sentenced, and alone remits sins. For since it is said in the Word, 'Dust you are, and unto dust you shall return,' suitably through the Word Himself and in Him the freedom and the undoing of the condemnation has come to pass.\n\n**[Book 2, Chapter 17 §68]** 'Yet,' they say, 'though the Saviour were a creature, God was able to speak the word only and undo the curse.' And so another will tell them in like manner, 'Without His coming among us at all, God was able just to speak and undo the curse.' but we must consider what was expedient for mankind, and not what simply is possible with God. He could have destroyed, before the ark of Noah, the then transgressors; but He did it after the ark. He could too, without Moses, have spoken the word only and have brought the people out of Egypt; but it profited to do it through Moses. And God was able without the judges to save His people; but it was profitable for the people that for a season judges should be raised up to them. The Saviour too might have come among us from the beginning, or on His coming might not have been delivered to Pilate; but He came 'at the fullness of the ages Galatians 4:4,' and when sought for said, 'I am He John 18:5.' For what He does, that is profitable for men, and was not fitting in any other way; and what is profitable and fitting, for that He provides. Accordingly He came, not 'that He might be ministered unto, but that He might minister ,' and might work our salvation. Certainly He was able to speak the Law from heaven, but He saw that it was expedient to men for Him to speak from Sinai; and that He has done, that it might be possible for Moses to go up, and for them hearing the word near them the rather to believe. Moreover, the good reason of what He did may be seen thus; if God had but spoken, because it was in His power, and so the curse had been undone, the power had been shown of Him who gave the word, but man had become such as Adam was before the transgression, having received grace from without , and not having it united to the body; (for he was such when he was placed in Paradise) nay, perhaps had become worse, because he had learned to transgress. Such then being his condition, had he been seduced by the serpent, there had been fresh need for God to give command and undo the curse; and thus the need had become interminable , and men had remained under guilt not less than before, as being enslaved to sin; and, ever sinning, would have ever needed one to pardon them, and had never become free, being in themselves flesh, and ever worsted by the Law because of the infirmity of the flesh.\n\n**[Book 2, Chapter 17 §69]** Again, if the Son were a creature, man had remained mortal as before, not being joined to God; for a creature had not joined creatures to God, as seeking itself one to join it ; nor would a portion of the creation have been the creation's salvation, as needing salvation itself. To provide against this also, He sends His own Son, and He becomes Son of Man, by taking created flesh; that, since all were under sentence of death, He, being other than them all, might Himself for all offer to death His own body; and that henceforth, as if all had died through Him, the word of that sentence might be accomplished (for 'all died 2 Corinthians 5:14 ' in Christ), and all through Him might thereupon become free from sin and from the curse which came upon it, and might truly abide for ever, risen from the dead and clothed in immortality and incorruption. For the Word being clothed in the flesh, as has many times been explained, every bite of the serpent began to be utterly staunched from out it; and whatever evil sprung from the motions of the flesh, to be cut away, and with these death also was abolished, the companion of sin, as the Lord Himself says , 'The prince of this world comes, and finds nothing in Me;' and 'For this end was He manifested,' as John has written, 'that He might destroy the works of the devil 1 John 3:8.' And these being destroyed from the flesh, we all were thus liberated by the kinship of the flesh, and for the future were joined, even we, to the Word. And being joined to God, no longer do we abide upon earth; but, as He Himself has said, where He is, there shall we be also; and henceforward we shall fear no longer the serpent, for he was brought to nought when he was assailed by the Saviour in the flesh, and heard Him say, 'Get behind Me, Satan Matthew 16:23,' and thus he is cast out of paradise into the eternal fire. Nor shall we have to watch against woman beguiling us, for 'in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the Angels Mark 12:25;' and in Christ Jesus it shall be 'a new creation,' and 'neither male nor female, but all and in all Christ ;' and where Christ is, what fear, what danger can still happen?\n\n**[Book 2, Chapter 17 §70]** But this would not have come to pass, had the Word been a creature; for with a creature, the devil, himself a creature, would have ever continued the battle, and man, being between the two, had been ever in peril of death, having none in whom and through whom he might be joined to God and delivered from all fear. Whence the truth shows us that the Word is not of things originate, but rather Himself their Framer. For therefore did He assume the body originate and human, that having renewed it as its Framer, He might deify it in Himself, and thus might introduce us all into the kingdom of heaven after His likeness. For man had not been deified if joined to a creature, or unless the Son were very God; nor had man been brought into the Father's presence, unless He had been His natural and true Word who had put on the body. And as we had not been delivered from sin and the curse, unless it had been by nature human flesh, which the Word put on (for we should have had nothing common with what was foreign), so also the man had not been deified, unless the Word who became flesh had been by nature from the Father and true and proper to Him. For therefore the union was of this kind, that He might unite what is man by nature to Him who is in the nature of the Godhead, and his salvation and deification might be sure. Therefore let those who deny that the Son is from the Father by nature and proper to His Essence, deny also that He took true human flesh of Mary Ever-Virgin ; for in neither case had it been of profit to us men, whether the Word were not true and naturally Son of God, or the flesh not true which He assumed. But surely He took true flesh, though Valentinus rave; yea the Word was by nature Very God, though Ario-maniacs rave ; and in that flesh has come to pass the beginning of our new creation, He being created man for our sake, and having made for us that new way, as has been said.\n\n**[Book 2, Chapter 17 §71]** The Word then is neither creature nor work; for creature, thing made, work, are all one; and were He creature and thing made, He would also be work. Accordingly He has not said, 'He created Me a work,' nor 'He made Me with the works,' lest He should appear to be in nature and essence a creature; nor, 'He created Me to make works,' lest, on the other hand, according to the perverseness of the irreligious, He should seem as an instrument made for our sake. Nor again has He declared, 'He created Me before the works,' lest, as He really is before all, as an Offspring, so, if created also before the works, He should give 'Offspring' and 'He created' the same meaning. But He has said with exact discrimination , 'for the works;' as much as to say, 'The Father has made Me, into flesh, that I might be man,' which again shows that He is not a work but an offspring. For as he who comes into a house, is not part of the house, but is other than the house, so He who is created for the works, must be by nature other than the works. But if otherwise, as you hold, O Arians, the Word of God be a work, by what Hand and Wisdom did He Himself come into being? For all things that came to be, came by the Hand and Wisdom of God, who Himself says, 'My hand has made all these things Isaiah 66:2;' and David says in the Psalm, 'And You, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of Your hands ;' and again, in the hundred and forty-second Psalm, 'I do remember the time past, I muse upon all Your works, yea I exercise myself in the works of Your hands. ' Therefore if by the Hand of God the works are wrought, and it is written that 'all things were made through the Word,' and 'without Him was not made one thing John 1:3,' and again, 'One Lord Jesus, through whom are all things 1 Corinthians 8:9,' and 'in Him all things consist Colossians 1:17,' it is very plain that the Son cannot be a work, but He is the Hand of God and the Wisdom. This knowing, the martyrs in Babylon, Ananias, Azarias, and Misael, arraign the Arian irreligion. For when they say, 'O all you works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord,' they recount things in heaven, things on earth, and the whole creation, as works; but the Son they name not. For they say not, 'Bless, O Word, and praise, O Wisdom;' to show that all other things are both praising and are works; but the Word is not a work nor of those that praise, but is praised with the Father and worshipped and confessed as God , being His Word and Wisdom, and of the works the Framer. This too the Spirit has declared in the Psalms with a most apposite distinction, 'the Word of the Lord is true, and all His works are faithful ;' as in another Psalm too He says, 'O Lord, how manifold are Your works! In Wisdom have You made them all. '\n\n**[Book 2, Chapter 17 §72]** But if the Word were a work, then certainly He as others had been made in Wisdom; nor would Scripture distinguish Him from the works, nor while it named them works, preach Him as Word and own Wisdom of God. But, as it is, distinguishing Him from the works, He shows that Wisdom is Framer of the works, and not a work. This distinction Paul also observes, writing to the Hebrews, 'The Word of God is quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, reaching even to the dividing of soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart, neither is there any creature hidden before Him, but all things are naked and open unto the eyes of Him with whom is our account Hebrews 4:12-13.' For behold he calls things originate 'creature;' but the Son he recognises as the Word of God, as if He were other than the creatures. And again saying, 'All things are naked and open to the eyes of Him with whom is our account,' he signifies that He is other than all of them. For hence it is that He judges, but each of all things originate is bound to give account to Him. And so also, when the whole creation is groaning together with us in order to be set free from the bondage of corruption, the Son is thereby shown to be other than the creatures. For if He were creature, He too would be one of those who groan, and would need one who should bring adoption and deliverance to Himself as well as others. But if the whole creation groans together, for the sake of freedom from the bondage of corruption, whereas the Son is not of those that groan nor of those who need freedom, but He it is who gives sonship and freedom to all, saying to the Jews of His time , 'The servant remains not in the house for ever, but the Son remains for ever; if then the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed John 8:35-36;' it is clearer than the light from these considerations also, that the Word of God is not a creature but true Son, and by nature genuine, of the Father. Concerning then 'The Lord has created me a beginning of the ways,' this is sufficient, as I think, though in few words, to afford matter to the learned to frame more ample refutations of the Arian heresy.\n\n**[Book 2, Chapter 17 (¶51)]** But since the heretics, reading the next verse, take a perverse view of that also, because it is written, 'He founded me before the world Proverbs 8:23,' namely, that this is said of the Godhead of the Word and not of His incarnate Presence , it is necessary, explaining this verse also, to show their error.\n\n**[Book 2, Chapter 17 §73]** It is written, 'The Lord in Wisdom founded the earth Proverbs 3:19;' if then by Wisdom the earth is founded, how can He who founds be founded? Nay, this too is said after the manner of proverbs , and we must in like manner investigate its sense; that we may know that, while by Wisdom the Father frames and founds the earth to be firm and steadfast , Wisdom Itself is founded for us, that It may become beginning and foundation of our new creation and renewal. Accordingly here as before, He says not, 'Before the world He has made me Word or Son,' lest there should be as it were a beginning of His making. For this we must seek before all things, whether He is Son , 'and on this point specially search the Scriptures ;' for this it was, when the Apostles were questioned, that Peter answered, saying, 'You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God Matthew 16:16.' This also the father of the Arian heresy asked as one of his first questions; 'If Thou be the Son of God Matthew 4:3;' for he knew that this is the truth and the sovereign principle of our faith; and that, if He were Himself the Son, the tyranny of the devil would have its end; but if He were a creature, He too was one of those descended from that Adam whom he deceived, and he had no cause for anxiety. For the same reason the Jews of the day were angered, because the Lord said that He was Son of God, and that God was His proper Father. For had He called Himself one of the creatures, or said, 'I am a work,' they had not been startled at the intelligence, nor thought such words blasphemy, knowing, as they did, that even Angels had come among their fathers; but since He called Himself Son, they perceived that such was not the note of a creature, but of Godhead and of the Father's nature. The Arians then ought, even in imitation of their own father the devil, to take some special pains on this point; and if He has said, 'He founded me to be Word or Son,' then to think as they do; but if He has not so spoken, not to invent for themselves what is not.\n\n**[Book 2, Chapter 17 §74]** For He says not, 'Before the world He founded me as Word or Son,' but simply, 'He founded me,' to show again, as I have said, that not for His own sake but for those who are built upon Him does He here also speak, after the way of proverbs. For this knowing, the Apostle also writes, 'Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ; but let every man take heed how he builds thereupon. ' And it must be that the foundation should be such as the things built on it, that they may admit of being well compacted together. Being then the Word, He has not, as Word , any such as Himself, who may be compacted with Him; for He is Only-begotten; but having become man, He has the like of Him, those namely the likeness of whose flesh He has put on. Therefore according to His manhood He is founded, that we, as precious stones, may admit of building upon Him, and may become a temple of the Holy Ghost who dwells in us. And as He is a foundation, and we stones built upon Him, so again He is a Vine and we knit to Him as branches—not according to the Essence of the Godhead; for this surely is impossible; but according to His manhood, for the branches must be like the vine, since we are like Him according to the flesh. Moreover, since the heretics have such human notions, we may suitably confute them with human resemblances contained in the very matter they urge. Thus He says not, 'He made me a foundation,' lest He might seem to be made and to have a beginning of being, and they might thence find a shameless occasion of irreligion; but, 'He founded me.' Now what is founded is founded for the sake of the stones which are raised upon it; it is not a random process, but a stone is first transported from the mountain and set down in the depth of the earth. And while a stone is in the mountain, it is not yet founded; but when need demands, and it is transported, and laid in the depth of the earth, then immediately if the stone could speak, it would say, 'He now founded me, who brought me hither from the mountain.' Therefore the Lord also did not when founded take a beginning of existence; for He was the Word before that; but when He put on our body, which He severed and took from Mary, then He says 'He has founded me;' as much as to say, 'Me, being the Word, He has enveloped in a body of earth.' For so He is founded for our sakes, taking on Him what is ours , that we, as incorporated and compacted and bound together in Him through the likeness of the flesh, may attain unto a perfect man, and abide immortal and incorruptible.\n\n**[Book 2, Chapter 17 §75]** Nor let the words 'before the world' and 'before He made the earth' and 'before the mountains were settled' disturb any one; for they very well accord with 'founded' and 'created;' for here again allusion is made to the Economy according to the flesh. For though the grace which came to us from the Saviour appeared, as the Apostle says, just now, and has come when He sojourned among us; yet this grace had been prepared even before we came into being, nay, before the foundation of the world, and the reason why is kindly and wonderful. It beseemed not that God should counsel concerning us afterwards, lest He should appear ignorant of our fate. The God of all then—creating us by His own Word, and knowing our destinies better than we, and foreseeing that, being made 'good Genesis 1:31,' we should in the event be transgressors of the commandment, and be thrust out of paradise for disobedience—being loving and kind, prepared beforehand in His own Word, by whom also He created us , the Economy of our salvation; that though by the serpent's deceit we fell from Him, we might not remain quite dead, but having in the Word the redemption and salvation which was afore prepared for us, we might rise again and abide immortal, what time He should have been created for us 'a beginning of the ways,' and He who was the 'First-born of creation' should become 'first-born' of the 'brethren,' and again should rise 'first-fruits of the dead.' This Paul the blessed Apostle teaches in his writings; for, as interpreting the words of the Proverbs 'before the world' and 'before the earth was,' he thus speaks to Timothy ; 'Be partaker of the afflictions of the Gospel according to the power of God, who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began, but is now made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who has abolished death, and brought to light life 2 Timothy 1:8-10.' And to the Ephesians; 'Blessed be God even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all spiritual blessing in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, according as He has chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestinated us to the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself Ephesians 1:3-5.'\n\n**[Book 2, Chapter 17 §76]** How then has He chosen us, before we came into existence, but that, as he says himself, in Him we were represented beforehand? And how at all, before men were created, did He predestinate us unto adoption, but that the Son Himself was 'founded before the world,' taking on Him that economy which was for our sake? Or how, as the Apostle goes on to say, have we 'an inheritance being predestinated,' but that the Lord Himself was founded 'before the world,' inasmuch as He had a purpose, for our sakes, to take on Him through the flesh all that inheritance of judgment which lay against us, and we henceforth were made sons in Him? And how did we receive it 'before the world was,' when we were not yet in being, but afterwards in time, but that in Christ was stored the grace which has reached us? Wherefore also in the Judgment, when every one shall receive according to his conduct, He says, 'Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world Matthew 25:34.' How then, or in whom, was it prepared before we came to be, save in the Lord who 'before the world' was founded for this purpose; that we, as built upon Him, might partake, as well-compacted stones, the life and grace which is from Him? And this took place, as naturally suggests itself to the religious mind, that, as I said, we, rising after our brief death, may be capable of an eternal life, of which we had not been capable , men as we are, formed of earth, but that 'before the world' there had been prepared for us in Christ the hope of life and salvation. Therefore reason is there that the Word, on coming into our flesh, and being created in it as 'a beginning of ways for His works,' is laid as a foundation according as the Father's will was in Him before the world, as has been said, and before land was, and before the mountains were settled, and before the fountains burst forth; that, though the earth and the mountains and the shapes of visible nature pass away in the fullness of the present age, we on the contrary may not grow old after their pattern, but may be able to live after them, having the spiritual life and blessing which before these things have been prepared for us in the Word Himself according to election. For thus we shall be capable of a life not temporary, but ever afterwards abide and live in Christ; since even before this our life had been founded and prepared in Christ Jesus.\n\n**[Book 2, Chapter 17 §77]** Nor in any other way was it fitting that our life should be founded, but in the Lord who is before the ages, and through whom the ages were brought to be; that, since it was in Him, we too might be able to inherit that everlasting life. For God is good; and being good always, He willed this, as knowing that our weak nature needed the succour and salvation which is from Him. And as a wise architect, proposing to build a house, consults also about repairing it, should it at any time become dilapidated after building, and, as counselling about this, makes preparation and gives to the workmen materials for a repair; and thus the means of the repair are provided before the house; in the same way prior to us is the repair of our salvation founded in Christ, that in Him we might even be new-created. And the will and the purpose were made ready 'before the world,' but have taken effect when the need required, and the Saviour came among us. For the Lord Himself will stand us in place of all things in the heavens, when He receives us into everlasting life. This then suffices to prove that the Word of God is not a creature, but that the sense of the passage is right. But since that passage, when scrutinized, has a right sense in every point of view, it may be well to state what it is; perhaps many words may bring these senseless men to shame. Now here I must recur to what has been said before, for what I have to say relates to the same proverb and the same Wisdom. The Word has not called Himself a creature by nature, but has said in proverbs, 'The Lord created me;' and He plainly indicates a sense not spoken 'plainly' but latent , such as we shall be able to find by taking away the veil from the proverb. For who, on hearing from the Framing Wisdom, 'The Lord created me a beginning of His ways,' does not at once question the meaning, reflecting how that creative Wisdom can be created? Who on hearing the Only-begotten Son of God say, that He was created 'a beginning of ways,' does not investigate the sense, wondering how the Only-begotten Son can become a Beginning of many others? For it is a dark saying ; but 'a man of understanding,' says he, 'shall understand a proverb and the interpretation, the words of the wise and their dark sayings Proverbs 1:5-6.'\n\n**[Book 2, Chapter 17 §78]** Now the Only-begotten and very Wisdom of God is Creator and Framer of all things; for 'in Wisdom have You made them all ,' he says, and 'the earth is full of Your creation.' But that what came into being might not only be, but be good , it pleased God that His own Wisdom should condescend to the creatures, so as to introduce an impress and semblance of Its Image on all in common and on each, that what was made might be manifestly wise works and worthy of God. For as of the Son of God, considered as the Word, our word is an image, so of the same Son considered as Wisdom is the wisdom which is implanted in us an image; in which wisdom we, having the power of knowledge and thought, become recipients of the All-framing Wisdom; and through It we are able to know Its Father. 'For he who has the Son,' says He, 'has the Father also;' and 'he that receives Me, receives Him that sent Me. ' Such an impress then of Wisdom being created in us, and being in all the works, with reason does the true and framing Wisdom take to Itself what belongs to its own impress, and say, 'The Lord created me for His works;' for what the wisdom in us says, that the Lord Himself speaks as if it were His own; and, whereas He is not Himself created, being Creator, yet because of the image of Him created in the works , He says this as if of Himself. And as the Lord Himself has said, 'He that receives you, receives Me Matthew 10:40,' because His impress is in us, so, though He be not among the creatures, yet because His image and impress is created in the works, He says, as if in His own person, 'The Lord created me a beginning of His ways for His works.' And therefore has this impress of Wisdom in the works been brought into being, that, as I said before, the world might recognise in it its own Creator the Word, and through Him the Father. And this is what Paul said, 'Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has showed it unto them: for the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made Romans 1:19-20.' But if so, the Word is not a creature in essence ; but the wisdom which is in us and so called, is spoken of in this passage in the Proverbs.\n\n**[Book 2, Chapter 17 §79]** But if this too fails to persuade them, let them tell us themselves, whether there is any wisdom in the creatures or not ? If not how is it that the Apostle complains, 'For after that in the Wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God 1 Corinthians 1:21?' or how is it if there is no wisdom, that a 'multitude of wise men ' are found in Scripture? For 'a wise man fears and departs from evil Proverbs 14:16;' and 'through wisdom is a house built ;' and the Preacher says, 'A man's wisdom makes his face to shine;' and he blames those who are headstrong thus, 'Say not thou, what is the cause that the former days were better than these? For thou dost not inquire in wisdom concerning this. ' But if, as the Son of Sirach says, 'He poured her out upon all His works; she is with all flesh according to His gift, and He has given her to them that love Him Sirach 1:9-10,' and this outpouring is a note, not of the Essence of the Very Wisdom and Only-begotten, but of that wisdom which is imaged in the world, how is it incredible that the All-framing and true Wisdom Itself, whose impress is the wisdom and knowledge poured out in the world, should say, as I have already explained, as if of Itself, 'The Lord created me for His works?' For the wisdom in the world is not creative, but is that which is created in the works, according to which 'the heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows His handywork. ' This if men have within them , they will acknowledge the true Wisdom of God; and will know that they are made really after God's Image. And, as some son of a king, when the father wished to build a city , might cause his own name to be printed upon each of the works that were rising, both to give security to them of the works remaining, by reason of the show of his name on everything, and also to make them remember him and his father from the name, and having finished the city might be asked concerning it, how it was made, and then would answer, 'It is made securely, for according to the will of my father, I am imaged in each work, for my name was made in the works;' but saying this, he does not signify that his own essence is created, but the impress of himself by means of his name; in the same manner, to apply the illustration, to those who admire the wisdom in the creatures, the true Wisdom makes answer, 'The Lord created me for the works,' for my impress is in them; and I have thus condescended for the framing of all things.\n\n**[Book 2, Chapter 17 §80]** Moreover, that the Son should be speaking of the impress that is within us as if it were Himself, should not startle any one, considering (for we must not shrink from repetition ) that, when Saul was persecuting the Church, in which was His impress and image, He said, as if He were Himself under persecution, 'Saul, why do you persecute Me Acts 9:4?' Therefore (as has been said), as, supposing the impress itself of Wisdom which is in the works had said, 'The Lord created me for the works,' no one would have been startled, so, if He, the True and Framing Wisdom, the Only-begotten Word of God, should use what belongs to His image as about Himself, namely, 'The Lord created me for the works,' let no one, overlooking the wisdom created in the world and in the works, think that 'He created' is said of the Substance of the Very Wisdom, lest, diluting the wine with water , he be judged a defrauder of the truth. For It is Creative and Framer; but Its impress is created in the works, as the copy of the image. And He says, 'Beginning of ways,' since such wisdom becomes a sort of beginning. and, as it were, rudiments of the knowledge of God; for a man entering, as it were, upon this way first, and keeping it in the fear of God (as Solomon says , 'The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom'), then advancing upwards in his thoughts and perceiving the Framing Wisdom which is in the creation, will perceive in It also Its Father , as the Lord Himself has said, 'He that has seen Me, has seen the Father,' and as John writes, 'He who acknowledges the Son, has the Father also. ' And He says, 'Before the world He founded me ,' since in Its impress the works remain settled and eternal. Then, lest any, hearing concerning the wisdom thus created in the works, should think the true Wisdom, God's Son, to be by nature a creature, He has found it necessary to add, 'Before the mountains, and before the earth, and before the waters, and before all hills He begets me,' that in saying, 'before every creature' (for He includes all the creation under these heads), He may show that He is not created together with the works according to Essence. For if He was created 'for the works,' yet is before them, it follows that He is in being before He was created. He is not then a creature by nature and essence, but as He Himself has added, an Offspring. But in what differs a creature from an offspring, and how it is distinct by nature, has been shown in what has gone before.\n\n**[Book 2, Chapter 17 §81]** But since He proceeds to say, 'When He prepared the heaven, I was present with Him ,' we ought to know that He says not this as if without Wisdom the Father prepared the heaven or the clouds above (for there is no room to doubt that all things are created in Wisdom, and without It was made not even one John 1:3 thing); but this is what He says, 'All things took place in Me and through Me, and when there was need that Wisdom should be created in the works, in My Essence indeed I was with the Father, but by a condescension to things originate, I was disposing over the works My own impress, so that the whole world as being in one body, might not be at variance but in concord with itself.' All those then who with an upright understanding, according to the wisdom given unto them, come to contemplate the creatures, are able to say for themselves, 'By Your appointment all things continue ;' but they who make light of this must be told, 'Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools;' for 'that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God has revealed it unto them; for the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived by the things that are made, even His eternal Power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. Because that when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, but served the creature more than the Creator of all, who is blessed for ever. Amen. ' And they will surely be shamed at hearing, 'For, after that in the wisdom of God (in the mode we have explained above), the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of the preaching to save them that believe 1 Corinthians 1:21.' For no longer, as in the former times, God has willed to be known by an image and shadow of wisdom, that namely which is in the creatures, but He has made the true Wisdom Itself to take flesh, and to become man, and to undergo the death of the cross; that by the faith in Him, henceforth all that believe may obtain salvation. However, it is the same Wisdom of God, which through Its own Image in the creatures (whence also It is said to be created), first manifested Itself, and through Itself Its own Father; and afterwards, being Itself the Word, has 'become flesh John 1:14,' as John says, and after abolishing death and saving our race, still more revealed Himself and through Him His own Father, saying, 'Grant unto them that they may know You the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. '\n\n**[Book 2, Chapter 17 §82]** Hence the whole earth is filled with the knowledge of Him; for the knowledge of Father through Son and of Son from Father is one and the same, and the Father delights in Him, and in the same joy the Son rejoices in the Father, saying, 'I was by Him, daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him Proverbs 8:30.' And this again proves that the Son is not foreign, but proper to the Father's Essence. For behold, not because of us has He come to be, as the irreligious men say, nor is He out of nothing (for not from without did God procure for Himself a cause of rejoicing), but the words denote what is His own and like. When then was it, when the Father rejoiced not? But if He ever rejoiced, He was ever, in whom He rejoiced. And in whom does the Father rejoice, except as seeing Himself in His own Image, which is His Word? And though in sons of men also He had delight, on finishing the world, as it is written in these same Proverbs Proverbs 8:31, yet this too has a consistent sense. For even thus He had delight, not because joy was added to Him, but again on seeing the works made after His own Image; so that even this rejoicing of God is on account of His Image. And how too has the Son delight, except as seeing Himself in the Father? For this is the same as saying, 'He that has seen Me, has seen the Father,' and 'I am in the Father and the Father in Me John 14:9-10.' Vain then is your vaunt as is on all sides shown, O Christ's enemies, and vainly did ye parade and circulate everywhere your text, 'The Lord created me a beginning of His ways,' perverting its sense, and publishing, not Solomon's meaning, but your own comment. For behold your sense is proved to be but a fantasy; but the passage in the Proverbs, as well as all that is above said, proves that the Son is not a creature in nature and essence, but the proper Offspring of the Father, true Wisdom and Word, by whom 'all things were made,' and 'without Him was made not one thing. John 1:3 '\n\n**[Book 2, Chapter 17 (¶62)]** Source. Translated by John Henry Newman and Archibald Robertson. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 4. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1892.) Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. <http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/28162.htm>.\n\n**[Book 3, Chapter 30 §58]** (continued). But , as it seems, a heretic is a wicked thing in truth, and in every respect his heart is depraved and irreligious. For behold, though convicted on all points, and shown to be utterly bereft of understanding, they feel no shame; but as the hydra of Gentile fable, when its former serpents were destroyed, gave birth to fresh ones, contending against the slayer of the old by the production of new, so also they, hostile and hateful to God , as hydras , losing their life in the objections which they advance, invent for themselves other questions Judaic and foolish, and new expedients, as if Truth were their enemy, thereby to show the rather that they are Christ's opponents in all things.\n\n**[Book 3, Chapter 30 §59]** After so many proofs against them, at which even the devil who is their father had himself been abashed and gone back, again as from their perverse heart they mutter forth other expedients, sometimes in whispers, sometimes with the drone of gnats; 'Be it so,' say they; 'interpret these places thus, and gain the victory in reasonings and proofs; still you must say that the Son has received being from the Father at His will and pleasure;' for thus they deceive many, putting forward the will and the pleasure of God. Now if any of those who believe aright were to say this in simplicity, there would be no cause to be suspicious of the expression, the right intention prevailing over that somewhat simple use of words. But since the phrase is from the heretics and the words of heretics are suspicious, and, as it is written, 'The wicked are deceitful,' and 'The words of the wicked are deceit ,' even though they but make signs , for their heart is depraved, come let us examine this phrase also, lest, though convicted on all sides, still, as hydras, they invent a fresh word, and by such clever language and specious evasion, they sow again that irreligion of theirs in another way. For he who says, 'The Son came to be at the Divine will,' has the same meaning as another who says, 'Once He was not,' and 'The Son came to be out of nothing,' and 'He is a creature.' But since they are now ashamed of these phrases, these crafty ones have endeavoured to convey their meaning in another way, putting forth the word 'will,' as cuttlefish their blackness, thereby to blind the simple , and to keep in mind their peculiar heresy. For whence bring they 'by will and pleasure?' or from what Scripture? Let them say, who are so suspicious in their words and so inventive of irreligion. For the Father who revealed from heaven His own Word, declared, 'This is My beloved Son.' and by David He said, 'My heart uttered a good Word.' and John He bade say, 'In the beginning was the Word.' and David says in the Psalm, 'With You is the well of life, and in Your light shall we see light;' and the Apostle writes, 'Who being the Radiance of Glory,' and again, 'Who being in the form of God,' and, 'Who is the Image of the invisible God. '\n\n**[Book 3, Chapter 30 §60]** All everywhere tell us of the being of the Word, but none of His being 'by will,' nor at all of His making; but they, where, I ask, did they find will or pleasure 'precedent ' to the Word of God, unless forsooth, leaving the Scriptures, they simulate the perverseness of Valentinus? For Ptolemy the Valentinian said that the Unoriginate had a pair of attributes, Thought and Will, and first He thought and then He willed; and what He thought, He could not put forth , unless when the power of the Will was added. Thence the Arians taking a lesson, wish will and pleasure to precede the Word. For them then, let them rival the doctrine of Valentinus; but we, when we read the divine discourses, found 'He was' applied to the Son, but of Him only did we hear as being in the Father and the Father's Image; while in the case of things originate only, since also by nature these things once were not, but afterwards came to be , did we recognise a precedent will and pleasure, David saying in the hundred and thirteenth Psalm, 'As for our God He is in heaven, He has done whatsoever pleased Him,' and in the hundred and tenth, 'The works of the Lord are great, sought out unto all His good pleasure;' and again, in the hundred and thirty-fourth, 'Whatsoever the Lord pleased, that did He in heaven, and in earth, and in the sea, and in all deep places. ' If then He be work and thing made, and one among others, let Him, as others, be said 'by will?' to have come to be, and Scripture shows that these are thus brought into being. And Asterius, the advocate for the heresy, acquiesces, when he thus writes, 'For if it be unworthy of the Framer of all, to make at pleasure, let His being pleased be removed equally in the case of all, that His Majesty be preserved unimpaired. Or if it be befitting God to will, then let this better way obtain in the case of the first Offspring. For it is not possible that it should be fitting for one and the same God to make things at His pleasure, and not at His will also.' In spite of the Sophist having introduced abundant irreligion in his words, namely, that the Offspring and the thing made are the same, and that the Son is one offspring out of all offsprings that are, He ends with the conclusion that it is fitting to say that the works are by will and pleasure.\n\n**[Book 3, Chapter 30 §61]** Therefore if He be other than all things, as has been above shown , and through Him the works rather came to be, let not 'by will?' be applied to Him, or He has similarly come to be as the things consist which through Him come to be. For Paul, whereas he was not before, became afterwards an Apostle 'by the will of God ;' and our own calling, as itself once not being, but now taking place afterwards, is preceded by will, and, as Paul himself says again, has been made 'according to the good pleasure of His will Ephesians 1:5.' And what Moses relates, 'Let there be light,' and 'Let the earth appear,' and 'Let Us make man,' is, I think, according to what has gone before , significant of the will of the Agent. For things which once were not but happened afterwards from external causes, these the Framer counsels to make; but His own Word begotten from Him by nature, concerning Him He did not counsel beforehand; for in Him the Father makes, in Him frames, other things whatever He counsels; as also James the Apostle teaches, saying, 'Of His own will begot He us with the Word of truth James 1:18.' Therefore the Will of God concerning all things, whether they be begotten again or are brought into being at the first, is in His Word, in whom He both makes and begets again what seems right to Him; as the Apostle 1 Thessalonians 5:18 again signifies, writing to Thessalonica; 'for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.' But if, in whom He makes, in Him also is the will, and in Christ is the pleasure of the Father, how can He, as others, come into being by will and pleasure? For if He too came to be as you maintain, by will, it follows that the will concerning Him consists in some other Word, through whom He in turn comes to be; for it has been shown that God's will is not in the things which He brings into being, but in Him through whom and in whom all things made are brought to be. Next, since it is all one to say 'By will?' and Once He was not,' let them make up their minds to say, 'Once He was not,' that, perceiving with shame that times are signified by the latter, they may understand that to say 'by will?' is to place times before the Son; for counselling goes before things which once were not, as in the case of all creatures. But if the Word is the Framer of the creatures, and He coexists with the Father, how can to counsel precede the Everlasting as if He were not? For if counsel precedes, how through Him are all things? For rather He too, as one among others is by will begotten to be a Son, as we too were made sons by the Word of Truth; and it rests, as was said, to seek another Word, through whom He too has come to be, and was begotten together with all things, which were according to God's pleasure.\n\n**[Book 3, Chapter 30 §62]** If then there is another Word of God, then be the Son originated by a word; but if there be not, as is the case, but all things by Him have come to be, which the Father has willed, does not this expose the many-headed craftiness of these men? That feeling shame at saying 'work,' and 'creature,' and 'God's Word was not before His generation,' yet in another way they assert that He is a creature, putting forward 'will,' and saying, 'Unless He has by will come to be, therefore God had a Son by necessity and against His good pleasure.' And who is it then who imposes necessity on Him, O men most wicked, who draw everything to the purpose of your heresy? For what is contrary to will they see; but what is greater and transcends it has escaped their perception. For as what is beside purpose is contrary to will, so what is according to nature transcends and precedes counselling. A man by counsel builds a house, but by nature he begets a son; and what is in building began to come into being at will, and is external to the maker; but the son is proper offspring of the father's essence, and is not external to him; wherefore neither does he counsel concerning him, lest he appear to counsel about himself. As far then as the Son transcends the creature, by so much does what is by nature transcend the will. And they, on hearing of Him, ought not to measure by will what is by nature; forgetting however that they are hearing about God's Son, they dare to apply human contrarieties in the instance of God, 'necessity' and 'beside purpose,' to be able thereby to deny that there is a true Son of God. For let them tell us themselves—that God is good and merciful, does this attach to Him by will or not? If by will, we must consider that He began to be good, and that His not being good is possible; for to counsel and choose implies an inclination two ways, and is incidental to a rational nature. But if it be too unseemly that He should be called good and merciful upon will, then what they have said themselves must be retorted on them—'therefore by necessity and not at His pleasure He is good;' and, 'who is it that imposes this necessity on Him?' But if it be unseemly to speak of necessity in the case of God, and therefore it is by nature that He is good, much more is He, and more truly, Father of the Son by nature and not by will.\n\n**[Book 3, Chapter 30 §63]** Moreover let them answer us this:— (for against their shamelessness I wish to urge a further question, bold indeed, but with a religious intent; be propitious, O Lord! )— the Father Himself, does He exist, first having counselled, then being pleased, or before counselling? For since they are so bold in the instance of the Word, they must receive the like answer, that they may know that this their presumption reaches even to the Father Himself. If then they shall themselves take counsel about will, and say that even He is from will, what then was He before He counselled, or what gained He, as you consider, after counselling? But if such a question be unseemly and self-destructive, and shocking even to ask (for it is enough only to hear God's Name for us to know and understand that He is He that Is), will it not also be against reason to have parallel thoughts concerning the Word of God, and to make pretences of will and pleasure? For it is enough in like manner only to hear the Name of the Word, to know and understand that He who is God not by will, has not by will but by nature His own Word. And does it not surpass all conceivable madness, to entertain the thought only, that God Himself counsels and considers and chooses and proceeds to have a good pleasure, that He be not without Word and without Wisdom, but have both? For He seems to be considering about Himself, who counsels about what is proper to His Essence. There being then much blasphemy in such a thought, it will be religious to say that things originate have come to be 'by favour and will,' but the Son is not a work of will, nor has come after , as the creation, but is by nature the own Offspring of God's Essence. For being the own Word of the Father, He allows us not to account of will as before Himself, since He is Himself the Father's Living Counsel , and Power, and Framer of the things which seemed good to the Father. And this is what He says of Himself in the Proverbs; 'Counsel is mine and security, mine is understanding, and mine strength Proverbs 8:14.' For as, although Himself the 'Understanding,' in which He prepared the heavens, and Himself 'Strength and Power' (for Christ is 'God's Power and God's Wisdom' 1 Corinthians 1:24), He here has altered the terms and said, 'Mine is understanding' and 'Mine strength,' so while He says, 'Mine is counsel,' He must Himself be the Living Counsel of the Father; as we have learned from the Prophet also, that He becomes 'the Angel of great Counsel Isaiah 9:6,' and was called the good pleasure of the Father; for thus we must refute them, using human illustrations concerning God.\n\n**[Book 3, Chapter 30 §64]** Therefore if the works subsist 'by will and favour,' and the whole creature is made 'at God's good pleasure,' and Paul was called to be an Apostle 'by the will of God,' and our calling has come about 'by His good pleasure and will,' and all things have come into being through the Word, He is external to the things which have come to be by will, but rather is Himself the Living Counsel of the Father, by which all these things have come to be; by which David also gives thanks in the seventy-second Psalm. 'You have holden me by my right hand; You shall guide me with Your Counsel. ' How then can the Word, being the Counsel and Good Pleasure of the Father, come into being Himself 'by good pleasure and will,' like every one else? Unless, as I said before, in their madness they repeat that He has come into being through Himself, or through some other. Who then is it through whom He has come to be? Let them fashion another Word; and let them name another Christ, rivalling the doctrine of Valentinus ; for Scripture it is not. And though they fashion another, yet assuredly he too comes into being through some one; and so, while we are thus reckoning up and investigating the succession of them, the many-headed heresy of the Atheists is discovered to issue in polytheism and madness unlimited; in the which, wishing the Son to be a creature and from nothing, they imply the same thing in other words by pretending the words will and pleasure, which rightly belong to things originate and creatures. Is it not irreligious then to impute the characteristics of things originate to the Framer of all? And is it not blasphemous to say that will was in the Father before the Word? For if will precedes in the Father, the Son's words are not true, 'I in the Father.' or even if He is in the Father, yet He will hold but a second place, and it became Him not to say 'I in the Father,' since will was before Him, in which all things were brought into being and He Himself subsisted, as you hold. For though He excel in glory, He is not the less one of the things which by will come into being. And, as we have said before, if it be so, how is He Lord and they servants ? But He is Lord of all, because He is one with the Father's Lordship; and the creation is all in bondage, since it is external to the Oneness of the Father, and, whereas it once was not, was brought to be.\n\n**[Book 3, Chapter 30 §65]** Moreover, if they say that the Son is by will, they should say also that He came to be by understanding; for I consider understanding and will to be the same. For what a man counsels, about that also he has understanding; and what he has in understanding, that also he counsels. Certainly the Saviour Himself has made them correspond, as being cognate, when He says, 'Counsel is mine and security; mine is understanding, and mine strength Proverbs 8:14.' For as strength and security are the same (for they mean one attribute), so we may say that Understanding and Counsel are the same, which is the Lord. But these irreligious men are unwilling that the Son should be Word and Living Counsel; but they fable that there is with God , as if a habit , coming and going , after the manner of men, understanding, counsel, wisdom; and they leave nothing undone, and they put forward the 'Thought' and 'Will' of Valentinus, so that they may but separate the Son from the Father, and may call Him a creature instead of the proper Word of the Father. To them then must be said what was said to Simon Magus; 'the irreligion of Valentinus perish with you Acts 8:20;' and let every one rather trust to Solomon, who says, that the Word is Wisdom and Understanding. For he says, 'The Lord by Wisdom founded the earth, by Understanding He established the heavens.' And as here by Understanding, so in the Psalms, 'By the Word of the Lord were the heavens made.' And as by the Word the heavens, so 'He has done whatsoever pleased Him.' And as the Apostle writes to Thessalonians, 'the will of God is in Christ Jesus. ' The Son of God then, He is the 'Word' and the 'Wisdom;' He the 'Understanding' and the Living 'Counsel;' and in Him is the 'Good Pleasure of the Father.' He is 'Truth' and 'Light' and 'Power' of the Father. But if the Will of God is Wisdom and Understanding, and the Son is Wisdom, he who says that the Son is 'by will,' says virtually that Wisdom has come into being in wisdom, and the Son is made in a son, and the Word created through the Word ; which is incompatible with God and is opposed to His Scriptures. For the Apostle proclaims the Son to be the own Radiance and Expression, not of the Father's will , but of His Essence Itself, saying, 'Who being the Radiance of His glory and the Expression of His Subsistence Hebrews 1:3.' But if, as we have said before, the Father's Essence and Subsistence be not from will, neither, as is very plain, is what is proper to the Father's Subsistence from will; for such as, and so as, that Blessed Subsistence, must also be the proper Offspring from It. And accordingly the Father Himself said not, 'This is the Son originated at My will,' nor 'the Son whom I have by My favour,' but simply 'My Son,' and more than that, 'in whom I am well pleased;' meaning by this, This is the Son by nature; and 'in Him is lodged My will about what pleases Me.'\n\n**[Book 3, Chapter 30 §66]** Since then the Son is by nature and not by will, is He without the pleasure of the Father and not with the Father's will? No, verily; but the Son is with the pleasure of the Father, and, as He says Himself, 'The Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things. ' For as not 'from will?' did He begin to be good, nor yet is good without will and pleasure (for what He is, that also is His pleasure), so also that the Son should be, though it came not 'from will,' yet it is not without His pleasure or against His purpose. For as His own Subsistence is by His pleasure, so also the Son, being proper to His Essence, is not without His pleasure. Be then the Son the object of the Father's pleasure and love; and thus let every one religiously account of the pleasure and the not-unwillingness of God. For by that good pleasure wherewith the Son is the object of the Father's pleasure, is the Father the object of the Son's love, pleasure, and honour; and one is the good pleasure which is from Father in Son, so that here too we may contemplate the Son in the Father and the Father in the Son. Let no one then, with Valentinus, introduce a precedent will; nor let any one, by this pretence of 'counsel,' intrude between the Only Father and the Only Word; for it were madness to place will and consideration between them. For it is one thing to say, 'Of will He came to be,' and another, that the Father has love and good pleasure towards His Son who is His own by nature. For to say, 'Of will He came to be,' in the first place implies that once He was not; and next it implies an inclination two ways, as has been said, so that one might suppose that the Father could even not will the Son. But to say of the Son, 'He might not have been,' is an irreligious presumption reaching even to the Essence of the Father, as if what is His own might not have been. For it is the same as saying, 'The Father might not have been good.' And as the Father is always good by nature, so He is always generative by nature; and to say, 'The Father's good pleasure is the Son,' and 'The Word's good pleasure is the Father,' implies, not a precedent will, but genuineness of nature, and propriety and likeness of Essence. For as in the case of the radiance and light one might say, that there is no will preceding radiance in the light, but it is its natural offspring, at the pleasure of the light which begot it, not by will and consideration, but in nature and truth, so also in the instance of the Father and the Son, one might rightly say, that the Father has love and good pleasure towards the Son, and the Son has love and good pleasure towards the Father.\n\n**[Book 3, Chapter 30 §67]** Therefore call not the Son a work of good pleasure; nor bring in the doctrine of Valentinus into the Church; but be He the Living Counsel, and Offspring in truth and nature, as the Radiance from the Light. For thus has the Father spoken, 'My heart uttered a good Word.' and the Son conformably, 'I in the Father and the Father in Me. ' But if the Word be in the heart, where is will? And if the Son in the Father, where is good pleasure? And if He be Will Himself, how is counsel in Will? It is unseemly; lest the Word come into being in a word, and the Son in a son, and Wisdom in a wisdom, as has been repeatedly said. For the Son is the Father's All; and nothing was in the Father before the Word; but in the Word is will also, and through Him the objects of will are carried into effect, as holy Scriptures have shown. And I could wish that the irreligious men, having fallen into such want of reason as to be considering about will, would now ask their childbearing women no more, whom they used to ask, 'Had you a son before conceiving him ?' but the father, 'Do ye become fathers by counsel, or by the natural law of your will.' or 'Are your children like your nature and essence ?' that, even from fathers they may learn shame, from whom they assumed this proposition about birth, and from whom they hoped to gain knowledge in point. For they will reply to them, 'What we beget, is like, not our good pleasure , but like ourselves; nor become we parents by previous counsel, but to beget is proper to our nature; since we too are images of our fathers.' Either then let them condemn themselves , and cease asking women about the Son of God, or let them learn from them, that the Son is begotten not by will, but in nature and truth. Becoming and suitable to them is a refutation from human instances , since the perverse-minded men dispute in a human way concerning the Godhead. Why then are Christ's enemies still mad? For this, as well as their other pretences, is shown and proved to be mere fantasy and fable; and on this account, they ought, however late, contemplating the precipice of folly down which they have fallen, to rise again from the depth and to flee the snare of the devil, as we admonish them. For Truth is loving unto men and cries continually, 'If because of My clothing of the body ye believe Me not, yet believe the works, that you may know that I am in the Father and the Father in Me, and I and the Father are one, and He that has seen Me has seen the Father. ' But the Lord according to His wont is loving to man, and would fain 'help them that are fallen,' as the praise of David says; but the irreligious men, not desirous to hear the Lord's voice, nor bearing to see Him acknowledged by all as God and God's Son, go about, miserable men, as beetles, seeking with their father the devil pretexts for irreligion. What pretexts then, and whence will they be able next to find? Unless they borrow blasphemies of Jews and Caiaphas, and take atheism from Gentiles? For the divine Scriptures are closed to them, and from every part of them they are refuted as insensate and Christ's enemies.\n\n**[Book 3, Chapter 30 (¶11)]** Source. Translated by John Henry Newman and Archibald Robertson. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 4. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1892.) Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. <http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/28163.htm>.\n\n**[Book 4, Chapter 1 §1]** The Word is God from God; for 'the Word was God John 1:1,' and again, 'Of whom are the Fathers, and of whom Christ, who is God over all, blessed for ever. Amen Romans 9:5.' And since Christ is God from God, and God's Word, Wisdom, Son, and Power, therefore but One God is declared in the divine Scriptures. For the Word, being Son of the One God, is referred to Him of whom also He is; so that Father and Son are two, yet the Monad of the Godhead is indivisible and inseparable. And thus too we preserve One Beginning of Godhead and not two Beginnings, whence there is strictly a Monarchy. And of this very Beginning the Word is by nature Son, not as if another beginning, subsisting by Himself, nor having come into being externally to that Beginning, lest from that diversity a Dyarchy and Polyarchy should ensue; but of the one Beginning He is own Son, own Wisdom, own Word, existing from It. For, according to John, 'in' that 'Beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,' for the Beginning was God; and since He is from It, therefore also 'the Word was God.' And as there is one Beginning and therefore one God, so one is that Essence and Subsistence which indeed and truly and really is, and which said 'I am that I am Exodus 3:14,' and not two, that there be not two Beginnings; and from the One, a Son in nature and truth, is Its own Word, Its Wisdom, Its Power, and inseparable from It. And as there is not another essence, lest there be two Beginnings, so the Word which is from that One Essence has no dissolution, nor is a sound significative, but is an essential Word and essential Wisdom, which is the true Son. For were He not essential, God will be speaking into the air 1 Corinthians 14:9, and having a body, in nothing differently from men; but since He is not man, neither is His Word according to the infirmity of man. For as the Beginning is one Essence, so Its Word is one, essential, and subsisting, and Its Wisdom. For as He is God from God, and Wisdom from the Wise, and Word from the Rational, and Son from Father, so is He from Subsistence Subsistent, and from Essence Essential and Substantive, and Being from Being.\n\n**[Book 4, Chapter 1 §2]** Since were He not essential Wisdom and substantive Word, and Son existing, but simply Wisdom and Word and Son in the Father, then the Father Himself would have a nature compounded of Wisdom and Word. But if so, the forementioned absurdities would follow; and He will be His own Father, and the Son begetting and begotten by Himself; or Word, Wisdom, Son, is a name only, and He does not subsist who owns, or rather who is, these titles. If then He does not subsist, the names are idle and empty, unless we say that God is Very Wisdom and Very Word. But if so, He is His own Father and Son; Father, when Wise, Son, when Wisdom; but these things are not in God as a certain quality; away with the dishonourable thought; for it will issue in this, that God is compounded of essence and quality. For whereas all quality is in essence, it will clearly follow that the Divine Monad, indivisible as it is, must be compound, being severed into essence and accident. We must ask then these headstrong men; The Son was proclaimed as God's Wisdom and Word; how then is He such? If as a quality, the absurdity has been shown; but if God is that Very Wisdom, then it is the absurdity of Sabellius; therefore He is so, as an Offspring in a proper sense from the Father Himself, according to the illustration of light. For as there is light from fire, so from God is there a Word, and Wisdom from the Wise, and from the Father a Son. For in this way the Monad remains undivided and entire, and Its Son, Word not unessential, nor not subsisting, but essential truly. For were it not so, all that is said would be said notionally and verbally. But if we must avoid that absurdity, then is a true Word essential. For as there is a Father truly, so Wisdom truly. In this respect then they are two; not because, as Sabellius said, Father and Son are the same, but because the Father is Father and the Son Son, and they are one, because He is Son of the Essence of the Father by nature, existing as His own Word. This the Lord said, viz. 'I and the Father are One John 10:30;' for neither is the Word separated from the Father, nor was or is the Father ever Wordless; on this account He says, 'I in the Father and the Father in Me. '\n\n**[Book 4, Chapter 1 §3]** And again, Christ is the Word of God. Did He then subsist by Himself, and subsisting, has He become joined to the Father, or did God make Him or call Him His Word? If the former, I mean if He subsisted by Himself and is God, then there are two Beginnings; and moreover, as is plain, He is not the Father's own, as being not of the Father, but of Himself. But if on the contrary He be made externally, then is He a creature. It remains then to say that He is from God Himself; but if so, that which is from another is one thing, and that from which it is, is a second; according to this then there are two. But if they be not two, but the names belong to the same, cause and effect will be the same, and begotten and begetting, which has been shown absurd in the instance of Sabellius. But if He be from Him, yet not another, He will be both begetting and not begetting; begetting because He produces from Himself, and not begetting, because it is nothing other than Himself. But if so, the same is called Father and Son notionally. But if it be unseemly so to say, Father and Son must be two; and they are one, because the Son is not from without, but begotten of God. But if any one shrinks from saying 'Offspring,' and only says that the Word exists with God, let such a one fear lest, shrinking from what is said in Scripture, he fall into absurdity, making God a being of double nature. For not granting that the Word is from the Monad, but simply as if He were joined to the Father, he introduces a twofold essence, and neither of them Father of the other. And the same of Power. And we may see this more clearly, if we consider it with reference to the Father; for there is One Father, and not two, but from that One the Son. As then there are not two Fathers, but One, so not two Beginnings, but One, and from that One the Son essential.\n\n**[Book 4, Chapter 1 §4]** But the Arians we must ask contrariwise: (for the Sabellianisers must be confuted from the notion of a Son, and the Arians from that of a Father:) let us say then— Is God wise and not word-less: or on the contrary, is He wisdom-less and word-less ? If the latter, there is an absurdity at once; if the former, we must ask, how is He wise and not word-less? Does He possess the Word and the Wisdom from without, or from Himself? If from without, there must be one who first gave to Him, and before He received He was wisdom-less and word-less. But if from Himself, it is plain that the Word is not from nothing, nor once was not; for He was ever; since He of whom He is the Image, exists ever. But if they say that He is indeed wise and not word-less, but that He has in Himself His own wisdom and own word, and that, not Christ, but that by which He made Christ, we must answer that, if Christ in that word was brought to be, plainly so were all things; and it must be He of whom John says, 'All things were made by Him,' and the Psalmist, 'In Wisdom have You made them all. ' And Christ will be found to speak untruly, 'I in the Father,' there being another in the Father. And 'the Word became flesh John 1:14 ' is not true according to them. For if He in whom 'all things came to be,' Himself became flesh, but Christ is not in the Father, as Word 'by whom all things came to be,' then Christ has not become flesh, but perhaps Christ was named Word. But if so, first, there will be another besides the name, next, all things were not by Him brought to be, but in that other, in whom Christ also was made. But if they say that Wisdom is in the Father as a quality or that He is Very Wisdom , the absurdities will follow already mentioned. For He will be compound , and will prove His own Son and Father. Moreover, we must confute and silence them on the ground, that the Word which is in God cannot be a creature nor out of nothing; but if once a Word be in God, then He must be Christ who says, 'I am in the Father and the Father in Me John 14:20,' who also is therefore the Only-begotten, since no other was begotten from Him. This is One Son, who is Word, Wisdom, Power; for God is not compounded of these, but is generative of them. For as He frames the creatures by the Word, so according to the nature of His own Essence has He the Word as an Offspring, through whom He frames and creates and dispenses all things. For by the Word and the Wisdom all things have come to be, and all things together remain according to His ordinance. And the same concerning the word 'Son;' if God be without Son , then is He without Work; for the Son is His Offspring through whom He works ; but if not, the same questions and the same absurdities will follow their audacity.\n\n**[Book 4, Chapter 1 §5]** From Deuteronomy; 'But ye that did attach yourselves unto the Lord your God are alive every one of you this day Deuteronomy 4:4.' From this we may see the difference, and know that the Son of God is not a creature. For the Son says, 'I and the Father are One,' and, 'I in the Father, and the Father in Me;' but things originate, when they make advance, are attached unto the Lord. The Word then is in the Father as being His own; but things originate, being external, are attached, as being by nature foreign, and attached by free choice. For a son which is by nature, is one with him who begot him; but he who is from without, and is made a son, will be attached to the family. Therefore he immediately adds, 'What nation is there so great who has God drawing near unto them ?' and elsewhere, 'I a God drawing near ;' for to things originate He draws near, as being strange to Him, but to the Son, as being His own, He does not draw near, but He is in Him. And the Son is not attached to the Father, but co-exists with Him; whence also Moses says again in the same Deuteronomy, 'You shall obey His voice, and apply yourselves unto Him Deuteronomy 13:4;' but what is applied, is applied from without.\n\n**[Book 4, Chapter 1 §6]** But in answer to the weak and human notion of the Arians, their supposing that the Lord is in want, when He says, 'Is given unto Me,' and 'I received,' and if Paul says, 'Wherefore He highly exalted Him,' and 'He set Him at the right hand ,' and the like, we must say that our Lord, being Word and Son of God, bore a body, and became Son of Man, that, having become Mediator between God, and men, He might minister the things of God to us, and ours to God. When then He is said to hunger and weep and weary, and to cry Eloi, Eloi, which are our human affections, He receives them from us and offers to the Father , interceding for us, that in Him they may be annulled. And when it is said, 'All power is given unto Me,' and 'I received,' and 'Wherefore God highly exalted Him,' these are gifts given from God to us through Him. For the Word was never in want , nor has come into being ; nor again were men sufficient to minister these things for themselves, but through the Word they are given to us; therefore, as if given to Him, they are imparted to us. For this was the reason of His becoming man, that, as being given to Him, they might pass on to us. For of such gifts mere man had not become worthy; and again the mere Word had not needed them ; the Word then was united to us, and then imparted to us power, and highly exalted us. For the Word being in man, highly exalted man himself; and, when the Word was in man, man himself received. Since then, the Word being in flesh, man himself was exalted, and received power, therefore these things are referred to the Word, since they were given on His account; for on account of the Word in man were these gifts given. And as 'the Word became flesh John 1:14,' so also man himself received the gifts which came through the Word. For all that man himself has received, the Word is said to have received ; that it might be shown, that man himself, being unworthy to receive, as far as his own nature is concerned, yet has received because of the Word become flesh. Wherefore if anything be said to be given to the Lord, or the like, we must consider that it is given, not to Him as needing it, but to man himself through the Word. For every one interceding for another, receives the gift in his own person, not as needing, but on his account for whom he intercedes.\n\n**[Book 4, Chapter 1 §7]** For as He takes our infirmities, not being infirm , and hungers not hungering, but sends up what is ours that it may be abolished, so the gifts which come from God instead of our infirmities, does He too Himself receive, that man, being united to Him, may be able to partake them. Hence it is that the Lord says, 'All things whatsoever You have given Me, I have given them,' and again, 'I pray for them John 17:7-9.' For He prayed for us, taking on Him what is ours, and He was giving what He received. Since then, the Word being united to man himself, the Father, regarding Him, vouchsafed to man to be exalted, to have all power and the like; therefore are referred to the Word Himself, and are as if given to Him, all things which through Him we receive. For as He for our sake became man, so we for His sake are exalted. It is no absurdity then, if, as for our sake He humbled Himself, so also for our sake He is said to be highly exalted. So 'He gave to Him,' that is, 'to us for His sake;' 'and He highly exalted Him Philippians 2:9,' that is, 'us in Him.' And the Word Himself, when we are exalted, and receive, and are succoured, as if He Himself were exalted and received and were succoured, gives thanks to the Father, referring what is ours to Himself, and saying, 'All things, whatsoever You have given Me, I have given unto them John 17:7-8.'\n\n**[Book 4, Chapter 1 §8]** Eusebius and his fellows, that is, the Ario-maniacs, ascribing a beginning of being to the Son, yet pretend not to wish Him to have a beginning of kingship. But this is ridiculous; for he who ascribes to the Son a beginning of being, very plainly ascribes to Him also a beginning of reigning; so blind are they, confessing what they deny. Again, those who say that the Son is only a name, and that the Son of God, that is, the Word of the Father, is unessential and non-subsistent, pretend to be angry with those who say, 'Once He was not.' This is ridiculous also; for they who give Him no being at all, are angry with those who at least grant Him to be in time. Thus these also confess what they deny, in the act of censuring the others. And again Eusebius and his fellows, confessing a Son, deny that He is the Word by nature, and would have the Son called Word notionally; and the others confessing Him to be Word, deny Him to be Son, and would have the Word called Son notionally, equally void of footing.\n\n**[Book 4, Chapter 1 §9]** 'I and the Father are One John 10:30.' You say that the two things are one, or that the one has two names, or again that the one is divided into two. Now if the one is divided into two, that which is divided must need be a body, and neither part perfect, for each is a part and not a whole. But if again the one have two names, this is the expedient of Sabellius, who said that Son and Father were the same, and did away with either, the Father when there is a Son, and the Son when there is a Father. But if the two are one, then of necessity they are two, but one according to the Godhead, and according to the Son's coessentiality with the Father, and the Word's being from the Father Himself; so that there are two, because there is Father, and Son, namely the Word; and one because one God. For if not, He would have said, 'I am the Father,' or 'I and the Father am;' but, in fact, in the 'I' He signifies the Son, and in the 'And the Father,' Him who begot Him; and in the 'One' the one Godhead and His coessentiality. For the Same is not, as the Gentiles hold, Wise and Wisdom, or the Same Father and Word; for it were unfit for Him to be His own Father, but the divine teaching knows Father and Son, and Wise and Wisdom, and God and Word; while it ever guards Him indivisible and inseparable and indissoluble in all respects.\n\n**[Book 4, Chapter 1 §10]** But if any one, on hearing that the Father and the Son are two, misrepresent us as preaching two Gods (for this is what some feign to themselves, and immediately mock, saying, 'You hold two God.'), we must answer to such, If to acknowledge Father and Son, is to hold two Gods, it instantly follows that to confess but one we must deny the Son and Sabellianise. For if to speak of two is to fall into Gentilism, therefore if we speak of one, we must fall into Sabellianism. But this is not so; perish the thought! But, as when we say that Father and Son are two, we still confess one God, so when we say that there is one God, let us consider Father and Son two, while they are one in the Godhead, and in the Father's Word being indissoluble and indivisible and inseparable from Him. And let the fire and the radiance from it be a similitude of man, which are two in being and in appearance, but one in that its radiance is from it indivisibly.\n\n**[Book 4, Chapter 1 §11]** They fall into the same folly with the Arians; for Arians also say that He was created for us, that He might create us, as if God waited till our creation for His issue, as the one party say, or His creation, as the other. Arians then are more bountiful to us than to the Son; for they say, not we for His sake, but He for ours, came to be; that is, if He was therefore created, and subsisted, that God through Him might create us. And these, as irreligious or more so, give to God less than to us. For we oftentimes, even when silent, yet are active in thinking, so as to form the results of our thoughts into images; but God they would have inactive when silent, and when He speaks then to exert strength; if, that is, when silent He could not make, and when speaking He began to create. For it is just to ask them, whether the Word, when He was in God, was perfect, so as to be able to make. If on the one hand He was imperfect, when in God, but by being begotten became perfect , we are the cause of His perfection, that is, if He has been begotten for us; for on our behalf He has received the power of making. But if He was perfect in God, so as to be able to make, His generation is superfluous; for He, even when in the Father, could frame the world; so that either He has not been begotten, or He was begotten, not for us, but because He is ever from the Father. For His generation evidences, not that we were created, but that He is from God; for He was even before our creation.\n\n**[Book 4, Chapter 1 §12]** And the same presumption will be proved against them concerning the Father; for if, when silent, He could not make, of necessity He has gained power by begetting, that is, by speaking. And whence has He gained it? And wherefore? If, when He had the Word within Him, He could make, He begets needlessly, being able to make even in silence. Next, if the Word was in God before He was begotten, then being begotten He is without and external to Him. But if so, how says He now, 'I in the Father and the Father in Me John 14:10?' but if He is now in the Father, then always was He in the Father, as He is now, and needless is it to say, 'For us was He begotten, and He reverts after we are formed, that He may be as He was.' For He was not anything which He is not now, nor is He what He was not; but He is as He ever was, and in the same state and in the same respects; otherwise He will seem to be imperfect and alterable. For if, what He was, that He shall be afterwards, as if now He were not so, it is plain, He is not now what He was and shall be. I mean, if He was before in God, and afterwards shall be again, it follows that now the Word is not in God. But the Lord refutes such persons when He says, 'I in the Father and the Father in Me;' for so is He now as He ever was. But if so He now is, as He was ever, it follows, not that at one time He was begotten and not at another, nor that once there was silence with God, and then He spoke, but there is ever a Father , and a Son who is His Word, not in name alone a Word, nor the Word in notion only a Son, but existing coessential with the Father, not begotten for us, for we are brought into being for Him. For, if He were begotten for us, and in His begetting we were created, and in His generation the creature consists, and then He returns that He may be what He was before, first, He that was begotten will be again not begotten. For if His progression be generation, His return will be the close of that generation, for when He has come to be in God, God will be silent again. But if He shall be silent, there will be what there was when He was silent, stillness and not creation, for the creation will cease to be. For, as on the Word's outgoing, the creation came to be, and existed, so on the Word's retiring, the creation will not exist. What use then for it to come into being, if it is to cease? Or why did God speak, that then He should be silent? And why did He issue One whom He recalls? And why did He beget One whose generation He willed to cease? Again it is uncertain what He shall be. For either He will ever be silent, or He will again beget, and will devise a different creation (for He will not make the same, else that which was made would have remained, but another); and in due course He will bring that also to a close, and will devise another, and so on without end.\n\n**[Book 4, Chapter 1 §13]** This perhaps he borrowed from the Stoics, who maintain that their God contracts and again expands with the creation, and then rests without end. For what is dilated is first straitened; and what is expanded is at first contracted; and it is what it was, and does but undergo an affection. If then the Monad being dilated became a Triad, and the Monad was the Father , and the Triad is Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, first the Monad being dilated, underwent an affection and became what it was not; for it was dilated, whereas it had not been dilate. Next, if the Monad itself was dilated into a Triad, and that, Father and Son and Holy Ghost, then Father and Son and Spirit prove the same, as Sabellius held, unless the Monad which he speaks of is something besides the Father, and then he ought not to speak of dilatation, since the Monad was to make Three, so that there was a Monad, and then Father, Son, and Spirit. For if the Monad were dilated, and expanded itself, it must itself be that which was expanded. And a Triad when dilated is no longer a Monad, and when a Monad it is not yet a Triad. And so, He that was Father was not yet Son and Spirit; but, when become These, is no longer only Father. And a man who thus should lie, must ascribe a body to God, and represent Him as passible; for what is dilatation, but an affection of that which is dilated? Or what the dilated, but what before was not so, but was strait indeed; for it is the same, in time only differing from itself.\n\n**[Book 4, Chapter 1 §14]** And this the divine Apostle knows, when he writes to the Corinthians, 'Be not straitened in us, but be yourselves dilated, O Corinthians 2 Corinthians 6:12-13;' for he advises identical persons to change from straitness to dilatation. And as, supposing the Corinthians being straitened were in turn dilated, they had not been others, but still Corinthians, so if the Father was dilated into a Triad, the Triad again is the Father alone. And he says again the same thing, 'Our heart is dilated ;' and Noah says, 'May God dilate for Japheth ,' for the same heart and the same Japheth is in the dilatation. If then the Monad dilated, it would dilate for others; but if it dilated for itself, then it would be that which was dilated; and what is that but the Son and Holy Spirit? And it is well to ask him, when thus speaking, what was the action of this dilatation? Or, in very truth, wherefore at all it took place? For what does not remain the same, but is in course of time dilated, must necessarily have a cause of dilatation. If then it was in order that Word and Spirit should be with Him, it is beside the purpose to say, 'First Monad, and then dilated;' for Word and Spirit were not afterwards, but ever, or God would be wordless , as the Arians hold. So that if Word and Spirit were ever, ever was it dilated, and not at first a Monad; but if it were dilated afterwards, then afterwards is there a Word. But if for the Incarnation it was dilated, and then became a Triad, then before the Incarnation there was not yet a Triad. And it will seem even that the Father became flesh, if, that is, He be the Monad, and was dilated in the Man; and thus perhaps there will only be a Monad, and flesh, and thirdly Spirit; if, that is, He was Himself dilated; and there will be in name only a Triad. It is absurd too to say that it was dilated for creating; for it were possible for it, remaining a Monad, to make all; for the Monad did not need dilatation, nor was wanting in power before being dilated; it is absurd surely and impious, to think or speak thus in the case of God. Another absurdity too will follow. For if it was dilated for the sake of the creation, and while it was a Monad the creation was not, but upon the Consummation it will be again a Monad after dilatation, then the creation too will come to nought. For as for the sake of creating it was dilated, so, the dilatation ceasing, the creation will cease also.\n\n**[Book 4, Chapter 1 §15]** Such absurdities will be the consequence of saying that the Monad is dilated into a Triad. But since those who say so venture to separate Word and Son, and to say that the Word is one and the Son another, and that first was the Word and then the Son, come let us consider this doctrine also. Now their presumption takes various forms; for some say that the man whom the Saviour assumed is the Son ; and others both that the man and the Word then became Son, when they were united. And others say that the Word Himself then became Son when He became man ; for from being Word, they say, He has become Son, not being Son before, but only Word. Now both are Stoic doctrines, whether to say that God was dilated or to deny the Son, but especially is it absurd to name the Word, yet deny Him to be Son. For if the Word be not from God, reasonably might they deny Him to be Son; but if He is from God, how see they not that what exists from anything is son of him from whom it is? Next, if God is Father of the Word, why is not the Word Son of His own Father? For one is and is called father, whose is the son; and one is and is called son of another, whose is the father. If then God is not Father of Christ, neither is the Word Son; but if God be Father, then reasonably also the Word is Son. But if afterwards there is Father, and first God, this is an Arian thought. Next, it is absurd that God should change; for that belongs to bodies; but if they argue that in the instance of creation He became afterwards a Maker, let them know that the change is in the things which afterwards came to be, and not in God.\n\n**[Book 4, Chapter 1 §16]** If then the Son too were a work, well might God begin to be a Father towards Him as others; but if the Son is not a work, then ever was the Father and ever the Son. But if the Son was ever, He must be the Word; for if the Word be not Son, and this is what a man waxes bold to say, either he holds that Word to be Father or the Son superior to the Word. For the Son being 'in the bosom of the Father John 1:18,' of necessity either the Word is not before the Son (for nothing is before Him who is in the Father), or if the Word be other than the Son, the Word must be the Father in whom is the Son. But if the Word is not Father but Word, the Word must be external to the Father, since it is the Son who is 'in the bosom of the Father.' For not both the Word and the Son are in the bosom, but one must be, and He the Son, who is Only-begotten. And it follows for another reason, if the Word is one, and the Son another, that the Son is superior to the Word; for 'no one knows the Father save the Son Matthew 11:27,' not the Word. Either then the Word does not know, or if He knows, it is not true that 'no one knows.' And the same of 'He that has seen Me, has seen the Father,' and 'I and the Father are One,' for this is uttered by the Son, not the Word, as they would have it, as is plain from the Gospel; for according to John when the Lord said, 'I and the Father are One,' the Jews took up stones to stone Him. 'Jesus answered them, Many good works have I showed you from My Father, for which of those works do ye stone Me? The Jews answered Him, saying, For a good work we stone You not, but for blasphemy, and because that Thou, being a man, makest Yourself God. Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, You are gods? If he called them gods unto whom the Word of God came, and the Scripture cannot be broken, say ye of Him, whom the Father has sanctified and sent into the world, Thou blaspheme, because I said, I am the Son of God? If I do not the works of My Father, believe Me not. But if I do, though ye believe not Me, believe the works, that you may know and believe that the Father is in Me, and I in the Father.' And yet, as far as the surface of the words intimated, He said neither 'I am God,' nor 'I am Son of God,' but 'I and the Father are One.'\n\n**[Book 4, Chapter 1 §17]** The Jews then, when they heard 'One,' thought like Sabellius that He said that He was the Father, but our Saviour shows their sin by this argument: 'Though I had said God, you should have remembered what is written, I said, You are gods;' then to clear up 'I and the Father are One,' He has explained the Son's oneness with the Father in the words, 'Because I said, I am the Son of God.' For if He did not say it in words, still He has referred the sense of 'are One' to the Son. For nothing is one with the Father, but what is from Him. What is that which is from Him but the Son? And therefore He adds, 'that you may know that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me.' For, when expounding the 'One,' He said that the union and the inseparability lay, not in This being That, with which It was One, but in His being in the Father and the Father in the Son. For thus He overthrows both Sabellius, in saying, 'I am' not, the Father, but, 'the Son of God;' and Arius, in saying, 'are One.' If then the Son and the Word are not the same, it is not that the Word is one with the Father, but the Son; nor he that has seen the Word 'has seen the Father,' but 'he that has seen' the Son. And from this it follows, either that the Son is greater than the Word, or the Word has nothing beyond the Son. For what can be greater or more perfect than 'One,' and 'I in the Father and the Father in Me,' and 'He that has seen Me, has seen the Father.' for these utterances also belong to the Son. And hence the same John says, 'He that has seen Me, has seen Him that sent Me,' and, 'He that receives Me, receives Him that sent Me;' and, 'I have come a light into the world, that whosoever believes in Me, should not abide in darkness. And, if any one hear My words and observe them not, I judge him not; for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world. The word which he shall hear, the same shall judge him in the last day, because I go unto the Father. ' The preaching, He says, judges him who has not observed the commandment; 'for if,' He says, 'I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin; but now they shall have no cloke John 15:22,' He says, having heard My words, through which those who observe them shall reap salvation.\n\n**[Book 4, Chapter 1 §18]** Perhaps they will have so little shame as to say, that this utterance belongs not to the Son but to the Word; but from what preceded it appeared plainly that the speaker was the Son. For He who here says, 'I came not to judge the world but to save John 12:47,' is shown to be no other than the Only-begotten Son of God, by the same John's saying before , 'For God so loved the world that He gave His Only-begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. He that believes in Him is not condemned, but he that believes not is condemned already, because he has not believed in the Name of the Only-begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil. ' If He who says, 'For I came not to judge the world, but that I might save it,' is the Same as says, 'He that sees Me, sees Him that sent Me ,' and if He who came to save the world and not judge it is the Only-begotten Son of God, it is plain that it is the same Son who says, 'He that sees Me, sees Him that sent Me.' For He who said, 'He that believes in Me,' and, 'If any one hear My words, I judge him not,' is the Son Himself, of whom Scripture says, 'He that believes in Him is not condemned, but He that believes not is condemned already, because He has not believed in the Name of the Only-begotten Son of God.' And again: 'And this is the condemnation' of him who believes not on the Son, 'that light has come into the world,' and they believed not in Him, that is, in the Son; for He must be 'the Light which lights every man that comes into the world. ' And as long as He was upon earth according to the Incarnation, He was Light in the world, as He said Himself, 'While you have light, believe in the light, that you may be the children of light;' for 'I,' says He, 'have come a light into the world. '\n\n**[Book 4, Chapter 1 §19]** This then being shown, it follows that the Word is the Son. But if the Son is the Light, which has come into the world, beyond all dispute the world was made by the Son. For in the beginning of the Gospel, the Evangelist, speaking of John the Baptist, says, 'He was not that Light, but that he might bear witness concerning that Light. ' For Christ Himself was, as we have said before, the True Light that lights every man that comes into the world. For if 'He was in the world, and the world was made by Him ,' of necessity He is the Word of God, concerning whom also the Evangelist witnesses that all things were made by Him. For either they will be compelled to speak of two worlds, that the one may have come into being by the Son and the other by the Word, or, if the world is one and the creation one, it follows that Son and Word are one and the same before all creation, for by Him it came into being. Therefore if as by the Word, so by the Son also all things came to be, it will not be contradictory, but even identical to say, for instance, 'In the beginning was the Word,' or, 'In the beginning was the Son.' But if because John did not say, 'In the beginning was the Son,' they shall maintain that the attributes of the Word do not suit with the Son, it at once follows that the attributes of the Son do not suit with the Word. But it was shown that to the Son belongs, 'I and the Father are One,' and that it is He 'Who is in the bosom of the Father,' and, 'He that sees Me, sees Him that sent Me ;' and that 'the world was brought into being by Him,' is common to the Word and the Son; so that from this the Son is shown to be before the world; for of necessity the Framer is before the things brought into being. And what is said to Philip must belong, according to them, not to the Word, but to the Son. For, 'Jesus said,' says Scripture, 'Have I been so long time with you, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He that has seen Me, has seen the Father. And how do you say then, Show us the Father? Do you not believe, that I am in the Father and the Father in Me? The words that I speak unto you, I speak not of Myself, but the Father that dwells in Me, He does the works. Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me, or else, believe Me for the very works' sake. Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believes in Me, the works that I do shall he do also, and greater works than these shall he do, because I go unto the Father. And whatsoever you shall ask in My Name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. ' Therefore if the Father be glorified in the Son, the Son must be He who said, 'I in the Father and the Father in Me;' and He who said, 'He that has seen Me, has seen the Father.' for He, the same who thus spoke, shows Himself to be the Son, by adding, 'that the Father may be glorified in the Son.'\n\n**[Book 4, Chapter 1 §20]** If then they say that the Man whom the Word wore, and not the Word, is the Son of God the Only-begotten, the Man must be by consequence He who is in the Father, in whom also the Father is; and the Man must be He who is One with the Father, and who is in the bosom of the Father, and the True Light. And they will be compelled to say that through the Man Himself the world came into being, and that the Man was He who came not to judge the world but to save it; and that He it was who was in being before Abraham came to be. For, says Scripture, Jesus said to them, 'Verily, verily, I say unto you, before Abraham was, I am John 8:58.' And is it not absurd to say, as they do, that one who came of the seed of Abraham after two and forty generations , should exist before Abraham came to be? Is it not absurd, if the flesh, which the Word bore, itself is the Son, to say that the flesh from Mary is that by which the world was made? And how will they retain 'He was in the world?' for the Evangelist, by way of signifying the Son's antecedence to the birth according to the flesh, goes on to say, 'He was in the world.' And how, if not the Word but the Man is the Son, can He save the world, being Himself one of the world? And if this does not shame them, where shall be the Word, the Man being in the Father? And where will the Word stand to the Father, the Man and the Father being One? But if the Man be Only-begotten, what will be the place of the Word? Either one must say that He comes second, or, if He be above the Only-begotten, He must be the Father Himself. For as the Father is One, so also the Only-begotten from Him is One; and what has the Word above the Man, if the Word is not the Son? For, while Scripture says that through the Son and the Word the world was brought to be, and it is common to the Word and to the Son to frame the world, yet Scripture proceeds to place the sight of the Father, not in the Word but in the Son, and to attribute the saving of the world, not to the Word, but to the Only-begotten Son. For, says it, Jesus said, 'Have I been so long while with you, and yet have you not known Me, Philip? He that has seen Me, has seen the Father.' Nor does Scripture say that the Word knows the Father, but the Son; and that not the Word sees the Father, but the Only-begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father.\n\n**[Book 4, Chapter 1 §21]** And what more does the Word contribute to our salvation than the Son, if, as they hold, the Son is one, and the Word another? For the command is that we should believe, not in the Word, but in the Son. For John says, 'He that believes in the Son, has everlasting life; but he that believes not the Son, shall not see life John 3:36.' And Holy Baptism, in which the substance of the whole faith is lodged, is administered not in the Word, but in Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. If then, as they hold, the Word is one and the Son another, and the Word is not the Son, Baptism has no connection with the Word. How then are they able to hold that the Word is with the Father, when He is not with Him in the giving of Baptism? But perhaps they will say, that in the Father's Name the Word is included? Wherefore then not the Spirit also? Or is the Spirit external to the Father? And the Man indeed (if the Word is not Son) is named after the Father, but the Spirit after the Man? And then the Monad, instead of dilating into a Triad, dilates according to them into a Tetrad, Father, Word, Son, and Holy Ghost. Being brought to shame on this ground, they have recourse to another, and say that not the Man by Himself whom the Lord bore, but both together, the Word and the Man, are the Son; for both joined together are named Son, as they say. Which then is cause of which? And which has made which a Son? Or, to speak more clearly, is the Word a Son because of the flesh? Or is the flesh called Son because of the Word? Or is neither the cause, but the concurrence of the two? If then the Word be a Son because of the flesh, of necessity the flesh is Son, and all those absurdities follow which have been already drawn from saying that the Man is Son. But if the flesh is called Son because of the Word, then even before the flesh the Word certainly, being such, was Son. For how could a being make other sons, not being himself a son, especially when there was a father ? If then He makes sons for Himself, then is He Himself Father; but if for the Father, then must He be Son, or rather that Son, by reason of Whom the rest are made sons.\n\n**[Book 4, Chapter 1 §22]** For if, while He is not Son, we are sons, God is our Father and not His. How then does He appropriate the name instead, saying, 'My Father,' and 'I from the Father ?' for if He be common Father of all, He is not His Father only, nor did He alone come out from the Father. But he says, that He is sometimes called our Father also, because He has Himself become partaker in our flesh. For on this account the Word has become flesh, that, since the Word is Son, therefore, because of the Son dwelling in us , He may be called our Father also; for 'He sent forth,' says Scripture, 'the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father Galatians 4:6.' Therefore the Son in us, calling upon His own Father, causes Him to be named our Father also. Surely in whose hearts the Son is not, of them neither can God be called Father. But if because of the Word the Man is called Son, it follows necessarily, since the ancients are called sons even before the Incarnation, that the Word is Son even before His sojourn among us; for 'I begot sons,' says Scripture; and in the time of Noah, 'When the sons of God saw,' and in the Song, 'Is not He your Father ?' Therefore there was also that True Son, for whose sake they too were sons. But if, as they say again, neither of the two is Son, but it depends on the concurrence of the two, it follows that neither is Son; I say, neither the Word nor the Man, but some cause, on account of which they were united; and accordingly that cause which makes the Son will precede the uniting. Therefore in this way also the Son was before the flesh. When this then is urged, they will take refuge in another pretext, saying, neither that the Man is Son, nor both together, but that the Word was Word indeed simply in the beginning, but when He became Man, then He was named Son; for before His appearing He was not Son but Word only; and as the 'Word became flesh,' not being flesh before, so the Word became Son, not being Son before. Such are their idle words; but they admit of an obvious refutation.\n\n**[Book 4, Chapter 1 §23]** For if simply, when made Man, He has become Son, the becoming Man is the cause. And if the Man is cause of His being Son, or both together, then the same absurdities result. Next, if He is first Word and then Son, it will appear that He knew the Father afterwards, not before; for not as being Word does He know Him, but as Son. For 'No one knows the Father but the Son.' And this too will result, that He has come afterwards to be 'in the bosom of the Father Matthew 11:27; John 1:18,' and afterwards He and the Father have become One; and afterwards is, 'He that has seen Me, has seen the Father John 14:9.' For all these things are said of the Son. Hence they will be forced to say, The Word was nothing but a name. For neither is it He who is in us with the Father, nor whoso has seen the Word, has seen the Father, nor was the Father known to any one at all, for through the Son is the Father known (for so it is written, 'And he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him'), and, the Word not being yet Son, not yet did any know the Father. How then was He seen by Moses, how by the fathers? For He says Himself in the Kingdoms, 'Was I not plainly revealed to the house of your father ?' But if God was revealed, there must have been a Son to reveal, as He says Himself, 'And he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him.' It is irreligious then and foolish to say that the Word is one and the Son another, and whence they gained such an idea it were well to ask them. They answer, Because no mention is made in the Old Testament of the Son, but of the Word; and for this reason they are positive in their opinion that the Son came later than the Word, because not in the Old, but in the New only, is He spoken of. This is what they irreligiously say; for first to separate between the Testaments, so that the one does not hold with the other, is the device of Manichees and Jews, the one of whom oppose the Old, and the other the New. Next, on their showing, if what is contained in the Old is of older date, and what in the New of later, and times depend upon the writing, it follows that 'I and the Father are One,' and 'Only-begotten,' and 'He that has seen Me has seen the Father ,' are later, for these testimonies are adduced not from the Old but from the New.\n\n**[Book 4, Chapter 1 §24]** But it is not so; for in truth much is said in the Old also about the Son, as in the second Psalm, 'You are My Son, this day have I begotten You ;' and in the ninth the title , Unto the 'end concerning the hidden things of the Son, a Psalm of David;' and in the forty-fourth, 'Unto the end, concerning the things that shall be changed to the Sons of Korah for understanding, a song about the Well-beloved;' and in Isaiah, 'I will sing to my Well-beloved a song of my Well-beloved touching my vineyard. My Well-beloved has a vineyard Isaiah 5:1;' Who is this 'Well-beloved' but the Only-begotten Son? As also in the hundred and ninth, 'From the womb I begot You before the morning star ,' concerning which I shall speak afterwards; and in the Proverbs, 'Before the hills He begot me;' and in Daniel, 'And the form of the Fourth is like the Son of God ;' and many others. If then from the Old be ancientness, ancient must be the Son, who is clearly described in the Old Testament in many places. 'Yes,' they say, 'so it is, but it must be taken prophetically.' Therefore also the Word must be said to be spoken of prophetically; for this is not to be taken one way, that another. For if 'You are My Son?' refer to the future, so does 'By the Word of the Lord were the heavens established;' for it is not said 'were brought to be,' nor 'He made.' But that 'established' refers to the future, it states elsewhere: 'The Lord reigned ,' followed by 'He so established the earth that it can never be moved.' And if the words in the forty-fourth Psalm 'for My Well-beloved' refer to the future, so does what follows upon them, 'My heart uttered a good Word.' And if 'From the womb' relates to a man, therefore also 'From the heart.' For if the womb is human, so is the heart corporeal. But if what is from the heart is eternal, then what is 'From the womb' is eternal. And if the 'Only-begotten' is 'in the bosom,' therefore the 'Well-beloved' is 'in the bosom.' For 'Only-begotten' and 'Well-beloved' are the same, as in the words 'This is My Well-beloved Son. ' For not as wishing to signify His love towards Him did He say 'Well-beloved,' as if it might appear that He hated others, but He made plain thereby His being Only-begotten, that He might show that He alone was from Him. And hence the Word, with a view of conveying to Abraham the idea of 'Only-begotten,' says, 'Offer your son your well-beloved Genesis 22:2;' but it is plain to any one that Isaac was the only son from Sara. The Word then is Son, not lately come to be, or named Son, but always Son. For if not Son, neither is He Word; and if not Word, neither is He Son. For that which is from the father is a son; and what is from the Father, but that Word that went forth from the heart, and was born from the womb? For the Father is not Word, nor the Word Father, but the one is Father, and the other Son; and one begets, and the other is begotten.\n\n**[Book 4, Chapter 1 §25]** Arius then raves in saying that the Son is from nothing, and that once He was not, while Sabellius also raves in saying that the Father is Son, and again, the Son Father , in subsistence One, in name Two; and he raves also in using as an example the grace of the Spirit. For he says, 'As there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit, so also the Father is the same , but is dilated into Son and Spirit.' Now this is full of absurdity; for if as with the Spirit, so it is with God, the Father will be Word and Holy Spirit, to one becoming Father, to another Son, to another Spirit, accommodating himself to the need of each, and in name indeed Son and Spirit, but in reality Father only; having a beginning in that He becomes a Son, and then ceasing to be called Father, and made man in name, but in truth not even coming among us; and untrue in saying 'I and the Father,' but in reality being Himself the Father, and the other absurdities which result in the instance of Sabellius. And the name of the Son and the Spirit will necessarily cease, when the need has been supplied; and what happens will altogether be but make-belief, because it has been displayed, not in truth, but in name. And the Name of Son ceasing, as they hold, then the grace of Baptism will cease too; for it was given in the Son. Nay, what will follow but the annihilation of the creation? For if the Word came forth that we might be created , and when He had come forth, we were, it is plain that when He retires into the Father, as they say, we shall be no longer. For He will be as He was; so also we shall not be, as then we were not; for when He is no more gone forth, there will no more be a creation. This then is absurd.\n\n**[Book 4, Chapter 1 §26]** But that the Son has no beginning of being, but before He was made man was ever with the Father, John makes clear in his first Epistle, writing thus: 'That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled of the Word of Life; and the Life was manifested, and we have seen it; and we bear witness and declare unto you that Eternal Life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us 1 John 1:1-2.' While he says here that 'the Life,' not 'became,' but 'was with the Father,' in the end of his Epistle he says the Son is the Life, writing, 'And we are in Him that is True, even in His Son, Jesus Christ; this is the True God and Eternal Life. ' But if the Son is the Life, and the Life was with the Father, and if the Son was with the Father, and the same Evangelist says, 'And the Word was with God John 1:1,' the Son must be the Word, which is ever with the Father. And as the 'Son' is 'Word,' so 'God' must be 'the Father.' Moreover, the Son, according to John, is not merely 'God' but 'True God;' for according to the same Evangelist, 'And the Word was God;' and the Son said, 'I am the Life. ' Therefore the Son is the Word and Life which is with the Father. And again, what is said in the same John, 'The Only-begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father ,' shows that the Son was ever. For whom John calls Son, Him David mentions in the Psalm as God's Hand , saying, 'Why stretchest Thou not forth Your Right Hand out of Your bosom ?' Therefore if the Hand is in the bosom, and the Son in the bosom, the Son will be the Hand, and the Hand will be the Son, through whom the Father made all things; for it is written, 'Your Hand made all these things,' and 'He led out His people with His Hand ;' therefore through the Son. And if 'this is the changing of the Right Hand of the Most Highest,' and again, 'Unto the end, concerning the things that shall be changed, a song for My Well-beloved ;' the Well-beloved then is the Hand that was changed; concerning whom the Divine Voice also says, 'This is My Beloved Son.' This 'My Hand' then is equivalent to 'This My Son.'\n\n**[Book 4, Chapter 1 §27]** But since there are ill-instructed men who, while resisting the doctrine of a Son, think little of the words, 'From the womb before the morning star I begot You ;' as if this referred to His relation to Mary, alleging that He was born of Mary 'before the morning star,' for that to say 'womb' could not refer to His relation towards God, we must say a few words here. If then, because the 'womb' is human, therefore it is foreign to God, plainly 'heart' too has a human meaning , for that which has heart has womb also. Since then both are human, we must deny both, or seek to explain both. Now as a word is from the heart, so is an offspring from the womb; and as when the heart of God is spoken of, we do not conceive of it as human, so if Scripture says 'from the womb,' we must not take it in a corporeal sense. For it is usual with divine Scripture to speak and signify in the way of man what is above man. Thus speaking of the creation it says, 'Your hands made me and fashioned me,' and, 'Your hand made all these things,' and, 'He commanded and they were created. ' Suitable then is its language about everything; attributing to the Son 'propriety' and 'genuineness,' and to the creation 'the beginning of being.' For the one God makes and creates; but Him He begets from Himself, Word or Wisdom. Now 'womb' and 'heart' plainly declare the proper and the genuine; for we too have this from the womb; but our works we make by the hand.\n\n**[Book 4, Chapter 1 §28]** What means then, say they, 'Before the morning star?' I would answer, that if 'Before the morning star' shows that His birth from Mary was wonderful, many others besides have been born before the rising of the star. What then is said so wonderful in His instance, that He should record it as some choice prerogative , when it is common to many? Next, to beget differs from bringing forth; for begetting involves the primary foundation, but to bring forth is nothing else than the production of what exists. If then the term belongs to the body, let it be observed that He did not then receive a beginning of coming to be when he was evangelized to the shepherds by night, but when the Angel spoke to the Virgin. And that was not night, for this is not said; on the contrary, it was night when He issued from the womb. This difference Scripture makes, and says on the one hand that He was begotten before the morning star, and on the other speaks of His proceeding from the womb, as in the twenty-first Psalm, 'You are he that drew Me from the womb. ' Besides, He did not say, 'before the rising of the morning star,' but simply 'before the morning star.' If then the phrase must be taken of the body, then either the body must be before Adam, for the stars were before Adam, or we have to investigate the sense of the letter. And this John enables us to do, who says in the Apocalypse, 'I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end. Blessed are they who make broad their robes, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city. For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever makes and loves a lie. I Jesus have sent My Angel, to testify these things in the Churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, the Bright and Morning Star. And the Spirit and the Bride say, Come; and let him that hears say, Come; and let him that is thirsty, Come; and whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely. ' If then 'the Offspring of David' be the 'Bright and Morning Star,' it is plain that the flesh of the Saviour is called 'the Morning Star,' which the Offspring from God preceded; so that the sense of the Psalm is this, 'I have begotten You from Myself before Your appearance in the flesh;' for 'before the Morning Star' is equivalent to 'before the Incarnation of the Word.'\n\n**[Book 4, Chapter 1 §29]** Thus in the Old also, statements are plainly made concerning the Son; at the same time it is superfluous to argue the point; for if what is not stated in the Old is of later date, let them who are thus disputatious, say where in the Old is mention made of the Spirit, the Paraclete? For of the Holy Spirit there is mention, but nowhere of the Paraclete. Is then the Holy Spirit one, and the Paraclete another, and the Paraclete the later, as not mentioned in the Old? But far be it to say that the Spirit is later, or to distinguish the Holy Ghost as one and the Paraclete as another; for the Spirit is one and the same, then and now hallowing and comforting those who are His recipients; as one and the same Word and Son led even then to adoption of sons those who were worthy. For sons under the Old were made such through no other than the Son. For unless even before Mary there were a Son who was of God, how is He before all, when they are sons before Him? And how also 'First-born,' if He comes second after many? But neither is the Paraclete second, for He was before all, nor the Son later; for 'in the beginning was the Word John 1:1.' And as the Spirit and Paraclete are the same, so the Son and Word are the same; and as the Saviour says concerning the Spirit, 'But the Paraclete which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in My Name ,' speaking of One and Same, and not distinguishing, so John describes similarly when he says, 'And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of one Only-begotten from the Father. ' For here too he does not distinguish but witnesses the identity. And as the Paraclete is not one and the Holy Ghost another, but one and the same, so Word is not one, and Son another, but the Word is Only-Begotten; for He says not the glory of the flesh itself, but of the Word. He then who dares distinguish between Word and Son, let him distinguish between Spirit and Paraclete; but if the Spirit cannot be distinguished, so neither can the Word, being also Son and Wisdom and Power. Moreover, the word 'Well-beloved' even the Greeks who are skilful in phrases know to be equivalent with 'Only-begotten.' For Homer speaks thus of Telemachus, who was the only-begotten of Ulysses, in the second book of the Odyssey:\n\n**[Book 4, Chapter 1 (¶30)]** O'er the wide earth, dear youth, why seek to run, An only child, a well-beloved son?\n\n**[Book 4, Chapter 1 (¶31)]** He whom you mourn, divine Ulysses, fell Far from his country, where the strangers dwell.\n\n**[Book 4, Chapter 1 (¶32)]** Therefore he who is the only son of his father is called well-beloved.\n\n**[Book 4, Chapter 1 §30]** Some of the followers of the Samosatene, distinguishing the Word from the Son, pretend that the Son is Christ, and the Word another; and they ground this upon Peter's words in the Acts, which he spoke well, but they explain badly. It is this: 'The Word He sent to the children of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ; this is Lord of all Acts 10:36.' For they say that since the Word spoke through Christ, as in the instance of the Prophets, 'Thus says the Lord,' the prophet was one and the Lord another. But to this it is parallel to oppose the words in the first to the Corinthians, 'waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall also confirm you unto the end unblameable in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ 1 Corinthians 1:7-8.' For as one Christ does not confirm the day of another Christ, but He Himself confirms in His own day those who wait for Him, so the Father sent the Word made flesh, that being made man He might preach by means of Himself. And therefore he straightway adds, 'This is Lord of all;' but Lord of all is the Word.\n\n**[Book 4, Chapter 1 §31]** 'And Moses said unto Aaron, Go unto the altar and offer your sin-offering, and your burnt-offering, and make an atonement for yourself and for the people; and offer the offering of the people, and make an atonement for them, as the Lord commanded Moses Leviticus 9:7.' See now here, though Moses be one, Moses himself speaks as if about another Moses, 'as the Lord commanded Moses.' In like manner then, if the blessed Peter speak of the Divine Word also, as sent to the children of Israel by Jesus Christ, it is not necessary to understand that the Word is one and Christ another, but that they were one and the same by reason of the uniting which took place in His divine and loving condescension and becoming man. And even if He be considered in two ways , still it is without any division of the Word, as when the inspired John says, 'And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us John 1:14.' What then is said well and rightly by the blessed Peter, the followers of the Samosatene, understanding badly and wrongly, stand not in the truth. For Christ is understood in both ways in Divine Scripture, as when it says Christ 'God's power and God's wisdom 1 Corinthians 1:24.' If then Peter says that the Word was sent through Jesus Christ unto the children of Israel, let him be understood to mean, that the Word incarnate has appeared to the children of Israel, so that it may correspond to 'And the Word became flesh.' But if they understand it otherwise, and, while confessing the Word to be divine, as He is, separate from Him the Man that He has taken, with which also we believe that He is made one, saying that He has been sent through Jesus Christ, they are, without knowing it, contradicting themselves. For those who in this place separate the divine Word from the divine Incarnation, have, it seems, a degraded notion of the doctrine of His having become flesh, and entertain Gentile thoughts, as they do, conceiving that the divine Incarnation is an alteration of the Word. But it is not so; perish the thought.\n\n**[Book 4, Chapter 1 §32]** For in the same way that John here preaches that incomprehensible union. 'the mortal being swallowed up of life 2 Corinthians 5:4,' nay, of Him who is Very Life (as the Lord said to Martha, 'I am the Life John 11:25 '), so when the blessed Peter says that through Jesus Christ the Word was sent, he implies the divine union also. For as when a man heard 'The Word became flesh,' he would not think that the Word ceased to be, which is absurd, as has been said before, so also hearing of the Word which has been united to the flesh, let him understand the divine mystery one and simple. More clearly however and indisputably than all reasoning does what was said by the Archangel to the Bearer of God herself, show the oneness of the Divine Word and Man. For he says, 'The Holy Ghost shall come upon you, and the Power of the Highest shall overshadow you: therefore also that Holy Thing which shall be born of you, shall be called the Son of God Luke 1:35.' Irrationally then do the followers of the Samosatene separate the Word who is clearly declared to be made one with the Man from Mary. He is not therefore sent through that Man; but He rather in Him sent, saying, 'Go, teach all nations Matthew 28:19.'\n\n**[Book 4, Chapter 1 §33]** And this is usual with Scripture , to express itself in inartificial and simple phrases. For so also in Numbers we shall find, Moses said to Raguel the Midianite, the father-in-law of Moses; for there was not one Moses who spoke, and another whose father-in-law was Raguel, but Moses was one. And if in like manner the Word of God is called Wisdom and Power and Right-Hand and Arm and the like, and if in His love to man He has become one with us, putting on our first-fruits and blended with it, therefore the other titles also have, as was natural, become the Word's portions. For that John has said, that in the beginning was the Word, and He with God and Himself God, and all things through Him, and without Him nothing made, shows clearly that even man is the formation of God the Word. If then after taking him, when enfeebled , into Himself, He renews him again through that sure renewal unto endless permanence, and therefore is made one with him in order to raise him to a diviner lot, how can we possibly say that the Word was sent through the Man who was from Mary, and reckon Him, the Lord of Apostles, with the other Apostles, I mean prophets, who were sent by Him? And how can Christ be called a mere man? On the contrary, being made one with the Word, He is with reason called Christ and Son of God, the prophet having long since loudly and clearly ascribed the Father's subsistence to Him, and said, 'And I will send My Son Christ ,' and in the Jordan, 'This is My Well-beloved Son.' For when He had fulfilled His promise, He showed, as was suitable, that He was He whom He said He had sent.\n\n**[Book 4, Chapter 1 §34]** Let us then consider Christ in both ways, the divine Word made one in Mary with Him which is from Mary. For in her womb the Word fashioned for Himself His house, as at the beginning He formed Adam from the earth; or rather more divinely, concerning whom Solomon too says openly, knowing that the Word was also called Wisdom, 'Wisdom built herself an house Proverbs 9:1;' which the Apostle interprets when he says, 'Which house are we Hebrews 3:6,' and elsewhere calls us a temple, as far as it is fitting to God to inhabit a temple, of which the image, made of stones, He by Solomon commanded the ancient people to build; whence, on the appearance of the Truth, the image ceased. For when the ruthless men wished to prove the image to be the truth, and to destroy that true habitation which we surely believe His union with us to be, He threatened them not; but knowing that their crime was against themselves, He says to them, 'Destroy this Temple, and in three days I will raise it up John 2:19,' He, our Saviour, surely showing thereby that the things about which men busy themselves, carry their dissolution with them. For unless the Lord had built the house, and kept the city, in vain did the builders toil, and the keepers watch. And so the works of the Jews are undone, for they were a shadow; but the Church is firmly established; it is 'founded on the rock,' and 'the gates of hades shall not prevail against it. ' Theirs it was to say, 'Why do You, being a man, make Yourself God ?' and their disciple is the Samosatene; whence to his followers with reason does he teach his heresy. But 'we did not so learn Christ, if so be that we heard' Him, and were taught from Him, 'putting off the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts,' and taking up 'the new, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. ' Let Christ then in both ways be religiously considered.\n\n**[Book 4, Chapter 1 §35]** But if Scripture often calls even the body by the name of Christ, as in the blessed Peter's words to Cornelius, when he teaches him of 'Jesus of Nazareth, whom God anointed with the Holy Ghost,' and again to the Jews, 'Jesus of Nazareth, a Man approved of God for you ,' and again the blessed Paul to the Athenians, 'By that Man, whom He ordained, giving assurance to all men, in that He raised Him from the dead Acts 17:31 ' (for we find the appointment and the mission often synonymous with the anointing; from which any one who will may learn, that there is no discordance in the words of the sacred writers, but that they but give various names to the union of God the Word with the Man from Mary, sometimes as anointing, sometimes as mission, sometimes as appointment), it follows that what the blessed Peter says is right , and he proclaims in purity the Godhead of the Only begotten, without separating the subsistence of God the Word from the Man from Mary (perish the thought! For how should he, who had heard in so many ways, 'I and the Father are one,' and 'He that has seen Me, has seen the Father ?)' In which Man, after the resurrection also, when the doors were shut, we know of His coming to the whole band of the Apostles, and dispersing all that was hard to believe in it by His words, 'Handle Me and see, for a spirit has not flesh and bones, as you see Me have Luke 24:39.' And He did not say, 'This,' or 'this Man which I have taken to Me,' but 'Me.' Wherefore the Samosatene will gain no allowance, being refuted by so many arguments for the union of God the Word, nay by God the Word Himself, who now brings the news to all, and assures them by eating, and permitting to them that handling of Him which then took place. For certainly he who gives food to others, and they who give him, touch hands. For 'they gave Him,' Scripture says, 'a piece of a broiled fish and of an honey-comb, and' when He had 'eaten before them, He took the remains and gave to them. ' See now, though not as Thomas was allowed, yet by another way, He afforded to them full assurance, in being touched by them; but if you would now see the scars, learn from Thomas. 'Reach hither your hand and thrust it into My side, and reach hither your finger and behold My hands John 20:27;' so says God the Word, speaking of His own side and hands, and of Himself as whole man and God together, first affording to the Saints even perception of the Word through the body , as we may consider, by entering when the doors were shut; and next standing near them in the body and affording full assurance. So much may be conveniently said for confirmation of the faithful, and correction of the unbelieving.\n\n**[Book 4, Chapter 1 §36]** And so let Paul of Samosata also stand corrected on hearing the divine voice of Him who said 'My body,' not 'Christ besides Me who am the Word,' but 'Him with Me, and Me with Him.' For I the Word am the chrism, and that which has the chrism from Me is the Man ; not then without Me could He be called Christ, but being with Me and I in Him. Therefore the mention of the mission of the Word shows the uniting which took place with Jesus, born of Mary, Whose Name means Saviour, not by reason of anything else, but from the Man's being made one with God the Word. This passage has the same meaning as 'the Father that sent Me,' and 'I came not of Myself, but the Father sent Me. ' For he has given the name of mission to the uniting with the Man, with Whom the Invisible nature might be known to men, through the visible. For God changes not place, like us who are hidden in places, when in the fashion of our littleness He displays Himself in His existence in the flesh; for how should He, who fills the heaven and the earth? But on account of the presence in the flesh the just have spoken of His mission. Therefore God the Word Himself is Christ from Mary, God and Man; not some other Christ but One and the Same; He before ages from the Father, He too in the last times from the Virgin; invisible before even to the holy powers of heaven, visible now because of His being one with the Man who is visible; seen, I say, not in His invisible Godhead but in the operation of the Godhead through the human body and whole Man, which He has renewed by its appropriation to Himself. To Him be the adoration and the worship, who was before, and now is, and ever shall be, even to all ages. Amen.\n\n**[Book 4, Chapter 1 (¶40)]** Source. Translated by John Henry Newman and Archibald Robertson. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 4. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1892.) Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. <http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/28164.htm>.",
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